MPhil Thesis by Cheng Fai Goh
This study focuses on four 21st Century Malaysian novels about the Japanese Occupation, written i... more This study focuses on four 21st Century Malaysian novels about the Japanese Occupation, written in English, and explores the representations of trauma, narrative and memory in these novels in relation to trauma theory and Malaysian Literature in English. Trauma studies take as its point of departure the idea that an overpowering event, powerful enough to break the shield of consciousness, can return as symptoms of compulsive and/or repetitive behaviours after a period of latency that brings the traumatized victim back to the event. However, trauma is seen not as, or as the result of a single, isolated event, but as a condition that repeats itself across different temporalities. This argument is taken up in the analysis of four novels that use the Japanese Occupation as a theme and/ or setting, which examines the attempts of reconstructing the traumatic events of the Occupation in narrative, as well as the narrative strategies that display the breakdown of temporality in trauma.
This thesis consists of 5 chapters. The introduction of this thesis, which forms the first chapter, establishes the groundwork for the rest of the dissertation, and situates the study in its historical, literary and theoretical contexts. It provides the background of earlier scholarship on Malaysian Literature in English, the historical scholarship on the Japanese Occupation and its relation to this analysis, and the theoretical background that informs the argument of this study.
Chapter Two explores Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain, and discusses the significance of using the first-person, autobiographical style when writing about trauma, as well as the role that narrative features such as flashbacks play to show a sense of the dual temporality of trauma. It also examines the need for the presence of a listener-as-witness when narrating trauma, in relation to the novel as a survivor narrative.
Chapter Three focuses on the relationship between history and memory, as well as remembering and forgetting, in relation to Tan’s second novel, The Garden of Evening Mists. It explores how trauma can fragment the self and collective identities of traumatized subjects. It also explores the difficulty of incorporating trauma into a meaningful life-narrative.
Chapter Four analyzes Vyvyanne Loh’s Breaking the Tongue, and explores the significance of using the second-person narrative when narrating trauma, which can be seen as a strategy to represent the dissociation that comes with trauma. It also analyzes the significance of the delay in the temporal structure in the narratives of traumatized subjects, and explores the importance of dreams and nightmares in these novels. This chapter also examines the crisis of witnessing that the characters are confronted with in the face of trauma.
Chapter Five explores Rani Manicka’s The Rice Mother, a family saga. This chapter examines the notion of transgenerational trauma and postmemory, and how trauma can be transmitted through silences from one generation to the next. It pays close attention to the different forms of media used in the transmission of trauma, and also discusses the issue of replacement children who are born after traumatic loss.
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eBook Chapter by Cheng Fai Goh
How Trauma Resonates: Art, Literature and Theoretical Practice. Ed. Mark Callaghan. , Jun 4, 2014
"While the first Malayan English language novel, Chin Kee Onn’s Ma-rai-ee (1952) was born out of ... more "While the first Malayan English language novel, Chin Kee Onn’s Ma-rai-ee (1952) was born out of the trauma of the Japanese Occupation (1942-45), the trauma of the war is still relevant in 21st century Malaysian Literature in English. Novels relating to the traumatic periods of the Japanese Occupation continue to be written and published, including Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain (2007), which is about the recollections of the war fifty years after by Philip Arminius Khoo-Hutton. This chapter looks at the way in which the philosophical belief in reincarnation – a major theme in the novel – is portrayed as an extended form of memory through different lifetimes; it also looks at how trauma can affect this form of ‘memory’, and its relation to trauma studies. Philip’s recollections of the war, narrated in the first-person, reveal his dawning realization of the connections he has with his mentor, Endo-san, in previous lives. Philip and Endo-san carry with them ‘memories’ of violent past mistakes, and have ‘chased’ each other for several lifetimes, their destinies intertwined, in order to make reparations of violence and betrayal committed centuries earlier. This chapter also seeks to find connections between the ideas of repetition and reincarnation, as well as paying for the mistakes of past lives, to concepts such as ‘working through’ and the ‘breach of consciousness’ in trauma studies. It also looks at how the trauma of past lives can disrupt the sense of temporality in the present life, which is an extension of the idea that ‘trauma and traumatic memory can alter the linearity of historical, narrativised time’. Memories of the trauma of past lives also haunt characters in the narrative present through meditative visions and soothsayers. Analysis of these issues will allow for new ways of thinking and talking about trauma and traumatic memories."
