Raising Sebastien

... Realising the Potential of Your Autistic Child by Choo Kah Ying

The picture of Sebastien on the book cover caught my attention. Frankly, I missed her first picture book launch at Central Lending Library in May. I read about it from my staffer's reports but the poignancy and significance of it did not register, amidst all the other book launches, signings, readings that are common sights in the libraries.

I saw this book at Borders, way up on the topmost shelf under New Arrivals. Got my sis to take it down. Flipped through the pages and there I saw the pictures of Sebastien, before and after the onset of autism. What a stark contrast!

It took me a few days to finish the first part of the book, entitled Reflections. It was a series of essays by Sebastien's mom. Kah Ying is a polished writer, able to capture succintly the full gamut of emotions she went through from the moment of revelation at her son's condition to the documentation of her amazing journey thus far.

I celebrate her insights, unconditional love and respect for her son and her perseverance in being her son's voice and advocate. I can appreciate the uncertainties and the constant questioning of her right to speak on behalf of her son, simply because of her role as his sole guardian and biological parent. I applaud her for her courage to stand up for her son and her constant encouragement to other parents to do likewise for their autistic children.

In reading the first part of the book, she successfully took me along her journey and life with an autistic child. Her essay on 10 steps forward and 5 steps backwards was so true - it reminded me so much of what we need to go through with my nephew, Caleb, who was also diagnosed with autistic tendencies from a young age of about 3.

I could quietly celebrate the "wonder moments" that Kah Ying had whenever Sebastien achieved what she called as her "own map of developmental milestones" for her son.

The same goes for Caleb. Just the other day, I was telling my sis of my pleasant surprise at a Mac breakfast we had last weekend. Suddenly, I realized my 11-year old nephew was finally cutting up his own hotcakes, spreading butter on them and cutting up his precious hashbrowns into bite-sized pieces. No longer do we need to suffer glances of amazement from others whenever we did it for him, a strapping boy who is standing at least half a head taller than me.

I started to recall that I have missed many of such wonder moments - he could read the time now and he could cut up a piece of chicken wings or take the entire drumstick with his two hands without the usual squirms and fuss (he hates being dirty) and any help from us adults.

However, just as I was quietly celebrating his achievements, an incident last Sunday brought us back to reality. As we were about to enter the MRT station to head for Vivo City, the boy suddenly bended down in grimace. He needed to do "his business" and it's big-time business from the look of his grimace. A sudden brainwave resulted in us bringing him to the fifth level of JP where there is a handicapped toilet cubicle in the ladies where the mom could attend to him. However, we the typical human beings, forgot entirely about his autistic nature and his perpetual paranoia with unfamiliar toilets and their horrifying flushing system. Hence there were lots of screaming and shouting inside the toilet.

At the end of it, the toilet bowl was rendered out of commission (just when I was confident that this was a thing of the past and that it could only apply to the home toilet), an exhausted mom and a sheepish and extremely embarrassed boy trooped out of the shopping center and into the train. Caleb apologized to the mom on the train for his screams and was sorry to have flooded the toilet bowl.

This was an amazing moment - it suddenly dawned on me that while we were unable to penetrate into his own world, it did not mean that he is incapable of emotions and social responses. He was embarrassed by his own actions and was keen aware of their effect on the mom and the other easily stressed-out aunt. He could respond to social cues, after all! For this, I told my sis - let's head straight for an ice cream - both for the boy and the mom. I bought Caleb his "reward" from Toys r Us. Told him that for having succeeded in doing his business in an unfamiliar environment, despite the ruckus he has created, he deserved a small prize. Of course it turned out that it was no small prize after all, not from my pocket anyway.

But here is where I could readily nod in agreement with Kah Ying's point about the progress and the expected regression that an autistic child will experience.

On Integrity and Ethics

Another article in today's Sunday Times Gen Y column on page 44, October 8, 2006 ("Psst! Want me to write your essay?") prompted this post.

