BOTM BUDDY READ JUNE
We have finished this read! I did enjoy the setting of this story. It has made me look up and read more about Malaysia and it’s culture and history. So very interesting. Parts of the story I very much enjoyed and parts of the story fell flat or just was not necessary. It was a very easy book to read and flowed very well. The mystery was fun to try to figure out and I think the magical realism could have been written differently as a back drop and not explained to us so thoroughly like we are not intelligent enough to pick up on it.
Things I learned reading this book:
Mahjong
A game I love to play was bet upon in this book. A huge debt is how we start this read, how the pieces of the puzzle start. The game is still bet on in todays Chinese culture. Mostly by women. It is also hugely popular in Jewish culture, with women, which I was aware of. Mahjong is a tile-based game that was developed in China during the Qing dynasty and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century.
The Five Virtues of Confucius
“To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.”
Confucius taught five virtues should practice every day to live a healthy, harmonious life:
Ren, ren, is the virtue of benevolence, charity, and humanity;
Yi, yi, of honesty and uprightness
Zhi, zhi, knowledge;
Xin, xin, the virtue of faithfulness and integrity and
Li, li, correct behavior, or propriety, good manners, politeness, ceremony, worship.
I had learned this long ago and was delighted to think upon it again as this story progressed. I did not realize the mass importance it was in the Malaysian culture during this time in the 1930s.
WereTigers.
This was a totally new thing for me to learn about. In Malaysia, the idea of the weretiger is a beast who wears the skin of a human and comes out of the jungle to knock on your door and eat you in your home.
The novel’s title evokes this. There are a few ways in which a person might turn into a weretiger, depending on what part of Asia the story comes from. In China, legend has it that weretigers were the victims of a vengeful ghost or a curse passed down through the family line. It is also thought that the ghosts of people who had been killed by tigers become resentful spirits and will transform humans into weretigers so that more tigers are killing more people. In Thailand, if a tiger has eaten many people, it may take on a humanness becoming a weretiger that way. It is thought that powerful magicians could change themselves into weretigers by pure will. In Indonesia and Malaysia, they also have the same thoughts on the magicians’ power, and the Chinese belief in genetic lineage, but they also believe in the use of charms, spells, and fasting. Just YIKES.
I would recommend reading this and overall I would give it three stars. It was a complete joy as always to discuss it with others reading the same book and pages. This has been true for all the books we read together. It has brought about so much more knowledgable reading and insight into in this case what otherwise may be a so-so book. Hats off to Book Of The Month for having this as a pick. I would have never found this on my own..
On to reading MAID by Stephanie Land next!
