The Gift of Rain-By Tan Twan Eng

  The Gift of Rain could be one of the best books that illustrate this region’s pre-war and post-war colonial history. It is about Philip Hutton, a Eurasian born to a British father and Chinese mother in Penang. Malaysia. He struggles to realize his self-identity, should he belong to the Chinese community or the British community. With his mother dying when he was young, being the youngest child in the family and a confusing and complex family background, he seeks refuge and self-discovery with a Japanese, Endo San, staying on his father’s island, learning martial arts, Japanese, however, to discover later he is a spy when World War 2 breaks out in South-East Asia, and is forced to make hard decisions to save his family and friends. He recall this many years later when  the wife of the late Mr. Endo came to visit him when he was 72 years old.

  Personally speaking, I feel that this book shows a very vivid description of the Malaysia peninsula’s beauty and splendor at that time in history. The strong emotions and pains in the many characters are highlighted strongly, and it was with much interest and thought too when I was coincidently, reading this book on holiday in Ipoh, Malaysia.

  The main theme that resonates in this story is destiny and choice. Is our life a matter of our own hands or our fate? It attempts to look at this in both Western and Eastern points of view. However, I feel that the author may have put too much emphasis into the Eastern ideology, which is forgivable, given the context of this story. Even so, I feel that a line in the story struck me, even thought I believe that life is about your own choice and lies in your own hands. When Philip asks his grandfather about choice, he asks him back “Who makes the choices for you then?”

  It made me think hard really. I had encountered failures too in my life. It may not seem significant now, but then, it was really a hard time and we often want to blame the Gods, the heavens for our suffering and where we are now. However, I personally think if there is such a thing as fate, we still can live differently.

  In our lives, we always meet things we do not like, and want another choice.  However, is it not our responsibility too? When we make the wrong decisions, when we have sad and unlucky encounters, we blame fate. More often than not, we are the ones who chose to make the decision in the first place, and since we had made such a decision and this had happened to us, there is no use denying and just accepting the ways things had turned out. World War One and Two did not just end due to luck and miracles. The Nuclear bomb did not fall onto Japan without its reasons. Disasters had been linked to Climate Change and Global Warming, whose responsibility can ultimately be attributed to humanity. There is no denying that we are the authors of many of our failures, but are we willing to learn from it? There should not be crying over spilt milk. Instead of blaming something we cannot see, we need to take up the moral courage and personal responsibility to reflect and admit we had been wrong too, live on and persevere. Only then can we change in future to become a stronger person. Only in agreeing that we have a part in our pains, can there be salvation.

  However, another argument is that what happens to us can be unexpected and are beyond our control, like Natural Disasters, illnesses and other “Acts of God”. This could be used to show that fate chooses our lives. However, the blessing that humans also have is their brain. The ability to persevere, never look back and just accept things for the way they are. People are pulled out of rubble from earthquakes mostly because of their perseverance to live on and their strong human spirit. Such scenes were seen in Xinjinag Province in China in 2008, Japan this year and Christchurch, New Zealand similarly. The Japanese Economy had recovered quickly as the Japanese do not sit around and mourn but work their way out of their problem. We have a choice to take the hard way out or sit and die in the flood of doom. What will be our decision?

  Fate may be a realm of religion and myth, or it could be very real in our lives. However, despite our beliefs, to end off, we must always remember that ultimately, we are still the pavers of the large part of the road we make and walk on, and there is always a way, a reason and silver lining in a dark cloud.

Who Will Listen?

   I was watching the news one day when I noticed the famine situation happening in the Horn of Africa, and Somalia made me recall the production that I watched a while ago held by the English Drama Club of our school, in collaboration with Clementi Secondary School. It was quite an interesting Friday evening for all of us who went there to watch and support our friend. However, the last play in the production was what I recalled as I watched the famine unfolding in Africa.

  The play, Checkmate, was about a future world that is made up of only one country. There is a water station, which is the only freshwater source left in the world. However, there is a limited supply of water. Thus, the king, the leader of the country, is facing a dilemma. Who will get the water and who will not? His advisers and him then decided that getting rid of the lower class was probably the best way to ensure the survival of everyone else. Thus, the lower class were left to die or exterminated. It was supposedly a better world with only the middle and upper classes.

  However, there was a problem, maintenance of the water station's filtration system led to a further lack of water. There was a need to get rid of more people and thus a evil scheme was underway, the advisers sabotaged one another, and in the end, the one that was last civilized was exterminated, or “checkmated”. The king got the secret police to kill his enemies and those who were the weakest of the flock. However, the king’s son found out about this. While he had always been against the king’s cruel methods, his father, getting the excuse that he was too young to understand what was going on in this world, had given him the cold shoulder. However, this was the last straw and he led a revolution to stop this totalitarian regime from going on. However, it did not work and he was captured. Even though his father was furious over it, he spared him, but the son, in a act of martyrdom, sacrificed himself and finally the father regretted his actions.

  This shows a quite obvious phenomenon happening in our world today, There is an emphasis on the people who are useful and leaving the once who can’t cope to die. It had happened so very often and is still going on today. The famine in Africa has been declared as a humanitarian crisis. Yet the deficits and risk of defaults dominate the headlines all day. I have seen shocking comments of how Africans only know how to have lots of children and corruption, which is why this famine is their own fault. However, I wonder if most people have not sat down to consider a few things. How does Africa step out of their poverty if the world does not care? The simplistic view that Africans do not know how to use their resources is wrong. The world does not give enough help to these poor nations. They contend with allowing corrupt officials and groups to become even more so, and we use Africa as a rubbish dump. In a Newsweek article, it was commented that the Western World’s E- Waste mostly end up in poor countries, such as outside Ghana in the other end of Africa. In order to have birth control, the people of Africa need to have proper contraception devices and education, both of which is not provided to them by richer nations. In order for Africa to do well, it is essential that other countries start caring and lose their simplistic views.

  There is a excuse countries like the US is not able to help others if they cannot help themselves. Yet this shows a very big flaw. While it is true that the USA is suffering from a debt problem, the shocking reality is that the richest 1% of US Americans earns nearly a quarter of the country's income and controls an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Yet another form of greed is underway in developed nations. The richest people and large Companies are becoming richer each day while the poor become poorer. The selfish behaviour and lack to share had been the reason for these dilemmas in the world today.

  The excuse used by some to justify this is that the weakest of the flock causes their own problems. However, that is once again a simple assumption by others on this matter. Some are just born to be weaker, but when we do not give them a chance and leave them to die, like in the case of the famine in Africa, and when we are doing so much better like large corporations, yet use these people to our advantage and selfishly keep the money to ourselves, it really becomes a question of morals and initiative. As humans, if we are doing so much better, should we not show more compassion for others who are not doing as better than us? Or have we lost our moral values in our pursuit of wealth, power and comfort? Do we now care so much about money, celebrities and entertainment and choose to turn a blind eye, which explains why our media had been so quiet about the famine going on in Africa.

  There are still signs of compassion and love in people. The UN has started to airlift aid into Somalia. The important thing we should always remember is that while we are not pursuing an utopian or equal society, as it is impossible, we should always extend a helping hand to others in need when we can, or risk letting pragmatism and pursuit of materialistic needs rule of life, for if we do not try to help others, who will listen?