Imagine having no qualms about outsourcing your homework assignments to "professional" writers. It's no wonder that the IPR and copyrights issue remains an uphill challenge for Asia to overcome. The other day, I was wondering aloud as to why it's so difficult for our libraries to secure rights to lend out CDs or even to get downloadable audio content (we were exploring ways to serve library users with special needs eg those with visual impairment or poor eyesight). One of my colleagues commented that we are in Asia - a place where piracy abounds.

I suppose this phenomenon of outsourcing homework assignment is also very prevalent in countries in the West. Last night, just caught the HBO movie "A Cinderella's Story" where the Princeton U student-to-be, Hilary Duff, had to write essays for her step sisters. It certainly spoke volumes of the way ethics and yes, integrity, are being regarded by youngsters.

I had a "debate" with my colleagues the other day. We were talking about the merits and demerits of using 3rd-party descriptions or blurps either found on the book jackets or online bookstore such as Amazon.com for our compilations of recommended reads. It was a balance between meeting public demand for recommended reads quickly either with short synopses that are culled from third party's reviews (speed is of essence here) vs making similar compilations using our own librarians' original reviews (professional knowledge and judgement of the librarians is of essence here).

I made a strong case for the latter of course. The availability of demand does not justify sources of supply that call into question our stand on ethics and integrity. Imagine passing someone's intellectual inputs as your own. I am not saying that my colleague was advocating that (we will definitely acknowledge third party's work but as I asked my colleague - so what's the point of getting our librarians to compile a list with cut-n-paste descriptions from elsewhere). I argued, rather strongly against that even if our objective is to create as many opportunities to create awareness of and access to our wonderful collections.

Anyway, back to the article. Maybe that's why we had the Imperial Exams for a long long time ever in our Chinese history in order to select the Zhuang Yuan (Imperial Scholar). Perhaps it's time to go back to the sit-down exams as being the key measure of one's intellectual ability since powerpoint presentations and essay or research paper-writing can be so readily outsourced.

Troubles with Teens

There were some thought-provoking pieces in today's Sunday Times (October 8, 2006).

The first that caught my attention was this news article on pg 8 by Ben Nadarajan that took a peek into the Juvenile Court to see what trouble our teenagers are getting into these days ("Oh, boy, are you in big trouble"). I think it's a good thing that the Subordinate Courts have recently relaxed the rule to allow the media too resume coverage of Juvenile Court cases. It opened our eyes to the growing social trend that can be disturbing and even shocking for some.

Yet it did not come as a shock to me as I read about the defiant teens who ended up in court. It was reported that about 1000 juveniles ended up in court each year. I wonder how many more of such instances which somehow have escaped the eyes of the law. Take for instance, what is happening at the libraries lately.

With the relaxation of self-study rule in the library, the current exam period brought hoardes of teenagers into the libraries and with that, a whole host of headaches for both non-teen library users and the staff. What is disturbing is not the fact that the libraries are being treated as convenient air-con study places (a perception that we have been trying hard to correct with all our efforts at creating learning communities & programmes encouraging interactive collaborative learning within our public library spaces). What is of real concern is that there is a growing number of teens who just want to hang out at the libraries and treat them as playgrounds. They talked and laughed loudly and - nonchalant about the needs of other users - they ran around and either retorted rudely when staffers advised them to tone down or turned to ripping off the tier guides along the collection shelves as a defiant response to staffers' impassioned pleas. Yes, they also fought with each other in the library. The presence of security guards has not helped; neither did the threat of calling in the police. Some library users even commented that the libraries are becoming mere extensions of the shopping mall jaunts for these kids.

I can imagine the heartaches that these teens must have been creating in schools and at home too. It's no wonder that in the same paper today, there was another column where a mother pleaded with our telco companies not to target the teens with their easy-to-sign-up mobile phone plans.

