The Flamboya Tree: Memories of a Mother’s Wartime Courage

by Clara Olink Kelly

WARNING: THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

This is such a beautiful and captivating story, of a strong mother protecting her three children (one of them only a few weeks old) during the four-life existence at a concentration camp in Java during WWII. The Japanese took control of the South Pacific Islands to ensure that no reinforcement or supplies can enter China during the war, and to obtain access to the valuable natural resourses such as oil and rubber. All the men and teenage boys were sent to labor camps, while the women and children lived in fenced villages under the sadistic rule of the Japanese soldiers.

This is indeed, a lesser known part of the history of WWII. I did not know, for example, that the local people at that time were so hostile to the Dutch rule and longing for independence, that a prisoner escaping from a camp would face greater danger among the natives and murdered brutally, that the hostile villagers would hurl stones and insults to the prisoners inside, rather than smuggling in food out of kindness. When the author’s brother was happily flying a kite he made, no doubt a lovely escape from his dreadful living condition, his kite was cruelly cut down amidst sneers and cheers from the other side of the fence. How heart wrenching it must be for the litte boy.

For me, the saddest part is not the period during the camp, but when they were in Bangkok waiting to return to Holland. For in the camp, the situation was horrendous with its constant threat of cruel punishment, humiliation and starvation, but it was similar to and not necessarily worse than what millions were suffering during the same time in history. By no way am I suggesting that they did not suffer enough, just that when one have read enough war memoirs, one gets some idea already what life was like under those circumstances.

Therefore, what was more shocking to me was their treatment after liberation. When the author was sick in the hospital, they put her on a table and poured water over her to wash her, collecting the water in a basin to be used for the next patient. She and her younger brother were too weak to feed themselves, so her older brother ate their bowl of rice gruel (could hardly blame the starving little boy); no nurse cared, until her mother was able to visit and found them near dying and had to carry them, one tucked under each arm, to take a bus back to their “home”. As the author said, the children didn’t care as they never knew, or hardly remember anything better, but for all the adults who know what normal life is like (being expatriates, many of the Europeans had lived life of luxury, pampered by servants), that must be despressing indeed not to find comfort and relief after liberation. It was the hope that had sustained them during the hardship of the camp. As the mother told the children stories about Holland, about snow, about Christmas and other things, they are fantasies for the children, but for her, it was a longing, a determination to experience these things again.

It was also painful to read of their grandmother’s initial reaction upon their return. Her remark of “Why didn’t you escape?” and her inability to understand how her grandchildren had such horrendous manners and didn’t wolf down the food she prepared (their stomach just couldn’t take in all that food).

This is a great testimony to a mother’s love for her children.

Finding George Orwell in Burma

by Emma Larkin

Emma Larkin is the pseudonym for an American journalist born in Asia. She embarked on a journey to visit places in Burma, following the footsteps of the author George Orwell. George Orwell was stationed in Burma during his youth, his first post as an imperial policeman. Burma was an unpopular first choice for overseas posting, but was Orwell’s because of his family connections, his mother having grown up in Burma and part of the maternal family still living there.

In Burma (now Myanmar, although the new name is not recognized by opposing parties and minorities within the country), George Orwell was known more than an author though. He was known as “the prophet”, because his work, 1984 and Animal Farms, had eerily described the future of Burma, as the military took control, oppressed democracy and turned the country into a totalitarian regime who seriously repressing its citizen. Current residents feel that they are living through the story of 1984, where their every move and word is censored and reported.

Larkin travelled through Burma, to cities such as Mandalay and Rangoon. While many travellers see the poetic scenery and gentle people, a peaceful tropical paradise, (as a matter of fact, Burma used to be among the richest Asian countries and a major exporter of rice grown from its rich, delta soil) Larkin reported the undercurrent of oppression and hardship. She recorded some of the experience of ex-political prisoners and other freedom fighters, but the thickness of the air permiated the book: in conversations which ended mid-sentence, until a comment of food or weather brought the topic back on safer grounds; in mysteriously appeared men who suggested the author to retreat to her hotel; in the author’s growing paranoia: is the potted plant next to her coffee table bugged? Did someone steal her diary?

