With In My Mother's House Author Joni Cham

Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of meeting up with author Joni Cham, who brought me a copy of her prize-winning debut, In My Mother's House. It was awarded the Special Jury Prize in the Novel Category (Premio Jose) at the Premio Thomas: UST Quadricentennial Literary Prize. The book was launched, among others, as part of DLSU's centennial celebration.

Proudly posing with her work

Book signing! Not her first and definitely not her last

At Little Tokyo
The novel tackles the strained relationship between a Chinese mother and a daughter raised in middle-class Philippines. I'm only a few chapters into the book but Joni, who has an MFA in Creative Writing from De La Salle University, is already showing how talented and capable she is in handling the nuances of her story.

In My Mother's House is published by Central Books for DLSU. It's available at all Central Books branches:
SM Megamall
5/F Building A
Mandaluyong

G/F Phoenix Bldg.
927 Quezon Ave., QC

Ever Gotesco, Manila Plaza Mall
Recto Ave, Manila
To know more about Joni and her debut novel, visit her blog at http://soyoufound.me or email her at sanapakaininmoko@yahoo.com. You can also follow her on Twitter: @pakainin.

Chain Mail Addicted to You (Hiroshi Ishizaki)

Two things have kept me from posting as many book reviews as I could have during the past few months. One: a business trip to Tokyo that had me occupied weeks before and even weeks after my visit there. Two: a role-playing game that my friends and I have been playing for the past ten months. I've gotten obsessed quite steadily.

It's hard to explain how truly addictive an RPG can get, especially to someone who hasn't played one. Chances are, I'll only get strange looks should I attempt to do so. In a nutshell though, an RPG -- especially one that is as long-term as ours is -- lets you develop complex relationships with the other players. It lets you populate an imagined world with projections of your own selves: a direct copy, maybe; an ideal, possibly. Sooner or later, you get attached to them despite your better judgment. And in building these relationships, an RPG can also isolate your from everyone else who isn't part of it. May sariling mundo, as we say in Tagalog, in more ways than one.

That's the premise of Hiroshi Ishizaki's Chain Mail Addicted to You. Four teenage girls find themselves answering yes to an enigmatic request sent to their phones: Would you like to create a fictional world? The game they play is fairly straight-forward. Each girl takes on one of four roles: a young girl, her stalker, her boyfriend, and a detective. Through their posts, they help build the action and flesh out the characters. But eventually, the lines between what is real and what is a game start to blur -- not just for the characters but for the reader as well.

Chain Mail takes the reader through the different reasons why someone would seek to escape into an imagined world. For example, Sawako is standoffish and isn't too popular with her friends. Mayumi, on the other hand, is devoted to her best friend, a star badminton player. She's never questioned her role in the relationship until now, when she realizes that she can make things happen, even if it's just in the game. Mr Ishizaki writes from each girl's point of view. It's a challenge, but he manages to differentiate the girls from one another. He is also effective in creating tension within the game. Even if all we read are excerpts from the girls' exchanges, sufficient excitement and paranoia is built to make us eager to find out what happens to the young girl and her stalker.

There are so many elements to Chain Mail that makes the reading experience an intriguing one. Though the twists in the story were not that unique, what stands out is the depiction of teenage life from something other than a western perspective. With its Tokyo setting, different concerns and motivations are pushed into the spotlight. Of course, with what I had revealed earlier, it goes without saying that I could relate to a lot of elements in this novel. My own experiences definitely color how I appreciate a book but I hope that you can give this psychological thriller (and a social commentary of sorts) a chance as well.

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing (Tarquin Hall)

"With respect, sir, this is hardly the time to be thinking about your stomach."

"Don't worry, Inspector," said Puri. "There will be no thinking involved." (p64)

Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator, is back on a new case where the stakes are higher. It's a case that has most of India talking. The victim: rationalist Dr Suresh Jha, who dies when a sword is driven into his chest. The murderer: the goddess Kali, who appears in front of Jha and his colleagues one early morning in Central Delhi. The religious nature of the case has people talking and pretty soon Vish Puri is called to lend his expertise. What he uncovers is a complicated plot that takes him from university halls to sprawling ashrams and mixes faith, science, and greed. 

