THE COMFORTING WORLD OF ROMANCE NOVELS

I have just finished reading Blue Jasmine by Violet Winspear (1969) out of curiosity and all I can say is how on earth did I find the book so mesmerizing when I was a teen? I even recommended the book to my friends and boldly declared that it was the best book ever written. But then again, it was oh, so many years ago and the book I am talking about is one of the books by Mills & Boon, a British publisher of romance novels that left me and millions of others across the globe entranced once upon a time. The characters are unreal – the heroine has such a small waist that could be easily broken by a strong arm; the hero is usually dark, handsome, rich and hails from a desert or somewhere exotic. The plot is predictable – girl meets boy, girl hates boy, girl goes through turmoil and girl realises she loves boy or vice versa. For example, standing by an oasis hoping to be carried away on a horse by a rich Bedouin, better still the heir to the empire, seems to be part of normalcy. The text is repetitive – lengthy descriptions of the physique, cyclical highs and lows and of course detailed and procedural take of the long and passionate kiss. Yet, such soppy sweetness makes the books successful. It took me quite a while to read the book although there were only 187 pages., the reason being I could not get past the first chapter and kept dozing off. So I resolved to plough through the book and I finally did it one lazy morning when I refused to get out of bed as it was still raining and it was better to be in the bed room looking out at the rain than to be in the rain looking into the bedroom. What is real about this genre is that yes there is romance and yes it is fiction; thus making it romance fiction. The growth of romance fiction hit an all time high in the 1930s to meet the growing appetite for escapism during the Depression years. I guess it is great fun to be able to escape into another world when we are younger, especially when we come from all girls’ schools. It is like a world that we carve for ourselves, to read the books in secret if authorities frown upon them and to stretch our imagination where nothing is impossible. Taken at face value, the books are light entertainment and generally harmless. But some critics have accused the writers for being misogynistic and promote poor sexual health. The more recent books I hear have sub-genres which can be more explicit in their setting and style, but nothing near E.L. James ‘50 shades of grey’, I suspect. I wonder why people enjoy romance fiction. There is no right or wrong answer. Usually it is for personal enjoyment and because there are perfect endings where true love survives all odds. With all the hard knocks that the world dishes out, it is comforting to have something secure and familiar in the corner, in this case a romance novel. Some people think that romance novels are only for the single and dateless but I do know of some readers who are well into their senior years and are very married. Some of us have recently celebrated Valentine’s Day and there was the usual hate it or love it attitude with lots of questions in between. Was it is a money churning day, to prosper some and to make paupers of others? If you love someone, why should you show it only on Valentine’s Day? If you love someone why should you not show it on Valentine’s Day? Would it not be more economical and practical to buy plastic roses instead of fresh ones? Would you be accused of being a miser and a cheapskate if you had bought plastic roses? All said and done, love and romance do not have to remain as fiction only. Like tango partners both should go hand in hand and not flourish independently. I used to see girls putting more effort into the ‘romantic’ part of a relationship but now I see that guys are doing their share too. It is not so much the gender but rather the person – how the person has been brought up and the individual’s temperament that determines how responsible, caring or loving the person is. SOURCE: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/the-comforting-world-of-romance-novels-1.223723?

IT'S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR BRIMMING WITH NOSTALGIA

JOYFUL OCCASION: Chinese New Year always brings back fond memories of childhood THIS is my third year celebrating Chinese New Year away from the familiar. It is strange, but with each Chinese New Year I am reminded of the days of my childhood where it was certainly a very significant event. Somehow festivals are more spectacular through the eyes of a child.

I remember the new clothes, the abundance of food and most of all the fireworks. On the eve of the new year, my mum would be particularly busy cooking in the kitchen or cleaning up the house. There would be no sweeping of the house on the first day of the new year to avoid sweeping off all the luck as well. I would wait excitedly for my brothers and sisters to come home for the family reunion dinner. My eldest sister-in-law would always buy new clothes for me and I liked that because she had great taste. I could not wait to try them with my new Bata shoes, socks, matching hair clips and even underwear on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Clothes were usually brightly coloured, red being the favourite as it is an auspicious colour. There was always a lot of noise and merriment within the house and on the streets as well. I lived in a shophouse smack in the middle of town. There were two shops facing each other that sold music records and competitively they blasted a continuous stream of songs from the moment they opened the doors till closing time.

The array of food was amazing -- both sweet and savoury. There were tins of biscuits and the top favourites were the pineapple jam tarts, the kuih bangkit and the love letters or kuih kapit. These were not bought from any ordinary shop, but were specially ordered from the best nyonya homemakers weeks before the new year. My dad would buy crates and crates of Frasers and Neave orange squash and he would tie a bottle cap opener to the side of one of the wooden crates because the fizzy drinks came in glass bottles. I would collect the bottle caps for a game similar to the boardgame of carom. The empty bottles had to be returned to the shop. There was also ample servings of nian-gao which is the sticky rice cake (kuih bulan) that tasted lovely when steamed and rolled in coconut or fried in an egg batter. I remember watching my mum cutting it up into slices with a string instead of a knife before steaming or frying because it was soft and gooey. As for the savoury delicacies, there was a lovely array of assorted meats and vegetables. Whatever was left over from the family reunion dinner was reheated and somehow the latter tasted better. There were yearly treats like braised abalone (New Moon brand), thick succulent mushrooms, waxed duck and sausages. Dessert was usually canned longans or lychees. Sometimes I had sweet creamed taro or pumpkin, a typical Teochew dessert. The fireworks or firecrackers were amazing. I would rush to the window to see my neighbours hanging out long strings of firecrackers tied to bamboo poles. To a child, if the length of the firecrackers was very long, it meant that the family was rich. I enjoyed the explosion part when the last part of the firecrackers was fired, signifying the end of it all. There were torrents of visitors especially when my sister was a teacher. My sisters and I had great fun ogling the teenage male students who came to our open house, especially if they were handsome. We would also go visit our friends, usually in a group and the agenda for the day was to eat, talk and collect ang-pows. The best part was the ang pows that I received or red paper packets with money inside. As long as I was not married I was entitled to ang pows from my parents and relatives. Then I would plan to spend a bit of the money and keep the rest. Along the way we might catch lion dance performances and we would stop to watch the agile lions prance around and be mesmerised by the drums and cymbals clashing in unison. Most of all I enjoyed all the chatting. When the sisters and brothers got together, there was a never ending stream of topics to discuss. We could also get away with mischief because parents were not supposed to scold their children, at least for the first day. The television would be continuously on as well as my parents liked to watch Hong Kong or Taiwanese entertainment shows that featured new year songs. Normally by the fourth day of Chinese New Year I would have to go back to school. As I cycled to school, the major roads in town would be crimson red as they were covered with paper bits from the firecrackers. In my school bag, there would be pineapple jam tarts and Frasers and Neave orange squash. Then we would ask each other how much ang pow we had received and we could not wait for school to be over so we could rush back home again to continue the celebrations. Chinese New Year lasts for 15 days and to a child that is heaven. Happy Chinese New Year to one and all.

Source: It's that time of the year brimming with nostalgia - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/it-s-that-time-of-the-year-brimming-with-nostalgia-1.215917#ixzz2KTsKD8Dy