Three Sisters of Sze by Tan Kok Seng

Singaporean novel - Three Sisters of Sze by Tan Kok Seng

The author's name sounded very familiar to me. I used to have a colleague who had the same name as him. Hahaha... So I heard about his name many years ago but only recently I managed to read one of his four books. Finally!

This book was about Sze family. Mr Sze's parents came from China. His father came and started from scratch, nothing, zero. With hard work and perseverance, Mr Sze's father slowly managed to bring his wife and parents to Penang. However his parents couldn't stand the lifestyle in Penang and went back to China, while he and his wife remained settling down in Penang.

Mr Sze was born in Penang and was Western educated. Later on he got married, had three daughters, and lived happily until one day his wife was addicted with playing Mahjong with her neighbors. Their three daughters ended up growing up without parental guidance or love while their father was having an affair outside as a result of being neglected by his wife.

The story was easy to read and flew very smoothly. I loved reading it! It reminded me of my grandparents and my father's background. How familiar I felt although they did different things in life and of course, we (my siblings and I) weren't raised like that.

We were indeed very lucky to have a very loving parents who took care five of us very well with so much love and care, in a strict and discipline way. They gave us education (wings to fly), so that all of us could continue our life journey independently, without having to depend on them so much.  It's so much like this :)

From the story, I learn something. I realized that happiness and unhappiness in the family would depend on the quality of thinking and attitudes of the people who lived inside. As every human being carried different background, had different thinking and goals in life, different dreams and expectations, then disagreement might happen at anytime. But if everyone had the same goals, mainly to retain peace and harmony within the family, automatically their lives would be in peace and harmony too.

That's why we often heard the clash between the wife and mother-in-law, or with other in-laws who stayed together with them.

Lovely families :)

I'm very lucky though having a very kind and understanding mother-in-law, also caring and loving sister-in-laws ^^ I've been staying with them since I got married and so far, all of us can maintain this peace and harmony, which is very important as home is where we stay, where we start and end our daily life. I really thank them for being good and kind to me. We respect each other. I hope we can maintain this kind of relationship for long. Thank you, thank you, and thank you! :)