Su-chen Christine Lim

#ReadAroundTheWorld. #Singapore

“To hate is to let the enemy win from within. Freedom is in us, and inside the music. Find it.”

The River’s Song is a beautifully written historical fiction set along the banks of the Singapore River from the 1950s to 1980s. The author was born in Malaysia and grew up in both Malaysia and Singapore. The story focuses on the government clean up of the Singapore River between 1977 and 1987. To do this they evicted and relocated about 4,000 squatters who had lived by the river’s edge for generations, their way of life tuned to its rhythms. They also moved 5,000 hawkers and their families from their riverside stalls to city areas, and dismantled and moved traditional boat building businesses, boatmen farmers, vegetable gardeners and their families. The protesting voices went unheard and a traditional way of life was destroyed.

The story focuses on Ping, daughter of a pipa player, and her friend Weng who plays the gopipa dizi (bamboo flute). The music is central to the story and the pipa’s music is described thus: “With a flick of his fingers, a thousand arrows whizzed across the night sky. Stars fell at the emperor’s anguished cry. The enemy’s armies pounded across the plains as his father’s fingers drummed on the pipa’s soundboard, and horses’ feet, anxious drumbeats, and the soldiers’ battle cries filled the room. The coolies crowded up the stairs, leaning against the banisters in rapt attention. Then just as suddenly as it had begun, the pipa fell silent.”

I loved the lyrical descriptions of music and place. The relationship between Ping and her mother was complex and sad. This was an evocative, moving story and I’d love to read another of this author’s works.… (mer)

Reading this beautifully designed book is like going to a museum and seeing a thoroughly researched exhibition on the Chinese diaspora. Photos, excerpts, quotes, poetry, more photos, captioning, and divider pages of Chinese-style graphic patterns make it an entire and fascinating experience, full of the hope, dreams, disappointments, joys, hardships, successes, failures, and the never-ending hard work of the Chinese who migrated to countries all around the world in search of improvement. A stunning, bilingual book, unusual in both style and scope.… (mer)