Alice Reads: Teaser Tuesdays (Days Gone By: Growing Up in Penang)

I am currently reading a book that a good friend loaned me (it's also a book that I got him for his birthday last year). We were both browsing at a bookstore and he seemed to like the book. It sort of coincided with his birthday, so that was a great opportunity for a birthday gift!

Before I tell you more about the book, here's my teaser and I can't resist giving you the entire paragraph. Scusami...

THE YEAR WAS 1876. A dilapidated freighter had just docked at Weld Quay, Penang. Anxiously waiting to disembark was a shipload of men carrying wooden trunks and cloth bags bulging with clothes and personal belongings. They looked dishevelled and disoriented, having endured an arduous sea voyage and were about to face an unknown future. They had left their families in China, some for a better life and more opportunities, others out of desperation, to work as free labourers or indentured coolies in the British Straits Settlement of Penang. Among them was a young man of nineteen. His name was Leong Fee, also known as Liang Pi Joo. To me, he was Kong Tai, my great grandfather.
 

DAYS GONE BY by Christine Wu Ramsay (ISBN: 9789834283469) is an interesting book that accounts the arrival of her great-grandfather, Leong Fee, a poor Hakka migrant from China who rose to become the owner of the famous "Tambun Mines" and a Vice-Consul of China in Penang. It also details her childhood including during the Japanese Occupation up till her departure for Australia in 1957. There are lots of beautiful old photos of her family that are real treasures.

If you're interested to buy the book, you can get it at the local bookstores or online at The Penang Bookshelf. Happy Teaser Tuesdays, my friends!