This is Wong's second book.
Story 1 The Library of Sighs
Quite often, we find teenagers who could not quite fit in with their school crowd, their peers in the area they live or even places they work part-time in. These may not be juvenile delinquents but they could be loners, a little slow, too quiet or a hundred other harmless different traits. Rita in the story is a little unsure of herself, but obedient and teachable. I have a neighbour whose daughter who seemed a bit aloof, she often takes a little time to digest what I told her. Perhaps I am a rather abrupt speaker who is impatient and too lazy to explain.
After her Senior Cambridge Exam, she went to part-time waitress in a Nonya (a line of cooking from the Straits Settlement, Penang, Melaka and Singapore) Restaurant. A few months later, she was hired as a full timer. Now she seems vibrant, confident and no different from other girls her age.
Story 3 & 4 Maria de Silva Takes a Husband
Mimi Gomes Dances the Waltz
There are three dominant races in my country: Malay, Chinese and Indian. De Silva and Gomes probably belong to the category "others". One of my youngest' classmates counts four lines of ancestry: Chinese, Indian, Portugal and Filipino.
What binds these two stories together is Mimi's husband who marry Maria bigamously. Now, that was not very unusual. I actually have a cousin who married her husband by registry knowing fully well that he has a first wife by Chinese tea ceremony. What was strange is that the second wife later became an assistant Principal in a rather well known government school. The first wife knew about her husband's second marriage and kept quiet. What can the poor lady do, she has six children and her husband is rich.
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