Why did you choose to write drama instead of poetry which is the norm for female writers?

Kon:

Well, I am a closet poet. I have written poems but I haven’t published them. From a very early age, I was writing both prose and drama at the classroom level. Writing plays seemed as natural to me as writing prose because of my mother was a theatre person and probably that was the deciding factor. I came from a family with a lot of theatre background. It was natural for my writing to flow into drama as readily as into prose. So I have done both.

So, when you say that you are a closet poet, do you have a collection of poems that are not published.?

Kon:   

some of my plays contain poetry like in the Shakespearean tradition like blank verse and inserted poems, meant to be read out. Poems whose appeal is largely oral whereas modern poems are very internalised. Some of the poetry in ‘Dragon’s Teeth Gate’ and ‘The Trial’ is very much meant for reading aloud. 

What are some of the themes that you engage in this poetry of yours?

Kon:   

Since it is not published it is all in the private realm. They are all extremely  personal - spiritual journey and the encounter with the divine, the transcendental in various mystical and symbolic forms. 

Would you one day want to publish it in an anthology?

Kon:   

I don’t know the channels by which poetry is published. I haven’t made any efforts.

There is no female publishing house. AWARE is looking into it. Do you think that more publicity should be given where channels are for female poets and writers?

Kon:   

I am not sure if gender makes any difference where poetry is concerned. My poetry is publishable whether it is male or female. 

Do you think male and female writers engage in similar themes?

Kon:   

There are themes which are special to women. I don’t think that books of  Catherine Lim are with feminine issues because she is a woman anymore than Philip Jeyaretnam’s books are specifically male in approach although he is a man.

Since we are talking about Philip, if we look at Abraham’s Promise, the women are quite silenced.

Kon:   

It seems that he is writing from a man’s viewpoint and man live in a man’s world.

So writing need not have to be gendered.

Kon:    

I don’t think so. This is politically a very explosive issue. 

So unless one wants to write about a particular issue related to gender, one need not have to.

Kon:   

Having said that there are indeed many strong issues that need to be talked about.Generally, I am against discrimination and prejudice and in very many cases women are disscriminated and subject to prejudice. So it comes out as a gender issue.

Do you dwell in this in your writing?

Kon:   

In Emily the defacto is about the position of women in a male society but as it were it is a story men will be equally interested.

You were born in Edinburgh. Would you like to tell me something about your background?

Kon:   

Well, I was three years old when we left Edinburgh and came to Singapore. So my memories of Edinburgh are few and then I was brought up in Singapore and I went to Singapore schools and Singapore University. After graduation, I got married, after which I was out of Singapore for a while in Britain and Malaya. I returned to Singapore about 12 years or so. I came back in 1987. 

What are the basic themes that you work on?

 Kon:   

What it is like to be a Singaporean. I portray the consciousness of what it is like to be a Singaporean. There is one short story called ‘Heritage’ and was set in the Eurasian community called the ‘Martyrdom of Helena Rodrigues’ and ‘The Inheritance’. At that time I was probably using the Eurasian community as the interface between the western world and the Asian world. It is a hybrid culture. As I have not much connection with the Eurasian community but I am using it as a reference point. All my works have this ‘rojak’ quality. The play called ‘The Bridge’ is very rojak. It may have made it very difficult for people to produce. It was staged once by Raffles Institution for Youth Festival. 

Where do you derive your sources from?

Kon:   

From China, India, Malaya. There is Ramayana, Chinese legendary figures.

What distinguishes local writing from western writing? Is it the repertoire of influences from the various cultures which we can tap from?

Kon:   

In the play called ‘Dragon’s Teeth Gate’, I refer to a phenomenon in which a human admiral from the 14th century comes to be worshipped as a god which is an alien concept in the west but it happens all the time in Asia.

Do you see a progression in your writing in terms of themes or style?

 Kon:           

Certainly. My knowledge of stagecraft has improved but I don’t get much feedback from the practitioners.

Why Peranakan?

Kon:   

She had to be something; be it Indian, Malay or Chinese. Indeed it may have been Eurasian since I had successfully written 2 Eurasian plays. The one called ‘Helena Rodrigues’ is the prototype of the destroying mother that eats her son alive. When I went into the Peranakan, I had a rich source of family memories to draw upon but not that much as I never saw myself as a professional Peranakan. I don’t actually speak the language or cook the food or talk the talk. So, I had to do a lot of research from books.

I was away from Singapore most of the time. It was factual in many ways. The character is a universal character. She need not have to be Peranakan. The Peranakan gives it the depth and the colour and it is just possible that by being one step away from the culture, I am more able to borderline caricature and extract the most resonant aspects or essence rather than one who is so immersed in it that one doesn’t know which details are more pungent than others. I would like to say that ‘Emily’ played by someone outside of the Peranakan, perhaps by an Indian would also be able to bring out the love-hate relationships and the control issue out just as well. The actresses have told me that acting the role has been for them a way of working through their own issues and resolve their personal stuff. I have personally given reading in somebody’s living room.