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Conference Presentations by Cheng Fai Goh
Most of Hong Kong’s history books will no doubt have a chapter (or more) dedicated to the origins... more Most of Hong Kong’s history books will no doubt have a chapter (or more) dedicated to the origins of the city as a former colony, gained by the British through the illicit sale of opium as a way to offset their growing addiction for tea from China. However, this paper explores
the narratives that surround the construction of this historical period, by using Anglophone literary works about Hong Kong as a form of cultural representation that demonstrates Hong Kong’s tea culture.
I seek to explore the construction of tea’s role as a social and ritual beverage, and a commodity in the global market, in historical and fictional Anglophone narratives about Hong Kong. By doing so, I hope to draw attention to Hong Kong’s own tea culture, something that has not been examined exclusively at this moment. The foodways of tea,
postcolonial identity formation in historical and literary narratives, and cultural semiotics are some of the possible avenues for such research. The meaning of tea in Hong Kong culture can be seen as a tool for understanding an aspect of Hong Kong’s history, and the history of the transmission of tea from a Chinese beverage into a global commodity that plays an important role in world history.
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This paper attempts to offer a different take on the notion of the examination of cultural politi... more This paper attempts to offer a different take on the notion of the examination of cultural politics of diaspora through literature, by examining The Garden of Evening Mists, which is Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng's second novel. This novel brings to light several key issues that can be seen as pertinent in discussions of diaspora, identity, and belonging. By examining the post-colonial critiques of empire present in Tan's novel, this paper seeks to address the issue of the Chinese diaspora within the British Empire in Southeast Asia, and the legacy and role of the British Empire in the dispersion of people in its Southeast Asian colonies.
While not directly a part of the theatre of the Vietnam War, the historical events portrayed in Tan's novel, which includes in large part the Communist Insurrection in Malaya between 1948 and 1960, precede the events in that conflict, and is a part of the Cold War in Asia. The Malayan Emergency declared by the British colonial government displaced hundreds of thousands of rural citizens within their own country, and created a lasting legacy of distrust among the different communities in Malaya.
These events lead us into the discussion of the notions of home and identity, as well as the cultural politics of belonging and the development of the imagined community of the Malaysian nation state. Through the use of gardening as metaphor, Tan poses the question of who can be considered a native, and also the question of belonging to a nation.
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This paper explores the significance of Chinese tea in the transmission of Chinese identity and c... more This paper explores the significance of Chinese tea in the transmission of Chinese identity and culture overseas through Chinese tea mythology and culture by examining Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng’s first novel, The Gift of Rain. The protagonist of the novel, Philip Hutton, whose father is British, had a Chinese mother, whose own father “joined the mass exodus to Malaya from the Hokkien province in China in search of wealth and a chance to survive”. He moved to the town of Ipoh in Malaya and became wealthy from his tin mines there. At his invitation, Philip goes from Penang to Ipoh to visit his estranged grandfather, and here discovers a part of his identity that he has never known.
