Cry, of Oppressed Women

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Title:  Cry of Oppressed Women

Author:  Ann Kit Suet Chin-Chan

Publisher:  Ann Kit Suet Chin

Address:  Auckland 1022

Format:eBook

Publication Date:  21/01/2016

Hard copies Orders:  Annkschin@yahoo.com

www.wheelers.co.nz

Cry of Oppressed Women.

Forward 

I edited my book, From China to Borneo to Beyond and added a chapter on Women Pioneers.

In God’s original law, And they twain shall be one flesh: so that they are no more twain but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.  Mark 10:8, 9 KJV

For better or worse, till sickness do us part, this is the basic foundation of a Christian marriage.

It was in 1975 when I was a student in Windsor University in Canada. I joined other students in condemning beauty contests that were a front for the meat market. We chose Helen Reddy’s I am woman, hear me roar to be our theme song.

In 1979, I was with a group of Asian women students in Auckland University. We discussed the 三 從 四 德. The three obedience of a woman: obey her father before marriage, her husband when married, and her sons in widowhood and the four virtues: morality, proper speech, modest manner and diligent work of women in ancient China; spiritual fetters of wifely submission and virtue imposed on women in feudal society （古 代 中 国 妇 女 应 有 的 品 德。三 从 是 未 嫁 从 父、既 嫁 从 夫、夫 死 从 子, 四 德 是 妇 德、妇 言、妇 容、妇 功 (妇 女 的 品 德、辞 令、仪 态、女 工).

According to Chinese legend, Zi Gu 紫姑 is the God of toilet.  She was an oppressed woman and physically abused and killed by a vengeful Wife in a toilet. The Heavenly God had compassion for her. He made her the God of toilet. She represents all the females who groan under the oppression in the feudal society. So women worship her and regard her as the guardian angel of weak females.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_god

https://www.facebook.com/HealthworkzSG

A seventy something Chinese woman told me, the day she got married, she became a slave to the family, her mother-in-law, her husband and the rest of her husband’s family.

While pioneered women were oppressed, women today despite, Women’s liberations movement, continue to be oppressed.

In my book Mail Order Bride, I went to places where few would go, I wrote about embodiment of many issues of the darker side of today’s society: under-aged sex, prostitution, and paedophilia.

Readers found the book really awakening and down to earth. They said I was very brave in tackling these topics.

In this book, Cry of Oppressed Women I write about various forms of oppression. I show the true me. I am a radical feminist activist. I am active in environmental issues, in Sands, Charity for Kenya, animal welfare and recycling education.

In writing this book, I give a voice to women belittled, violated, oppressed and battered by men. I conclude with strong words. Pornography degrades women. It is banal, inane and downright disgusting. I HATE pornography!! I hate all degradation of women in any form. I abhor the exploitation of young girls and older women at the hands of manipulative men. I appal sexualisation of little girls, including padded frilly swimwear. I am disgusted at what it does to the girls’ mind making them become anorexic and bulimic.

About the author

Ann Chin was born in Sibu, British Sarawak in Borneo.

Her Chinese name is Kit Suet/Jie Xue which means pure snow.

She attended Methodist Primary and Secondary schools in Sibu.

She graduated from the University of Windsor (Canada), Auckland University and Auckland University of Technology.

She teaches ESOL to children and adults.

She is a parent advocate, and a public speaker.

She belongs to Sands, New Zealand Stillbirth and Neo natal deaths, and wears two of their wrist bands for greater awareness.

She knits baby blankets for the Neonatal Trust.

Her favourite charity is the Deaf children in Kenya. She helped raise funds to separate the pair of Nepalese Siamese twins in Singapore.

Ann is the 4th child of the late Mr. and Mrs. John Chan Hiu Fei and Mrs. Mary Kong Wah Kiew.

Ann is the author of Diary of a Bereaved Mother, Goodbye my baby and From China to Borneo and Beyond, and Mail Order Bride.

Acknowledgement:

To her husband, Dr Chin Chen Onn for his love, patience in the computer work and in the production of this book.

To her surviving children: Deborah, Gabrielle for careful proof reading, their ideas, and Sam for formatting and computing help.

To her siblings for their ideas, support and encouragement.

