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How We Disappeared (2019)

Tekijä: Jing-Jing Lee

JäseniäKirja-arvostelujaSuosituimmuussijaKeskimääräinen arvioMaininnat
24911106,609 (4)39
"Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only two survivors and one tiny child. In a neighboring village, seventeen-year-old Wang Di is strapped into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military brothel where she is forced into sexual slavery as a 'comfort woman.' After sixty years of silence, what she saw and experienced still haunts her. In the year 2000, twelve-year-old Kevin is sitting beside his ailing grandmother when he overhears a mumbled confession. He sets out to discover the truth, wherever it might lead, setting in motion a chain of events he never could have foreseen. Weaving together two time lines and two very big secrets, this stunning debut opens a window on a little-known period of history, revealing the strength and bravery shown by numerous women in the face of terrible cruelty. Drawing in part on her family's experiences, Jing-Jing Lee has crafted a profoundly moving, unforgettable novel about human resilience, the bonds of family and the courage it takes to confront the past." -- Amazon.… (lisätietoja)
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englanti (10)  hollanti (1)  Kaikki kielet (11)
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4.5/5

“They didn’t bother naming the girl for a few weeks, but when they did, they named her Wang Di—to hope for a brother.”

In 1942 seventeen year old Wang Di , daughter born to a working class family is taken from her home in Japanese occupied Singapore to become a “comfort woman”. Renamed “Fujiko” she is housed with other young girls under the control of Mrs. Sato and spends the next few years trying to survive unimaginable sexual exploitation and abuse in the hands of Japanese soldiers who frequent the “black and white house”. She manages to survive the ordeal and returns home after the occupation ends but home is no longer what she had left behind. Shunned by neighbors and with her own family embarrassed and unable to cope with her reality, she knows that the events of the last few years will haunt her for the rest of her life. She never speaks of her experiences in fear of being judged and ostracized and eventually is married off to an older but kind widower who has lost his family during the war .

Fast forward sixty years , recently widowed Wang Di earns a meagre living recycling cardboard (referred to as ‘cardboard lady’ by her neighbors) . She has become a hoarder, a habit that has its roots in her war time experiences .She strives for a sense of security, filling the empty space in her life and heart with material objects. Before he passed on, her husband tried to help her face her past and encouraged her to tell him her story and share his own with her – an endeavor that could not be completed. “He knew what the unsaid did to people. Ate away at them from the inside.”

We also meet Kevin, a sensitive twelve year old child grieving for his recently deceased grandmother , his Ah Ma ,who on her deathbed revealed a family secret that she had kept buried for decades , the roots of which might shed a light on his own father’s true parentage. Kevin takes in upon himself to dig deeper before he shares anything with his parents fearing that whatever he discovers might cause his father further distress . He had already seen his father sink into depression after losing his job years ago , a state that had lasted almost a year and a half – something that Kevin does not want to witness again.

“That was when I learned that it was possible to disappear and still be there, that it was possible to disappear even further than he had. To be emptier than empty. Blacker than black.”

The narrative switches between Wang Di during the War , Wang-Di ‘s present life and Kevin and his quest for answers. The story continues in the present day when Kevin and Wang Di’s worlds converge and the revelations that are unearthed unravel a connection long thought to be lost which enable Wang Di and Kevin’s family to reconcile with their past and present traumas.

Jing Jing Lee’s How We Disappeared is an absorbing and profoundly moving story of family , strength and human resilience with themes of war, generational trauma, mental health and life changing impact of abuse and neglect . The author’s depiction of the horrific experiences of women like Wang Di and how such experiences impact every aspect of an individual’s life and relationships for years to come is heartbreaking. While most historical fiction set in the WW2 era are narrated from European or American perspectives, Jing Lee’s How We Disappeared sheds a light on the impact of WW2 and the atrocities faced by women in a different corner of the world – a chapter in history that is important and needs to be shared . The author says that she has drawn upon her own family history in crafting this story and it must be said that she has done a fantastic job . ( )
  srms.reads | Sep 4, 2023 |
Wang Di werd als zestienjarig meisje tijdens de Japanse invasie meegenomen en kwam in de seksslavernij terecht als zgn. 'troostmeisje'. Nu woont ze in Singapore en haar man is juist overleden.
Kevin is twaalf en deelt zijn kamer met zijn oma. Als oma op sterven ligt doet ze aan Kevin een bekentenis die eigenlijk voor diens vader bestemd was. Kevin gaat op pad om de waarheid te achterhalen. Die speurtocht leidt hem naar Wang Di.
Prachtig verhaal met verrassende wendingen. Gruwelijk wat mensen is aangedaan en hoe dit kan doorwerken in iemands leven. In de hoofdstukken komen afwisselend Kevin, Wang Di in het nu, en de oorlogsperiode aan bod.
Mooi boek! ( )
  Cromboek | Mar 13, 2023 |
Seventeen-year-old Wang Di was abducted at gunpoint by Japanese soldiers in August 1942 and forced into sexual slavery for the rest of the war. Her story is told in both the past and the present, where her husband is dying without their ever having shared their stories of the war. Kevin is a twelve-year-old boy trying to solve a mystery that arose with his dying grandmother's whispered words. Toward the end of the book, their stories become entangled.

