Recent Memoirs

Recently I read 2 memoirs. Both are very different from each other. Shanghai Tango, autobiography of Jin Xing, a famous Chinese dancer who is a transsexual, and Through The Narrow Gate, which is a memoir by Karen Armstrong (a theologist) during her 7 years as a Catholic nun.

Shanghai Tango

What is your childhood dream? My childhood dream was to become a doctor and to own a chocolate factory. But for Jin Xing, her childhood dream was to become a woman. She was born a man.

I have read quite a number of Chinese memoirs and fictions, and one very very important thing for a Chinese is having a son. In ancient China (I don't know about now), a woman's status in her husband's family depends on whether her firstborn is a son, and also how many sons altogether that she has. You are nothing even if you gave birth to six daughters, but if your firstborn is a son, your status rises significantly (imagine me in ancient China, everybody will kowtow to me). This memoir started with the part when Jin Xing went to tell his mother that her son will soon become her daughter. If you have a tiny bit of knowledge of chinese traditions, you will understand how heavy the news was to Jin Xing's mother.

This book tells about Jin Xing's life as a dancer and also how she came to the decision to change her sex. In medical school we were not exposed to this part of medicine. I was surprised that male to female sex change operation can still preserve whatever nerve endings there are in a male's genitalia. And before somebody is 'allowed' to have a sex change surgery, he/she has to receive psychotherapy for 2 years and another year as 'real life test', meaning the person has to go through life as the opposite sex, successfully before he/she can have the surgery. I also learnt from the memoir that to turn yourself into a woman, a man has to go through a few surgeries. Breasts augmentation, removal of facial hair, vocal cord surgery then finally the genital surgery.

You can google Jin Xing, she is in wikipedia. You can also see her dance on you tube. She is prettier than me :P

Although it is against my religious belief to agree on this issue, I picked her memoir from the library just so that I can understand her (and people like her). It is hard enough to understand and be non-judgemental to 'normal people'. I hope in the future I will be able to see them with clear eyes


Through The Narrow Gate



Karen Armstrong is a famous theologist. She has written many books on religions- Islam, Christianity, Judaism etc and she also has written a number of biographies of religious idols, including of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (saw). She was born a Catholic and at age 17 she entered a convent to be trained as a nun. She was searching for God.

I think generally we can say that nuns are peaceful people. They always smile and look happy. It is not easy to become as peaceful as one. The nuns' aim in life is to be united with God, in order to do so one have to detach oneself from anything worldly. The training is very harsh. It is designed to make you not to feel any joy in life, because the real joy is only in hereafter. A common phrase that they use is 'let yourself die'.

As one reader reviewed in Amazon-
The process of becoming a nun, as Armstrong describes it, is a rigorous program of self-denial. One is not to complain, be tired, be mournful, be happy, be questioning, or let onesself feel any of the things that come with the territory of being human. Rather, it was taught that the pinnacle of the spiritual life was the abillty to shed one's humanness, to think and feel only about one thing - God.

Among the trainings are the practice of the Great Silence. There are only 2-3 hours in a day that a nun-in-training are allowed to talk or discuss, but the rest of the day they have to be silent (except in emergencies, of course) and meditate. Another practice is not to enjoy the food. They only can eat to survive. Karen Armstrong actually developed anorexia nervosa because of this practice.

Once they completed the training and passed whatever necessary to become a nun, a ceremony will be held for 'graduation'. The ritual in this ceremony actually resembles a funeral where the nun is laid and a cross is put on top of her to symbolize death- meaning her worldly-self has died. And when a nun can be dead to herself then only she can serve Christianity to the world. They are then allowed to further their studies so that they can teach in convents and also become missionaries. So Karen was sent to Oxford University where she studied literature. This is where she became more critical and finally left her Order. This actually has been nicely described by one of her Mother Superior- that Armstrong could not 'die' because she was full of 'intelligent pride'.

She continued to search for God. She is now a freelance monotheist (believes that there is only one God but does not follow any organized religion).

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Reading memoirs can really connect you to the particular time in history that the author has relived in a book. Don't you think teaching history lessons in Malaysia should be done by using published memoirs instead of textbooks? So that we learn history through somebody's eyes, so that one can 'feel' and empathize, not just learn and memorize.