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ká-sióng #5
Not Your Child
A by turns humorous, touching and harrowing story concerning Yu-Jie, a Social Media Manager for a local MP facing a PR disaster in the midst of a wave of social outrage stirred up by a troubling crime.
- GenresShort Stories
27 pages, Paperback
Published November 30, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 1, 2024
Really well-written insight into the trauma of sexual assault victims. The story takes place over the course of a train ride from Taipei to the south of Taiwan (it's not specified where) and feels like a snapshot view of the mental space the protagonist is occupying. It also makes quite meaningful points about the ways women are judged socially, particularly in the political domain. I thought some of the writing was really excellent, particularly the metaphors about boba and blank paper and I thought the recurring ghost/ghost month motif was an interesting element.
March 7, 2025
4.25* not your child explores the murky waters of sexual assault and its far-reaching ripples. yu-jie is an assistant of a political figure, madame mazu, who advocates for women and the use of sex education to prevent sexual assault crimes. mazu comes under fire when her response to a sexual assault case blows up on the news, and yu-jie is caught in the midst of it. the controversy largely revolves around whether mazu, a single, childless woman, has a say on how to deal with sexual assault on a child.
on an overly packed train heading towards her sister, the reader dives into yu-jie’s mind as she recalls the event and tries to deal with the aftermath. through that, it is revealed that she herself was a victim of sexual assault, and she’s anxious to prevent history from repeating itself in her niece.
this chapbook is a nuanced account of the complexity of women's roles and their boundaries. not only that, i think it poses questions on general human empathy too: will simply caring ever be enough for someone in power to decide on things they might not have a direct connection to? to what extent can you care and make decisions for someone who is not your child? it also suggests that perhaps all of our decisions are inevitably tied to who we are, and so maybe we can never really be objective.
not your child hooked me in from the beginning–the tension felt palpable, and the setting only amplified the sense of urgency. it was almost as if i was suffocating in that packed train carriage with yu-jie as the story neared its end. all of that is to say, i think this was a very well-written piece of work.
on an overly packed train heading towards her sister, the reader dives into yu-jie’s mind as she recalls the event and tries to deal with the aftermath. through that, it is revealed that she herself was a victim of sexual assault, and she’s anxious to prevent history from repeating itself in her niece.
this chapbook is a nuanced account of the complexity of women's roles and their boundaries. not only that, i think it poses questions on general human empathy too: will simply caring ever be enough for someone in power to decide on things they might not have a direct connection to? to what extent can you care and make decisions for someone who is not your child? it also suggests that perhaps all of our decisions are inevitably tied to who we are, and so maybe we can never really be objective.
not your child hooked me in from the beginning–the tension felt palpable, and the setting only amplified the sense of urgency. it was almost as if i was suffocating in that packed train carriage with yu-jie as the story neared its end. all of that is to say, i think this was a very well-written piece of work.
October 14, 2025
Not Your Child is a forest fire: a political assistant deals with the aftermath of her MP's statements on a recent case of the sexual assault of a minor, battling the dilemma of empathizing with vs criticizing the rage of self-righteous netizens towards the MP's actions towards the case.
This is a furious storm of a book. Lâu Tsí-û paints an accurate portrayal of the suffocating frustration of dealing with sexual assault as a societal and legal issue. There is a sense of suffocation under the noise of the crowd in the train and the online angry mobs, both in the narrator's own life – her own experience of sexual abuse as well as the people around her – and the political climate of the book's setting.
The dual narratives of the personal and the political are interwoven in a messy way, but Lâu Tsí-û intentionally and skilfully executes this technique to evoke the same feelings of rage and frustration towards sexual abuse. And it works hauntingly well. While the biting commentary on the double standards against women in the world of parenthood, in politics, and even in familial hierarchy, does not cover anything relatively fresh or new, Lâu Tsí-û manages to make the commentary interesting by amplifying the noise of it all, the way we fight and argue and battle to end up not finding a solution at all.
The ending line, which I personally believe is the thesis statement for this whole chapbook, is gripping: "Why must it be so slow? It was as though she had already travelled twice the distance, such was the difficulty, and yet, at the same time, it felt as though she hadn't made any progress at all." Social, legal, and political work on making the world care about women's rights feel so daunting sometimes, especially because every step forward would be followed by two steps back. Lâu Tsí-û portrays this fatigue, as well as the hypocritical, often critical yet lacking in substance, fury we see online.