I liked the chapters that dealt with Wang Di's life in the 1940s and would have liked that story on its own, or even as flashbacks with her current life. The inclusion of Kevin's story felt forced and out of place. I don't think it was necessary in order to have a meaningful novel. That said, I still found the book engaging, and I learned some thing about Singaporean history. ( )
  labfs39 | Dec 10, 2022 |
The protagonist of the book, Wang Di, is in her old age now, a widow. She is living in government-provided housing for the aged. Life is sad and lonely for her now; she's treated like she's invisible by her neighbors:
"this is what growing old is like, she thought now, staring at the hordes of people streaming in and out of the mall. Being surrounded by more and more alien objects, small, sharp-edged, and shiny all at once, until one day it simply becomes too uncomfortable to sit among all this strangeness. This was how the Old One [her deceased husband] looked in his last few weeks -- uncomfortable. He had no intention of moving into Block 6a, bright orange and built just for the elderly."

Wang Di is just 17 years old when she is kidnapped by Japanese soldiers, and taken to live in a Comfort Station, where women have to service Japanese soldiers. The idea was that if the military provided this for their soldiers, there would be less raping of civilians.
When she was first "serving" as a Comfort Woman, she tried to remind herself of her home, trying to remove her mind from the bleakness and pain:
"like this. I would not be able to go back. I would not be able to look at my mother or father in the eyes again.
That is what I was thinking about when the third soldier came in, the 4th and 5th. I made myself stop counting after that and kept my eyes closed all the way through each of them, their oil and dirt and rumbling, until they Eased their weight off me and left the room. Until the clip of boots outside the door grew faint, and died away. A woman came in to turn down the kerosene lamp in the room. Then all was dark.
I tried to curl up into myself, on my side, but when I moved, the space between my legs felt as if it had been lit on fire, so I lay still on my back and closed my eyes. That night, I heard someone crying on the other side of the wall. I was about to tap on the partition between us when someone yelled out in japanese. The crying stopped for a second before it continued, muffled this time, as if the person had clamped her hands over her face. Even when I fell asleep, the sound of her weeping seeped into my dreams, crowding out everything else. It seems like too soon, a minute or two, before I opened my eyes and there was light again under the door -- it was dawn."

Conditions for Wang Di, "Fujiko", as Mrs Sato named her, are brutal.
"Over the course of the next few months, I learned what to do. What not to do. Mrs Sato frequently urged me to look more welcoming. 'always so glum, fujiko. Smile a little, smile!' And I did, especially if I was afraid. I would smile and then when he was done with me, I would smile at the next one, and the one after. There was always the threat of a fist or a boot. A pistol, which I would see, tucked into his belt, out of my reach. The only thing I could do was not resist even when the days seemed impossibly long, when it seemed that the stream of men coming through would never end. After the initial week, I served around 30 men a day. On weekends and festival days, the number went up. 40, 50. Both Mrs Sato and Jeomsun had told us that we were to make sure each one of them wore protection. I tried once, pushing the soldier away and pointing at the condom that he had left on the floor next to the mat. He responded by getting his knife out and pressing it against the base of my throat, leaving a shallow cut that refused to heal for weeks, then a white scar after It did. With time I found that it was easier to avoid looking at them completely. I could control nothing else but what I thought about. Not the pain, which started between my legs, fanned up to my stomach and wrapped around my lower spine. Its presence was solid, constant. The more men I'd had to work for that day, the more likely it was that I got no sleep -- the ache, dull during the day, shot spikes through me when I was trying to rest. This pain, I couldn't control. But to keep alive, I made no noise, did nothing and tried not to exist. Those were the only things I could do."

For the birthday of the emperor of japan, the comfort girls are required to do even more: dance to Japanese songs and sing in japanese:
"While we sang, I couldn't help but think the gate was just a short Sprint away. A few hundred meters at most. How long would it take me? I wondered. And how long would it take for the men to draw their guns? The same men who had visited me in my tiny room, spat on me, kicked me, and threatened me with their guns and knives. I stayed where I was between Huay and Jeomsun, filed back in the direction of the little black-and-white house. Once we were inside, the smell of the house alone -- the rotted-fruit stink of crushed bedbugs; the deep, vinegary musk the men left behind -- was enough to make me wish I'd run.
Celebrations for the emperor's birthday also meant time off for the men, and so we worked long into the night. . ."