In the novel, the reader is introduced to one of the myths of the origins of tea. In the narrative, the founder of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharmo, is not only mentioned, but the story of his meditations in the cave, and how he founded Zen Buddhism, and his relationship to the origins of the tea plant, are thoroughly described by Philip’s grandfather, a man who once served in the Imperial Palace as a tutor to the fictitious prince Wen Zu, who briefly (for a short moment, between the death of emperor Guangxu and his own death) ascended to the throne before the tumultuous reign of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China. Philip’s grandfather acts as a gateway for him to discover his own Chinese heritage, which was mostly ignored by Philip up to that point. Philip’s ambivalence towards his Chinese identity is revealed in the beginning of the novel. He says that he “felt no connection with China, or with England”, and calling himself “a child born between two worlds, belonging to neither”. He also calls Penang, the island in Malaya where he was born, his home, and the place where he wants to die in. His ambivalence toward Chinese culture can be explained by the death of his mother when he was at a very young age, and also by growing up in a mostly English household. However, his ambivalence stretches towards England as well. He says that even though half of him is English he has “never hungered for England”, and that “England is a foreign land, cold and gloomy”.
This paper will examine the significance of incorporating these Chinese legends and mythologies in the narratives of Malaysian Literature in English, and also the role of tea as a transmitter of Chinese culture to the overseas Chinese living in Malaya (now Malaysia). The novel examined here is not a Chinese novel, but a Malaysian one, as can be seen in the sensibility of the characters and the ambivalence of the protagonist towards his own mixed-Chinese identity. The multi-cultural character of the novel adds to the rich corpus of literary works written by overseas Chinese writers, and brings to light the cultural connections and unique identity that overseas Chinese still retain many generations later after migrating to places outside China.
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"On September 13, 2012, the online news provider Malaysiakini, along with other local news agenci... more "On September 13, 2012, the online news provider Malaysiakini, along with other local news agencies, reported that the Malaysian government's Ministry of Education has endorsed "guidelines" to help parents and teachers to identify gay and lesbian symptoms in their children or students so that they can take early corrective measures. These guidelines provided four “symptoms” each of gays and lesbians. Out of the four symptoms listed for gays, three have got to do with stereotypical fashion choices, including a preference for wearing V-neck and sleeveless clothes, preferring tight and light coloured clothes, as well as liking to bring big handbags, similar to those used by women, when hanging out. These criteria were handed out during anti-gay seminars that the Malaysian education ministry held to teach parents and teachers how to curb LGBT behavior. The short list of criteria has stirred up public outrage at the portrayal of homosexual citizens in Malaysia, who feel increasingly discriminated against. The news report has also gained some attention from other news agencies around the world, whose consequent news reports point out that the ‘othering’ of the LGBT community in Malaysia was an effort to gain the votes of the Malay Muslim majority in the upcoming general elections.
This paper explores some of the ways in which the Malaysian government paints the LGBT community as being threatening, and examines the supposed threat to masculinity which male homosexuality brings, by analyzing the way in which the threat is constructed, in this case through the usage of fashion-related discourse. When constructing their list of characteristics on what constitutes homosexuality, the ministry of education has chosen to focus on the fashion choices that constitute the choices of a small group of gay people, and use the fashion choices to stereotype the entire gay population of Malaysia. Is such portrayal and stereotyping of gays based on fashion choices something that is common all around the world, and to what extent does the Malaysian situation conform to such portrayals? Do they conform to the western notions of stereotypical gays or does the Malaysian narrative depart from the usual narrative stereotypes of homosexual fashion? I also look at some of the backlash that emerged out of social media in response to the anti-gay propaganda that was produced by the Malaysian government.
"
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In the second decade of the twenty-first century, the memory of World War II is still hotly conte... more In the second decade of the twenty-first century, the memory of World War II is still hotly contested in China and Asia. A part of these memories concerns those involved in the Japanese Occupation of Malaya and Singapore, which has large populations of overseas Chinese. One of the reasons the Occupation is still a divisive issue in Malaysia is the fact that some of the soldiers of the Japanese Army see the Malayan campaign as an extension of the theatre of war in China, and began the systematic screening and execution of Malayan Chinese after the Fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942. This screening and execution, or sook ching, which the Japanese used to single out and eliminate threats to Japan, claimed around 50,000 lives, and is called the biggest single atrocity of the war in Southeast Asia. The overseas Chinese in Singapore and Malaya were also forced to prepare a 50 million dollar gift to the Japanese Administration to atone for the prewar anti-Japanese activities of the Chinese in Malaya.
