“Joss and Gold” is Shirley Lim’s first
novel published in Malaysia and Singapore by Times Books International and in
the United States by Feminist Press, in 2001.
The book is divided into three sections, each having its own distinctive
space, time frame, voice, society but all the three sections converge to form a
complete novel. “Crossing” is set in
Kuala Lumpur which takes place during the riots, in 1969; “Circling” is set in
the affluent middle-class, in metropolitan New York, in 1980 and finally
“Landing” takes place in the modernising post-colonial country of Singapore, in
1981.
This novel
serves and provides some space for the author to voice out certain issues that
might be sensitive to certain ethnics and countries to a bigger pool of
audience and readers from different backgrounds. There are many interesting issues revolve in
Shirley Lim’s “Joss and Gold”; nation, identity, gender, language, to name just
a few. In this paper, I will focus on
the male domination and the emancipation of the gender roles highlighted in
“Joss and Gold”.
Feminism
and Post-colonialism
In the 1980s, many feminist critics began to
argue that Western feminism, which had assumed that gender overrode cultural
differences to create a universal category of the womanly of the feminine, was
operating from hidden, universalist assumptions with a middle-class,
Euro-centric bias. Feminism was
therefore charged with failing to account for or deal adequately with the
experiences of Third World women. In
this respect, the issues concerning gender face similar problems to those
concerned with class.
Feminism has been concerned that categories
like gender may sometimes be ignored within the larger formation of the
colonial, and the post-colonial theory has tended to elide gender differences
in constructing a single category of the colonised. These critics argue that colonialism operated
very differently for women and for men.
The “double colonisation” that resulted when women were subject both to
general discrimination as colonial subjects and specific discrimination as
women needs to be taken into account in any analysis of colonial
oppression. “Double colonisation” refers
to what the women experienced in the imperial time, when they were
discriminated against, both as colonial subjects and as women. It may also occur when the post-colonial
societies restore their pre-colonial traditions and often muffled the voices of
women.
Male
domination
The gender hierarchy and
sexual politics are witnessed in this novel, through the character Gina, one of
Li An’s best friends. The male
domination is put to practice in the society with the justification merely to
preserve the ethnic identity and authentic traditional culture. In the novel, this state of affairs will not
happen if Gina were to be married to other races and it is also to be the main
reason why Gina’s father is all against her relationship with Paroo. Gina is hysterical when she learns that Paroo
had requested a date for the civil wedding and believes that “My father will
disown me if I marry a keling-kwei, a Tamil devil.” (Lim: 53) It is obvious
that Gina’s father is so ethnocentric in his viewpoint and could not imagine having
his lineage being “contaminated” by other races’ blood.
Another palpable evidence of male
domination can be seen through Li An’s mother.
Li An’s mother has no say and no voice of her own. Her life is completely being dominated by her
second husband. This can be seen in
line, “Li An’s stepfather, Han Si-Chun, a rubber trader who spent many weeks
each year travelling to plantations in the interior, had commanded every atom
of her mother’s body ever since – in childbearing, housecare, cooking, and
dutifulness to his family, his loud bossy sisters and infirm yet ever-present
parents.” (Lim: 10 -11) to the extent that she unwillingly neglected her own
children, Li An and her brother, from the first marriage.
In both situations
mentioned above, living in the patriarchal society, the female’s lives are very
much subjected according to the needs of the male, be it by the father or by
the husband. Male domination is a
culture that hardly recognises women as individuals. Both Gina and Li An’s mother are forced to be
the voiceless women and to remain that way, without their freedom and
independence in making their own choices in their lives. The only difference between Li An’s mother
and Gina is that Li An’s mother complies and conform to the norms of the
society while Gina chooses a “short cut” to demonstrate her frustration and
dissatisfaction towards her father’s treatment.
Despite being
in Singapore, the modern city, Li An finds that her daughter Su Yin, has to
face the unkind exclusion of Singapore society.
She is seen as “a con lai, mistaking her for a Vietnamese Amerasian – a
bui doi, child of the dust.” (Lim: 199)
She is fatherless; hence she has no position in the society. Even though Singapore is seen as a
businesslike country where its people seeks only material prosperity above
everything, the gender hierarchy still remains intact in the Singapore
society. It is important for Su Yin to
have a father because without one she has no identity. As Grandma Yeh advises “Keep the father’s name…Girls
with father’s name are more safe.” (Lim: 198 -199)
The Emancipation
The demands
made by women today on themselves, more so than by society and the imperatives
of culture, unlike many of their ancestors, are enlightened by Western
education, financial and economic independence.
They consciously free themselves from gendered roles, and assert an
individual’s freedom to choose her living and being. This change of the traditional image to a new
modern image of a woman can be seen through the protagonist, Li An.