As reflected by the title, Not Your Child is also a reflection on the ways our society views parenthood, especially in conservative Asian communities. Often the burden lies on the mother, and we punish the mother for their children's misdemeanors. And not only that, bachelorhood is seen as a sign of weakness in these circles. If you're childless – worse yet, unwed – you are seen to have a lesser amount of maturity than others.
And this is the idea that Not Your Child questions. Are the only people knowledgeable of what the best decision is for children people who have children? In Not Your Child, the MP's statements are criticized because she is a single woman, and she is branded by the netizens because of this perceived flaw of hers that she is incapable of making the right decisions regarding the children under her constituency. At the end of the story, we see that the narrator, who wrote the statements for the MP originally that led to netizens' criticisms, is notified that another political assistant – who is a mother figure – takes over her task.
Not Your Child also talks about the work ethics and burdens that young professionals have to endure in a world where the subordinates are always treat as lesser than their bosses, to the point that they are asked to do more than what their job listings might have outlined. The abuse and toxicity that hierarchical work environments induce add to the pandemonium in the story, making the narrative loud and uproarious.
And this chaos, though written intentionally in this book, is the reason why I could not rate this book higher. Although Lâu Tsí-û has tried her best to contain the mess and organized it in her own way, personally I felt that the narrative was going in so many directions that it was slightly meandering. There was just too many things that the author had tried to cover in this story and it made me feel more confused than satisfied. Overall, I would give this book 3.5/5 stars. Still a really powerful and incisive book though!
This is a furious storm of a book. Lâu Tsí-û paints an accurate portrayal of the suffocating frustration of dealing with sexual assault as a societal and legal issue. There is a sense of suffocation under the noise of the crowd in the train and the online angry mobs, both in the narrator's own life – her own experience of sexual abuse as well as the people around her – and the political climate of the book's setting.
The dual narratives of the personal and the political are interwoven in a messy way, but Lâu Tsí-û intentionally and skilfully executes this technique to evoke the same feelings of rage and frustration towards sexual abuse. And it works hauntingly well. While the biting commentary on the double standards against women in the world of parenthood, in politics, and even in familial hierarchy, does not cover anything relatively fresh or new, Lâu Tsí-û manages to make the commentary interesting by amplifying the noise of it all, the way we fight and argue and battle to end up not finding a solution at all.
The ending line, which I personally believe is the thesis statement for this whole chapbook, is gripping: "Why must it be so slow? It was as though she had already travelled twice the distance, such was the difficulty, and yet, at the same time, it felt as though she hadn't made any progress at all." Social, legal, and political work on making the world care about women's rights feel so daunting sometimes, especially because every step forward would be followed by two steps back. Lâu Tsí-û portrays this fatigue, as well as the hypocritical, often critical yet lacking in substance, fury we see online.
As reflected by the title, Not Your Child is also a reflection on the ways our society views parenthood, especially in conservative Asian communities. Often the burden lies on the mother, and we punish the mother for their children's misdemeanors. And not only that, bachelorhood is seen as a sign of weakness in these circles. If you're childless – worse yet, unwed – you are seen to have a lesser amount of maturity than others.
And this is the idea that Not Your Child questions. Are the only people knowledgeable of what the best decision is for children people who have children? In Not Your Child, the MP's statements are criticized because she is a single woman, and she is branded by the netizens because of this perceived flaw of hers that she is incapable of making the right decisions regarding the children under her constituency. At the end of the story, we see that the narrator, who wrote the statements for the MP originally that led to netizens' criticisms, is notified that another political assistant – who is a mother figure – takes over her task.
Not Your Child also talks about the work ethics and burdens that young professionals have to endure in a world where the subordinates are always treat as lesser than their bosses, to the point that they are asked to do more than what their job listings might have outlined. The abuse and toxicity that hierarchical work environments induce add to the pandemonium in the story, making the narrative loud and uproarious.
And this chaos, though written intentionally in this book, is the reason why I could not rate this book higher. Although Lâu Tsí-û has tried her best to contain the mess and organized it in her own way, personally I felt that the narrative was going in so many directions that it was slightly meandering. There was just too many things that the author had tried to cover in this story and it made me feel more confused than satisfied. Overall, I would give this book 3.5/5 stars. Still a really powerful and incisive book though!