This was my second Vish Puri mystery and though it started out slowly for me, I thought it ended on a more satisfying note. Mr Hall has great way of bringing India to life, not just through the extensive and vivid descriptions but even through his characters' nuanced speech patterns and thought processes. The circumstances in the book feel much more dangerous than they had been the first time around so it's amazing how Puri and his operatives use everything in their arsenal to ensure that those who are guilty are punished. Readers get a clearer idea of who Facecream, Tubelight, Handbrake, and Flush are as Mr Hall shares with us some of their backstories. The mystery also touches on the dangers of fanaticism and the corrupt practices of those who try to take advantage of those who are vulnerable. What drives people to seek out mystics among mortals and turn them into gods? How far would a man go for his cause? 

In spite of the heavy nature of the mystery, the book never feels bogged down. It remains a light-hearted read, especially when you have someone like the charismatic and enterprising Vish Puri for a protagonist. Also engaging was the accompanying mystery involving Puri's wife Rumpi and his fiery and delightful Mummy. All in all, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing is one smart, colorful, and highly entertaining read.

The Concubine's Tattoo (Laura Joh Rowland)

Ever have those books that you want to read but never seem to have the time to buy? For Christmas, one of my best friends Kaoko gave me Laura Joh Rowland's The Concubine's Tattoo. It's been on my TBR list since forever since I've always been partial to books set in Asia or have Asian elements in them. With the additional mystery element, I was really eager to read this. But since I kept seeing it around everywhere, it was one of those books that I always assumed I would buy eventually, no rush. Thankfully, Kaoko came to the rescue.

The Concubine's Tattoo isn't the first of the Sano Ichiro mysteries set in 17th-century Edo, Japan, but it's the first one to feature Sano as a married man. The opening scenes is of the samurai investigator marrying Ueda Reiko, the magistrate's daughter. Unfortunately, their marriage celebration is interrupted by the death of Lady Harume, who appears to have been poisoned after she makes a tattoo on a place only a lover is bound to see. Not exactly the most auspicious of starts to a marriage. This particular murder investigation takes Sano and his retainer Hirata into the inner chambers of the emperor's palace, and makes them deal with spurned lovers, jealous rivals, and a whole slew of political maneuverings.

One of the major draws for me is how the mystery takes place around a Japanese court. (Aside: I enjoy reading mysteries that take place in exotic locales. This year, I've read mysteries that occurred in India, China, and Russia, to name a few.) I thought Ms Rowland was able to transport me there and make me feel as if I am privy to what goes on there. Secondary characters and even suspects are fleshed out in brief yet bold sketches. Not everything is told from Sano's point-of-view, and I thought the additional perspectives made this a richer and more detailed reading experience.

Because sosakan Sano belongs to the samurai class, he has certain values and beliefs that hinder the smooth flow of his investigations. For example, handling corpses is a job for outcasts so you can't have post-mortem examinations left and right. Then there is of course the bushido code that Sano tries to live by, which prevent him from questioning his more prominent suspects outright. I like how Ms Rowland cleverly utilizes these in her book, making Sano Ichiro quite different from other detectives that I have read.

Now at the risk of sounding like a prude, I will have to admit: the sexual activity in this book took me by surprise. I know. The mystery involves the emperor's concubines, plus it had a newly-wedded couple in it, so I had to expect it, right? Uh, not quite. It was a little more than I had expected to read, especially given that this as my initiation into the series. Whether the rest of the books are as sexually provocative or not remains to be seen. Still, my curiosity has already been piqued by The Concubine's Tattoo . As a detective, Sano Ichiro faces intriguing dilemmas that I haven't encountered in other mysteries, and I'm eager to see what other adventures he and his crew will have at court.

Witches' Forest (Mishio Fukazawa)

It was one of those days again -- I needed a quick fix but my visit to Book Sale didn't yield much success in the YA department. I found a number of choice titles, though: Thomas Pynchon, Julian Barnes, Paul Theroux. At the last minute, I decided to add the Tokyopop translation of Mishio Fukazawa's Witches' Forest. It promises to be an RPG fantasy, which I didn't mind at all because I usually love that sort of thing.

