This Place Called Absence

Why is This Place Called Absence by Lydia Kwa not on everyone's reading list? I can't figure out whether it should be first a classic of CanLit, a lesbian classic, or a classic of immigrant literature. The novel takes place in two times and places: contemporary Vancouver and colonial Singapore, both settings rendered in vivid detail. The novel's modern heroine is Wu Lan, a Chinese-Canadian woman who is dealing with the death of her father and the seeming clash between her birth culture and the one she has adopted. While taking a leave of absence from her career as a psychologist, Wu Lan comes across a a book about au ku, Chinese women who were brought to Singapore during the 19th century to be sold into prostitution. She tells herself (and us) the story of Lee Ah Choi and Chow Chat Mui, ah ku who fall in love with each other in spite of the damage done to them by oppression, opium, and disease. The stories from the past and present weave together as Wu Lan learns that her personal tapestry must include threads from both. I highly recommend this book.

~In This Place Called Absence, Lydia Kwa beautifully combines the past and the present to show how four women from Singapore are connected through their different and difficult lives. Wu Lan is now in her forties and left Singapore 20 years ago to find a better life in Vancouver, Canada, since then she has become a successful psychologist. She at first had trouble trying to forget the traditional Asian ways of her past and dealing with her parents choosing to ignore her choice to be a lesbian and~~ not return to Singapore. Yet, the sudden surprise of her father's death by suicide has left Wu Lan very confused and is affecting her life drastically in which she now sees everything from a different point of view. Miles and miles away, Wu Lan's mother is dealing with the death of her husband in her own awkward ways by hiding the truth from others and talking to herself to keep from becoming so lonely. Mahmee (Wu Lan's mother) is also constantly worrying that her daughter is making the wrong~~ choices in life and will end up lonely and without a husband. Throughout the novel, modern day occurrences are paused as Wu Lan reads the journals of Lee Ah Choi And Chow Chat Mui. She reads the journals to become more enlightened on the issue of women being sold into prostitution by their families to pays off debts which is really starting to interest her more and more. Lee Ah Choi was sold into the prostitution trade by her family for a few bags of rice. Chow Chat Mui runs away from the~~ troubles in her family with her cousin, but with their arrival in Singapore she becomes separated from him and falls into prostitution. By reading the journals we are able to follow the stories of how these 2 women, each on their own separate paths, find each other and try to survive the hardships of life in the Singapore brothel. In the brothel it is very common that ah kus (prostitutes) be exposed to diseases and the harmful opium drug. After reading the journals, we go back to seeing how~~ they have affected Wu Lan's life. Lydia Kwa has used a very difficult writing process and still manages to put all together gracefully. At first I was a bit confused with what was going on with the journal entries and Wu Lan's daily life, but once you get more into the book you start to get the idea and become more involved. Lydia Kwa wonderfully describes each event with lots and lots of different forms of detail. The detail makes the story come to life more. Although, I did find some of~~ the more provocative occurrences to be a bit disturbing with all the detail, and this does happen a great deal in the novel. This can be a difficult book but if you are willing to take a chance I think you'll like it.~