1962, A small town in Sarawak, Malaysia. When Lihua was carrying her three-month-old daughter on her back to move groceries, she didn't know that this would be her last "husband" day. In the next forty years, she held a stall, raised six children, and learned to cry silently at night.
In 1996, 18-year-old Chiping left Sarawak for Kuala Lumpur. She wanted to see what grandma called "outside." Later, she got married and gave birth to four children. She learned to cook the soup again and swallow her grievances. At the age of forty-eight, she took off her apron and threw it on the table, saying, "From today on, you cook."
In 2021, Jingjia pushed the bowl off the table and broke it on the floor. She said the first "no" for three generations.
From Lihua to Chiping to Jingjia, from the soil of Sarawak to the fireworks of Kuala Lumpur, from "tolerance" to "recognition" to "no". This is not a novel about suffering—suffering is just the background. This is a novel about how silence becomes sound and resignation grows bones.
Ps: Daily. It's not a cool article. The girls in my story are not tough, but they are soft and tough at heart. There is not much love part. Atypical, only writing about male and female protagonists, group portraits.
Intention: Do whatever you want without being bound by the times.