Kebaya Tales-10th Anniversary Edition , livre ebook

Marshall Cavendish International - Lee Su Kim Dr

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72 pages

English

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Ten years after its initial publication, national bestseller Kebaya Tales: Of Matriarchs, Mistresses and Matchmakers returns with a brand-new story. This collection of short stories teems with fascinating characters, plot twists and turns, and cultural idiosyncrasies of the Peranakan community. Laced with humour and occasional satire, Kebaya Tales kickstarted the three collections of stories centred on the nonyas and babas of the Straits Chinese people. Kebaya Tales won the 2011 Popular-The Star Readers' Choice Awards for fiction, Malaysia's top literary prize. Author: Dr Lee Su Kim

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Short story

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Publié par	Marshall Cavendish International
Date de parution	11 novembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789814868839
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Like the generations of babas and nyonyas who traverse these stories, this book is a succulent mixture of colours, kebayas, kerosang and conversations, of scents, spicy food and feisty families. Lee Su Kim brings her sharp eye, her love of stories, and her keen sense of the verbal and visual to this delightful book which gives us a chance to savour the richness and diversity of Peranakan lives.
P ROFESSOR A LASTAIR P ENNYCOOK University Technology Sydney, Australia
Mothers tell stories. Daughters often forget them but not Lee Su Kim. She shows that Malaysian Peranakan mothers transmit stories with a distinct flavour. Through these bright and trenchant vignettes, Su Kim has heightened the uniqueness of her community. One might add that these enjoyable tales also add a more nuanced dimension to the art of being both Malaysian and Chinese.
P ROFESSOR W ANG G UNGWU National University of Singapore, Singapore
A fascinating collection of tales bringing together the uniqueness of traditional Peranakan culture with universal human themes. By turns deeply moving and deliciously funny, these stories and the lives they portray go on reverberating in the mind long after reading them.
P ROFESSOR A LAN M ALEY, O.B.E. Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
Kebaya Tales - each of its stories is evocative of different aspects of Peranakan heritage - is a sharing of cultural experience that will undoubtedly be an important part of Straits Chinese literature.
D R N EIL K HOR The Star , January 2011
If there were such a word as nyonyaness , this feminine book would epitomise that quality. These bitter-sweet stories have the diaphanous delicacy of an embroidered, lace-trimmed Swiss voile kebaya blouse, the dark richesse of the buah keluak - that Peranakan rival to the French truffle - combined with the piquant zest of a freshly pounded sambal belacan .
I LSA S HARP Off The Edge , July 2011
Laced with gentle humour and candour, the stories cannot fail to draw the reader in ... Crafted around events and memories scandalous, momentous, heart-rending and even supernatural, the stories sparkle delightfully ... Su Kim also deftly captures moments that reflect our changing cultural mores, even down to delicate matters of the bedroom ... Pure reading pleasure from start to finish.
B ABA E MERIC L AU The Peranakan , 2011
Full-colour photographs [and] sepia prints from her family albums are creatively interspersed amongst the stories, with captions to explain the intricacies of the handiwork or the relationship to the author of the various family members. Coupled with pantun and popular ditties, the atmosphere of a bygone era comes alive in her book, the reverberations lingering till well after one puts the book down ... At times funny, whimsical and touching in parts, Su Kim writes fluidly, with an ear to the argot of her Nyonya heritage that manages to inform and hold the reader s attention.
S EE F OON C HAN -K OPPEN Ipoh Echo , Dec 2011

