Average Angeline: [HAUL] What I've brought with 1 <b>Malaysia book</b> <b>...</b> - Blog Novel Malaysia |
- Average Angeline: [HAUL] What I've brought with 1 <b>Malaysia book</b> <b>...</b>
- The Stockton Postcolonial Studies Project | Race in <b>Malaysia</b> <b>...</b>
- The 'disgusting' <b>Malaysia</b> Airlines <b>novel</b> and other controversies <b>...</b>
Average Angeline: [HAUL] What I've brought with 1 <b>Malaysia book</b> <b>...</b> Posted: 30 Jun 2014 10:17 AM PDT Hello lovelies! Happy Tuesday! Just being random of what I had spend with my RM250 1 Malaysia book voucher hahaa! AND YES, I brought these books right after they had banned to purchase stationary. T-T BUY PEN ALSO CANNOT AR? HOW TO WRITE? LOLOL Anyways, this would be my last RM250 (i guess) cause I'm currently in my final year of degree and since, I can't purchase any stationary; I decided to purchase some novels that I've been listed on my book wishlist! Everything I purchased are from Kinokuniya, I just love that bookstore (Plus point: Japanese fashion magazines!) I'm not really a person who really into books until one day I found my love with books, out of nowhere and my very first book is....Twilight. Yes, I know super cliché and cheesy but that's how my love with books happen. Well, my very first book I meant was the novel that I read ENTIRELY TILL THE END. I don't know why but I used to read my novels halfway and never read it again, I guess it's boring (?) Total of 7 novels : Let It Snow | John Green Paper Towns | John Green An Abundance of Katherines | John Green To all the boys I've loved before | Jenny Han Fire with Fire | Jenny Han & Siohan Vivian Eleanor & Park | Rainbow Rowell Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore | Robin Sloan Yes, most of the books are from John Green. I was hooked by his style of writing and his story is so captivating that I wanna read it again and again. My first John Green book was....The Fault in Our Stars (obviously) and later on, continued with Looking for Alaska and now I can't wait to start reading again. Currently, I've read 2 books from the list - To all the boys I've loved before by Jenny Han Was caught by the title and cover that reminds me of tumblr pictures, somehow. I love the style of writing that Jenny wrote and how the story goes and what I was quite disappoint was there's no ending! :( Probably it's just a cliffhanger, i guess. Overall it's pretty good. If you're into teen romance, you might like this novel. I'm planning to buy more novels from Jenny Han :) Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan Introduced by Buzzfeed's 22 Books you need to read this summer. Currently I'm still reading this book and so far, I like the story from the blend of ancient & modern technology and how mysterious about the bookstore and how the main character is gonna find out what happen. Perhaps, I will try to review on each of the novels? Comment down below and tell me what you've brought with 1 Malaysia book vouchers? I would love to know! :) Cheerios! |
The Stockton Postcolonial Studies Project | Race in <b>Malaysia</b> <b>...</b> Posted: 25 Jun 2014 11:03 AM PDT While identity is an issue in both Singaporean and Malaysian literature it appears in different forms within each. In Malaysian literature the emphasis that the Malaysian government has placed on ethnic difference is obvious. Individuals are aware of their status as Malay and "non-Malay." (see 'Malayness' and Being Malay/non-Malay). Despite the government's claims that they are taking strategic steps towards constructing a unified national identity, adoption of a national language (Malay) and similar Malay-dominant legislation has accomplished the opposite. The actions of the Malaysian government have deepened racial divides as displayed by the cultural conflict and division in Lim's Joss and Gold (Jeyathurai, 2009). While Singaporean literature addresses the issue of national identity, it is not so much an issue of creating unity within (which tends to be the Malaysian theme); Singaporean writers are concerned with creating a voice and space for Singaporean literature. Hybridity The novel, according to Wicks, is founded on underlying themes such as hybridity of religion, culture, and people. The statement "having all that I need on the island" and the main character's pride in Singapore shows that he is comfortable with hybridity, unlike the characters in Lim's novel who are preoccupied with the idea of Malay versus "non-Malay." Or, as Lim's character Abdullah explains: the social climate in Malaysia is such that the people of Malaysia are like "oil