The Thorn of Lion City

Lucy Lum was only a small girl when the Japanese invaded Singapore in the early forties, and already a victim of violence within her own home. Born into a matriarchal Chinese immigrant family, Lucy suffered for years at the hands of her fearsome and superstitious grandmother – a firm believer in the old ways, in stomach-churning herbalist remedies, in the dubious fortune-telling of mystics…and in mischievous little girls like Lucy knowing their place.

Originally self-published by her family, Lucy’s memoir The Thorn of Lion City, is out in paperback next month – we asked her a few questions about her incredible experiences…

Could you tell me when you first decided to write your memoir, and why you wished to share your story?

The events of my childhood have never been far from my mind and for a very long time I wanted to write about my experiences but did not know how to begin. So there never was a sharp decision point — it was over many years. As a child I didn’t understand why my sister and I were treated differently from my brothers. I was whipped with canes and burnt with wicks but my brothers were always fussed over and never had even a harsh word spoken to them.

I wanted to tell my story about what it was like in my home where superstitions and painful traditions were the norm; where animal charts and astrologers, and divination sessions at the temple in Chinatown — for the deities to answer my grandmother’s questions — were the bases for huge life-changing decisions and for even the little things like winning at mah-jongg.

Watching my grandmother, my mother or my aunt banging the muichai’s heads against the floor or beating them till they were black and blue reinforced the questions I had about the horrible ways imported by my grandmother’s family, from Canton in China, that seemed to say, ‘This is how it has always been and will always be. No one is going to change it.’

But sharing my story meant more to me than just a revelation of these things. I wanted to remember my father who had succeeded in protecting his family from the Japanese occupiers’ persecution of the Chinese in Singapore, but was powerless to stop my grandmother’s and mother’s brutality.

You mention on your website that you joined a writers’ group. Can you talk a little about how that helped you to tell your story?

I remember reading the first pages of my memoir to the students in my writers’ workshop — I was very nervous: it was about my life, about my father, about strange Chinese customs and traditions and, surely, no one would be interested. There was criticism but, unexpectedly, I had the first ‘What’s going to happen next to …’ question.

Week after week I read the pages I had written and it was perhaps a few months into the class when I felt that I could complete the work. The interest and curiosity shown in my class encouraged me and helped me to believe that, perhaps, others may also be interested and I could get my memoir published.

Could you share with readers how you came to leave Singapore and come to England?

When I was abandoned by my mother I never got the education I needed to be like my father and I promised myself that I would not let that happen to my children. I resolved to send them overseas so that they could have a wide choice of universities and I left Singapore to join my son in London.

It’s unusual for someone to start publishing in their seventies. Can you talk about the experience of trying to find an agent, and a publisher, for your book?

When I felt that my book could be published it never occurred to me that age was a barrier.

It had taken several years of polishing and editing, and perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised — but I was — that after a rapt audience of a group of students at my writers’ workshop had convinced me my story was worth listening to, I was rejected by every one of the eight literary agents I had sent my chapters to.

I had no intention of giving up but I didn’t know what to do next. My son saw my disappointment. Although he had no experience of publishing he managed to publish my memoir and sell it into a major chain of book stores in England. It was my good luck that the buyer at the book chain felt that my memoir needed a far wider audience than a small publisher could offer and sent a copy to a large publisher in London. They liked it and decided to publish.

Has writing this book, or perhaps the years that have passed since their deaths, made you feel any differently towards your mother and grandmother?

After I had moved to England I visited my mother in Singapore many times to find answers and reasons for the things she had done but there was no resolution. When our conversations touched on these things we ended up in quarrels and I would leave and return to London. It’s easy for me to say ‘Forgive and forget’, but it would sound hollow. When I could not take my eyes off the maggots on my grandmother’s face at the funeral parlour all those years ago, a huge sense of relief did overcome me.

The memory of the pain, both physical and psychological, inflicted by them on my father, my sister, the muichai and me can never be erased. My mother and grandmother were, indeed, evil people. Although I have found peace with myself through writing my memoir, my feelings towards them remain the same.