Reading Witches' Forest definitely reminds me of the role-playing games that I play and the shounen anime that I watch --- so much that a part of me wished I had a manga in my hands. However, despite being a really easy read there is nothing much here to recommend. This is the story of Duan Surk, a Level 2 card-carrying member of the Adventurers Club, lost in the Witches' Forest after a pathetic stint with the army and accompanied by his grinia (lizard) Check. He teams up with the older and much more experienced fighter Olba October and then later, the fire-mage Agnis Link. It's pretty straight-forward, filled with familiar tropes and two-dimensional characters that make the plot trite and predictable.

But one reason that kept me going until the end was that the story acknowledged all those tropes and cliches -- embraced them, in fact. The characters had boss battles at the end of nearly every other chapter. They Leveled Up whenever they defeated a monster. They spoke of earning Experience Points. The book even has character profiles and adventurers' tools that poke fun at themselves (ropes that never break, lanterns that never run out of light). Given all of that, the entire story is actually very meta. Now if only it was half as interesting.

Witches' Forest is actually packed with a lot of action that if I were to turn it into an anime, I'd have a healthy monster-of-the-week shounen series in my hands. But then again, there is so much more to shounen anime that this story doesn't quite capture. So don't expect too much from Witches' Forest unless you're ten and very new to RPG. Otherwise, its charm might not work well on you.

Battle Royale (Koushun Takami)

While I thoroughly enjoy Japanese anime/manga/cinema/literature, I've always felt a little uncomfortable around the film Battle Royale. I like it enough, don't get me wrong. It's become iconic in its depiction of violence and fear, as it depicts the story of 42 students from Section 3-B of Shiroiwa Junior High who have been chosen to participate in the Program. The novel opens in 1997, and in this alternate timeline, Japan is part of the Republic of Greater East Asia. Its totalitarian government is behind the Program, 'a battle simulation [...] instituted for security reasons (p25)' where a junior high class is selected and its students forced to face each other and fight to the death until only one survives. It's the kind of movie I really don't want to watch again.

Given that, I don't really know why I agreed to read the source novel when my friend Oz foisted her copy on me. I was certain I was going to get more of the same violence I remember from the film, perhaps even more. What I didn't expect was a clearer look at the lives of each of the students. Even if they only appeared for a few pages, the students were given motivations and back stories by Mr Takami's skillful pen. This way, I really begun to see more than just typical cannon fodder, something that was not clearly evident in the film adaptation, though of course I can see why a different media would choose to treat the material differently. For the first time since I watched the movie, I understood what made Shuya Nanahara the most ideal protagonist in this situation. Shuya, a former star shortstop, is athletic, well-liked, calm under pressure -- and what's more is that he exercises estraint and aggression in equal measures. There is enough warmth and charm in him to enable him to get close to his other classmates at certain points during the game, thus affording us readers a better glimpse of their interactions and their beliefs. Through his eyes we see pacifists and sociopaths. We encounter cowards and idealists.

Shuya teams up with two of his classmates, Noriko Nakagawa and Shogo Kawada. Shuya feels a certain sense of responsibility over Noriko, his best friend's crush, and vows to protect her until the end of the Program. Shogo is a different story: an older, mysterious classmate whose survival skills greatly increase the group's chances for survival. Shuya and Noriko don't immediately trust Shogo, but eventually the two defer to Shogo's knowledge. This makes for some interesting dynamics. Shogo never wrestles the unofficial leadership position from Shuya despite the difference in their skills, acknowledging that he needs the protection Shuya offers as well. There's strength in numbers, especially when one of them is as athletic as Shuya. Shuya's trust also keeps Shogo from being targeted -- though not mistrusted -- by the others in their class. In the film, I actually questioned Noriko's role: superfluous and stereotypical. From start to finish she was a damsel to be rescued, pure and innocent, more disadvantages than strengths in a game like this. But it was the novel that enabled me to see her more as a symbol -- the hope buried underneath Pandora's box -- making her as essential to the purpose and message of the story, if not to the action.

