Review from The Book Reader Fall/Winter 2002-2003 Edition
ESCAPE FROM PARADISE. By John & May Chu Harding. IDK Press, paper, $19.95. From Third World to First. ¿Each piece of jewelry had a story.¿ And this story, of the underside of paradise, has stories within stories as a woman manages to break free from a web of wealth and power in the dictatorship of Singapore and escape to America where ¿the word `freedom¿ takes on a special meaning.¿ The web of power comes from the potent Tiger Balm family in Singapore, and from other power centers in Asia, and this is May Chu¿s retreat from her arranged marriage. She comes up against the Singaporean legal system¿ which may be legal but its system has a lot of hidden agendas. May Chu is extremely knowledgeable about the interconnections, the businesses, the liquid assets, the hopes and dreams of the wealthy and the powerful. Along the way are the smiling aspects of life: the power of a nagging wife, plastic wrappers for comic books, her meeting with John (a very funny session devoted to questions and answers), getting the kids into school where they can learn a fluent English. ¿Chinese believe that each of us is born with a certain amount of luck, an exact quantity, something like money in the bank, and like money, it can be used up.¿ Americans have a saying: luck is a lady. And this lady and her subsequent husband have written a somber, very human tale of a woman¿s remarkable journey. Candor, wisdom and hope. And luck.
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Overview
Escape from Paradise is a current true adventure of a woman's escape from an arranged marriage. Set in Singapore, Brunei, Australia, England, and the United States, it involves Asia's famous Tiger Balm family, and a mysteriously wealthy family from Brunei.