Contemporary Malaysian Literature in English still deals with the memories of war that arise from World War II, and the Japanese Occupation is still a recurrent theme in the Malaysian public imagination in the 21st century. Novels such as Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain (2007) and The Garden of Evening Mists (2012), Tash Aw’s The Harmony Silk Factory (2005) and Vivienne Loh’s Breaking the Tongue (2004) all deal with the Chinese memories of Japanese brutality and the horrors of war. Traumatic events, such as the sook ching massacre, are represented in these novels and form part of the current imaginations of the Occupation. I look at Japanese wartime behavior in Asia as it is represented in these contemporary Malaysian novels in English written about the Japanese Occupation of Singapore and Malaya, and also at the politics of memorializing this traumatic event in Southeast Asian history.
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"While the first Malayan English language novel, Chin Kee Onn’s Ma-rai-ee (1952), was born out of... more "While the first Malayan English language novel, Chin Kee Onn’s Ma-rai-ee (1952), was born out of the trauma of the Japanese Occupation (1942-45), the trauma of the war is still relevant in 21st century Malaysian Literature in English. Novels relating to the traumatic periods of the Japanese Occupation continue to be written and published, including Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain (2007), which is about the recollections of the war fifty years after by Philip-Khoo Hutton. This paper looks at the way in which the philosophical belief in reincarnation – a major theme in the novel—is portrayed as an extended form of memory through different lifetimes; it also looks at how trauma can affect this form of memory, and its relation to trauma studies. Philip’s recollections of the war, narrated in the first-person, reveal his dawning realisation of the connections he has with his mentor, Endo-san, in previous lives. Philip and Endo-san carry with them ‘memories’ of violent past mistakes, and have ‘chased’ each other for several lifetimes, their destinies intertwined, in order to make reparations for violence and betrayal committed centuries earlier.
This paper also seeks to find connections between the ideas of repetition and reincarnation, as well as paying for the mistakes of past lives, to concepts such as ‘working through’ and the ‘breach of consciousness’ in trauma studies. It also looks at how the trauma of past lives can disrupt the sense of temporality in the present life, which is an extension of the idea that ‘trauma and traumatic memory can alter the linearity of historical, narrativised time’; memories of the trauma of past lives also haunt the characters in the narrative present through visions and soothsayers. Analysis of these issues will allow for new ways of thinking and talking about trauma and traumatic memories."
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"The Second World War was and still is a divisive issue in Malaysia, and is a recurrent theme in ... more "The Second World War was and still is a divisive issue in Malaysia, and is a recurrent theme in the public imagination in Malaysia. The traumatic period of the Japanese Occupation continues to appear in contemporary Malaysian novels. By looking at Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain (2007), I explore how the narration of the memory of a place can show effects of the past haunting the present. By looking at Abraham and Torok’s concept of the crypt as a burial place for the pre-traumatized self, I explore the notion that the behavior and narrations of Philip, the protagonist, show the signs of a person trapped in the past.
I also explore the notion of multiculturalism that is present in Philip’s description of Georgetown, which raises several interesting questions with regards to the nature of identity, and the seemingly fluid way in which identity is described in Philip’s description, which also presents a contradiction of sorts. The implications of these descriptions of a multicultural Georgetown to the notion of “Accepting Differences, Embracing Diversity” are also discussed. Finally, I also ask several questions on why there seems to be a haunting of literary text by the ghosts of past events, specifically the traumatic events of the Japanese Occupation, and explore the possibility that the narration of these events in contemporary Malaysian novels is a way of exorcising and finally silencing these ghosts of the past that continue to haunt contemporary Malaysian discourse, and breed mistrust and hatred among Malaysians today.