When I finished the novel, I found myself reacting differently to it than I had to the film. Maybe it's because I'm a little older now and my perspectives have changed. Maybe the fundamental differences between both media naturally push my biases towards the written form. Whatever the reason, I am glad that I gave the Battle Royale novel a chance. Not only has it made me want to look for my old film CD and consider picking up the manga version as well (co-written by Mr Takami and Masayuki Taguchi), it's also given me much food for thought about fear and desperation in a collapsing society.

Tangerine (Colin Cheong)

With giant To Be Read piles plaguing us, my friends and I decided to encourage each other to attack these with an informal book club. For starters, we just decided on a general theme (travel) and picked books that we already have (win-win for everyone). Some of my friends chose books from established travel writers like Paul Theroux and Peter Mayle while others went with fiction. A friend even went with time travel -- hey, we're not picky. Mine was Colin Cheong's Tangerine, winner of the 1996 Singapore Literature Prize that chronicles how Nick, a young Singaporean photojournalist, travels by himself from Saigon to Hanoi to meet up with his old friends. Throughout the week-long journey in crowded buses and inexpensive hostels, he reflects on his alone-ness, in relation to his friends, his fellow travellers, and to his world in general.

Although primarily a work of fiction, the narrator's tone feels very realistic and consistent. This novella exudes a personal flavor that I wasn't quite expecting when I first picked it up. Where I was expecting a travelogue that would go into detail about the different places that Nick visits, it focused more on the people that Nick meets instead. Where I was looking for a taste of Vietnamese culture, practices, and traditions, it chose to reflect on the Vietnamese’s post-war sentiments. An example is old Mr Trinh, one of Nick’s cyclo-drivers in Saigon. He and Nick go to the War Crimes Museum and as they look on the harsh remnants of war, Mr Trinh admits that he has been one of the luckier ones. It shows a Vietnam rebuilding itself, a Vietnam slowly opening itself to the world.

It is this connection that gnaws at Nick. On his way to an informal reunion, he is forced to rearrange his plans and travel by himself to avoid tensions with a hinted-at ex. He muses at his life and relationships: his friends are getting married and pairing off. The travelers he meets at each point all have companions. As his thoughts travel inward, he realizes that somewhere he has lost his 'sense of pity' that allows him to connect with others. But if there's anything that this journey teaches him, it's to rediscover that 'sense of pity', that empathy.

Nick, a self-confessed by-the-book traveler, consults his Lonely Planet guidebook for everything. One of the tips he picks up is to bring a pack of Camels along and use it as an icebreaker. Though he is not really a smoker, he follows this advice and finds that it makes for a convenient icebreaker in Saigon. But as he travels north by bus, meeting all sorts of vendors and travelers along the way, he eschews the cigarettes for tangerines. Whether he is buying one or offering one to his fellow travelers, he slowly begins to appreciate that which connects him to others. Maybe it makes feel good to be in a position to help and give, especially in the rural countrysides of post-war Vietnam. In featuring Vietnam, the novella also paints a picture of the Singaporean adult. If we hold Nick up as a model, we are afforded a look into a generation's concerns, fears, and ambitions.

One thing that really resonated with me was his conclusion that he will never be able to see things the way a Vietnamese person sees it. I liked that he didn't try to be judgmental or attempt to give meaning to a culture and an experience that wasn't his in the first place. He actually extends this belief to his friends: that even though he and his friends have the common frames of references, he will never see things the way they do. In the same way, even if Nick's characters has a lot of concerns that are similar to mine, the novella reminds me that I will never be able to see the world as he sees it. Of course, reading his thoughts brings me a step closer to knowing more of his character but in the end, each experience and perspective is a singular one. The best we can do is to allow us to reach out to others despite this singularity, and find empathy, if not understanding. Though I wasn't sure where the novella was going to take me, and though I wasn't a fan at the beginning, I was surprised at how much I came to appreciate it by the time the journey was over.

Manazuru (Hiromi Kawakami)

Don't turn your head. Keep looking at
the bandaged place. That's where the
light enters you.