The quoted passages from George Orwell’s books echoed the present condition of the Burmese, as Larkin travelled in the seemingly timeless landscape, imagining Orwell’s life as she stood among the ruins of the colonial buildings. An excellent travelogue that capture the essence of the places she visited, interweaving fiction and fact, past and present. Well worth a read.

Jungle Child

by Sabine Kuegler

The book is way better than I thought it would be.

It begins with a idyllic childhood in the remote West Papua jungle, where her family went to live with the Fayu tribe, hitherto untouched by modern civilization. There Sabine ran wild in the jungle, swinging from vines like Tarzan, trading her family’s pots and pans for a baby crocodile, and throwing snakes at her sister. I won’t want Sabine as a sister… she is more a terror than my baby brother!

While the childhood is interesting, and the details of tribal life makes an intriguing anthropological read, and would make an entertaining book on its own, I enjoy even more how the book goes deeper into Sabine’s psychological confusion, as the girl grows up and realizes she is an in-between: totally unadapted to live in the complicated Western world, but also gone is the carefree girl who can run wild with her native friends. As her sister puts it: who will want to steal them as brides? They who don’t know how to prepare food or manage a household properly.

I really admire the author’s courage to live her life. I would love, howver, to hear more how the villagers are faring. While it is an inevitable fact of life, it is a pity to read about how as the author grows up, the siblings and her childhood friends go their own way. But at least she has a lovely, unforgettable childhood to treasure, and to give her strength.

The book’s website: http://www.junglechild.co.uk/ There is an extract of the book. I do wish though she would post some of the photos there.

How Proust Can Change Your Life

by Alain de Botton

Honestly I know very little of Proust’s work, just that he wrote sentences a mile long, so I am certainly not reading it because I am a fan. I do, however, find the book interestingly written enough that for someone unfamiliar with Proust and his work.

As I read on, I was thinking that maybe as the author and Proust himself suggested, an author’s book can be more interesting than the real person as it is a distillation of his best idea; and I certainly began to feel that I won’t particularly want to meet Proust himself. While he has keen insight of nature and mankind, his writings give me much to muse about, his personality doesn’t sound too pleasing. So I was somewhat surprised that Proust friends speak so highly of him, and I found it endearing that he could devote full attention to whoever he is speaking to and never consider people too lowly for conversation. Most people can certainly benefit from his example.

As an introvert booklover, I also find most amusing Proust’s comment that he considers book superior companion to human friends. If a book is boring, you can give a loud yawn, slap the book shut and shove it back onto the shelf without any guilt or apology.

Expat: Women’s True Tales of Life Abroad

edited by by Christina Henry De Tessan

This is a nice selection of works, with different styles of writing and all sorts of places represented; from trendy Paris to boa-filled jungles and everything in between. (I was thinking of saying “all continents represented”, but then realized that somehow there is no homesick letter from South America, just Mexico and Berlize.)

My favorites are the Before and After Mexico, of a family uprooting themselves to move to a remote Mexican village for a break from the frenzied San Franciscan life. Watching Them Grow Up, of a mother noticing how different the child rearing philosophy is for her husband’s Eypgtian relatives: instead of raising a child, you sit back, relax, and watch them grow. Never-Nnever, a humorous growing up story of a child being teased for being a Yank in Australia, then suffered through the pains again when the family returns to America. Desperately, she wrote to the Australian Embassy in hope that she can go “home”. A Mediterranean Thanksgiving, Take Two, is a woman’s attempt to cook a Thanksgiving dinner in France. Her guests were overwhelmed, not by the quantity of food, but by how all dishes are served together and everything heaped onto one plate, rather than an endless meal of one course after another.

