The Power of a Garden | Stefanie Hollmichel

“Back in September I think it was, Grad told me I had to read The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. When someone tells me to read a book I don’t usually hurry off to get a copy, but Grad got me to read Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh so I decided to trust her on this one. She must have emailed a good many other people in Minneapolis to tell them to read it too because the book had a waiting list. Finally my turn came up and I am happy to say that Grad is two for two!

It is such a complex, intricate and beautiful book. The story takes place in the Cameron Highlands of Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. But the story is not about the Emergency though it is always in the background and sometimes breaks into the forefront. What the story is about is Yun Ling Teoh.

When the Japanese occupied Malaya during World War II, she and her sister were imprisoned in a work camp. Yun Ling and her family are Straits Chinese, ethnic Chinese from the British Straits Settlements of Malaya. Yun Ling’s sister was forced to serve as a comfort woman to the Japanese officers in the camp. Yun Ling, several years younger, was forced, first to work in digging what the prisoners thought was a mine. But Yun Ling was smart and resourceful. She made friends with the Dutch chaplain and asked him to teach her Japanese which then allowed her to serve as a translator for her Japanese captors and work in the camp kitchen where she could take food for herself and sneak some to her sister sometimes. When it was clear the Japanese were losing the war, the prison camp and all the Malayan prisoners were killed. All but Yun Ling who escaped with the help of a high ranking Japanese official. After the war, Yun Ling served on the government to help track down Japanese war criminals and those who aided them. In the process, she was also searching for the location of the camp she and her sister were at but no one had ever heard of it.”

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