Durians Are Not the Only Fruit

Cultural Medallion #6

by Wong Yoon Wah, Jeremy Tiang (Translator)

In this mix of memoir, lyric essay and nature writing, Wong Yoon Wah takes the unusual approach of turning his gaze away from the people of Nanyang, and examining instead what surrounds us: the fruits we grow, the food we eat, the trees and animals that thrive in our midst. Along the way, he throws us fascinating cultural insights: how thunder tea rice, which contains neither thunder nor tea, acquired its name; how early settlers used the raintree to tell the time; how the behavior of ants can tell us when a monsoon is about to arrive. Throughout, Wong explores the mythos and seduction of Singapore and Malaysia’s tropical rainforest landscape and the rubber plantations of his childhood, getting at the very essence of humans’ profound attachment to place.

Genres: Nonfiction, Asia

208 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2013

About the author

Dr Wong Yoon Wah is a writer, poet, scholar and critic with an international following. He has published over 20 collections of prose and poetry in Chinese, and numerous articles on classical and modern Chinese literature, comparative literature and postcolonial Chinese literature. Born in 1941 in Perak, Malaysia, Wong grew up on a rubber plantation against the tumultuous backdrop of the Malayan Emergency and spent most of his childhood in a ‘new village’ set up by the British. He studied English literature at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, and pursued his PhD in Chinese literature at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He later became the head of the Department of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore. In 2002, he was appointed the Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Taiwan’s Yuan Ze University, where he currently serves as the university’s Faculty Professor of Chinese Language and Literature and Director of International Language and Culture Centre. He also serves as senior vice-president of Southern College in Malaysia. His many awards include The Epoch Poetry Award, The China Times Literary Award, the Southeast Asian Writers Award, the ASEAN Cultural Award and Singapore’s Cultural Medallion.

Reviews

[Mick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read the sample copy, thanks to Epigram Books that provides it for free. Check their website. This is an inspiring book, and should be read by anyone interested in cultural work. Durian trees are endemic in Southeast Asia, just as many harsh realities such as poverty and human trafficking are. Many of us who read and write literature choose not to explore these realities, because we are obsessed with texts that do not seem to prick our sensitivities. The durian is indeed a king of fruits, so rich in stories, so rich that the fruit itself is an impetus to meaningful discussions that revolve around topics like post-colonialism. Now, does the durian really stink, or is just an idiosyncratic statement of those who choose not to assimilate into Southeast Asian cultures?

Again, I have not read the entire book. But how I wish I could. For the meantime, let me quote a favourite line from the author's words: "The stories surrounding eating durians remind us that literature should incorporate low culture, bringing it closer to lived reality. These legends come not from the pens of the elite, but are assembled from the words of the masses, both written and spoken, passed from one person to another—the only way to create a text this deep and compelling."

Like they say, one does not need to eat the whole fruit to know whether it's rotten -- or not. And this is one of my best picks!

[chloe prasetya · Rating 2 out of 5]

a more utilitarian take on nature than i had expected. didn’t quite agree with the way wong near-exclusively described plants as an accessory for humans, e.g. as a source of food or employment. nor did i agree with wong’s lauding of the singaporean govt for the couple of acres it’s set aside for heritage trees. its commitment rings hollow when singapore’s growth model remains premised on bulldozing and natural erasure.

wong’s parallels between humans and the natural world were beautifully rendered (“the tropical weather is like the human temper - as the forecast is often wrong, so we are often the only ones who can fathom our own temperament.”) still, i couldn’t shake how anthropocentric they felt, imposing human attributes on nature rather than describing the latter on its own terms.

given the time wong devoted to describing colonialism’s environmental harms, the mildness of his tone surprised me. i found it ironic how much more effusive he was in his praise of colonial relics (the raffles hotel) for inspiring many an english writer. he also used oddly euphemistic language to describe the colonial administration in malaya: “sound management”, “understanding” their subjects, raffles “pioneering” the study of seasian nature, etc. only in the last chapter did wong reflect on the importance of “dwelling at the margins” and unlearning the supposed superiority of western knowledge. the lucidity of that chapter made the book for me.

[World Literature Today]

"Durians Are Not the Only Fruit is a delightfully atypical publication to find in English. A well-read person will be expected to be aware of the richness of English, French, or Spanish literatures, yet even many devotees of world literature are unaware of the geographic scope of Chinese-language literature. . . . Jeremy Tiang smoothly renders Wong’s musings and reminiscences, whetting the appetite for the translator’s own writing." - Josh Stenberg, Nanjing University

This book was reviewed in the September 2014 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/1o73VKU

[Kes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This illustrates the deep fault lines that run through Singaporean and Malaysian society. Even between two people of the same ethnicity, other markers such as education and language can present an insuperable boundary. It's easy to imagine how many divisions there are in countries which successive waves of immigration have filled a population diverse in any number of ways; harder to come up with ways of bridging these gaps.

- From the translator's note, when he describes how despite living in the same town, his mother went to an English school and Dr Wong went to a Chinese school - creating a fault line between them.

This is a book about viewing the world through everyday objects through which the author describes nostalgia for the environment, rural areas, colonialism (but not really imperialism), and fault lines through society (though, crucially: he tends to focus on fault lines within the Chinese and not really the other races).

I liked the arrangement of the sections - section one starts off with an essay about durians (the king of fruit), before going on to mangosteens (the queen) and rambutans (the concubine). Through this ramble, he talks about life in rural Malaysia (stealing fruits; enjoying the jungle) in a way that's inaccessible to the citizens of Singapore's concrete jungle.

