Between Stations

Between Stations by Kim Cheng Boey is a series of essays that are rooted in Kim’s life as he emigrates out of his birthplace, Singapore and his current home, Sydney, Australia.  Boey travels through India, China, Egypt, and Morocco.  He shares many of his experiences as he visits mixes of people, the market places, and brings history and religion of what he notes from his upbringing. 

He is a young man when he leaves Calcutta in 1994 as he drifts from low paying job to another, first as an assistant superintendent in a jail and later as a probation officer.  Throughout, he is haunted by his relationship with his father, who too was a drifter, disappearing from the family and becoming a gambler.  The restlessness within his father is noted as having affected how Boey also approaches life, finding it easier to move along than stay in one place.  Boey draws upon some of the great poets of our time in expressing his journey.  This one captures Boey’s journey quite well:  “walking is a way of disconnecting from the terrestrial to find the real home, the path towards self-renunciation with something transcendental.”  Boey walks to connect with his father, but can’t seem to ever find him (in a metaphorical manner). 

Boey also has a hard time understanding his relationship with his grandmother.  He notes her role in the family when his father, and then mother left, and how she was the glue.  But as she ages, her mind and ability to discern her own connection with Boey, she too seems to drift away from him.  Boey is brilliant in emphasizing the people, foods, smells, and fabrics of culture, that remind us of our past as he travels on his journey.    He clearly is inspired by poetry, theatre, and all forms of art (photography, music, and other writings) and draws upon DuFu after visiting his historic cottage.  “In meaning, everything lives in music… it preserves the place of experiences (remember where you were when you heard the Beatles, “Yesterday”…..). 

The book is written in a “free form” style and not linear.  Throughout the essays, Boey goes deep into the hard-times as a child, and then captures moments of his own children (a young son and daughter) who he hopes to change the outcome of relationships he had in his own family.   Death plays a central role in the book, “death has a way of underlining command and solidarity. The death of a long-term resident knits the whole street together,” referring to the death of a neighbor.  Yet for Boey, he never seems to receive this coming together after the deaths of his own father or grandmother, there is no relief and understanding for him.  Yes, life is a journey, and for Boey, his journey is hard to understand, but one he continues to attempt to make meaning.  The book raises lots of emotions for the reader.  Not easy thinking through the pains and wounds inflicted by the ones we love.  Boey tries to escape yet is constantly pulled back to his roots, always hoping that the answer to the pain will heal.  Unfortunately, it rarely does.