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Looking After The Ashes by Kopi Soh6/28/2023 I especially liked the description of “pintu pagar” in the Peranakan household and what was its purpose. “The House of Little Sisters is full of very familiar cultural elements. Through a twist of fate, Ah Mei finds a solution that will keep her and Hassan together, at the same time gaining agency that will secure her own future as an uneducated servant girl in British Malaya. She becomes Hassan’s Polar Star, and the young lovers must find a way to stay together. Ah Mei also meets and falls in love with Hassan Mohamed, an Indian-Muslim and an aspiring poet, breaking every clause in the rule book of love in 1930s British Malaya. Through Ah Lian, Ah Mei discovers the plight of the mui tsai, who are both helpless and powerful, and uncovers a shameful secret lurking in the shadows of the Lee house. There she encounters the spirit of Ah Lian, a mui tsai, who paid the ultimate price for her mistake. At the Lee household, Lim Mei Mei’s life education begins. She has been sold to the family as a mui tsai, an indentured servant girl. It’s August of 1931 in Singapore, sixteen-year-old Lim Mei Mei (Ah Mei) arrives at the home of Eminent Mister Lee on the eve of the Hungry Ghost Month.
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