Blumberg-Kason, Susan (29 August 2019). " "How We Disappeared" by Jing-Jing Lee". Asian Review of Books . Retrieved 7 May 2022. Lee first won praise for her portrayal of the rich inner lives of Singapore’s social outcasts in her 2013 novella, If I Could Tell You, but with How We Disappeared, she has created that rare novel that speaks to hope as much as to grief; to resilience as much as to erasure. The notion of erasure is a potent undercurrent in How We Disappeared, where Singapore itself – an island whose shape Lee likens to “the meat of an oyster” – is another character in the story. And it is a character so vividly evoked that the novel serves not only as a powerful homage to the women who were shamed into silence, but also to the spirit of this island; a hymn to its lost lanes, kampongs, markets and disappeared lives. Wang Di is definitely a sympathetic character, and her story is tragic and harrowing-- more so, because it reflects a very dark time in history, and the stories of very real women in China, Singapore, and Korea during World War II. Her story is broken down into two parts: we see her narrating her story in the 1940s in the first person, as well as a very old women in the present day in the more removed third person. I actually found this really interesting; Wang Di was haunted by her traumatic abuse during the war, and I couldn't help but feel that she was given first person for these segments to show how immediate and personal these memories were, whereas as an old woman, Wang Di felt far more removed from her circumstances, as nothing could really rival what she experienced in the war. With no intention of diminishing or trivializing a comfort woman's experience, it must be said that Lee's portrayal of Wang Di is about as good as a comfort woman could hope for. With nearly half a million women forced into sexual slavery, it's estimated that less than ten percent - ten percent - survived. It seems a failed opportunity on Lee's part not to provide a first-person narrative of a second (or even a third) comfort woman who's experiences are a more authentic portrayal of the abuse, rape, trauma, starvation, disease and death suffered by comfort women. Most people are unaware of the occupation’s death toll. The conservative estimate lies around 40,000 (not a small number as the total population was around 800,000 in 1942). The dead were mostly made up of Chinese men who were executed during the Sook Ching (or ‘purge,’ a targeted ethnic cleansing).

Still, what I consider the main story is wonderfully realised in all its horror and terror. What is so striking is not just what these women went through during the war, but the shame they experienced as if they had done something wrong rather than having wrong done to them. The cultural burden of silence imposed on them by their families who wanted to just look away is what tore me up the most. This book follows the twelve-year-old Kevin's zealous journey to discern the truth about his grandmother Wang Di. Kevin is trying to discover what happened to his grandmother during 1942 when the Japanese troops rummaged Singapore. Wang Di was unfortunately shipped to the military rape camp in Japan. She sacrificed her sacrilegious concept of family for her own family. But did it go in vain? This book will give you the answer. Baker, Phil (5 May 2019). "Fiction review: How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee; Dublin Palms by Hugo Hamilton; Ash Before Oak by Jeremy Cooper". The Times . Retrieved 7 May 2022. This story is based on real-life women who were taken from their families during WWII and forced to be “comfort women” for Japanese soldiers. These women were forced into sexual slavery and endured starvation, deplorable conditions, diseases passed onto them from soldiers, and endless abuse. If they survived and were able to return to their families, they were viewed as traitors and shamed for their enslavement. If you are interested in books about WWII or books about Asian history, I think you will probably enjoy this more than I did. But unless you're really interested in these subjects, I don't think the novel has enough substance to really stand on its own and appeal to people who are strangers to the historical fiction genre and are looking for something light and titillating to read.Readers will immediately notice the beautiful cover of this Historical Fiction novel that looks at WWII from a different vantage point - the Japanese occupation of Singapore between 1942 and 1945. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. A shattering, tender and absorbing novel that centres around the unfathomable cruelty that women in Singapore endured when they were snatched by the Japanese Army and forced into sexual slavery during World War Two. It was harrowing to read of Wang Di’s incarceration as a ‘comfort woman’ - far too benign a description for the barbarism that she and thousands of women endured across the occupied territories - yet what rings out from the book is human resilience and our capacity to love no matter how damaged we might be.

Solo quando sono tornato a casa, ho sentito nel petto tutto il peso delle sue parole. L’unica soluzione che ho trovato per liberarmene è stata quella di mettere tutto per iscritto. È stato così che ho passato le settimane successive: di giorno la intervistavo e poi riscrivevo tutto con parole mie, cercando di raccontare la sua storia meglio che potevo. Ho scritto il primo capitolo, intitolato “Wang Di – 1941”, quasi senza pensarci, ma poi, rileggendolo, mi è sembrato che funzionasse. Così ho iniziato allo stesso modo tutti i capitoli. Con il suo nome, perché quelle storie appartenevano a lei, e poi l’anno in cui erano successe.” Jing-Jing Lee has woven a net of stories about a family that experiences hardship, loss and trauma due to the occupation of Singapore 1942-45. One main focus lies on Wang Di who is abducted from her parents and forced to work as a prostitute serving Japanese soldiers; another main thread is set in the 21st century and introduces us to Kevin who tries to uncover the secrets of his grandmother - the story is propelled forward by the question how the stories of Wang Di and Kevin might be connected, and while trying to figure that out, we are jumping between timelines and meeting their parents and other family members, thus hearing about various destinies marked by historical events while they where happening and long afterwards. 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.Overall, while I had some issues with this book, it is an evocative read about survival, female endurance and the long road to healing. Lee, an accomplished poet, has dedicated her narrative to “the grandmas (halmonies, Lolas and amas) who told their stories, so that I could tell this one”. So it is fitting that it begins with an elderly woman’s early morning musings about the circumstances of her birth, her too-short child­hood and the significance of her name, Wang Di, which means “to hope for a brother”. Before rising to the quotidian chores of her solitary existence in the year 2000, in her new Red Hill studio flat – the closest offered by the Singaporean housing board to the apartment she and her husband had shared for 40 years – she wonders how different her life would have been had she gone to live with her aunt. Or had she been approached by a matchmaker at another time and war hadn’t torn through the island. Jing-Jing Lee's How We Disappeared is a captivating and heart-wrenching novel about identity, displacement, and resilience in the face of war.

A heartbreaking and powerful read. Did I mention this was heartbreaking? It shattered my heart and it’s stayed with me ever since. There were times I didn’t want to read any more but I did, as to stop would have felt like abandoning the characters to their fate alone. This book got to me in many ways, I’m not going to lie. Banerjee, Argha Krishna (28 August 2020). "Secret horrors from 1940's Singapore". Telegraph India . Retrieved 7 May 2022. A historical novel about "comfort women" in Singapore restores the dignity of the survivors and criticizes the misogyny that marked their lives.How We Disappeared was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize, and longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the HWA Debut Crown (a prize for historical writing). [6] [7]