At last week's conference in Paris, we were talking about the different innovative ways that the library can engage teens in. Privately, I had my discussion with some of our international colleagues on the challenges with working with youth-at-risk. No conclusive answer though. Our challenge - how to engage them in a flexible and fun manner (especially getting them to see that reading and learning can be fun and enjoyable and certainly more positive and useful than just hanging around doing nothing but creating a ruckus where ever they go) yet at the same time ensuring that socially responsible behaviour is still required from them.

With a teenage niece in the family, we are jittery about the kind of peer influence she has. Our only hope is our love and commitment as a closely-knit family to ensure that she has access to positive and responsible social values that will stand her in good stead for the future.

Paris sights & pictures

Here are more pictures of Paris...


The good old Notre Dame.






You have to be inside the grand dame to see these stained glass walls (see right pic)

Quartier Latin & Shakespeare & Co which are nearby:

Paris from Level 3 of the Eiffel Tower

Paris from Level 2 of the Eiffel Tower

Paris in Sep

I was in Paris during the last week of Sep for a MetLib Conference. Armed with The Mini Rough Guide to Paris and some very hurried references from the library, I headed off to the City of Lights.

The Rough Guide said that "No visitor sees Paris for the first time - images of the city are endlessly reproduced on calendars and postcards around the world, and it has been the setting for countless films and novels. Yet Paris is capable of taking your breath away...."

Well, it took my breath away all right, when I encountered the first-ever pickpocket in my life - at Champs Elysees...I lost my credit cards and 300 Euros on the first day of my visit to the City of Romance.

Yet despite that rude shock, we did a whirlwind tour of the city on foot and via the Metro in between an extremely full conference program. Nothing that I have read prepared me for the chaos and degree of disorganization I encountered at the Charles de Gaulle Airport. That's really another story.

The rest of the must-see sights - well, I must say we did not do real justice to them given the very little time we had before the start of the conference.

We managed to squeeze in visits to the following places:


Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe - I loved the changing colors of the chestnut trees along the Avenue but hated the tourist crowds. My boss picked a bagful of chestnuts to bring home. Quite an unique souvenir instead of the usual Eiffel Tower paperweights.



Louvre Museum - yes, I joined the throngs of people to gawkg at the Mona Lisa. The museum is awesome.



Museum d'Dorsay - the magnificent railway station simply took my breath away.


Eiffel Tower - the surreal feeling of viewing the densely-packed white city from far atop. Hated the long queues though. The long queues took away part of the wonder. Fearful of heights, I was secretly very tensed when we made our way up to the topmost level but the amazing view that stood before us more than compensated for that momentary sense of terror.


Quartier Latin where we only had the time to have a quick coffee at one of the cafes and visit to the famous Shakespeare & Co.

Montmarte's Sacre-Coeur - the two churches are absolutely awesome, especially the Sacre-Coeur, located on the northern tip of Paris. Hans, boss and myself had a lovely free evening at Montmarte. I loved the way the church was magnificently lit up in the evening, the rows of cafes where we had a nice dinner at one of them, the night view of the city from the hilltop and of course not forgetting the knee-breaking climb uphill to reach the church.

Notre Dame on the other hand seemed too touristy altho the stained glasses, the majestic shafts within the church, the Gothic carvings - it was really awesome to stand inside a building that took almost two hundred years to complete.

Paris is best explored on foot and the Metro. Somehow, I couldn't manage to savour the city and take in fully its wonder and sights because of the short time we had.

The conference offered the opportunity to visit libraries in Hotel de Ville (not a hotel but a government building), Pompidou Center and the National Library of France. Our hotel, Novetel, is located in Les Halles. One of our dinners was at this lovely Brasseries, Au Pied de Cocbon near our hotel. It was a culture shock to have 5-course French lunches (that they termed as light lunch) while having to stand on our feet for buffet dinner comprising mainly finger food and wine.