And don't believe for a moment
that you're healing yourself. – Rumi

This short verse from one of my favorite poets kept resonating with me as I read Hiromi Kawakami’s Manazuru, translated from Japanese by Michael Emmerich. Twelve years after Kei’s husband disappeared, she is still haunted by the loss. But that’s not the only thing haunting her. As she makes regular visits to the small seaside town called Manazuru, she finds herself constantly dogged by a mysterious spirit. Kei doesn’t know what is in Manazuru that draws her nor does she know what it is about her that draws the woman. In this restless year, Kei allows the reader a glimpse into the chaotic memories that invade her quiet, contained life.

It is easy to say that Kei is looking for closure. She remains adrift, trying to make sense of why her husband Rei left, uncertain whether to divorce him or have him declared legally dead. She still bears her husband's name though she lives with her mother (both surnames appear on the nameplates in front of their home). She has a long-term affair with a married man. She is unsure of how to deal with the changes in her teenage daughter. Rei lingers in every relationship that Kei has, and thoughts of him still follow her even when she escapes to the secluded fishing town of Manazuru provides a good backdrop for Kei's introspection.

There is an aimlessness to this whole novel. If the prose was meant to have that almost disjointed yet still poetic quality, then Mr Emmerich’s translation succeeds: 'As we were paying at the desk, I suddenly pictured the daybreak tangle of our bodies, and became wet. The rainy season was unusually long that year. We sauntered through a light rain, sharing an umbrella. Nesting dolls were arrayed on a glass shelf in a souvenir shop(p60).' From sex to rain to Russian matryoshka. I actually liked this strange jumble of images, as if I were joining Kei flit from one thought to the other, from the remembered to the tangible. I thought that this seeming incoherence and meandering underscored the surrealism in the text. You tend to ask yourself what is real and what is imagined, almost an echo of Kei's own questions about what had happened to her marriage.

I'm not sure if this is a characteristic that will be well-received by other readers. In the opening scene, Kei stays at an inn run by a family named Suna, which means sand. For me, the image aptly establishes the tenuous links between the events in this story, but I still found myself looking for something to anchor my reading experience. In the end, I found it in Kei's relationship with her daughter Momo. There is something so broken and disconnected and convincingly real about them, apart and together, and I was really invested in what happens to them. Many things are left unanswered (like who the woman is or what really happened to Rei), but then maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is that closure comes not as door slamming shut, but as a boat disappearing into the horizon, gradually drifting away until you are no longer aware where it is. Or maybe that's just my overly simplistic way of making sense out of a very complex journey.

The Eye of Jade (Diane Wei Liang)

Joining the Whodunit Reading Challenge hosted by Gathering Books has really encouraged me to read more mysteries, even if my challenge is technically over. I tried to widen my reading range when it comes to the genre, and one of the authors I discovered is Diane Wei Liang, whose The Eye of Jade was quite satisfying -- but not exactly for its mystery.

Mei Wang is an independent woman who has resigned from her job at the Ministry of Public Security to be a private detective (or information consultant, since detectives are banned in China). Aside from dealing with the challenges of debt collection, she also struggles with her younger sister Lu, a TV personality who is prettier, richer, and clearly their mother's favorite. When her Uncle Chen, an old friend of her mother's, asks her to find a very important artifact, Mei doesn't hesitate. The search takes her to antique stores and train stations, to hutongs and gambling dens, and even into her family's past.

Ms Liang's book is a sharp look into modern-day China. It paints a grittier Beijing, one that exists beside the grand structures of the Forbidden City or the tourist-perfect scenery of the Summer Palace. But in Ms Liang's case, 'gritty' takes on an almost beautiful quality: detailed in some places (Tofu Flower Soup was now all over the floor, white jelly-like chunks wobbling on top of thick brown broth (p76); poetic in others ('...one moment a caked face with smudged lips, and another, with the street lamps abandoned behind them like used-up chopsticks, just a pair of glowing eyes (p153).'