It was powerful enough to bring people to tears. The pupils and young people will relate to it from the children’s angle. A student said to me, ‘After seeing your play, I understand my mother more.’ The child watching the play will at first detest her at the way she treats her son but as the play goes on one they see her point of view. Your psychic energy will come out. That is worth writing the play.

Franz Fanon said that there are 3 stages to the evolution of national literature. First stage is the assimilation of the coloniser’s culture, writing like the white man. The second stage is where we are disturbed by what is happening and we say that we must recollect our past. The final stage is the awakening where we write about what we have become as a result of colonisation. How do you see your writing in this respect?

 Kon:   

An interesting question. It was probably in Primary 1or 2 where I went through the pseudo-English, influenced by Enid Blyon books which is equivalent to picking up the culture of the colonial masters. Very shortly after that I began to realise the incongruity of singing about the daffodils and tulips and the London River in school. I felt the dichotomy. At that time in standard 3 or 4 I rewrote the Cinderella version where she played with the lizards in the kitchen and there was a large melon.

In other words, I was reclaiming Cinderella for my own culture. So, by the time I was in secondary school, due to my parents’ influence, who were engaged in university discourse at that time, the whole idea of anti-colonial struggle and nationalism were blowing around my head at that time. By the time I was in school, I was writing plays, one with local background and one with a pseudo-Chinese legendary background. By the time I was in A-level, I was writing Singaporean stories such as ‘Mushroom Harvest’ which is published in Llyod Fernando’s collection of 22 Malaysian writers.

It is a bit of a science fiction set in the Singapore of the future. ‘Helena Rodrigues’ was in the first year of university. I suppose I went along with the current pretty fast. I went to stage 3 fast as it was in the air and I was positioned where I could get all these things fast. When I was in Form 5, Goh Poh Seng’s plays were performed by a drama group in KE Hall of which my father was the master. I was a child standing by the side lines watching my father and his students engaged in these activities which are right up your alley. I was as a child watching and aware that this was happening. I did not feel the nationalistic fervour but I watched and observed it. Till this day, I am not one to get involved in so called fervour but I can write about those who are involved in it. 

Do you think that Singapore writing today lacks a larger project that is to contribute to the formation of a national literature or identity?

 Kon:   

I am writing for a Singaporean and the concept is like, I say to the Singaporean this is how you feel, these are my streets, these are my people. ‘I was born here. This is where I grew up.’(Trial) and if it makes it nation building then it is. This is really about what it is like to be a Singaporean. It is a-political.

Would you say that your writing to a certain extent would come across as Singaporean to a foreigner who is reading it?

 Kon: 

If you look at Eston that only in one chapter where I used place names. Any Singaporean reading it will feel that it is Singapore. Yet people from a wide range of Asian culture will be able to similarly feel at home. It may not be Asian per se but maybe modern city Asian metropolis.

Have you ever thought of writing against the grain, meaning writing against colonialism or unionism?

 Kon:           

‘Emily’,  ‘Trial’, ‘City of Splendour’, ‘Breeding Pair’ are fairly subversive. Some of the themes in ‘Immigrant and other Plays’ and Emporium and other Plays’ may be somewhat subversive.

In what areas are they subversive, politically?

 Kon:          

Certainly not anti-PAP. You can take ‘Trial’  as ‘anti- the man in white suits’.

You have to read ‘Trial’ very carefully as what is not said is as important as what is said.Let me tell you that ‘Trial’ is about freedom of speech basically and when it was produces by Raffles Junior College the censors cut only took out one line which was ‘there is no freedom of speech in Singapore’. That is what you are not allowed to say. The irony is so telling. If I had written it you would say that it is over the top. So, the man in the white shirt and pants is presented as the good guy who is given all the good lines and is put up to say exactly what he wants to say. He gets to write a ply, to put up a play and in the play you see the full development of Plato’s idea that the state should be run by meritocracy. 

Why write about this? What sparked you to write this?

 Kon:  

1982. First year Philosophy Course, study the republic of Plato. It  resembles Singapore in so many ways and many of the ideas in Plato came down in the PAP government in later years for e.g. certain women should be encouraged to have more children and certain women should not be encouraged to have children. This is in the Republic. It came out after my play was written. Lee Kuan Yew’s mind is right up there with Platos. Lee Kuan Yew is the heir of the Philosopher Kings. He is a man of action and a man of philosophy, too. Right now he is the Plato of South East Asia. He believes and loves the idea of fostering the idea of a class of elite. There is good in all systems. We should sieve the good but must not let it go to the extreme.

If you were to compare yourself with any of the local writers, who would you choose?

 Kon:   

I have a strong streak of fantasy. I do not know whether any other fantasy writers in Singapore engage in the issues I engage in. 

Why do you like to write fantasy?