and water" and "cannot mix," in fact Abdullah believes it is best to keep "like with like" (Jeyathurai, 2009). Singapore, on the other hand, is likened to tea by Simon Tay in the short story "A History of Tea". Tay writes "I lift the lid and they are all in the pot: Grandfather Chang, Beverly's Grandfather Jones, Grandmother Tee…the Tees and Tehs…the Rajendrans, Beverly's English-Jewish boyfriend I have never met…" (Wicks, 4) Singaporean poet Edwin Thumboo, who is regarded by The Straits Times (Singapore) as the man who "spearhead[ed] the creation of a Singaporean literature in English," also embraces Singapore's inclusive multicultural society. His publication Third Map (1993) is said by Sharon Teng to have "established his reputation as a national poet committed to articulating a cultural vision for a multicultural Singapore." Literature and Legitimacy Language (Voice) Malaysia's separation of the foreign or anything "non-Malay" is again made evident in Lim's character Abdullah, who refers to English as a "bastard language." Lim's choice of the word bastard—a word used to describe an illegitimate birth—problematizes the ethnic divides in Malaysia. Here Lim demonstrates how the divide between so-called indigenous and non-indigenous peoples is actually a differentiation between legitimate peoples (citizens) and illegitimate peoples (aliens), with the latter not enjoying the full privileges of citizenship and ultimately becoming alienated. Although it is possible to experience alienation as a result of migration, as with Hsu-Ming Teo's main character in Love and Vertigo (who returns to her mother's native country of Singapore after living in Australia all her life), Joss and Gold illustrates the lives of individuals who have lived in a country their entire life—whose families have lived there for generations—and yet they experience "alienation" (Jeythurai, 2009). Jeyathurai points out that while Li An's passion for English literature could lead to the assumption that Li An is being "overtaken by the colonizer's language, Lim highlights that it is Li An who is in possession of the language" (Jeyathurai, 74). This is both a peculiar and yet logical reading, considering the fact that the Malaysian government hoards citizenship by making it exclusive to Malays. English is accessible to Li An, the fact that the Malaysian government frowns upon her use of it makes her possession of it an act of defiance. Li An's character mirrors Malaysian writers like Lim who choose to write in English. The use of the English language is therefore one of the signs of "dissatisfaction among Malaysian ethnic minorities who have become far less willing to tolerate a government and national identity that denies them the full privileges of their citizenship" (Jeyathurai, 65). Cultural Spaces This trend also occurs in a more recent novel, Preeta Samarasan's debut novel Evening is the Whole Day (2008). Set in 1980s Malaysia, Samarasan's novel transports the reader to a Tamil Indian community outside the town of Ipoh. Chinese and Malay characters are introduced here and there, but Samarasan makes the reader aware that she is providing a private tour of the Indian community on Kingfisher Lane. In a country where non-Malay inhabitants are not granted full citizenship, groups like the Tamil Indians and the Chinese create cultural spaces based on their traditions, beliefs, values, and politics. This is not an unfamiliar phenomenon, race politics and division in the United States prompted African Americans to create their own cultural spaces in areas like Chicago and Harlem. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Wagner writes that "the vast genre of diasporic fiction that conflates authors' ''exotic'' origins rather indiscriminately, contributes to globally marketed literature from Singapore or Malaysia [that is] primarily about subaltern women struggling to find true love in a patriarchal society." Wagner accuses Hsu-Ming Teo's Love and Vertigo and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim's Joss & Gold of having "further contributed to the region's only recently developed role in the internationally marketed postcolonial exotic" (Wagner, 80). Singaporean author Hwee Hwee Tan is also accused of endorsing the exotic: from her suggestive title of her 1997 novel Foreign Bodies, to its "exotic" cursive lettering, and its use of the familiar relationship between an Asian woman and a white male. Wagner accuses such authors of marketing the exotic in order to promote themselves, while simultaneously victimizing themselves (Wagner, 2006). Another critique Wagner