May 2025 - The Storm We Made
The Storm We Made By Vanessa Chan
The Storm We Made, a debut novel by Vanessa Chan, was Book Group 1’s choice for May. A small group of us met at Lee Kuen’s home for the discussion. Sadly our leader Charlotte was unwell, as she had sent in the questions earlier it made for a seamless discussion. A historical novel, it was mostly set in a fictitious town just outside of KL, Bintang, in the years 1935 to December 1945, spanning the closing years of the British colonial period and the Japanese Occupation. The narrative centered around the experiences of the Alcantaras, a Eurasian family of five; Cecily and Gordon and their children; their daughter, the eldest, Jujube, Abel, their son of 15 years and Jasmin the youngest daughter, 10 years younger than Jujube. Conversations that Chan had over the years with her grandmother planted the seeds which eventually grew into the novel.
A few historical details to put the story-line in context might help. It has been determined that prior to the invasion, many Japanese agents had been inserted into Malayan society several years earlier as shop keepers, photographers and so on to gather intelligence of a military nature. The actual invasion occurred on December 8, 1941, when troops landed at Kota Bharu (an hour before the bombing of Pearl Harbour), who then rode bicycles south, reaching Singapore by February 8th. Along the way, they had support from the Japanese air force. The British surrendered on February 15, 1942, leaving the peninsula to fend for itself, their bastion unfortunately facing the sea south of Singapore from where they had expected any invasions. The occupation lasted until September 1945 following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th. The British quickly returned and the British Military Administration was installed in KL on September 12, 1945.
In 1934, Cecily became discontented with her life with her husband and became interested in Bingley Chan, a merchant from Hong Kong dealing in goods from the Orient. Eventually she comes to understand that Bingley is seeking espionage information, which she would collect and slip under the feminine products shelf of the nearby provision shop. In addition to sharing their mutual dislike of the British and their power, she and Bingley found they shared the dream of Asia for the Asians. As readers, we did not find either of these two choices on Cecily’s part to be convincing.
Once the actual invasion occurs and the occupation starts, young men started disappearing from the streets as they were being rounded up and sent to the Kanchanaburi Labor Camp on the Burma/Thailand border. Abel never returned from a trip to the sundry shop. “Is it not enough that they starve us, beat us and take away our children too?” questioned the sundry shop owner. The Alcantara’s were not spared the horrors of the Japanese soldiers who now controlled their daily lives. The youngest, Jasmine had her hair cut like a boy’s, wore boys’ clothing and was confined to the basement of their home, which she resented, to protect her from the roving eyes of the soldiers. Jujube found work in a teahouse where she was regularly exposed to the soldiers on patrol. Bingley Chan is eventually revealed as Japanese General Shigeru Fujiwara, who is patterned on the vicious “Tiger of Malaya”, the infamous overseer of the Japanese Occupation in Malaya, General Yamashita Tomoyuki.
The dreaded Kempetai took over the lives of the citizens. These Japanese military police, who were notorious for their brutality in interrogating those suspected of sympathizing with the resistance, controlling POW camps, suppressing dissent, carrying out urban and jungle warfare, carrying out torture, executions and procuring comfort women were all powerful. As the children noted, they were even forced to bow absurdly low to show respect when passing an officer in town.
Cecily ponders her role in the hardships they endured; was she responsible? Was she acting for her family, her country or herself? Was she being selfish or altruistic? In trying to glue together a broken vase, she thinks to herself; “But, as with the pieces she had set in motion ten years before, there was no fixing to be done. There was no coming back from this.”
We agreed that living here, in Malaysia, made the story very real to us as the setting was so familiar to us. Each chapter was devoted to narration about a particular character, which meant moving backwards and forwards in terms of time and skipping around among the characters, which we found to be somewhat disconcerting. Several of us have relatives or friends who lived through the occupation and have told us about their experiences. So, there was a resonation with much of the narrative, which Chan seems to have captured faithfully. We were unsure what to make of the title, as we couldn’t really come up with a satisfying explanation. However, the novel does give insight into the experiences of the people of Malaysia during the occupation and so reading it was a worthwhile endeavour.
Review with thanks to Leslie Muri