When Wang Di came to work in the Comfort Station, Mrs Sato told the girls that each man they laid with, would earn them money for their parents back home. For each man they accommodated, they got a ticket, and at the end of the day they turned their tickets into Mrs Sato. For this reason, Wang Di is shocked when the day comes for liberation, and at long last she is back home:
"In the end, I told myself that my parents had lost too much to banish me as well. My mother clung onto the hope that my brother might return one day and though I knew Yang was gone for good, I said nothing to her. My mother's version of the truth -- that her eldest son was stranded in another country, was surely making his way home -- was the only one she could live with after my abduction, the death of her parents in china.
'such a pity that you never got to meet them, your nai-nai and ye-ye. Both of them passed away in the same week, first my mother, then my father. I only got the letters months after the fact,' She said as she chopped up sweet potatoes, tops and all, for dinner. 'I made my own funeral offerings to them with what little we had and prayed for their reincarnation. I also prayed for you and Yang, that they might help deliver both of you back home... ' Here her words trailed off, as if she were still bargaining with her parents in her head -- just one more favor, one more before you move on and take the shapes of your new lives. 'I knew that they were ill but there was nothing I could do. All they needed was some medicine, I think. If I'd had anything to spare ...'
It was this. Her guilt and the thought that I would never know if I didn't ask now. 'But what about the money? Didn't you get anything? From the... The japanese?' I could hardly say it. The words. 'What money? What are you talking about?' Then it dawned on her, what I was referring to, and she put the blade down as if making a point. Shame or anger crawled up her neck, splotching it pink. 'don't think for a second that we got anything from the japanese. Even if we did, we would've given it back if it meant that you could be returned to us.' Here, her eyes darted left and right. Whatever it was, the thought winged away as quickly as it appeared. My mother left the kitchen and I picked up the knife, a chipped, unwieldy thing, the cold medal of rude shock in my hand.
I let this fresh Revelation steep in me for hours, Let It gather in the pit of stomach, believing it gone until I tried to close my eyes that night and found that I couldn't. The fact that my family had gotten nothing, that I had suffered for nothing, was less a surprise than an additional fact that I had to live with."

A terribly sad book, and not the less sad because it's fiction; It's based on true facts. One of the worst parts you realize, is that the Japanese denied testimonies of the Comfort Women, for years.
The stories of the characters of this book come together brilliantly. It took me a while, puzzling it out, which grandma belonged to who, but the ending is lovely.
humans can adjust to any pain, any grief, any sacrifice, and once in a while they get a little happiness back. ( )
  burritapal | Oct 23, 2022 |
Singapore, World War 2. Teenage Wang Di is taken, along with other young women from her village, to serve as a comfort woman in a brothel for Japanese troops.
Singapore, 2000. Elderly Wang Di has just buried her husband, who married her despite her past--he had his own wartime horror story, though she knows little of it. Meanwhile, another elderly woman, on her deathbed, confesses to her tween grandson Kevin what she did during the war. He takes what she has told him, determined to find the truth.

This novel looks at life in Singapore during the war--when Singapore was not the huge modern city we know today, but a British island outpost with many villages. Occupied by Japan, entire villages were massacred, women taken, rationing and hunger. The world Kevin knows in 2000 is very different--a crowded, modern metropolis. Lee examines themes of family and what makes a family, and friendship, shame, forgiveness, and memory. ( )
  Dreesie | Dec 1, 2020 |
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Sinun täytyy kirjautua sisään voidaksesi muokata Yhteistä tietoa
Katso lisäohjeita Common Knowledge -sivuilta (englanniksi).
Teoksen kanoninen nimi
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Omistuskirjoitus
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For the grandmas ( halmonies,lolas and amas) who told their stories. so that I could tell this one.
For Marco, always
Ensimmäiset sanat
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She began in the first month of the lunar year.
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"When this is over. When everything is as it should be, I won't go home to a hero's welcome. I am just a woman. But for now, in this place, I can save someone or I can send another away to die. I am as good as a man. Even better, sometimes I am god."
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Englanninkielinen Wikipedia

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"Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only two survivors and one tiny child. In a neighboring village, seventeen-year-old Wang Di is strapped into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military brothel where she is forced into sexual slavery as a 'comfort woman.' After sixty years of silence, what she saw and experienced still haunts her. In the year 2000, twelve-year-old Kevin is sitting beside his ailing grandmother when he overhears a mumbled confession. He sets out to discover the truth, wherever it might lead, setting in motion a chain of events he never could have foreseen. Weaving together two time lines and two very big secrets, this stunning debut opens a window on a little-known period of history, revealing the strength and bravery shown by numerous women in the face of terrible cruelty. Drawing in part on her family's experiences, Jing-Jing Lee has crafted a profoundly moving, unforgettable novel about human resilience, the bonds of family and the courage it takes to confront the past." -- Amazon.

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