makes (which is the reason for Wagner's concern) is that writers like Lim and Ming, "third-world" intellectuals who choose to live in the "first world" function, are considered to be 'natives' ("Within that space") and "not only 'natives' but spokespersons for 'natives' in the third world […] serving as providers of knowledge about their nations and cultures. The way these intellectuals function is therefore inseparable from their status as cultural workers/brokers in Diaspora […]" (excerpt, Chow, 1993) (Pillai, 2010). National Imagination In M.Y. Chiu's article Imagining a Nation: Lloyd Fernando's Scorpion Orchid and National Identity (2003), Chiu discusses scholar Ien Ang's concept of a "'national symbolic field'—the intertwining of history to create a symbolic field of feelings and experiences that can be called national imagination." Chiu writes, "This national symbolic field appears in Lloyd Fernando's Scorpion Orchid (1976) as a vision of a comprehensive national identity." However, Wagner questions the extensiveness of such an identity arguing that she is not sure she can credit writers like Hsu-Ming Teo as Malaysian writers since, despite Malaysia being her place of birth, Teo has spent most of her time in Australia. Translation In Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction (2003) Robert J.C. Young writes that "No act of translation takes place in an entirely neutral space of absolute equality. Someone is translating something or someone. Someone or something is being translated, transformed from a subject to an object…" (Young, 140). Young also discusses how migrants (like Teo) are physically translated from one place to another. "Having [been] translated…migrants then encounter there other translated men and women, other restless marginals, and translate their experiences to each other to form new languages of desire and affirmation" (Young, 142). That is, Ming's experience as a translated person (ethnically Chinese, Malaysian by birth, Australian by her locale) enables her to provide another interpretation of what it means to be Malaysian. It enables her to speak for Malaysians like her, the other translated men and women. 'Hospitality' However, Ang believes this practice of hospitality (inclusion/exclusion) has been disguised in an effort to resolve race issues. In "The Curse of the Smile: Ambivalence and the 'Asian' Woman in Australian Multiculturalism" Ang writes "racially and ethnically marked people are no longer othered today through simple mechanisms of rejection and exclusion, but through an ambivalent and apparently contradictory process of inclusion by virtue of othering" (118). In the article Ang makes it clear that Asians in Australia are more tolerated than accepted, a process Ang identifies as an act of 'hospitality.' Acts of hospitality appear in Malaysian and Singaporean literature in two forms respectively: tolerance and multiculturalism. Acts of Hospitality Tolerance In Joss and Gold, this imbalance of power is evident within the racial politics of Malaysia when Abdullah discusses the consequences of Malays like himself being pushed too far. Abdullah's opinion is Lim's way of demonstrating that the Chinese and Indians are at the receiving end of tolerance. Tolerance is an example of a contradictory practice of inclusion because it creates marginalized groups/"Others" in Malaysia. This marginalization is the source of dissenting voices in Malaysian literature. Multiculturalism This means that while Singaporean writers work to create a literary voice and space that celebrates Singapore's multicultural society, Singaporean literature (like any other literature) is not without its flaws. And, moreover, its writers should be wary of oversimplifying a complex issue by assuming that they are capable of speaking for all Singaporeans. However, because Singapore embraces multiculturalism and hybridity, Singapore's national identity, according to Wicks, is "evolving" with its literature. Malaysian writers, on the other hand, continue to challenge a national identity that excludes them from the national narrative of Malaysia. Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
The 'disgusting' <b>Malaysia</b> Airlines <b>novel</b> and other controversies <b>...</b> Posted: 24 Jun 2014 07:33 AM PDT Families of passengers from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have denounced a novel inspired by the mystery. Danica Weeks, the wife of missing New Zealander Paul Weeks, says she is "disgusted" by the release of the book, which came out three …
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