Interview with PRIME Magazine

The following is an excerpt from an interview with PRIME Magazine, November – December 2007 issue.

You were born in Penang but grew up in Kedah. What were your childhood years like? Do you miss your home in Malaysia?

My childhood years were very happy. I grew up with 13 siblings, and although we were not well-to-do, we did not want for anything. My sisters and I had fun making our own toys, including doll houses from empty matchboxes and dolls from rolling white paper into two thin firm rolls which were then tied together with white thread to form a cross, giving a head, arms and a body. I remember collecting bits of discarded cloth from the local seamstress to make into clothes for our dolls, which had names and were always embroiled in gossip, quarrels and scandals.

No, I don’t really miss my home in Malaysia. I’m in touch with my siblings who are settled all over the world — Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and Canada — and when we meet, we indulge in happy, exuberant reminiscence of our childhood years in Malaysia.

How did you discover your calling in writing?

There was no “eureka” moment of discovery. I had always loved writing — in fact, composition writing was my favourite subject in school. I became a writer only when I was in my 30s, and in the most unexpected, serendipitous way. My stories were “discovered” by a friend, Robert Yeo, who took them to a publisher.

If you were not a writer, what would you be doing?

I suppose I would be in education. I began my career as a teacher, following the example of several older sisters.

Your stories open a window to a disappearing world of Chinese traditions, from amahs to connecting with the other world through Chinese mediums. Where do you get your inspiration for your stories?

My inspiration mainly comes from recollections. I have a very retentive memory for incidents connected to the supernatural and my mind is a rich repository of childhood memories connected with temple visits, temple mediums and old women whom we called the “kiow kia” women. They were called to help a sick child recover by conducting certain ceremonies to placate the spirits that had caused the illness, using as the instruments of placation an item of the child’s clothing, candles and a pair of scissors. I remember once seeing a temple medium in a trance, and was terrified at the sight of the man with his wildly flailing arms, closed eyes and horribly foaming mouth. My mother stopped going to the temple as, one after another, her children became Christians (she herself became one a few years before she died, aged 90).

I have a very pleasant memory of myself feeding the sacred turtles in a temple with a large bunch of kang kong. I have relived all these incidents in my novels, and continue to dig deep into the rich mine of my childhood memories. It is said that writers should write only about what gives them a frisson: I certainly have this shuddering kind of thrill. I actually go electric, when I write about the supernatural-related events of childhood.

As a writer, is there a word that you unconsciously slip into your writings?

I’m not aware of any such word. But I’m aware of my love for evocative words, words that convey emotions powerfully and strike at some deep inner chord.

Is there a book you wish you had written but never did?

There is none but there are lots of books that I wish I could write, such as books dealing with the larger existential questions of God, life, death, purpose and meaning.

In “Or Else, the Lightning God”, the mother-in-law has been described as “the old one glared at her (the daughter-in-law), the small grey eyes glittering menacingly”. In another of your short stories, the grandmother character pinches, slaps and canes her bondmaids. Are you guilty of casting older people in an unfairly negative light?

In my stories, I am not conscious of singling out old or young people, rich or poor people … to portray in a positive or negative light (for surely no one group has a monopoly of virtue or vice). My stories are usually based on true events recollected from childhood, and the graphic details of physical abuse you noted must have been actually witnessed and stored up in my memory.

The clashes between modernity and superstition, intertwined with the clashes between daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law are much evident in “The Serpent’s Tooth” and your other stories. How relevant are these issues to you?

I did not have a mother-in-law so the conflicts described in the novel were not based on personal experience. But I observed a great deal, and was the confidante of friends and colleagues who were only too ready to unload a whole store of mother-in-law horror stories.

Chang from “A Leap of Love” describes 29 February 1980 as the saddest day of her life. Is there a day in your life that you can never erase from your mind?

There isn’t any single day comparable to my heroine’s, but there are lots of very tender recollections which still fill me with a glow after these years. I suppose I have been lucky — or unlucky — in never having gone through the wild emotional roller-coaster rides that so many women experience in their romantic lives.

Still on Chang, are you like her, a romantic-at-heart?

Yes, I think I’m an incurable romantic, though with the same breath, I could swear that I’m equally pragmatic and realistic. In the same way, I am both a liberal and conservative, both intensely spiritual and worldly. I once described myself as a “mass of irreconcilables”, a “walking contradiction”.

The villains in your stories usually get their just deserts. Do you believe in retribution?

Maybe in making them get their “just deserts”, I was being a bit simplistic. For this is not at all a true reflection of real life, as we all know.

At the inaugural Man Asian Prize, Singaporean authors were conspicuously absent among the list of nominees. What does this say about the local literary scene?

I am sure it will be a matter of time before our writers make it to international awards. I see a lot of very promising young writers. I can think off-hand of Philip Jeyaratnam, Claire Tham and Tan Hwee Hwee but there must be many others.