"
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Book Reviews by Cheng Fai Goh
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MPhil Thesis by Cheng Fai Goh
This thesis consists of 5 chapters. The introduction of this thesis, which forms the first chapter, establishes the groundwork for the rest of the dissertation, and situates the study in its historical, literary and theoretical contexts. It provides the background of earlier scholarship on Malaysian Literature in English, the historical scholarship on the Japanese Occupation and its relation to this analysis, and the theoretical background that informs the argument of this study.
Chapter Two explores Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain, and discusses the significance of using the first-person, autobiographical style when writing about trauma, as well as the role that narrative features such as flashbacks play to show a sense of the dual temporality of trauma. It also examines the need for the presence of a listener-as-witness when narrating trauma, in relation to the novel as a survivor narrative.
Chapter Three focuses on the relationship between history and memory, as well as remembering and forgetting, in relation to Tan’s second novel, The Garden of Evening Mists. It explores how trauma can fragment the self and collective identities of traumatized subjects. It also explores the difficulty of incorporating trauma into a meaningful life-narrative.
Chapter Four analyzes Vyvyanne Loh’s Breaking the Tongue, and explores the significance of using the second-person narrative when narrating trauma, which can be seen as a strategy to represent the dissociation that comes with trauma. It also analyzes the significance of the delay in the temporal structure in the narratives of traumatized subjects, and explores the importance of dreams and nightmares in these novels. This chapter also examines the crisis of witnessing that the characters are confronted with in the face of trauma.
Chapter Five explores Rani Manicka’s The Rice Mother, a family saga. This chapter examines the notion of transgenerational trauma and postmemory, and how trauma can be transmitted through silences from one generation to the next. It pays close attention to the different forms of media used in the transmission of trauma, and also discusses the issue of replacement children who are born after traumatic loss.
eBook Chapter by Cheng Fai Goh
Conference Presentations by Cheng Fai Goh
the narratives that surround the construction of this historical period, by using Anglophone literary works about Hong Kong as a form of cultural representation that demonstrates Hong Kong’s tea culture.
I seek to explore the construction of tea’s role as a social and ritual beverage, and a commodity in the global market, in historical and fictional Anglophone narratives about Hong Kong. By doing so, I hope to draw attention to Hong Kong’s own tea culture, something that has not been examined exclusively at this moment. The foodways of tea,
postcolonial identity formation in historical and literary narratives, and cultural semiotics are some of the possible avenues for such research. The meaning of tea in Hong Kong culture can be seen as a tool for understanding an aspect of Hong Kong’s history, and the history of the transmission of tea from a Chinese beverage into a global commodity that plays an important role in world history.
While not directly a part of the theatre of the Vietnam War, the historical events portrayed in Tan's novel, which includes in large part the Communist Insurrection in Malaya between 1948 and 1960, precede the events in that conflict, and is a part of the Cold War in Asia. The Malayan Emergency declared by the British colonial government displaced hundreds of thousands of rural citizens within their own country, and created a lasting legacy of distrust among the different communities in Malaya.
These events lead us into the discussion of the notions of home and identity, as well as the cultural politics of belonging and the development of the imagined community of the Malaysian nation state. Through the use of gardening as metaphor, Tan poses the question of who can be considered a native, and also the question of belonging to a nation.
In the novel, the reader is introduced to one of the myths of the origins of tea. In the narrative, the founder of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharmo, is not only mentioned, but the story of his meditations in the cave, and how he founded Zen Buddhism, and his relationship to the origins of the tea plant, are thoroughly described by Philip’s grandfather, a man who once served in the Imperial Palace as a tutor to the fictitious prince Wen Zu, who briefly (for a short moment, between the death of emperor Guangxu and his own death) ascended to the throne before the tumultuous reign of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China. Philip’s grandfather acts as a gateway for him to discover his own Chinese heritage, which was mostly ignored by Philip up to that point. Philip’s ambivalence towards his Chinese identity is revealed in the beginning of the novel. He says that he “felt no connection with China, or with England”, and calling himself “a child born between two worlds, belonging to neither”. He also calls Penang, the island in Malaya where he was born, his home, and the place where he wants to die in. His ambivalence toward Chinese culture can be explained by the death of his mother when he was at a very young age, and also by growing up in a mostly English household. However, his ambivalence stretches towards England as well. He says that even though half of him is English he has “never hungered for England”, and that “England is a foreign land, cold and gloomy”.