The book reminds me of one episode. Once on vacation visiting my parents back home, my mom asked my husband and I to prepare a salad as part of a feast. On the assumption that Americans eat salads and that we are sort of vegetarians (she once lamented, If you haven’t gone to America, you won’t have become vegetarian!! in her belief that no one, fed on her excellent cooking, could have turned against meat.)

So we thought we had an easy task until we get to the supermarket (one supposedly caters to foreigners). We couldn’t find white mushroom! I held up a fresh shiitake, but my husband insisted it won’t work. Even vegetables by the same name look different. Pampered by aisles of selection, I was shocked to find only Kraft Thousand Island and Miracle Whip for dressings. I wandered all over the supermarket, hoping to find one lone can of olive misplaced somewhere… And I realize that, after spending half of my life each in two different countries, I have became a perpetual expat, a sucker forever paying outrageous price for that taste of a home half a world away.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

by Michael Pollan

From the back cover: “Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. Will it be fast food tonight, or something organic? Or perhaps something we grew ourselves? The question of what to have for dinner has confronted us since man discovered fire. But as Michael Pollan explain in this revolutionary book, how we answer it now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may determine our survival as a species. Packed with profound surprises, The Omnivore’s Dilemma is changing the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.”

While I have read from other sources about the horrors of feedlot and the problems of the processed food in our society, this book still provided a lot of new (to me) information, and the later parts about industrial organics and hunting/gathering are eye-openers for me. As I read the book, I quoted passages (mostly scary stats and some amusing lines) to my husband in a not-so-subtle way to sway him from meat eating.

I did not know, for example, that corn and grain feeding is so bad for the cows themselves, and that it ends up providing worse meat for us, endangering our own health. Animals get their omega-3 from grass; corn and such does not contain omega-3. In fact, the anti-inflammatory, blood flowing omega-3 is found in a plant’s leaves, and the flammatory, blood clotting omega-6 in seeds. Free-range chicken eggs therefore are rich in omega-3, as the chicken feed on grass. It’s popular now to eat salmon for its omega-3 fatty acids, but truth is that they come from the planktons the fish eat. When we try to breed fish that grow on grain, we eventually breed salmon that is deficient in omega-3 but full of the omega-6. It is believed the higher consumption of omega-6 vs omega-3 is the culprit of the many modern day diseases such as cardiac, diabetes and obesity.

Moreover, for the cows, eating corn makes their stomach acidic, and a hotbed for E coli. A research has found that by switching a cow’s diet from corn to grass or hay for a few days prior to slaughter will alkalize the pH of the stomach and thus reducing the E. coli population by as much as 80%. Unfortunately, this solution is considered impractical by the cattle industry and thus the USDA.

The author then goes on to explore the organic industry. He found that as the organic industry goes mainstream, large scale production means that some of the organic farms may not be much different from the conventional ones. The cattle may not live any better a life than its feedlot brethen, except for the feed it consume, organic rather than pesticide infested – an improvement that likely won’t affect its well-being or happiness much. And getting organic salad greens trucked all the way from California is not so green after all.

Pollan’s experience on Polyface farm is really interesting. Though it is imaginable that such substaniable, earth friendly but labor intensive (and brain intensive) farming method is unlikely to be more mainstream.

The part on hunter/gatherer is an interesting read as well, though I certainly would not fire a rifle for food, and gathering mushroom doesn’t sound fun to a city girl like me.

I doubt there is any person who would read this book and not re-think the food choices he or she makes. One may go local, go organic, or simply just eat fewer processed food or fast food… but it would be lovely if every person who’s read this book make a more conscious choice in what it goes into one’s mouth. This reminds me of a comment I read somewhere, that nowadays people put too little thought in what goes into our stomach, and into our mind. This book is indeed healthful on both counts.

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen

by Julie Powell

Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that’s going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother’s dog eared copy of Julia Child’s 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year.

