Malayan setting – Read and Write

At Ji Lin’s part time job as a dance hall girl in Ipoh, she stumbles upon a preserved finger left by one of her dance partners. With the finger in her possession, frightening events happen. The previous finger owner dies and strange dreams of a boy, Yi recur. With the help of her stepbrother, Shin, Ji Lin tries to get rid of the finger. At the same time, Ren, a Malayan houseboy is searching for the finger because he believes he must bury his previous boss’s digit with the rest of his body. Another death occurs that locals believe is caused by a weretiger and when Ji Lin and Shin tidy Batu Gajah hospital’s storeroom, they discover other preserved fingers are missing. What is it about the increasing number of deaths in the district, the fingers, Ji Lin’s contact with Yi through her dreams and the houseboy, Ren that connects them in this mysterious and sometimes dream like world?

Yun Ling is the only survivor from a hidden Japanese prison camp in Malaya’s highlands during the second world war. Trying to swallow her hatred of the Japanese, she becomes an apprentice to the skilled Aritomo to learn the techniques of creating a Japanese garden she wishes to dedicate to the sister she lost in the prison camp. But there are secrets she wants to uncover — where was the prison camp she was locked up in for over three years? Where are her sister’s bones? Why has Aritomo never returned to Japan?

This is an insight into Malay before independence and its struggles to overcome WWII and the internal fighting after the war as well as principles in designing a Japanese garden.

Read and Write

Yangsze Choo’s — The night tiger *****

Tan Than Eng’s — The garden of evening mist *****