4“I remember the first morning of the great change…” I begin to tell Dr Forrest, but I can’t go on. Pain and joy collide when I think of those days in Chinatown. How thrilled I was with the light flooding our new room. Ah-ku had moved into the largest bedroom in the three-storey tenement shophouse. It had a window that looked out onto the street below. Our landlady, Kim Poh, Molek Ee, Mrs Lee, the hawker’s wife and the butcher’s wife, and some of the other tenants had crowded into our room to gawk at her new bed and dressing table with a huge, round mirror. I can see them now preening in front of it, teasing each other and talking about Ah-ku’s catch.
“I thought Yoke Lan would go with the bumboat owner, the one with the gold teeth,” the butcher’s wife said.
“Ah no, this one is richer. Th
