Unpolished Gem

ive been feeling lethargic ever since coming back from genting. sometimes i dont even feel like using the computer for a long time. ive also lost the mood to blog, but im writing today because i want to introduce a good book - unpolished gem, written by alice pung.

dont know who is alice pung? i didnt know either when i purchased the book. there were tons and tons of books on sale at where borders parkway used to be located. plenty of books of all genres, but upon reading the synopsis, i ended up picking this memoir of someone i never heard before.

synopsis

with a home-grown accent and an imported heritage, alice pung grew up stradding two worlds. by the time she was born, her family had already made the perilous journey from revolutionary china and the killing fields of cambodia to the new home in a prosperous australian suburb. but even as alice dives headfirst into life in the only country shes ever known, she also understands her fathers wonder at the magical workings of escalators, her grandmothers fervent blessings for the generosity of father government, and her mothers determination to toil every hour of the day and night. warm-spirited and wonderfully wise, unpolished gem is a vibrant, irreverent portrait of the foreigners fumble, the everyday successes and the bittersweet bonds that hold one small family together in a big new country.

okay, it wasnt just the synopsis alone that decided it for me. the book also included snippets of reviews from various sources, and that made the book sound very interesting.

unpolished gem is the debut work of alice pung, who is a chinese of cambodian descent. or is it a cambodian of chinese descent? anyway, besides sharing stories about her interesting childhood growing up in a traditional asian family, her book also talks about the life of her family of immigrants in australia, how they adapted but somehow still failed to fit in. in a way, her book is a voice for all the immigrants, whose stories of hardship were never made known to others.

alices style of writing is very different from john lawton, the author of riptide (my previous book). while john lawtons riptide, peppered with alien words, can be sort of burdensome to read, unpolished gem is written simply and pleasantly. in her own way, alice pung is a great storyteller. injecting humour into her somewhat difficult, heartbreaking and inspiring life story, the book is just so interesting to read. you would want to go on finding out what happens in her life.

its indeed $6 well spent ^^

to end off, heres a short video of alice pung talking about unpolished gem and the migrants story in general.