To Francis Chen for reading and his encouraging words.

To Chiong Hing Pau for proof reading and suggestions.

To Margaret Ting for proof reading the beginning of this book, her encouragement and her belief in me when I started to write.

To my late father, Mr. John Chan Hiu Fei for instilling the love of writing in me when I was very young.

To my late mother, Mrs Mary Kong-Chan Wah Kiew who made sure I did my school work every afternoon.

To Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh for his faith in me and being my guest of honour at my Book Launch.

To Mr. Kong Tze Ling, Penghulus Ten Kim Loong and Kong Sen Leau and the Guang Ning Association for making my dream come true in October 2013.

To all my friends for their moral support.

Finally, to the memory of my late son, Andrew.

Author’s note

This is a work of fiction with very real scenarios. It is a figment of imagination of the author. Any resemblance of persons is purely coincidental. While these scenarios are fictitious, the reader will notice that some of them are familiar. This is because I use ideas from the newspapers, television news.  I use them as my theme for each story and added on to it.

Contents

Synopsis 

This story traces the life of Nadine, a girl born to Indian parents whi grew up living in Pukekohe, the place of the early Indian and Chinese settlers in New Zealand, to Grey Lynn and Kingsland in Auckland. It embodies the issues of a Kiwi girl growing up in conflicting cultures and getting lost in her environment.

Patel, a New Zealand-born Indian arranges for Chandra, from India, to come and be his wife. After many years, Nadine is born. The Indian culture of male dominance leads Chandra to reject her daughter, Nadine from birth and fall into post- natal depression.  Fortunately for Patel and Nadine, they have two good neighbours, Manchala and Kim, to help during Nadine’s early childhood years.

In an attempt to help Nadine and Chandra, Patel buys a dairy in Grey Lynn. More trouble brews when Nadine mixes with the wrong crowd and is caught shoplifting. Following the traditional way, Patel ships Nadine to India to learn to be a prim and proper Indian girl. This proves a disaster, and Nadine comes home.

Patel makes another mistake by arranging for Nadine to wed Gopal from India. This is one big mistake of tying together a Kiwi Indian girl and an India-born boy who had only come to New Zealand on a marriage of convenience. The marriage breaks down. Gopal leaves with the dowry money and marries a Fijian girl.

Nadine meets Andy, a Maori boy who is known for his footloose lifestyle and moves in with him in Kingsland. Nadine suffers from physical and verbal abuse. But she refuses to leave him, until she has a baby, then she disappears.

Kim comes back into Nadine’s life and brings her to her senses. Nadine trains to become a social worker and works in a Refuge Centre. In her line of work, she sees many oppressed women.

At the Refuge Centre, Nadine meets Megan from the Rape Crisis Centre. Megan is a rape victim and survivor. Together, they work as a formidable team.

This book is a fiction and shows different plausible scenarios of oppressed women: Women who suffered from physical and mental violence, rape, pornography, swinging, incest, bullying, sex with minors, human trafficking, sex slaves.

Nadine

Domestic violence, child marriage.

When I first met Nadine, she was my neighbour from across the road in Kingsland. We were both living in rental properties Third Avenue. It was a slum area, with students and Maoris and Polynesians living in the run down bungalows. I was newly married and working full time. Nadine had never worked and was pregnant with her first child. She was a New Zealand-born Indian, but she did not want to use her given Indian name and wanted to be known as Nadine only. She liked to come for cup of tea or coffee when I was home and we talk about the baby.

This is Nadine’s story.

Nadine’s father Patel was born and bred in Pukekohe in Siuth Auckland. He was a market gardener. His family was among the early Indian immigrants who came before the 1900s. When Patel had saved up enough money, he sent for his bride from Gujarat, a state in North West India. Traditionally, an Indian bride gave her husband a dowry, but in this case, none was given because not many Indian girls wanted to come to New Zealand and Patel was just happy to get a bride.

Nadine’s mother came with other girls like her, to marry men they had never met. Upon her arrival at Pukekohe, Nadine’s mother, Chandra, turned out to be a sour puss. She hated the market garden. She hated the cold winter. She said both the Pakehas [1]and the Maoris discriminated against her. She moaned and groaned that there were no ingredients to cook her traditional Indian food. She was extremely homesick and believed she had left one set of shackles of poverty in Gujarat for another set, that of isolation, in New Zealand. She was still not pregnant, and she yearned for the day she’d have a baby boy so her husband would start to mollycoddle her instead of staying in the bloody garden the whole day.

