Malyasian Viewpoint
Sept 26, 2006 4:33:00 GMT -5
Post by helen on Sept 26, 2006 4:33:00 GMT -5
www.dimsum.co.uk/community/fusion-view.html
Fusion View Community
I took a much needed holiday to Malaysia a few years ago. I was working as a lawyer in London and the hectic pace was exhausting. The UK was where I now lived but it was good to be back in my childhood home with my parents, eating great food and enjoying the tropical warmth. One rainy day, I picked up John Grisham's "The Firm". It was great to have the chance to stay home and lounge around with nothing to do but read. As I turned the pages of Grisham's fast-paced legal thriller, I was struck by how the main characters in all the novels in this genre tended to be white and male and how the settings were often US or European cities. Why were there no thrillers featuring someone like me, a Chinese woman, in an Asian setting?
So the idea for my first novel, "The Flame Tree" took seed. For me, it was important that the protagonist, Jasmine Lian, was a strong Chinese woman with a career of her own - like many young Chinese women that I saw all over Asia, and in the UK and US. I had loved the books of Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston, about the hardships endured by previous generations of Chinese women. But I wanted to depict the modern generation of Chinese women, successful in our careers but still living within the Asian tradition. The story of Jasmine's conflict lies not just in her career where she must choose between the best interests of her client and what is right but also in her personal life where she is faced with the conflict of filial duty and making her own choices.
I had always wanted to be a writer as a child in Malaysia and I had always scribbled away in between my school work and then in my spare time during my career as a lawyer in London. After coming to the UK to school and university, I decided to stay on and make my life here. In many ways, I feel British and yet, I also retain a strong sense of being Malaysian-Chinese. "The Flame Tree" was my first finished novel and it was thrilling to see it published by Hodder & Stoughton and on the shelves in bookshops all over the world. It is now also a core text at university level in Singapore and is in its second edition (available by order at bookshops and at . I followed it up with "Mindgame", as part of a two book deal - a psychological thriller involving a plot to control Asia through mind manipulation. Part of the process of writing the two books was, I think, exploring my own dual aspects of being Westernised but also, at the core, Asian.
Since those two novels, I've been working on writing something more personal and it's been tough evolving my style from the terse, breathless style of thriller-writing. I started my blog Fusion View (www.fusionview.co.uk) as a way to practice writing in a more personal voice. It has also been a way to continue writing about fusion aspects in my own life as well as cross-cultural matters that are increasingly present in our globalised lifestyles. I've also used the blog to explore the process of writing and getting one's book published for the benefit of would-be writers - in the series called Getting Published, which includes a podcast interview with a UK literary agent. And it's been great for trying out some ideas for possible future books eg a number of posts have been about recipes and food in my life and these are evolving into a memoir which I have tentatively called "Iced Tea and Laksa". I've also managed to shed my thriller writing style and I am working on the first few chapters of another novel, "Tanming Traviata", an off-beat family drama.
However, the blog seems to have taken off in an unexpected way - with invitations to write for a writers' magazine Mslexia and also this website, among other things - so I will now have to find the time to juggle my day job and manage my blogging projects while getting on with finishing the books. I'm thinking of taking another holiday in Malaysia soon but I'm not sure I'll have the time...!
Find out more about Yang-May Ooi by visiting www.fusionview.co.uk.
Fusion View Community
I took a much needed holiday to Malaysia a few years ago. I was working as a lawyer in London and the hectic pace was exhausting. The UK was where I now lived but it was good to be back in my childhood home with my parents, eating great food and enjoying the tropical warmth. One rainy day, I picked up John Grisham's "The Firm". It was great to have the chance to stay home and lounge around with nothing to do but read. As I turned the pages of Grisham's fast-paced legal thriller, I was struck by how the main characters in all the novels in this genre tended to be white and male and how the settings were often US or European cities. Why were there no thrillers featuring someone like me, a Chinese woman, in an Asian setting?
So the idea for my first novel, "The Flame Tree" took seed. For me, it was important that the protagonist, Jasmine Lian, was a strong Chinese woman with a career of her own - like many young Chinese women that I saw all over Asia, and in the UK and US. I had loved the books of Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston, about the hardships endured by previous generations of Chinese women. But I wanted to depict the modern generation of Chinese women, successful in our careers but still living within the Asian tradition. The story of Jasmine's conflict lies not just in her career where she must choose between the best interests of her client and what is right but also in her personal life where she is faced with the conflict of filial duty and making her own choices.
I had always wanted to be a writer as a child in Malaysia and I had always scribbled away in between my school work and then in my spare time during my career as a lawyer in London. After coming to the UK to school and university, I decided to stay on and make my life here. In many ways, I feel British and yet, I also retain a strong sense of being Malaysian-Chinese. "The Flame Tree" was my first finished novel and it was thrilling to see it published by Hodder & Stoughton and on the shelves in bookshops all over the world. It is now also a core text at university level in Singapore and is in its second edition (available by order at bookshops and at . I followed it up with "Mindgame", as part of a two book deal - a psychological thriller involving a plot to control Asia through mind manipulation. Part of the process of writing the two books was, I think, exploring my own dual aspects of being Westernised but also, at the core, Asian.
Since those two novels, I've been working on writing something more personal and it's been tough evolving my style from the terse, breathless style of thriller-writing. I started my blog Fusion View (www.fusionview.co.uk) as a way to practice writing in a more personal voice. It has also been a way to continue writing about fusion aspects in my own life as well as cross-cultural matters that are increasingly present in our globalised lifestyles. I've also used the blog to explore the process of writing and getting one's book published for the benefit of would-be writers - in the series called Getting Published, which includes a podcast interview with a UK literary agent. And it's been great for trying out some ideas for possible future books eg a number of posts have been about recipes and food in my life and these are evolving into a memoir which I have tentatively called "Iced Tea and Laksa". I've also managed to shed my thriller writing style and I am working on the first few chapters of another novel, "Tanming Traviata", an off-beat family drama.
However, the blog seems to have taken off in an unexpected way - with invitations to write for a writers' magazine Mslexia and also this website, among other things - so I will now have to find the time to juggle my day job and manage my blogging projects while getting on with finishing the books. I'm thinking of taking another holiday in Malaysia soon but I'm not sure I'll have the time...!
Find out more about Yang-May Ooi by visiting www.fusionview.co.uk.