Essentialism and the diasporic native informant: Malaysia in Hsu Ming Teo’s love and vertigo
Hsu Ming Teo’s (2000) novel Love and Vertigo oscillates between three countries, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. Though Teo is seen to be affiliated with Malaysia, and certainly appraised as articulating her ethnic history with clarity of creative and artistic skill, the image of Malaysia that...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit UKM
2010
|
| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2319/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2319/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2319/1/page1_21.pdf |
| id |
ukm-2319 |
|---|---|
| recordtype |
eprints |
| spelling |
ukm-23192016-12-14T06:31:16Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2319/ Essentialism and the diasporic native informant: Malaysia in Hsu Ming Teo’s love and vertigo Shanthini Pillai, Hsu Ming Teo’s (2000) novel Love and Vertigo oscillates between three countries, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. Though Teo is seen to be affiliated with Malaysia, and certainly appraised as articulating her ethnic history with clarity of creative and artistic skill, the image of Malaysia that she shapes come to the fore as a remembered reality, through the glimpses caught from the morsels of both memory and filial visits to this estranged home/ancestral land. The most significant issue that resides at the heart of such writings is the repudiation of the Chinese community by the Malays in Malaysia. The images of Malaysia in the novel are fleeting, yet when they do appear they seem to be the most macabre amongst the spectres of the past that haunt the main protagonist, Grace. This article discusses the almost ghostly role that Malaysia plays in the novel and argues that the cultural memory of the older country lies entombed with the ghost of the 1969 racial riots. It concludes that when writings by diasporic native informants such as Teo and others around the globe are taken to be authentic renditions of ethnic heritage as part of multicultural politics in the cosmopolitan, the implications of these are highly serious as they are largely constructions of decidedly essentialist discourses of the older country. Penerbit UKM 2010 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2319/1/page1_21.pdf Shanthini Pillai, (2010) Essentialism and the diasporic native informant: Malaysia in Hsu Ming Teo’s love and vertigo. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 10 (1). pp. 3-15. ISSN 1675-8021 http://www.ukm.my/ppbl/Gema/GEMA%202010/pp%203_15.pdf |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Local University |
| institution |
Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia |
| building |
UKM Institutional Repository |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| description |
Hsu Ming Teo’s (2000) novel Love and Vertigo oscillates between three countries,
Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. Though Teo is seen to be affiliated with Malaysia,
and certainly appraised as articulating her ethnic history with clarity of creative and
artistic skill, the image of Malaysia that she shapes come to the fore as a remembered
reality, through the glimpses caught from the morsels of both memory and filial visits to
this estranged home/ancestral land. The most significant issue that resides at the heart of
such writings is the repudiation of the Chinese community by the Malays in Malaysia.
The images of Malaysia in the novel are fleeting, yet when they do appear they seem to
be the most macabre amongst the spectres of the past that haunt the main protagonist,
Grace. This article discusses the almost ghostly role that Malaysia plays in the novel and
argues that the cultural memory of the older country lies entombed with the ghost of the
1969 racial riots. It concludes that when writings by diasporic native informants such as
Teo and others around the globe are taken to be authentic renditions of ethnic heritage as
part of multicultural politics in the cosmopolitan, the implications of these are highly
serious as they are largely constructions of decidedly essentialist discourses of the older
country. |
| format |
Article |
| author |
Shanthini Pillai, |
| spellingShingle |
Shanthini Pillai, Essentialism and the diasporic native informant: Malaysia in Hsu Ming Teo’s love and vertigo |
| author_facet |
Shanthini Pillai, |
| author_sort |
Shanthini Pillai, |
| title |
Essentialism and the diasporic native informant: Malaysia in Hsu Ming Teo’s love and vertigo |
| title_short |
Essentialism and the diasporic native informant: Malaysia in Hsu Ming Teo’s love and vertigo |
| title_full |
Essentialism and the diasporic native informant: Malaysia in Hsu Ming Teo’s love and vertigo |
| title_fullStr |
Essentialism and the diasporic native informant: Malaysia in Hsu Ming Teo’s love and vertigo |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Essentialism and the diasporic native informant: Malaysia in Hsu Ming Teo’s love and vertigo |
| title_sort |
essentialism and the diasporic native informant: malaysia in hsu ming teo’s love and vertigo |
| publisher |
Penerbit UKM |
| publishDate |
2010 |
| url |
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2319/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2319/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2319/1/page1_21.pdf |
| first_indexed |
2023-09-18T19:35:47Z |
| last_indexed |
2023-09-18T19:35:47Z |
| _version_ |
1777405261557792768 |