All in all, the conference trip offered me a chance to visit and experience some of the 13 not-to-be-missed sights as stated in the Rough Guide. Yes, we took long walks along River Seine; stopped along the kiosks to browse through the postcards, photos and paintings that were on sale. The French coffee, chocs, cheese, cakes and yes, foie gras - all these were yummylicious! The French are well known for their national obsession with food - this can be seen in how the waiters take great pride in being totally professional and particular in the way food and wine are served. I may have read about it but experiencing it first-hand, I can only say "wow!".

We renewed old ties with other library directors during the conference - it was really like meeting old friends again. Hugs and kisses, hearty handshakes, cappucinos and wine abound. Made some new friends from Shanghai, Canada, Spain, S Africa and the States. Learnt new ideas from others' presentations. Felt gratified when various friends commended me on my presentation.

It was a great trip - never mind, the painful loss of so much money. I am only thankful to my employers for this opportunity not only to grow professionally but to have an opportunity to travel and experience other countries & their culture from the perspective of a business visitor rather than a tourist. It was also something different to experience first-hand what I have read from Sarah Turnbull and Peter Mayle's accounts as well as the couple of movies & Korean drama I have caught that had Paris as the setting.

Left Hand's Happiness

I had trouble initially in understanding the title of Liang Wern Foo's latest book, "Left hand's happiness" and how it relates to all the short stories that were compiled in it.

In the end,I realised he was alluding to his short story writing efforts. Liang Wern Foo is more well known for his essays, poems and song lyrics. Writing works of imagination such as short stories is akin to him attempting to use his left hand again. He discovered the joy of writing stories again hence the title for this book, "Left Hand's happiness".

The stories are written in a concise yet at times profound and sometimes oblique fashion. The language used is quite simple. This is surprising for me as reading Chinese books is, to me, the same as Liang's attempts at short story writing - it's like trying to re-use the left hand again.

I particularly like the following two stories:

Eyes is about 3 old people (2 ladies and 1 man) living together, obviously very in love with one another despite being so advanced in years. It's a poignant reminder of cherishing your loved ones instead of spending the best times of one's life fighting with another over the same love. There is a very touching twist to the story - you must read it to understand how the trio managed to iron out the differences and overcame the fights and obstacles and managed to stay together harmoniously for so many years.

Unfinished is about how a grandson tried his utmost to spur his grand-dad to continue living despite ailing health by finding means to circumvent the government's bilingual policy which has resulted in the cessation of the daily Cantonese news bulletin over the radio. In doing so, the grandson has helped to bring about a reconciliation between the grand-dad and his uncle (his grand-dad's younger son). It was this reconciliation that has enabled the old man to pass away peacefully with a smile.

I thought both stories were very poignant. The perspective which the two stories have taken was refreshing. The underlying themes of forgiveness and forebearance as well as the need to cherish the relationship with one's loved ones are very succintly conveyed.

Great stuff.

CSI face off: HK TV drama, Forensic Heroes vs Patricia Cornwell's At Risk

Ok, now you know how serious my HK TV drama addiction is. I watched the entire 25 episodes of HK latest TV drama serial, Forensic Heroes within a single weekend. It's the HK version of CSI. It starred my favorite HK TV artiste, Bobby Au-yeung. I watched the serial more than twice over.



When I chanced upon Patricia Cornwell's latest book, At Risk at Jurong Point's Popular Bookstore, the blurp on its jacket said "From the bestselling crime writer, an electrifying new thriller - with a twist...sparks fly, traps spring, twists abound - this is the master working at the top of her game".

I finished reading the book in one night - no mean feat considering the fact that for the past two months, hardly any book managed to grab my attention.


But I was DISAPPOINTED.

The font size was a comfortable size 12 so it was easy on the eyes. However the plot was...really quite flat...especially when I read the book soon after a fast-paced, suspenseful HK serial that kept me guessing whodunit after almost every two episodes. The story somehows lacked the compelling, spine-chilling suspense of Cornwell's Scarpetta series (especially her earlier and more memorable titles such as Body of Evidence).

