I spent this weekend reading this book and it’s a weekend well spent!

Ms.Chan shares her rough journey to forge a path for her own life. A different path from what her family, her relatives, and her culture expect from her. Her story is pretty much relatable to me. In many Asian cultures, a woman is expected to put everyone else’s needs first. A woman is expected to be obedient, to do whatever she is told to do. A woman is good enough to be placed in the background, and sadly, always to be blamed for a broken marriage.

In Indonesia, there’s an expression as follows: untuk apa perempuan sekolah tinggi tinggi, toh pada akhirnya hanya akan ke dapur, sumur, Dan kasur. In English: What’s the point of women to pursue high education? Eventually she’s only going to be in the kitchen,  laundry room and on the bed. Harsh but that’s the reality, even when a woman had her master/doctorate degree, her social circles will remind her to stay grounded and not forgetting that she is, after all, a woman and her main duty in this world is to take care her family and to be an obedient wife/ daughter.

This book is a wake up call for me. Some chapters are really close to my heart, such as  intergenerational trauma and the journey to healing. I myself am still on a healing journey, I have endured many traumatic experiences and for a long time I just keep it for myself.

But now I am healing, I have my outlets to channeling my feelings, my thoughts and my emotions. This journey is difficult and the path is never linear. It’s a long winding road for sure, but I feel I’m on the good track.

Reading this book makes me realize I still have a lot of ‘unboxing’ the traumatic experiences I had. I need to be honest with myself, I need to see the wound so I can tend it properly.

Thank you Ms. Chan for writing such a beautiful book.

Cheers,

Karin Sabrina