MY SISTER MEDA, A MEMOIR OF OLD SINGAPORE

 

MY SISTER MEDA, A MEMOIR OF OLD SINGAPORE is based on direct experiences.   The book describes growing up in colonial Singapore in a Sephardic Jewish family in pre-and-post WW2.  My family was part of a Sephardic Jewish community, an enclave of settlers from Baghdad who came to Singapore in the 19^th century in search of freedom and prosperity from persecution in Iraq.  My sister was key to our exodus from Singapore at a time when the island was going through political difficulties.

After leaving Singapore, I traveled extensively as a flight attendant with Trans World Airlines, studied yoga, and in the 1970s developed a program that dealt with modern stress. Growing up in early Singapore, I was influenced by the many different cultures of Singapore’s population.  An interest in Buddhism later led to an exploration of Zen and Chado, practices that continue to influence my life.  

My published books include: Wife, Just Let Go: Zen, Alzheimer’s, and Love (2017, a duo-memoir with my husband Robert Briggs (then diseased) of my experiences in caregiving as he struggled with Alzheimer’s. I’m also the author of Tea and Ceremony: Experiencing Tranquility with an introduction by Deng Ming-Dao (2004), The Common Book of Consciousness, Taking charge of your life through diet, exercise, and meditation, introduction by Kenneth Pelletier (1991), and Four Hands: Green Gulch Poems (1987).  My poems of haiku and tanka are published in New Bridges: a Haiku Anthology (2018) as well as other Journals including Cattails and Moonbathing. 

I’ve received many positive reviews on MY SISTER MEDA, A MEMOIR OF OLD SINGAPORE among them are:

“My Sister Meda, A Memoir Of Old Singapore, is a story that’s visual, engaging, and memorable, a story about family, human relationships and love in a once British colony. Saltoon, who’s family was part of the Baghdadi Jewish diaspora seeking a safe harbor in Singapore, describes the island’s beauty, its multicultural attractions and cuisine, from the bright colors and rich spices of Serangoon Road, to the ritual and solemnity of the local Synagogue (now a national monument).  She then shows a darker side of Singapore, the Japanese occupation and internment in Sime Road Camp during WW2 where she and her family were imprisoned. But it is her sister Meda, who later, through an unusual chance correspondence to a man she falls in love who changes their lives.  Her marriage to an American in Hawaii paves the way for an exodus of the family to a new life in the Unites States at a time when Singapore was transitioning from British rule to independence.” 

- Dr. Kenneth Pelletier

 

"Diana Saltoon has accomplished the near impossible: the weaving of family and history without becoming sentimental. She faces the hardships of pre-war Singapore, all the while weaving not one but many family stories. My Sister Meda: A Memoir of Old Singapore sheds light on the little known world of the Japanese occupation of Singapore. The family's internment in the Sime Road Camp and her recounting of the Sephardic Jewish experience belongs in every public and school library across the globe." 

 

- Terry Ann Carter

  From Publishers Weekly:

 "With careful research and elegant prose, Saltoon pays moving homage to her family in this memoir of Sephardic Jews in the colonial Old Singapore. Saltoon tells the story in evocative scenes (“she promised him the best satay in Singapore, if not the world, served by a humble Malay vendor called Jalak out in an open-air site off the road”) and occasional poetry, tracing the family’s origins and capturing the texture of daily life in a Short Street townhouse in a neighborhood “of Chinese, Malays, Eurasians, as well as other Mahalla Jews.

The inevitability of World War II, though, looms over the island colony, and Saltoon offers illuminating background about international politics of the era as well as eye-opening accounts of life in internment camps during the Japanese occupation. Saltoon’s story opens with the origins of her parents, with mother Girjee, renamed later as Grace, born in Baghdad, and sent to far-off Singapore to marry. Little was expected of Nassim, her father, who was afflicted with a stammer and uncontrollable trembling, as he entered adulthood in a Jewish home in Singapore. Their union, the result of a matchmaker, produced not only several healthy children but a confident couple of high standing within their community. Saltoon beautifully lays out her parents' lives, and Grace stands as an example of strength as she persists in her sewing, catering, and envisioning of a grand future despite her worsening vision.

Saltoon’s sister, the beloved Meda of the title, eventually pulls the family from conflict zones and camps with the help of her American husband. Readers follow alongside each of the adult children as they find love and purpose in their lives. Detail into the family’s transition as they fled the East and transitioned into Western life comes through insightful correspondence, revealing their feelings about these changes in real time. This memoir is an act of history and of love."

Takeaway: The fascinating history of a Jewish family’s life in Old Singapore.

Comparable Titles: Joan Bieder’s The Jews of Singapore, Marvin Tokayer and Ellen Rodman’s Pepper, Silk and Ivory.

Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A-
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Print Date: 05/01/2023