This paper will examine the significance of incorporating these Chinese legends and mythologies in the narratives of Malaysian Literature in English, and also the role of tea as a transmitter of Chinese culture to the overseas Chinese living in Malaya (now Malaysia). The novel examined here is not a Chinese novel, but a Malaysian one, as can be seen in the sensibility of the characters and the ambivalence of the protagonist towards his own mixed-Chinese identity. The multi-cultural character of the novel adds to the rich corpus of literary works written by overseas Chinese writers, and brings to light the cultural connections and unique identity that overseas Chinese still retain many generations later after migrating to places outside China.
This paper explores some of the ways in which the Malaysian government paints the LGBT community as being threatening, and examines the supposed threat to masculinity which male homosexuality brings, by analyzing the way in which the threat is constructed, in this case through the usage of fashion-related discourse. When constructing their list of characteristics on what constitutes homosexuality, the ministry of education has chosen to focus on the fashion choices that constitute the choices of a small group of gay people, and use the fashion choices to stereotype the entire gay population of Malaysia. Is such portrayal and stereotyping of gays based on fashion choices something that is common all around the world, and to what extent does the Malaysian situation conform to such portrayals? Do they conform to the western notions of stereotypical gays or does the Malaysian narrative depart from the usual narrative stereotypes of homosexual fashion? I also look at some of the backlash that emerged out of social media in response to the anti-gay propaganda that was produced by the Malaysian government.
"
Contemporary Malaysian Literature in English still deals with the memories of war that arise from World War II, and the Japanese Occupation is still a recurrent theme in the Malaysian public imagination in the 21st century. Novels such as Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain (2007) and The Garden of Evening Mists (2012), Tash Aw’s The Harmony Silk Factory (2005) and Vivienne Loh’s Breaking the Tongue (2004) all deal with the Chinese memories of Japanese brutality and the horrors of war. Traumatic events, such as the sook ching massacre, are represented in these novels and form part of the current imaginations of the Occupation. I look at Japanese wartime behavior in Asia as it is represented in these contemporary Malaysian novels in English written about the Japanese Occupation of Singapore and Malaya, and also at the politics of memorializing this traumatic event in Southeast Asian history.
This paper also seeks to find connections between the ideas of repetition and reincarnation, as well as paying for the mistakes of past lives, to concepts such as ‘working through’ and the ‘breach of consciousness’ in trauma studies. It also looks at how the trauma of past lives can disrupt the sense of temporality in the present life, which is an extension of the idea that ‘trauma and traumatic memory can alter the linearity of historical, narrativised time’; memories of the trauma of past lives also haunt the characters in the narrative present through visions and soothsayers. Analysis of these issues will allow for new ways of thinking and talking about trauma and traumatic memories."
I also explore the notion of multiculturalism that is present in Philip’s description of Georgetown, which raises several interesting questions with regards to the nature of identity, and the seemingly fluid way in which identity is described in Philip’s description, which also presents a contradiction of sorts. The implications of these descriptions of a multicultural Georgetown to the notion of “Accepting Differences, Embracing Diversity” are also discussed. Finally, I also ask several questions on why there seems to be a haunting of literary text by the ghosts of past events, specifically the traumatic events of the Japanese Occupation, and explore the possibility that the narration of these events in contemporary Malaysian novels is a way of exorcising and finally silencing these ghosts of the past that continue to haunt contemporary Malaysian discourse, and breed mistrust and hatred among Malaysians today.