Kon:   

I was reading fantasy. I was brought up reading fantasy all through my childhood. Tolkiens’ ‘Lord of the Rings’ was a seminal influence. ‘Eston’ is a one-man alien invasion which is slanted to a religious angle. One critic quoting from ‘Eston’ said that everything has to have a reason but he adds that we are never told what the reason is. 

Any ideas why women writers shy away from plays and prefer poetry? This is a universal trend.

 Kon:   

I wonder if has anything to do with the set up of the theatres which is usually in the hands of the man. This is because of economic dominance. Female do set up theatres in Australia. In Singapore, Action Theatre supports Eleanor and Ovidia. I have enough theatre background to write my plays but I have no connections in the theatre to take it from there. Unless you have seen a lot of plays, you are not likely to write a play. Pau Kun and Haresh have their own theatre companies. So, it may all be a matter of connections – who you know, where you are situated.

Is poetry easier to write then?

 Kon:   

Well poetry is something you do in the closed room whereas play tends to be something you do out there in a crowded rehearsal room where everybody is shouting from every direction. It is totally at different ends of the spectrum. You see, writing a play and getting it published are two different aspects.

Your published works start in which year?

 Kon:   

Short stories began in 1960s. The very first published works ‘Mushroom Harvest’ appeared in Lloyd Fernando’s collection of  ‘22 Malaysian Stories’  which I think I wrote in 1962. The only thing colonial in it is that it suggests that it is a post-nuclear holocaust story. The western world blew up and left the Asians to put themselves together which again was not a new idea at all as movies like ‘The Beach’ showed that. 

What is this letter you wrote to the Forum page all about?

 Kon:           

Apparently this retarded child was picked up by the police and brought to the Police Station because he was riding a bike and unable explain where the bike came from. So they confined him but it turned out that it was his bike. So looks like victimisation of the retarded. So I said that it was a terrible thing and why was it allowed to happen. It makes me annoyed. ‘In Dragon’s Teeth Gate’ there is one child who is retarded. He is almost a martyr figure.

Is the treatment of the marginalized an issue you deal with?

 Kon:   

Yes. I feel very strongly about that. At one time I was working for a church ‘Ministry of Beginning Experience’ which is a ministry for the divorced, widowed and bereaved. And I became aware of to what extent the widowed are marginalized. Then after that I was working in the ‘Aids Ministry’. This is reflected in ‘Eston’, ‘Dragon’s Teeth Gate’. The very first play, ‘The Bridge’ in ‘The Trial’ is about drug addicts in a rehabilitation home. 

So are there some religious motifs in your writing?

Kon:   

Some more than in others. In ‘Eston’ sometimes it is very overt. Right in the end Eston himself becomes a Christ like figure. It may or may not be. It depends who you are and how you view it. ‘Dragon’s Teeth Gate’ is based on very religious concepts as well. It is based on the struggle to the death by the Chinese Admiral and Kuan Yin who comes to earth in the guise of an Indian street cleaner which is where I hoped to take it from the Chinese temple Kuan Yin to the original figure of the goddess which came from India.

Do you think a writer should explain to his/her society?

 Kon:   

I think they should explain to Singaporeans but not to outsiders.

What is your objectives/motives for writing? Why do you write?

 Kon:   

For the past 10 years I have been stuck. I wonder if it is possible that my current mission will be to take what is already written to schools and unpack for them what they were apparently to not able to read for themselves. A motivational speaker convinced me that I do have a message which is worth expounding which is perhaps ‘this is who you are and do you know how much you can be.’ Helping them to look into themselves and what they find there will develop more compassion and understanding and more forgiveness for self. This is a psycho-spiritual message. This is the direction ‘Eston’ went in. The progression is into the psycho-social world from the social realm.

You can see the contrast between the 2 novel: ‘The Scholar and the Dragon’  written in the 1970s and ‘Eston’. The former is entirely in the social realm full of mental ideas and because the main character is such that his life is lived on those levels. The conflicts of the unconscious only surfaces in his dream. So, he has some extremely vivid dreams.

In his conscious life all such symbolism and deeper connections are unknown to him. Whereas, ‘Eston’ is entirely on the other side of the coin. Eston is indeed a creature of the unconscious who lives through everybody’s unconscious. What happens in the outside, social world is almost, only the most superficial layer of skin on the surface.

The important things are all happening inside the psych or mind and heart. ‘Silent Song’ is a nice little play which can be acted by primary school pupils as what is there is very simple but the more you think about it the more profound or deep it gets. 

What do you think of diasporic writers?

Kon:           

Because I have lived abroad from Singapore so much, I am still worried about finding my feet in Singapore that my writing does not go out. I am still worried about what it is to be a Singaporean. Throughout the most prolific period of my writing I was not in Singapore. ‘Emily’, I was not in Singapore. I was in London. I am on record somewhere that my ‘view of Singapore is the exile’s view… distilled and focussed’. I wrote ‘The scholar and the Dragon’ when I was in Edinburgh. It is all about the history of Singapore in the 1900s.