There was a kind of an anti-climax feel to the way the twenty-year-old murder (another side plot) was eventually solved. The so-called new crime initiative using cutting edge DNA technology - well, couldn't feel the excitement nor the immense possibilities and power that it can bring to crime scene investigation. It's just not the same as being able to watch the entire HK CSI crew led by the very immaculately dressed Bobby. His commanding TV presence throughout the entire serial practically kept me glued to the TV for an intense 4 days. I was completely wowed by the array of high tech equipment and technology employed in the labs to uncover the truth that lies in each clue and evidence obtained from each crime scene.

So I guess Bobby and his team won hands over. This is the second Patricia Cornwell's novel that I am disappointed with. The first one which I have bought in recent years was Blow Fly. Somehow the magic in the Kay Scarpetta series could not be resurrected in subsequent works. What a pity...

Sam: a mother’s journey of faith by Lim Soo Hoon

I read about the book from a Sunday Times article on 27 Aug. Decided to buy the book during lunch at the MPH branch at Parkway Parade today.

I wanted to read this book partly because the author is my Chairman and the book is about her son, one of the many volunteers at the library. This book has another special meaning – Soh Khim, who is the aunt of Sam, happens to be my Secondary 3 & 4 classmate back in RGS. Although I have not been in touch with her since we left school, it was in a way a little weird to learn a little more about her (after a lapse of almost 3 decades!) through her sister's book.

My Chairman is an intensely private person or at least that is how I perceive her. Some of us got to hear about her son’s illness through the office grapevine but never really knew what has happened. I knew about it through one of Sam’s closest friends, who happens to be the son of my sister’s boss.

So this book offers me a peek into the inner journey that myChairman took and gave a better insight of who she is especially as a mother. Honestly, we know so little of her back at work. We only knew the official side of her. This book is about her personal life, one as a mother.

In many ways, her book is really no different from the many Christian accounts of similar tribulations that I have read (see my earlier post on Florence Heng’s own battle with breast cancer). I would say that I have read more moving accounts elsewhere of someone else’s faith.

One of the first few additions to the body of literature on autism that I have added to my personal library is this book by a mother. It was her account of her journey with her autisic son. It was a moving as well as inspiring account of a mother who had to deal with the knowledge of having an autistic son and learning to overcome the painful challenges that fraught her way. Challenges like having to cope with a child who not only wailed uncontrollably but also threw impossible tantrums. It was a lot of harder for this mother cos it’s a lifelong condition for which there is no cure unlike the acute illness and the short intense period that Sam and his family went through.

Of course, this is not to diminish the pain, fear and anguish that my Chairman and family must have felt during the last two years. What I can gather from the book was an honest, sincere, simple account of a mother’s faith and continued trust in the Almighty during such difficult moments.

It wasn’t easy for me to assimilate all the biblical verses and references. I have left that part of my life behind me many years ago. My sister read the book on a MRT journey back home - it was given to her as a gift from her boss's wife. It so happened that her boss's son is one of Sam's closest friends. My sis cried buckets of tears even though she was reading the book on the train. I suppose her response was different from mine simply because, as a mother, she could readily identify with my Chairman's fears and struggles. For someone who has an autistic son and a daughter who has recently been diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder, she can identify perfectly with my Chairman's anguish.

As for me, when I realized that my little niece who was down with high fever for a consecutive few days and that it could well be a prelude to a bout of acute pneumonia, I reacted. I felt frightened. It brought back very unpleasant memories of that one month of grave illness last year, when I came down with acute pneumonia. That was after my holiday in Hong Kong.

This time round, we are only like 6 days away from our impending trip to Hong Kong Disneyland. I am really besought with fear and unwittingly, I began to pray that my little niece need not go through the same painful process that I had to undergo last year.