2020 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Text and photos Lee Su Kim
First published in 2011 by Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd This new edition published in 2020 by Marshall Cavendish Editions An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: (65) 6213 9300. E-mail: genref@sg.marshallcavendish.com Website: www.marshallcavendish.com/genref
The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Other Marshall Cavendish Offices: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 10591-9001, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
Marshall Cavendish is a registered trademark of Times Publishing Limited
National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Name(s): Lee, Su Kim. Title: Kebaya tales : of matriarchs, maidens, mistresses and matchmakers / Lee Su Kim. Description: New edition. | Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, [2019] | 10th anniversary edition, with two new stories included --Cover. Identifier(s): OCN 1122928740 | eISBN 978 981 4868 83 9 Subject(s): LCSH: Peranakan (Asian people)--Fiction. Classification: DDC M823--dc23
Concept and layout of colour plates by Lee Su Kim. All kebayas and accessories featured are from the personal collection of the author. Photography by Lee Yu Kit and Lee Jan Ming. Photographs cannot be reproduced without the author s permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedicated to STEPHEN J HALL with love
And to the memory of my parents, LEE KOON LIANG FOO KWEE HOON
Contents
Preface to this Edition
Acknowledgements
About the Babas and Nyonyas
Hitam Manis and the Majestic Mayfair Hair Salon
The Peephole
The House on Jonker Street
Dead Men Tell No Tales
Boxed-In Bibik
The Bachelor from Balik Pulau
The Breadman s Bicycle
The Goddess and the Japanese Officer
My Old Baby
The Wedding Photo
Marry Me, Marianne
The Courtesan from Gion
A Promise is a Promise
Son Boy and Sisters
The Island
About the Author
Preface to this Edition
When I first started writing Kebaya Tales: Of Matriarchs, Maidens, Mistresses and Matchmakers , I wondered how this book would be received. Who would be interested in reading stories about minority communities in a small country in South-east Asia? It is my pleasure to share that it has been an amazing and most satisfying 10-year writing journey. Six months after Kebaya Tales was published, the first print run was sold out. It has gone into several reprints since and is an award-winning bestseller today. It has been most warmly received and is sold not just regionally but in the UK, Europe, the US and Australia, and on many online portals. It is also used as a resource in language and literature courses in teacher s colleges and universities.
After Kebaya Tales was published in 2011, there was a clamour for more stories. With more stories in my head, and the fact that you can t have a kebaya without the accompanying sarong, I wrote my second collection, Sarong Secrets: Of Love, Loss and Longing , published three years later. In 2017, the trilogy was complete with a third collection, Manek Mischiefs: Of Patriarchs, Playboys and Paramours , named after the kasut manek (beaded slippers) and with the focus on the babas for a change. All three books were nominated for the national Popular-The Star Readers Choice Awards (Fiction) with Kebaya Tales winning the first prize in 2011.
Where does your inspiration come from? I ve often been asked this question. I am a sixth generation nyonya with links to both Malaccan and Penang Peranakan communities, as my father was a baba from Malacca and my mother a Penang nyonya. Coming from a unique and flamboyant culture with its share of eccentric personalities, complex cultural rituals, rich array of traditions and beliefs, a wonderful confluence of influences from Chinese, Malay, Indian, Javanese, Thai, Sumatran, Balinese, Portuguese, Dutch and English cultures, it s impossible not to be inspired. The sheer cultural hybridity of it all is absolutely fascinating. It struck me as strange there wasn t much fiction about the babas and nyonyas although there were many coffee table books and nonfiction.
I grew up in an extended family setting in a pre-war house in Jalan Sin Chew Kee, off Galloway Road, Kuala Lumpur. Relatives, friends and neighbours dropped by often, and I loved to listen to the chatter and stories. My mother, a superb storyteller, with her dramatic flourishes and onomatopoeia, was also a fantastic cook, attracting even more visitors because they loved her food. My family observed the traditional rituals, celebrated the festivals, honoured our ancestors, cooked fabulous feasts. Thus I grew up with an insider knowledge of the smells, sounds, flavours, noises, cadences and the belief systems of a traditional baba nyonya household. I was exposed from young to a multitude of languages: English, Baba Malay, Penang Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, Malay as well as idioms, earthy expressions, swear words and the fascinating berlatah (ranting) of the bibiks (older nyonyas). Attending auspicious occasions such as weddings and birthday celebrations and funerals and visiting relatives in Malacca, Penang and Singapore also gave me exposure to more cultural content, though I d no clue then I would write about the babas and nyonyas one day.
My purpose in writing is to try and capture the spirit of this culture, its very essence - its cultural hybridity, colour and opulence, its eccentricities and idiosyncrasies, its openness to myriad cultures, its array of intriguing personalities - as well as its less attractive features - its patriarchal structures, rigid social mores, the lack of opportunity for women in the 19th to early 20th centuries.
Altogether, Kebaya Tales , Sarong Secrets and Manek Mischiefs contain a total of 35 short stories, sp