Chandra did her puja[2], but her pregnancy was still not happening. She thought, perhaps that she had missed the auspicious time when she first arrived in New Zealand. Her mother told her that she must meet her husband at that precise time the soothsayer had calculated, but the bloody Singapore Airlines was delayed and she missed this important time by three hours. Chandra was convinced that the Gods were unhappy with her because she did not do puja with a tulsi[3] herbal plant, as every Indian lady did in India and even those living overseas in Singapore where the tulsi plant thrived. But in New Zealand, the weather was too cold for the tulsi. However, it could be, Manchala who came from the same village on the same flight had three boys already.

For twelve years, she waited and waited for her gods to answer her prayer. Everyone could see that Patel had been the answer to her prayers for a good husband. He tolerated her grouchiness and her gloomy and bad-tempered disposition. Where on earth one would find such a good natured husband, the Pukekohe gardeners gossiped. If he came home in the evening and the table was bare, he quietly cooked dinner for the two of them.

He accepted his lot, as his karma. People said that in India Chandra would not have been so lucky. There, there were many bride suicides, but here, Patel was putting her on a pedestal and pampering her when she should have gotten down from her high horse and be like any other Indian wife in Pukekohe.

At last it happened as she was giving up hope. She fell pregnant. She felt Patel was being extra good to her only because she was going to have a son. He pampered her and took her shopping in Auckland. When she felt the nausea of morning sickness, Patel cooked the meals and left them on the table to eat during the day. Chandra enjoyed this attention Patel was giving her. When the first trimester had passed, and she got better, Chandra still behaved as though she continued to have morning sickness as she did the whole nine months. She never had it so good.

The women that Patel was an old fool started up again. He was approaching forty five and was blinded in his devotion. He was elated to be a father for the first time, at an age where he could have been a grandfather.

There was much joy in Patel’s family. The baby was coming, Patel took Chandra to Middlemore hospital to deliver the baby. He had taken took the day off and sat waiting in the corridor. The long awaited boy, according to Chandra, was arriving. Chandra’s water broke but her cervix was not dilating. Nothing was happening, and the midwife told them that Chandra had to stay overnight to avoid infection. Patel sat on the chair next to her bed.

After a long and difficult labour of twenty-four hours, Chandra was spent both physically and emotionally. The baby had finally, and she came. Chandra was anxious to have her first glimpse of her baby boy.

Congratulations! You have a beautiful baby girl. The midwife said.

No! Not a girl! Chandra shrieked.

She cried and did not want to have anything to do with the baby. She did not want even to look her. The midwife told Patel to come into the theatre to hold the baby and reassure Chandra that she had given birth to the most beautiful baby in the world. But Chandra could not and would not be consoled.

Chandra was discharged after three days. She went straight to bed. Poor Patel, he had to tend to the garden as well as the baby. He asked his two neighbours Manchala and Kim to keep an eye on mother and baby whenever they could.   Manchala was a stay-at-home mum with her three little boys. Kim had a small fruit and vegetable store where people could park their cars and buy her fresh produce. She lived at the back of the stand and she assured Patel that this was no trouble for her.

These two ladies were the best thing for the mother and baby since sliced bread. They came and bathed baby Nadine, fed her and even took her home to give Chandra a chance to rest.

Chandra refused to eat and she refused to go out. She forgot to feed the baby or change her nappies until the filth stuck to Nadine’s bottom giving her a terrible nappy rash. Chandra’s condition deteriorated and she suffered from post natal depression. However, people at that time living in the country did not recognize the existence of such an illness.

Chandra kept murmuring, My son Kamlesh, my son Kamlesh. It was as if she had had a son who had died at birth and she was grieving for him.

Young Nadine spent most of her baby, toddler and early childhood years in Manchala’s house and Kim’s produce stand. One day, Nadine came down with colic and bilious diarrhoea. Kim had a magic potion.

You have fat baby water? Kim asked the chemist.

The chemist did not understand her, Fat baby water?

