SEVENTEENTH FLOOR

Options is the lifestyle section of a weekly publication called The Edge Malaysia. Tan Gim Ean is a journalist who writes for Options.  Tan Gim Ean interviewed Shih-Li Kow and asked her why she writes. This was her reply:

"I don’t think I can pin it down exactly. Sometimes I think it’s because I want to leave a record of these times that we are living in. Many [people] are writing about historical periods, and there is a lot of science fiction. We don’t have much fiction on contemporary Malaysia in this day and age. I think fiction fills a gap, a space. It’s not news, but a record of what it is like to live in this particular time."

REFLECT:  How can fiction define a particular period of time?  

Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. It has two regions separated by the South China Sea and bordered by Brunei, Indonesia, and Thailand. It is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious federation of 13 states and three federal territories. 

The English language arrived in Malaysia when the British began to establish settlements in 1826. Although the Japanese occupied the country during World War II, British rule continued until the Federation of Malaya became independent in 1957.  Bahasa Malaysia is the official language, but English is widely spoken, in addition to hundreds of other indigenous languages.

The population of Malaysia is currently about 33 million. The majority are Muslim Malay or Chinese.  The country’s age distribution has changed significantly since the 1960s because birth and death rates have declined.  Malaysia’s birth rate has dropped from 5.0 children per woman in 1970 to 2.1 in 2015. This is due to increased education and jobs for women, later marriages, increased use of contraception, and changes in family size preference related to urbanization. Despite the lower birth rate, Malaysia’s population will continue to grow for the next few decades. However, the youth population has been shrinking, and the working-age population (15-64 year olds) has been growing steadily.  In other words, the population of Malaysia is aging.

REFLECT:  How might a country's culture change as the average age of its citizens grows older?

1. The author tells this story as the voice inside her own head. She uses the pronouns "I" and "you" as if she's speaking directly to her neighbor. How does it make you feel as the reader?
   
   

2. The narrator's feelings toward her neighbor Ben change in the middle of the story. Why? What does the neighbor feel toward the narrator? How do you know?
   
   

3. Why doesn't Ben's wife live in the apartment with him? What is really going on with his wife and him?
   
   

4. The narrator does not tell her mother about Ben's death. Why not? What  might happen if she does?

1. This story is set during the COVID pandemic. How does that affect this story? What would be different if this story had happened before COVID? How has the pandemic changed the way you interact with strangers?
   
   

2. The editor of the magazine in which this story appears describes the story as bittersweet. What experiences from your life have been bittersweet?
   
   

3. The narrator sometimes uses Chinese or Malay words. Why? And do you, too, sometimes "codeswitch" (use a mix of English and your first language in the same sentence)? When do you do this?
   
   

4. The narrator meets her neighbor by chance. Do you know your neighbors? How did you meet them? What makes interactions with your neighbors different in the U.S compared with your home country?