Lauren Ho

{stand alone; dating, Singapore/ Malaysia, tiger mum, family expectations}(2020)

A story about placating Tiger Mothers and meeting the expectations of Chinese families. Light and doesn’t take itself at all seriously.

Opens with the family Chinese New Year celebration (appropriately, Chinese New Year happens to be coming up in a couple of weeks) in Singapore of the Tang clan, at which Andrea Tang (a Malaysian Chinese) runs the gauntlet of inquisition by her aunties and discovers that she will soon be the last of her generation to not be married - a fate worse than death, by auntie standards. Having broken up with her long-term boyfriend the previous year, she decides to get back into the dating game, even going so far as to let her mother set her up with the son of a friend (read 'passing acquaintance'). She happens to meet an Indonesian Chinese billionaire but she also sneaks glances at her British Indian co-worker who is competing with her for the position of partner at their law firm - a long-held cherished dream of Andrea's. Or maybe her mum's.

I thought this would strike a chord with me, between the Singaporean setting and the tussles with family expectations. It was a decent effort but not for me. The characters didn't have enough depth for me to connect with them, nor much emotional chemistry with each other, that I could discern. Andrea and her friends have money to burn and quite happily do so (she's always acquiring a new designer handbag).

But what do I know, I'm just a poor everyman." I laughed a little self-consciously-what must this older man think of poor li'l entitled me moaning about life in my relatively pricey clothes and champagne and $350 cologne.

(I'm not sure if the author was trying to make a point here, but it wasn't expanded upon.) The girlfriends seem to spend a lot of their time partying which results in them being passed out drunk and spending the next day hung over. Of Andrea's two suitors, they seemed equally attractive to her/ attracted by her but I didn't feel we were shown why. So when she made her final choice, there wasn’t much between them, for me, and I could have seen her going for the other one. I did understand the case Ho was making for her not to choose him but it was a bit nebulous.

One thing that was good for me, personally, was that it was set in Singapore so some of the scenery/ geography was familiar; however I didn't feel that, though accurate, Ho gave it a sense of place for people not familiar to the country. Also on the plus side is that it is (fairly) cross-cultural; something that, to be perfectly honest, hasn’t quite been resolved in real life in this neck of the woods (see Andrea’s mother’s refusal to talk to her other child because she’s dating a Muslim man).

Another thing I liked - new discovery reading on Overdrive in my browser/ Libby on my iPad - was that it had little stars to denote Singapore-specific phrases and by clicking on them it would take me to the footnote.

I feel we can all relate, to some extent, to this little quote which prefaces the story:

Remember that your relatives are only human-
That means they can be killed.
-Andrea Tang Ancient Chinese Proverb

Hmm. Well, if it's an ancient Chinese proverb, maybe there's something in it?...

(January 2024)
2.5-3 stars… (altro)