Balik
Kampung by
Verena Tay
Balik
Kumpung is a collection of short stories centred around local
neighbourhoods. They are written by authors who have lived in these
neighbourhoods for considerable lengths of time – at least a decade. All these
stories were edited by Verena Tay, which is why only her name is reflected in
the title of the post.
‘Balik kampung’ is a Malay phrase which means to go home,
and it is a most apt title for this anthology. Each author has chosen a place
that is dear to him/her as the setting of his/her story; each tale is an ode to
the neighbourhood in which the author has called home at one time or another, and
so when penning the story, the author is in a sense ‘returning home’. As a
whole, this anthology is a fine addition to Singapore’s literary collection. It
is one more identity marker for all who call Singapore home, one more drop in our
cultural ocean pond (but it is growing), reminding Singaporeans to look
harder at this island we call home.
The stories are set in neighbourhoods that Singaporeans would
recognise easily: Marine Parade, Changi, the Holland Road area, Nee Soon, Redhill,
and the Dunearn-Bukit Timah area. Some of the stories – Lighthouse, Tahar and Seven
Views of Redhill – easily transported me back to the past and a couple of
others are very powerful and evoked a strong emotional response in me.
It is great to realise that there are so many fine writers
in Singapore. We may be a small country and although there has been no
international award-winning writer from Singapore yet, we are not lacking in literary
talent. And you know what, if we want the world to take notice of our writers,
we need to support our writers and give them the courage and motivation to continue
writing. So do grab a copy of Balik
Kampung or borrow one from your neighbourhood library.
(To keep the review within reasonable length, I’ll only be
reviewing three stories out of eight.)
Tahar
~ Yeow Kai Chai
This story has the sharpest writing in the whole lot. The
writer, Yeow Kai Chai, uses simple
but accomplished language to create a story that seamlessly mixes the mundane
and the surreal, resulting in a fantastical story that is a travel back in time
as well as an internal exploration of one man’s psyche.
Tahar is
about an alleged intruder in a museum. There are various sightings by various victims
or eyewitnesses but the strange thing is that none of the eyewitnesses/victims
can agree on the appearance of the culprit. Some claim that it is a young child,
others say it is a wizened dwarf/monkey/some other mammal and there are even
those who allege that it is a paranormal creature.
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| I'm not sure if this is a picture of Changi Point but Google says it is, so there |
Interwoven into this mystery is the head curator’s
obsession with his masterpiece: a lifelike and exquisite diorama of Changi
Point, a place he frequented in his childhood, which he built with his own
funds. However, a childhood event concerning his best friend Tahar darkens the idyllic
memories of his past and this secret collides with the mystery of the intruder
in an open-ended conclusion; a technique that if not used well, can result in
the reader getting frustrated but personally I thought that it was excuted well
here.
It is amazing how much Yeow manages to squeeze into one
short story. Apart from the main plot, he also mentions briefly the maniac
progress of Singapore and the costs exacted by this progress. He also explores
how the truth can be distorted or suppressed when it is inconvenient. It is a
testimony of Yeow’s skill as a writer that he manages to cover so much ground
with so few words and yet the story unfolds coherently at a confident and measured
pace. I’ll definitely be looking out for more of his works.
Seven
Views of Redhill ~ Dora Tan
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| Do you know the legend of Redhill? |
Seven
Views of Redhill has an interesting structure. It is split into
seven sections, each section a reminiscence of one family member. All the
memories are of the time the family spent in Redhill, the neighbourhood in
which the parents passed the prime of their life and the children grew up.
The seven members of the family are the mother and the five
children: Ju Peng, the eldest son, who did well and scored a Colombo Plan
scholarship to Britain; Ju Yang, the second son, who was rebellious and lazy;
Kim Yin, the third daughter, who succeeded in school and career because she was
so determined to leave her troubled and impoverished family; Kim Leng, the
fourth daughter, the loner of the family with an imaginary friend and who could
observe more clearly and leisurely the effects of time on their neighbourhood;
Kim Hui, the fifth daughter, who was fostered out for a period of time (a
common occurrence in those days when family planning was not in vogue); and Kim
Siew, the youngest child, who was torn between the carefree days she enjoyed
and her shame for her family’s poverty.
The only person in the family whose view of Redhill is not
presented is the father. But from the others’ views, we can piece together the picture
of a man who was the breadwinner of the family and who was by and large able
enough to adequately provide for his large family. He was hot-tempered and
given to fits of violence. We know that the marriage was not a happy one because
it seems that he had another woman but it was also hinted that his wife’s
less-than-perfect behaviour might have driven him to such measures.
I particularly enjoyed this story because using the
different recollections of the seven family members, Dora Tan deftly wove the
various strands of narration into an intricate and yet messy web of
relationships that we find in all families. What a true portrayal of family
ties! In every family, there will be love given, duties performed and
grievances undressed, and it is impossible to straighten these complications for
accounting.
At the same time, the writer also manages to impart a sense
of the change wrought by time in Redhill. We can practically see Redhill ageing
before our eyes, from the time the family moved in in 1956 when it was a young
town to the present when it has a large proportion of elderly residents and is
practically a ghost town during the day.
What is left unsaid is that this sad sight is a common one in
our older estates like Queenstown.
Beginnings
by Wong Shu Yun
This story takes place in a terrace house in Changi and
NUS. But in this story, the setting is merely that, a setting. The main focus
of the tale is the relationship between the Filipino maid Lualhati and her
young charge Amelia. This is a relatively unexplored theme in our local arts
scene but it is one that is very close to our hearts, as we can see from the
hype surrounding Anthony Chen’s award-winning movie, Ilo Ilo.
However, apart from their common theme of foreign maids
working for Singaporean families, Beginnings
is in no way similar to Ilo Ilo.
Lualhati came into the Chong household when Amelia was
fourteen and we see how their relationship progresses through the years;
secondary school Amelia was close to Lualhati and had time to listen to her
news about the various residents of their street and eat the meals that she
cooked. But when Amelia got into junior college and eventually university, her
increasing workload left her with less and less time in the house and the
distance between the two grows.
This poignant story deals honestly with an issue that
resonates with me, and I suspect, with many others in Singapore – how the punishing
pace of our life and Singapore’s frantic speed of progress have frayed the
bonds of our relationships. How many of our teenagers, if left to their own
accord, would visit their grandparents? How many of us have time to sit down to
listen to the gossip of our parents? What sort of role do our elders have in
our lives?
This has been an issue that I’ve been grappling with long
before I read this book and it was most refreshing and gratifying when I read
the resolution in Wong Shu Yun’s story. It lifted a weight off my shoulders and
served as a reminder of what should be.
---
Balik Kampung is a
fine example of local literature that deserves to be widely read. It is a
reflection of where we come from, where we are and in turn leads us to ask:
Where are we headed? The language used is spare and secondary school students
should have no problems understanding it. The question is whether they would be
able to grasp or identify with the themes embedded in the tales. Most adults
would enjoy reading this, for many stories in this collection are accurate
snapshots of the years in which we grew up.
Recommended for those 13 and above.
Rating: 4.5/5
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