"
Book Reviews by Cheng Fai Goh
This thesis consists of 5 chapters. The introduction of this thesis, which forms the first chapter, establishes the groundwork for the rest of the dissertation, and situates the study in its historical, literary and theoretical contexts. It provides the background of earlier scholarship on Malaysian Literature in English, the historical scholarship on the Japanese Occupation and its relation to this analysis, and the theoretical background that informs the argument of this study.
Chapter Two explores Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain, and discusses the significance of using the first-person, autobiographical style when writing about trauma, as well as the role that narrative features such as flashbacks play to show a sense of the dual temporality of trauma. It also examines the need for the presence of a listener-as-witness when narrating trauma, in relation to the novel as a survivor narrative.
Chapter Three focuses on the relationship between history and memory, as well as remembering and forgetting, in relation to Tan’s second novel, The Garden of Evening Mists. It explores how trauma can fragment the self and collective identities of traumatized subjects. It also explores the difficulty of incorporating trauma into a meaningful life-narrative.
Chapter Four analyzes Vyvyanne Loh’s Breaking the Tongue, and explores the significance of using the second-person narrative when narrating trauma, which can be seen as a strategy to represent the dissociation that comes with trauma. It also analyzes the significance of the delay in the temporal structure in the narratives of traumatized subjects, and explores the importance of dreams and nightmares in these novels. This chapter also examines the crisis of witnessing that the characters are confronted with in the face of trauma.
Chapter Five explores Rani Manicka’s The Rice Mother, a family saga. This chapter examines the notion of transgenerational trauma and postmemory, and how trauma can be transmitted through silences from one generation to the next. It pays close attention to the different forms of media used in the transmission of trauma, and also discusses the issue of replacement children who are born after traumatic loss.
the narratives that surround the construction of this historical period, by using Anglophone literary works about Hong Kong as a form of cultural representation that demonstrates Hong Kong’s tea culture.
I seek to explore the construction of tea’s role as a social and ritual beverage, and a commodity in the global market, in historical and fictional Anglophone narratives about Hong Kong. By doing so, I hope to draw attention to Hong Kong’s own tea culture, something that has not been examined exclusively at this moment. The foodways of tea,
postcolonial identity formation in historical and literary narratives, and cultural semiotics are some of the possible avenues for such research. The meaning of tea in Hong Kong culture can be seen as a tool for understanding an aspect of Hong Kong’s history, and the history of the transmission of tea from a Chinese beverage into a global commodity that plays an important role in world history.
While not directly a part of the theatre of the Vietnam War, the historical events portrayed in Tan's novel, which includes in large part the Communist Insurrection in Malaya between 1948 and 1960, precede the events in that conflict, and is a part of the Cold War in Asia. The Malayan Emergency declared by the British colonial government displaced hundreds of thousands of rural citizens within their own country, and created a lasting legacy of distrust among the different communities in Malaya.
These events lead us into the discussion of the notions of home and identity, as well as the cultural politics of belonging and the development of the imagined community of the Malaysian nation state. Through the use of gardening as metaphor, Tan poses the question of who can be considered a native, and also the question of belonging to a nation.
In the novel, the reader is introduced to one of the myths of the origins of tea. In the narrative, the founder of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharmo, is not only mentioned, but the story of his meditations in the cave, and how he founded Zen Buddhism, and his relationship to the origins of the tea plant, are thoroughly described by Philip’s grandfather, a man who once served in the Imperial Palace as a tutor to the fictitious prince Wen Zu, who briefly (for a short moment, between the death of emperor Guangxu and his own death) ascended to the throne before the tumultuous reign of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China. Philip’s grandfather acts as a gateway for him to discover his own Chinese heritage, which was mostly ignored by Philip up to that point. Philip’s ambivalence towards his Chinese identity is revealed in the beginning of the novel. He says that he “felt no connection with China, or with England”, and calling himself “a child born between two worlds, belonging to neither”. He also calls Penang, the island in Malaya where he was born, his home, and the place where he wants to die in. His ambivalence toward Chinese culture can be explained by the death of his mother when he was at a very young age, and also by growing up in a mostly English household. However, his ambivalence stretches towards England as well. He says that even though half of him is English he has “never hungered for England”, and that “England is a foreign land, cold and gloomy”.