So reading my Chairman’s book, I can understand the need to rely on a greater strength out there to cope with something as fearful as having your loved one becoming real sick. The book will resonate well and will strike an emotional chord with those who have undergone or are undergoing similar life experiences.

Like the time when we got news of our older sis’s breast cancer. I could readily identify with the first chapter of the book. The reality of the news, the uncertainties of the upcoming months and future…even after my sister was given a clean bill of health after her initial radiotherapy, we were living in fear for the first year or so. Every bone, brain and liver scan were greeted with trepidation. The agony of waiting for the results and the intense relief that follows after each set of positive results…
I did not take my sis nor the rest of my family for granted since then.

Drama Addiction or Reading Desert

It has been such a long while since my last post. Confession: I was too busy watching one HK drama serial after another. It was addictive. But I kind of like the way it dulls my mind and allows me to become totally absorbed into each story. But I was becoming anti-social. It came to a point where I was seriously considering checking myself into IMH to wean me off this addiction.

In the course of the past two months, I tried various attempts to read but none held my attention…hence I had nothing to post. I promised to finish reading Liang Wen Foo's "Left hand's happiness"...well I have not quite done so. Just managed to read a chapter here or there.

It's bad news to have stopped reading good books. I did not quite stopped reading altogether but somehow the books which I tried to pick up during the last 2 months could not quite grab my attention. They were simply not fulfilling. Just to give you an idea of what I tried to read: I finished with the rest of Peter Mayle's books that I have bought a few months ago: Anything Considered; Toujours Provence and Hotel Pastis. For the last book, I did not manage to finish it. It was just not as consuming as the earlier books that I have read. My conclusion: his fiction works are not as insightful and fun as his travel writings.

I also tried reading others - mostly half-hearted efforts - couldn't get past the first few chapters...maybe the blame is on the HK drama serials - it's easier on the brain - no need to visualise the plot and characterisation as well as the beauty of the language. Just watch and re-watch and that's it.

Short Stories by Ai Yu

This is the second book in the READ! Singapore (25 May - 5 August) series that I am reading; the first being the inspiring Kite Runner. It's a Chinese title. It's a collection of short stories that makes easier reading for someone who can count the number of Chinese works she has read in her entire lifetime with her 10 fingers. Reading Short Stories by Ai Yu or any Chinese novel is akin to me, a righthander, using my left hand to pen my thoughts and views.

The central and recurring theme of the collection is on moral values or the gradual dilution and loss of them. The stories focused family relationships especially between parents and their children (eg in the first story, Sea Cucumber), treatment of the elderly (Taking the Temperature), as well as the relevance of traditional values & beliefs (as depicted in Letting Go Life, Chopsticks and Inviting Guan Gong for House Moving).

I have not quite finished reading the book; in fact, midway through it, I decided to start flipping through the pages to look for other less morbid themes. The subject coverage is on the not-so-positive take on parent-child relationships - quite a number of the stories focused on the darker side of family relationships & the gradual dilution of moral values.

For instance, this is depicted in the story, Wedding Ceremony, where parents of the bride and groom were "hired professionals" who could grace the ceremony with the required poise and style that is reflective of the social status and prestige that the couple were aspiring to. In another story, Three Moves, it talked about the callous way the Wife has adopted towards not only her parents-in-law but to her own mom when she "compelled" the husband to move house and excluded both sets of parents from their own little paradise.

Similar themes of this nature kept recurring in different contexts but nevertheless the same theme permeated through these stories. These are themes that reflect the sentiments of the past two decades but somehow, as I read them, I found them to be rather cliched now.

I mean, with the last 5 years of immense changes, globally (the 9/11, SARS and bird flu) and locally (the recent changes in the educational system that emphasizes the holistic development of the individual rather than academic excellence), I find that reading such themes now somehow has given a dated feeling about the book.

However, I would say that given that this is a collection of stories written through a span of more than 2 decades (from the 1980s to 2004), the writings were probably pretty astute and perceptive take on the social preoccupations of Singapore in that period.