Kim said, We Chinese use it when baby has wind, a bad stomach ache. The bottle has fat baby holding a snake.

Together with the chemist, she looked for it.

I have found it! You see, fat baby on the bottle, exclaimed an excited Kim.

The chemist then realized it was Gripe water she had been looking for. Kim laughed and joked with the chemist, The people of Pukekohe don’t call me Chinese doctor for nothing.

Kim brought the Gripe water back and gave a teaspoon to Nadine. It worked like magic. The moment Nadine swallowed the Gripe water, her howling stopped.

Without any children of her own, Kim treated Nadine as the little daughter she never had. She knitted cardigans, mittens and bonnets for Nadine. When she went to the shops, she bought pretty ribbons and braided Nadine’s long curly jet black hair. and bought her jelly beans and trinkets. Whenever Nadine threw a tantrum, she was unfazed.

One day, when Nadine was three, Kim told Nadine, "We Chinese have a special custom, called Kai Ma. Kai Noi. Like an adopted mum and adopted daughter. I like you very much, I be your Chinese mother."

Nadine replied, Yes, I’d like that very much. I don’t like my mother. She doesn’t like me. Does this mean that I can come to live in your house?

Kim said, "No, a Kai Noi doesn’t come to live with her Kai Ma. But we love each other very much. Besides, your Daddy will never allow it."

Kim cooked up a feast. She said this was a Chinese custom to celebrate a Kai[4] ceremony. She invited the neighbours and some of them laughed at how Kim, a Chinese woman adopted an Indian girl. Chandra didn’t attend the ceremony.

She said, You can have her, as far as I am concerned.

Nadine was a scrawny picky eater. In Manchala’s house, she ate dosai, chapattis, roti and samosas[5]. In Kim’s house, she did not want to eat her Chinese food.

"I want samosa! I want samosa!" she yelled at the top of her voice.

Kim said, "Sorry love, I can’t make samosas, but next time, I ask Manchala aunty to make some for you. Now be a good little girl and eat up."

I want to go to Manchala aunty now! and Nadine flung the little bowl off the table. Rice grains scattered all over Kim’s clean kitchen floor.

Kim said, Sorry love, Manchala aunty had to take Harishankar to school.

Nadine would only eat plain steamed rice using her hand, and made a mess Kim’s of kitchen, but Kim did not reprimand her. Kim understood that Indians don’t use knives and forks or chopsticks. The first time Kim offered her a spoon, Nadine flung it away screeching and howled at the top of her lungs.

Kim’s husband Ah Fook came home and saw a rotten brat in the house. He commented, You are spoiling her.

Kim replied, You know it’s the Chinese way, other people’s children cannot discipline.

He retorted, You stupid woman. You brought all this trouble upon yourself.

This daily tug of war was getting Manchala and Kim down. There was never a tranquil moment if Nadine was in their houses. When the husbands Prem and Ah Fook came home from a busy day in the vegetable garden, Manchala and Kim stressed more being unable to control Nadine and were worried that they would stop them from caring for her.

When Nadine started school at five, it was Kim who took her to school to meet the school principal. Everyone in school and the parents found this a very unusual arrangement.

Nadine was eight. She was picking up all sorts of bad language and social problems from the in school.

The crunch came when Nadine swore at Ah Fook. She called him a "Chinkee" and rudely sang to him,  

"Ching Chong chinaman had to milk a cow

Ching Chong chinaman didn’t know how

Ching Chong chinaman was covered in shit"

When Manchala tried to stop her, she cursed, You Indian slut!!

Manchala was absolutely gobsmacked. With tears in her eyes, she told Nadine, Nice girls don’t say things like this.

Shut up! You cow! You are not my mum, shouted a unrepentant Nadine.

Prem and Ah Fook were each in their own houses, yet it was as if they were rehearsing and competing for the same role in a drama.

They said simultaneously, Enough is enough! Nadine is not our child or our charge. You have been too kind to Patel and Chandra. It’s time they took responsibility to bring Nadine up,

Manchala suggested to Patel that perhaps moving to the city might improve Chandra’s condition. Patel scraped together all his savings and found a little dairy[6] at Grey Lynn. Williamson Ave. was a good location, cutting