This paper will examine the significance of incorporating these Chinese legends and mythologies in the narratives of Malaysian Literature in English, and also the role of tea as a transmitter of Chinese culture to the overseas Chinese living in Malaya (now Malaysia). The novel examined here is not a Chinese novel, but a Malaysian one, as can be seen in the sensibility of the characters and the ambivalence of the protagonist towards his own mixed-Chinese identity. The multi-cultural character of the novel adds to the rich corpus of literary works written by overseas Chinese writers, and brings to light the cultural connections and unique identity that overseas Chinese still retain many generations later after migrating to places outside China.
This paper explores some of the ways in which the Malaysian government paints the LGBT community as being threatening, and examines the supposed threat to masculinity which male homosexuality brings, by analyzing the way in which the threat is constructed, in this case through the usage of fashion-related discourse. When constructing their list of characteristics on what constitutes homosexuality, the ministry of education has chosen to focus on the fashion choices that constitute the choices of a small group of gay people, and use the fashion choices to stereotype the entire gay population of Malaysia. Is such portrayal and stereotyping of gays based on fashion choices something that is common all around the world, and to what extent does the Malaysian situation conform to such portrayals? Do they conform to the western notions of stereotypical gays or does the Malaysian narrative depart from the usual narrative stereotypes of homosexual fashion? I also look at some of the backlash that emerged out of social media in response to the anti-gay propaganda that was produced by the Malaysian government.
"
Contemporary Malaysian Literature in English still deals with the memories of war that arise from World War II, and the Japanese Occupation is still a recurrent theme in the Malaysian public imagination in the 21st century. Novels such as Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain (2007) and The Garden of Evening Mists (2012), Tash Aw’s The Harmony Silk Factory (2005) and Vivienne Loh’s Breaking the Tongue (2004) all deal with the Chinese memories of Japanese brutality and the horrors of war. Traumatic events, such as the sook ching massacre, are represented in these novels and form part of the current imaginations of the Occupation. I look at Japanese wartime behavior in Asia as it is represented in these contemporary Malaysian novels in English written about the Japanese Occupation of Singapore and Malaya, and also at the politics of memorializing this traumatic event in Southeast Asian history.
This paper also seeks to find connections between the ideas of repetition and reincarnation, as well as paying for the mistakes of past lives, to concepts such as ‘working through’ and the ‘breach of consciousness’ in trauma studies. It also looks at how the trauma of past lives can disrupt the sense of temporality in the present life, which is an extension of the idea that ‘trauma and traumatic memory can alter the linearity of historical, narrativised time’; memories of the trauma of past lives also haunt the characters in the narrative present through visions and soothsayers. Analysis of these issues will allow for new ways of thinking and talking about trauma and traumatic memories."
I also explore the notion of multiculturalism that is present in Philip’s description of Georgetown, which raises several interesting questions with regards to the nature of identity, and the seemingly fluid way in which identity is described in Philip’s description, which also presents a contradiction of sorts. The implications of these descriptions of a multicultural Georgetown to the notion of “Accepting Differences, Embracing Diversity” are also discussed. Finally, I also ask several questions on why there seems to be a haunting of literary text by the ghosts of past events, specifically the traumatic events of the Japanese Occupation, and explore the possibility that the narration of these events in contemporary Malaysian novels is a way of exorcising and finally silencing these ghosts of the past that continue to haunt contemporary Malaysian discourse, and breed mistrust and hatred among Malaysians today.
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