Frog Under A Coconut Shell edition by Josephine Chia Literature Fiction eBooks
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Frog Under A Coconut Shell means in Malay, “Katuk Bawah Tempurong”, an idiom which likens someone to a frog that lives under a coconut shell, who believes the shell to be its entire world. It is a reference to the author’s own mother, who although herself uneducated and living in a parochial existence in a small kampong (attap village), believed in and struggled for a greater vision—the right to educate her daughter. The author beautifully evokes the experience of living with her family in rural Potong Pasir of the 1950s and 60s, and paints in heartwarming detail, her mother’s life journey from the bloom of her youth to her present affliction with Alzheimer’s disease. In part a nostalgic memoir of Old Singapore, Frog Under A Coconut Shell, is also, most wholeheartedly, a testament to the love and courage of a mother that changed the life of her daughter forever.
Frog Under A Coconut Shell edition by Josephine Chia Literature Fiction eBooks
I was lucky enough to meet Josephine Chia and to hear her speak first hand and show pictures of her kampong life, as well as a picture of her beautiful mother when she was young.This inspired me to read the book about her mother's life and sad decline in her latter years with Alzheimer's. This is a touching rendition of the relationship between Josephine 'Phine' and her mother, but also about the family relationships and Singaporean life. I think I was spoiled by hearing her story first of all, but overall I enjoyed reading the book. I see this book as an insight into relationships and how Alzheimer's ravages both the life of the person suffering from it and those close to that person. I also felt it must have been a very therapeutic project for the author and was surprised by how critical at times she is of close family members. I hope they are forgiving! Or perhaps this is a cultural thing and I'm being very 'British' about how we keep ourselves to ourselves! Having lived in Singapore for a few months now, it could well be a mix of both!
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Frog Under A Coconut Shell edition by Josephine Chia Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
The Frog under a Coconut Shell
This is a celebration of the love between Soon Neo, a newly-poor village woman and her first surviving daughter. Soon Neo wants all her children and especially this daughter, Phine, to be educated. She does not want them to be like frogs under coconut shells, with no understanding of the world outside their own narrow environment. The early struggles of this gracious, gifted woman are made more moving by her final unwilling retreat under the `coconut shell' of Alzheimer's disease.
This book describes an extended family coping over vast distances with the traditional problems of aging parents and hostility between step-relatives. It also gives an interesting insight into the culture of the Straits Chinese or Peranankan people A Chinese group who incorporate many Malay customs into their culture.
The book is dedicated to those whose loved ones have Alzheimer's. It is also a good companion for those remembering the humiliations of childhood poverty and definitely a fascinating read for those wanting to know about life in South-East Asia in the 1950s and 60s.
The book is a tribute to a mother, who had the foresight, despite her own limited circumstances, to see that only eduction could offer her daughter the chance to escape from the confinement of village life in Singapore in the60s. Her conviction is so strong that she defies her husband, who believes that educating women is a waste if rice money.
The book therefore is a journey. For the daughter and her siblings it is a journey from poverty to being well off. For the mother it is a journey from fighting for her children to the sadness of Alzheimer.
It is obvious that it is a book written from the heart and the special relationship that exists between the eldest surviving daughter and her mother is wonderful to read. Although Ms Chia writes very honestly about the ravages of Alzheimer, the book is never depressing. Instead the reader encounters love, hope and the determination to overcome all difficulties, whatever the hardships on the way.
At the same time Ms Chia paints a picture of a Singapore that few Europeans will have encountered, even if they happened to be there at that time. It is a lifestyle lost forever but all the more worth recording.
Ms. Chia's book is not only a tribute to her mother but also a tribute to the human spirit. This true story is of an apparently ordinary woman who lived through the transision period from a totaly male dominated society to the present day. From the time when women were not regarded as worthy of education and were expected to obey their husbands in all things. From the time when it was a woman's lot to be almost continually pregnant and when physical abuse was not abnormal.
The story is told against the background of the Japanese occupation of Singapore and a life of extreme poverty.
Her mother's realisation that the only hope for her children, particularly the girls, lay in their receiving an education shows a degree of perception that must have been unusual in a simple woman living on a kampong when daily survival was a challenge in itself. That this lady not only had the vision but also the determination and tenacity to achieve her ambitions for her children makes one wonder what she might have achieved had she been born in a more priviliged society.
In her old age we see an old lady in a frail body and suffering from Altzheimers disease but we still see her as a dignified and determined woman with spirit.
Ms. Chia's masterly use of language enables her to captivate the reader without resorting to over dramatisation of the events.
A book that will change your life.
Frog in the shade กบและร่มเงา.
The frog lives in a corner of the pond shaded from the Sun and spends his whole life under a half a coconut shell. He thinks that this corner of the pond is his whole world and cannot imagine that life could ever be different outside. Imagined and this is no problem.
You do met people like this. Try as you will, you cannot pull them out from under their shell. They are totally proud of their little world and neither respond to nor are ibteredted in anything outside their experience. They just do like their parents did.
So this idiotic existence is what the author's mother didnt want for her own children.
I was lucky enough to meet Josephine Chia and to hear her speak first hand and show pictures of her kampong life, as well as a picture of her beautiful mother when she was young.
This inspired me to read the book about her mother's life and sad decline in her latter years with Alzheimer's. This is a touching rendition of the relationship between Josephine 'Phine' and her mother, but also about the family relationships and Singaporean life. I think I was spoiled by hearing her story first of all, but overall I enjoyed reading the book. I see this book as an insight into relationships and how Alzheimer's ravages both the life of the person suffering from it and those close to that person. I also felt it must have been a very therapeutic project for the author and was surprised by how critical at times she is of close family members. I hope they are forgiving! Or perhaps this is a cultural thing and I'm being very 'British' about how we keep ourselves to ourselves! Having lived in Singapore for a few months now, it could well be a mix of both!
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