She is strong
and independent and chooses not to suffer like her mother or her friend,
Gina. She is not subjected to the
oppression amongst the women in the male-dominated society. She dares to speak her mind and bombarded
Samad and Abdullah with lots of questions regarding English Language. When Henry, her husband, says that “men get
upset when women contradict them” (Lim: 71) she expresses her dissatisfaction
by saying that “A woman has no right to a mind of her own. She should only listen and echo what men
say.” (Lim: 71)
Li An, who has
a high ambition and dreams, breaks free from the traditional gender roles and
creating herself as the new identity, the new woman in the society. This can be seen from line, “She was wild,
smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, spent the rest of her small scholarship
funds on petrol for her secondhand Honda, and hardly ever washed her three
pairs of Levi’s.” (Lim: 9) and to Henry’s eyes, she is different from other
women, “She was like a Western girl – bold, loud and unconcerned about her
reputation.” (Lim: 15)
The theme of
gender is expanded in Book 2, “Circling” where in the American culture the
women are perceived to be more independent and self-assertive or the “new
woman” as portrayed in Meryl, Chester’s wife.
Here, Lim’s interest is to break apart the gender hierarchy and the
traditional norms of how women are usually perceived in the patriarchal society
as she unfolds the conjugal relationship of Meryl and Chester. Through these two characters, Lim attempts to
break away from the stereotypes of men and women and proves that women are also
capable of being strong, independent and autonomous whereas men could be weak
and wavering at certain times.
Meryl is a
determined and strong-willed woman. She
is committed to her career and would not allow anything to stand in her way,
not even having children of her own. For
her, Chester should go for the vasectomy because “It’s the easiest thing in the
world.” (Lim: 121), comparing to her taking pills which may lead to heart
attack and cancer. She is firm with her
decision without even considering the side affects on her husband. After an argument with Meryl, Chester finally
submits to her needs wanting him to undergo vasectomy despite him feeling
reluctant of the idea.
Meryl, being a
strong and independent woman, chooses Chester to be her soul mate simply
because she knows that “He is safe.” (Lim: 160)
She knows that he would not abandon her as he depends on her. Chester even sees her as “his geological bed
in which he was fossilized.” (Lim: 161)
Meryl is indeed proud to have a husband who always comply and abide by
her needs. This is clear evidence that
Lim tries to disentangle the gender hierarchy and the norms of the patriarchal
society. Instead of having the women to
depend on the husband, in this situation it is happening the vice versa.
In Book 3,
“Landing” takes place in Singapore in 1981.
Being a modern city, as argued by Quayum “Singapore is a new,
pluralistic nation, made up of mostly a diasporic, culturally deracinated
population, who are cut off from the past.” Li An chooses to leave for
Singapore immediately after her Amerasian daughter, Su Yin is born, together with
Grandma Yeh and Ellen, to seek a new life in this new place, in order to avoid
the exclusion from friends in Malaysia – for having an illegitimate child – a
phenomenon that cannot be accepted in the culturally bounded country as
Malaysia.
In the new
environment, Li An struggles to survive as a single mother and she seems to
achieve quite a handsome career. As
Paroo explains to Chester about Li An, “Li An has changed, she is businesslike
now. No more poetry, no more literature. She’s trying to make a buck.” (Lim: 214) This indicates that economically wise Li An
manages to endure the hardship living in a new place with a new surroundings
all by herself without having a male figure to depend on.
Closure
From this novel, it is clearly shown that as
a woman, Li An manages to survive well in the society in spite of facing numerous
hardships in her life, be it in Malaysia or Singapore. However, Lim has cut loose the norms and the
traditions of the gender hierarchy and place the women in the right position in
the society. Li An has decided and has chosen to continue her life without any man after being abandoned by Chester
and later by Henry. Through Meryl, Lim departs
from the norms by having full control of her own body and by being dominant to
her husband, Chester, something that is not acknowledged in the patriarchy
world. Lim’s novel helps us to think
about how women are being suppressed and refrain from leading their own lives
as in the case of Gina and Li An’s mother and how some escape male domination
by making sturdy decisions with strong characters. Lim’s attempt is to create a new and
independent woman in this challenging world.
Through this novel too we learnt that what we expect may not always be
what we get but as we continue on our journey of life, eventually it will lead
us to our destiny.
Works
cited
1. Lim, Shirley. Joss
and Gold. Singapore and Kuala Lumpur: Times Books
International, 2001.
2. Ashcroft, Bill,
Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial
Studies.
New York: Routledge, 2000.
3. Quayum,
Mohammad A. “Nation, Gender, Identity: Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Joss
Gold.”
Diverse Voices 2
4. Geok, Leong
Liew. “Situating Gender, Evolving Identities: Women in Four
Novels
by Catherine Lim and Suchen Christine Lim.” Mohammad A.
Quayum
and Peter Wicks, eds. Singaporean Literature in English: A
Critical Reader. Malaysia: Universiti Putra
Malaysia Press, 2002:
241-
249.
5. Lai, Amy. "Shirley
Lim". The Literary
Encyclopedia. 10 October 2003.
<http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2734,
accessed 16 March, 2009>
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