November 17, 2024
NOT YOUR CHILD (Lâu Tsí-û) revolves around a resentful woman who manages the Facebook page and receives a call from her abusive manager while she's about to visit her family. For this main character who misses human or individual connection, she is desperately trying to protect her niece. Exposing politically correct x incorrect, this is quite a harrowing experience that offers some food for thought.
[ I received a complimentary copy from the publisher - Strangers Press . All thoughts are my own ]
[ I received a complimentary copy from the publisher - Strangers Press . All thoughts are my own ]
May 14, 2025
Rough start to this wonderfully-designed Taiwanese series of cute little chapbooks. I wasn't expecting triple child rape to be the first thing on the menu, but here we are. Unfortunately, the prose (or the translation) just didn't do anything meaningful or interesting with its heavy theme. Hoping for better from the rest of the series!
November 17, 2024
A book which does its theme very well - a hard-hitting exploration of sexual assault within families. It is not a book for me, but it is masterful at what it does.
January 22, 2025
A taut story about a woman named Chou Yu-Jie who represents / lives through the expectations of, attitudes toward, and assumptions about women—single and married—in Chinese society. Yu-Jie is an assistant to and speech writer for a Taiwanese female member of parliament nicknamed Madame Mazu who stands for enlightened values regarding women, women’s rights, and sexuality. In particular, Mazu is an advocate for sex education as a way to dispel myths about sex and eliminate feelings of shame and humiliation regarding sexual matters, consensual and non-consensual.
The story begins as Yu-Jie is at a train station on her way for a long-planned trip to see her sister. But while she’s been on her way to the station, a political blow-out has exploded across the internet regarding Mazu’s response to a family whose 10-year-old daughter was raped at school—a response Yu-Jie herself scripted. The controversy concerns not only Mazu’s response but also whether the sex education reforms she has endorsed are the cause. Also in the turmoil are attitudes about good parenting, the degree to which parenting habits contribute to or inhibit sex crimes, and whether women (like Mazu) who are unmarried and have no children are capable of defining punishments suitable for such crimes and whether the penalties for sex crimes can be adequately assessed by people, especially women, who don’t have children themselves.
The overcrowded train Yu-Jie rides serves as a metaphor for the tight social constraints women are in and provides a variety of social attitudes to be voiced and heard. As the story progresses, we find out that Yu-Jie herself (unmarried, without a child) was raped by her older brother, her mother’s venerated child in a society that values boys over girls, and that Yu-Jie’s motivation for visiting her sister isn’t because of the pretense of the national holiday but because her sister’s nine-year-old daughter is at risk of being raped by her sister’s boyfriend (if he hasn’t yet already raped her). Further complicating the story of the raped 10-year-old is the fact that a physical examination of the girl shows that the stranger who attacked her wasn’t the first person to rape her—that crime was committed by someone in her family, whose attitude toward the proper punishment changes once they discover it was committed by an important (i.e., male) heir.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
The story begins as Yu-Jie is at a train station on her way for a long-planned trip to see her sister. But while she’s been on her way to the station, a political blow-out has exploded across the internet regarding Mazu’s response to a family whose 10-year-old daughter was raped at school—a response Yu-Jie herself scripted. The controversy concerns not only Mazu’s response but also whether the sex education reforms she has endorsed are the cause. Also in the turmoil are attitudes about good parenting, the degree to which parenting habits contribute to or inhibit sex crimes, and whether women (like Mazu) who are unmarried and have no children are capable of defining punishments suitable for such crimes and whether the penalties for sex crimes can be adequately assessed by people, especially women, who don’t have children themselves.
The overcrowded train Yu-Jie rides serves as a metaphor for the tight social constraints women are in and provides a variety of social attitudes to be voiced and heard. As the story progresses, we find out that Yu-Jie herself (unmarried, without a child) was raped by her older brother, her mother’s venerated child in a society that values boys over girls, and that Yu-Jie’s motivation for visiting her sister isn’t because of the pretense of the national holiday but because her sister’s nine-year-old daughter is at risk of being raped by her sister’s boyfriend (if he hasn’t yet already raped her). Further complicating the story of the raped 10-year-old is the fact that a physical examination of the girl shows that the stranger who attacked her wasn’t the first person to rape her—that crime was committed by someone in her family, whose attitude toward the proper punishment changes once they discover it was committed by an important (i.e., male) heir.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews