Malaysians can never get over the romanticism of the time when we, as a nation, were euphoric over being independent. The years after independence with their favourite Prime Minister at the helm will be forever remembered as the golden era of our young nation. People were accommodative and non judgmental in their outlook. At a time when the colonial masters' way of living and socializing was universally accepted, nobody would look at another with a 'holier than attitude'. Muslims consumed alcohol and no watchdog moral police stopped them.
After the terrible trying times of the second World War and the economic prowess of their commodities at all time high, it was time to celebrate and did they celebrate. Against this backdrop emerged a rose which sparkled for a while but it could but not leave without leaving behind a legacy of a time not easily forgotten.
This book is not a biography in the real sense. It does, however, enumerate significant events in the life of Malaysia's most famous stage performer, Rose Chan at the end of the book.
It is told from time Rose is at her death bed with recurrence of breast cancer in series of flashbacks.
It is almost unbelievable that the author, who professes of never seeing Rose perform live, could narrate in such details and set the perfect ambiance of the excitement of her shows. Perhaps we could attribute it to the author's imaginative writing skills and the imaginative poetic brain of his as well as the champion storytelling ability of Rose's confidante and manager, Lee Ying.It does not give a year to year account of the life and times of Malaysia's legendary stage performer but instead tells in bits and pieces of her life events from which we, the readers can draw a big composite picture. It starts with Rose Chan lying in her death bed counting her days on Earth.
The origin of this Soochow girl is no different from that of any other migrant to this country. At the tender age of 6, the young Chan was bundled off alone with a relative to Singapore to escape famine. Using her self learnt survival skills, her familial skill of acrobatics, entrepreneurship, helping at the kitchen, undying zest to learn, a broken marriage to a senior citizen of which she may have been sold off, she eventually progressed to be a member of a dance troupe. A wardrobe malfunction later saw her getting more attention than to her dance. Hence, started her performances in her birthday suit, the wrestle with an albino python and being run over by a motorcycle!To add credence to the story telling, the author had decided to leave a big portion of the spoken narratives in broken English (Manglish/Singlish). It actually adds humour and authenticity to the storytelling.
The tale goes that Rose Chan who became Roseminah after marrying a bloke who had an uncanny resemblance to her heart-rob at that time, the debonair prince Tunku and the swashbuckling movie star P. Ramlee. It goes on to tell about Roseminah using her culinary skills to raise funds for the young nation. She must have known the two ways to a man's heart - the curves and the culinary skills.
Talking about getting into a man's heart, we cannot say that she did master that trade as she married 5 times altogether.
The steely lady had her share of brush with the law, local and international. In Australia, she was once charged for soliciting sex but her charisma turned her trial into more like a freak show to the amusement of the public gallery supporters and the annoyance of the presiding judge.The law in Malaya those days regarding exposure of the flesh was quite relaxed in keeping with influence of the colonial masters. In spite of various attempts by certain quarters to ban her shows, she miraculously survived. There was a particular law about nudity in public. A nude person is not breaking any law if she does not pose a nuisance to others and does not move when exposed. She was once charged when she was still moving on a carousel-like contraption. In a heart warming trial, she, defended by David Marshall who later became the Chief Minister of Singapore in a case which, by today's Malaysian standard of outdoing each other in 'holiness', only happen in your wildest dream!
This 1950 Miss Singapore 1st runners-up had a stellar international fame. She retired at the age of 51 in 1976 just to be bogged down by breast cancer 4 years later. Being the fighter that she was, she fought the given prognosis of 2 years to live another 7 years. She died almost a pauper, after giving a lot to charity and the bottomless pit of her adopted son who squandered quite a bit of her earning. The goodwill of the general public paid for some of her medical expenses. The book also includes recipes of Rose's cooking and aphrodisiac advice and sexual manoeuvres. The list of gourmet enlisted is reflective of her assimilation into her new found homeland - fish head curry, sambal udang assam, penang chilli crab, penang pork-strips, abalone soup, etcetera.
Looking at the trend of things these days, this book would be banned only if it is translated to the national language. It may confuse people. Otherwise it should be okay! The tutorial on Chinese aphrodisiacal techniques were quite graphic, to say the least!
Her charm is supposedly immortalized by a Wilfrid Thomas, BBC radio presenter, during his stopover at Singapore, who was smitten by the star of the day to pen a composition (Rose, Rose, I love you) to the tune of an old 40s Chinese song (May Kway, oh May Kway) for Frankie Laine to record later. Our own Datuk Zainal Alam had a quad-lingual cover version too.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdfDYSzxjJU (Zainal Alam)
http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19501030-1.2.3.aspx
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