Section two is about Chinese food being localised to Singapore and Malaysia. This is more academic than the first section, though it takes the form of reminiscence rather than an academic study. I loved the tidbits dropped in:

Today, the surnames Wong or Ng tell you whether the possessor of the original name, whether Huang, Wang, or Wu, is Hakka, Cantonese or Hokkien. The early immigrants used their dialect groups as a means of organising themselves, so the British rulers paid a lot of attention to the political dimension of names and their divisions.

Statements like this were also thoughtprovoking:

Many varieties of Chinese people means many varieties of Chinese literature, just as the Chinese have different faces - such as the Southeast Asian Chinese, whose facial features evolved in one generation to suit their new climate, turning a deeper brown beneath the year-round sun. In Singapore and Malaysia, I have only to look at someone's face to know whether they are English- or Chinese-educated, whether local or a recent immigrant from China. The Chinese will never be able to make themselves non-Chinese - their Chineseness will always be present in some form. Thus the complexity of what it means to be Chinese. The first time Singaporean or Malaysian Chinese visit China, they're always startled to discover how different they are from the Mainlanders.

And:

Even the Western colonialists' imperialist, orientalist historical narrative contained a certain native mysticism. On 28 January 1819, the colonist and explorer Stamford Raffles sailed for the first time into Singapore River with his naval fleet. This would later be presented by the colonial powers are his 'discover' of Singapore, even though the island had already been developed into an important trading centre in the 14th century. No sooner had the British commandant, Major William Farquhar, landed with his troops, than his dog was eaten by a riverside crocodile, which was in turn shot dead by British guns. This was the beginning of the 'new world' that British historians would locate here. Even though this incident really happened, we cannot help receiving it as somewhat surreal, full of symbolism and exaggeration, a nonsense story. Yet the crocodile is a native of the land, and the British dog an accessory to the colonial powers, so its devouring could represent opposition to the foreign power, and the crocodile's subsequent demise the violent suppression of local resistance, followed by massacres, subjugation, invasion and finally, colonialism.

Although magical realism first attracted attention through its manifestation in South American writing, the Malayan rainforests in the colonial era, with their complicated political situation and boundaries, contained such surreal manifestations that the mystical became merely a part of everyday life. Even before encountering the external influences of magical realism, the observed world in this region was already bordering on hallucinatory: lions and lion-hearted fish emerging from the wilderness, able to roam the hills and waters, representing the desires of this island's inhabitants. When it comes to the plants of Nanyang, even the pitcher plant, a humble vine, eats meat for a living, able to capture its own insects or small rodents. And in the lakes and rivers of Southeast Asia, a species of fish is able to leap from the water to catch nearby frogs or small birds. When it rains, a fair few varieties of fish are able to walk on land. In Singapore, the more frequently seen are the common walking catfish and the forest walking catfish, though it is the snakehead that is most famous.

To be honest, I would like to see the source of dog story, and the description thereafter a little too 夸张; but it was interesting.

I loved the essay on Mystic Fish. And his essay on Raffles Hotel is practically an advert for that place: I now want to eat there.

Section Three talks about the trees. He writes movingly about rubber trees, rainforest trees, and saga trees - trees I've seen but have always been the background to my life; never foregrounded as Dr Woon does now. It's a section that seems dedicated to nostalgia; in Cast from Paradise, he describes being returning to the jungle and being unable to sleep because of the unfamiliarity of the environment, concluding: "I am now a civilised city dweller, and the primeval jungle will no longer allow my return."

Section Four is ostensibly about the Animal Kingdom; but his sense of nostalgia (hinted at in the previous section) comes into full force here - he talks about realising that Banir, an area that he grew up in, is no longer on any map. Then he dwells again on colonialism:

The European-style mansions and clubhouses, flooded with light, were like a child's version of paradise. After we had cycled past all that into the Chinese territories, the flat roads vanished altogether and we were back in a dark, primitive, world. The winding roads were full of potholes, full of mud and tree roots that resembled giant snakes. Our bicycles bounced over them, and frequently tumbled over into the ditch, dragging us with them. At the time, how I hated the dark Chinese territory, and longed for the brightness of our colonisers.

As an adult, when I remember this contrast, I can understand how the white people derived a sense of superiority, how they came to believe that colonialism brought culture and wealth, civilisation and light to the darkness of Nanyang. They wanted to rescue us from ignorance, poverty and backwardness. But we have grown up now and this is how we view this period: our colonisers stripped Nanyang of its natural resources, leaving behind only shady avenues, grand mansions and clubhouses.

(From Banir Blues)

And he repeats this theme in My Marginal Home, where he says:

In colonised countries, where the native people are pushed to the extremities, are neglected, even rejected, this ultimately gives them the space to develop resistance to hegemony, creating a language that encompasses many culture.

I do think this book could have been made a lot better by simply dating the essays; at some points, he seems to have a garden in Singapore (suggesting landed property?); at others, he refers to living in a condo. I wish it was clearer that these are written at different times.

I would add that this is a book that feels like a primer; he's reminiscing about his history; but he's not really arguing for or against any thing (or any fault line). You're reading this to enjoy the emotions each essay brings up, or to look at items in new ways - and that is fine.

[Nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who primarily associates Nanyang with a single school, I found this an accessible primer on rural/pre-modern Chinese Malayan history and culture, especially as told through its food. Wong's essay on leicha mapped the culinary evolution of the dish to parallel linguistic, literary, and cultural changes in the diaspora, which helped me draw connections between a bunch of different information I was only vaguely aware of before. The essays are largely anecdotal and often nostalgic slices of life, with some iffy forays into argument. For instance, there's a strong emphasis on the diversity of the Chinese diaspora, but also a tacit acceptance of groups like "Chinese-educated Malaysians" as monolithic, which undermines Wong's insistence that we recognise the differences between communities.

[Elaine T · Rating 5 out of 5]

The descriptions in this book are so persuasive, it feels as though one is truly journeying in the essay next to the writer.