She takes her time with the first chapters to establish Mei's character and the kind of life she has by giving the reader a clear image of Mei's agency, her family, and even her friends. The mystery is only really introduced in the sixth chapter but because the chapters are relatively short, I didn't feel that the introduction was dragging. But as I kept on reading, I began to realize that the pace is deliberate; the artifact is a McGuffin and the real mystery involves Mei's own family. Readers who are looking for a throwback to the hard-boiled detective mysteries of old might find The Eye of Jade more of a family drama, but I think that Ms Liang and Mei Wang add a delicate and exotic touch to create a series that successfully marries the old with the new.

UFO in Her Eyes (Xiaolu Guo)

A short visit to Singapore really put my reviews on hold, but after coming home with 17 books, I'm quite confident that I'll be back writing at a more regularly pace. I picked a few of my finds to keep me confident during the plane ride home, and one of them is Xiaolu Guo's UFO in Her Eyes. In the near future, a peasant woman from the tiny Chinese village of Silver Hill reports hearing a big noise and a spinning plate in the sky. She blacks out soon after and upon waking up, she discovers a bleeding foreigner whom she patches up in her cottage.

The story unfolds through reports and interviews made by the National Security and Intelligence Agency, as they go through key individuals and witnesses in Silver Hill. In the course of three years after the incident, the village goes through significant changes that affects the lives of all its inhabitants.

UFO in Her Eyes employed an easy and lighthearted approach to tackle the issues brought about by economic and technological change, especially to a rural agricultural village like Silver Hill. It is almost heartbreaking to see the changes all over the countryside (that include the demolition of the Hundred Arm trees that were once the pride of the village and the loss of trade of its simple and elderly folk), but because of the format that Ms Guo used, the book doesn't come across as pedantic or moralizing. It still effectively holds its prose as a mirror showing the consequences that a lack of insight can bring, not just to a rapidly developing nation like China but to others as well. The characters in UFO in Her Eyes seem real, despite encountering them only through reports. They come alive through their own words and through what others say (or don't say) about them. Kwok Yun, the peasant woman who encounters the mysterious craft, goes through a particularly moving journey through these reports, as Ms Guo employs an exposition that is both subtle and probing. One of my favorite characters is her grandfather, Kwok Zidong, whose sharp language and revelations move me in unexpected ways. For a book that I picked up merely on the strength of its appeal to me (UFO and China? Sold!), this was definitely one of my luckier purchases.

The Noodle Maker (Ma Jian)

What Ma Jian has created with The Noodle Maker is a collection of lifestyles and ideals that grew under China's Cultural Revolution, were affected by the years that followed the adoption of the Open Door Policy while still under the Party's all-seeing gaze, and survived the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square incident. Here, a professional writer and his friend the professional blood donor meet regularly to chat and dine. The professional writer has been charged with creating propaganda about a hero who embodies the Party's ideals when all he wants to do is to write about the people who intrigue him. So it is to the professional blood donor that he confesses and this serves as the framework for this collection of tales.

There was a kind of horror and disbelief that I experienced when I first read Ma Jian's Stick Out Your Tongue. He was not shocking just to be shocking; there was a sorrow that permeated his writing, one that truly drew me in. That shocking feeling was absent for me here in The Noodle Maker but whether it is deliberately gone or I am merely used to his style is still open to debate. The sorrow is still there though, in the lives of people who wish to be more. Here the tales are similarly stark, and even if the characters branch off in different directions (an actress with an unusual idea for a live performance, the young man who runs a private crematorium with an added service) they find their lives weaving in and out of each other.

The collection is filled with truths that can be disconcerting and uncomfortable, moments of sharp insight. One of my favorites is a conversation between the professional writer and the female novelist about young writers. The female novelist is bemoaning the new generation's shallowness, to which the professional writer counters, 'Perhaps a purer form of literature will emerge from their numb minds. They have no prejudices, no interest in politics. Their problems are purely personal(p86-87).' In their exchange, I feel bitterness and resentment, even at the professional writers' words, despite his obvious defense. He is merely stating fact: '[the female novelist's] time is already over(p87).' Here is a generation introduced to the Self after years of dealing with just the State.

There are really so many layers that one can uncover while reading The Noodle Maker. Ma Jian's writing makes even the most jarring images a source of reflection not just of the self, but also of the world that controls us.