I would say, that unlike Kite Runner which ends on a note of hope even though it also touches on the unpleasant side of humanity, my reading of Ai Yu's book so far has not uplifted my spirit in the same manner.

Frankly, I much prefer Liang Wen Foo's latest work, Left Hand's Happiness, that has just been recently launched at the Singapore/World Book Fair. The subject coverage is alot more extensive (and less morbid, I feel) - it's similar in the sense that Liang also collects his take on the various interesting aspects of Singapore life. Anyway, I will talk more about this in another post.

Kite Runner

Last night, at about 1am or after, I finally completed my reading of Khaled Hosseini's Kite Runner.

Frankly, it was one of the most moving works I have read of late. It was not the first time I read works on war-torn countries and the delibitating impact on their people.

The novel was very personal on one level when it focused on the relationship between Amir and Hassan, Amir and his Baba and then later on when the true relationship between Baba and Ali, Hassan's father, was revealed. On another, it gave me a curiously close-up insight on Afghanistan, which till last night, remained as a very remote land where the happenings failed to affect me in any way.

There were many moments when I started tearing while reading excruciating parts like Hassan's rape, Amir's subsequent guilt and how he could not forgive himself for that act of cowardice when he failed to go to Hassan's aid. What was most poignant was the fact that Hassan knew yet selflessly forgave his friend for doing so. His sense of betrayal was further accentuated when Amir later witnessed how his Baba stood up for another fellow lady passenger during their flight from Kabul to Pakistan. I think witnessing how his father fearlessly challenged the Russian soldier in an attempt to prevent another mindless rape from happening compounded his sense of worthlessness and accentuated the perceived difference between him and his father. It once again reinforced his conviction that he would never be the son that his father has hoped for.

However, as I read further, I realised that there was a reason why Baba had been so "hard" or exacting on Amir (as rightly perceived him) and that in some ways, the father and son were more alike than they knew. They shared the same sense of betrayal.

In any case, there were many other touching moments - like the last fatherly duty that Baba performed in asking for the hand of Soraya and spending practically all his life savings on Amir's wedding. In another poignant moment, when Amir left his Baba in his final resting place. It was powerful and raw - cos it represented the deep bond between the father and son and how the relationship has been healed and strengthened during their stay in America. It was during this period that Amir felt forgiven for driving Hassan and Ali out of their house and lives earlier.

The book is about friendship, betrayal, forgiveness, redemption and healing on a very personal level - reflected in how Amir finally rescued Hassan's son Sohrab from a horrific fate and in doing so, found " a way to be good again" like what Rahman has predicted. Somehow, I wondered if the themes carried to the next level to Afghanistan - to forgive the mindless devastation wrought by misplaced ideologies and to find redemptive means and hope to heal the land and its people. That, I have to re-read the book and as well as to have a better understanding of what has happened to Afghanistan for the past 3 decades.

Anyway, I have more to say about the book that this single posting can contain. One thing for sure: I was certainly misled initially by what I have heard about the book; especially when its literary qualities were so highly extolled. As a solid work of literature, I had thought that books of such high literary quality are usually tough to read and understand. This book has surprised me with its simple, plain yet emotionally provoking prose - it hits you hard when the vileness of humanity was so visually described that it is not difficult to imagine or visualize, as if you are right at the scene to witness everything and share the despair and pain of Amir, Baba, Ali, Hassan and Sohrab, as well as many of the Afghanistan people.

I particularly liked the way that the author has framed his novel with a kite running scene both at the beginning and towards the end. "...for you, a thousand times over" was what Hassan said to Amir on that fateful day. Amir said the same to Sohrab at the end, when he acted as his kite runner. That, is what friendship or, at a deeper level, love and family bonding is all about.

Great book. Maybe it was not quite right to make such a comparison - reading Kite Runner is almost like watching a Lee Ang or Peter Chan's movie - it's almost cinematic, beautiful and definitely evocative.