This book was quite an entertaining read. I expected it to, and was disappointed it doesn’t, contain some of Julia Child’s recipe so I know better what Julie was cooking, but then this book is not so much about cooking than about one young woman’s life. A typical Gen-Xer living in NY, with a run-down, not-too-clean apartment, a good day/bad day relationship, a marriage-crazed girlfriend, many crazy friends, an over-concerned mother, a mundane OL life, booze, blogs… made untypical by her decision to cook through a classic cook book.

I love Julie’s honest and witty writing. As my friend commented, it’s not very polished writing – well, her language certainly isn’t polished – but the personable note more than make up for it. I mean, how can I hate someone who openly admits to be an awful housekeeper?

My favorite passage is the one about the Petits Chaussons au Roquefort. As she stuffed and sealed the turnovers, she mused “I’d brought the filling into being, and now I was seeking to entrap it in a buttery pastry prison, though it was obvious fromk its evasive behavior that there is nothing Roquefort wants more than to be free. Was this not arrogance? Was it not, in essence, a slave-owning mentality, to be approaching this from the perspective of how best to trap the Roquefort filling, without consideration for the Roquefort’s fundamental desire for freedom?” I think this really captures the spirit of the book.

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil

by Deborah Rodriguez

This book is a very entertaining read with a mix of hilarious moments and sobering sad stories. Part of it is a chronicle of funny episodes of an expatriate’s life, part of it a collection of life stories of Afghan women.  It reminds me of The White Masai but with more interaction with local lives, as well as Reading Lolita in Tehran but with a lighter mood.  I cheered for the author when she received an unexpectedly enthusiastic welcome from all the foreign aid workers starving for a highlight and hairdo. I cheered for Nahida who survived like a phoenix and ached for those who succumbed to their circumstances.  I enjoyed the story how a woman, with seemingly no special skill and no college degree, can be a valuable resource in helping the Afghan women in need.  It inspires people to feel that if there is a will, there is a way, and anyone of us can be a positive force to help others.   

For those interested, here’s an article with some pictures, including one of the author with her Afghan husband.  It’s a funny picture and somehow Sam’s scrowl looks more like a pout than a threat next to Debbie’s laughs – although I am sure if he were to stand in front of me he would still be rather formidable.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=454386&in_page_id=1770

Even before I started on the book, I have read about the storm surrounding the book and its author.  I am saddened that nowadays it seems like every memoir’s publication ends up with accusation and dispute.  In all honesty, having sat through family reunions where details of events were hotly debated, I am convinced everyone has a different version of reality.  I also expect that every person has some unglorious moments that he or she prefers not to be reminded of.  Maybe to make the book more interesting and to avoid introducing too many characters, or to protect identities, it is possible that several women’s experiences are concentrated into one archetypal Afghan female.  I do feel that the author is on a positive motive and really wishes to help the girls, and things are just blown to such proportion that is beyond her. 

However, it is a bit sad to learn outside the book that Debbie and Sam’s marriage fell apart; even though it sretches my imagination how it happens in the first place.  In a news article where the husband “Sam” claims that he works with Debbie on the book and it was agreed upon that he is entitled to half the profit.  I would much rather he just says that Debbie being his wife, is his property, and therefore whatever she makes is his property too, instead of making such dubious claim.  While I am not sure how in love they were, it is sad that it ends at a point where Debbie no longer wishes to see him and insists that the marriage is void anyway as he has a wife already.

The Lady and The Panda

by Vicki Constantine Croke

While the American explorer Ruth Harkness herself has written a book of the same title about her adventure in China, this non-fiction is Croke’s documentation of Harkness’ life based on Harkness’ memoir, her letters to her friends and families and other resources.   Well researched and written, the book takes the reader along with Harkness deep into the heart of China to find the elusive gentle giants.

Harkness is not just any Western explorer who ventured into the uncharted forest or jungle of the unknown land, and neither is she distinguished for her gender.  She is the first to capture a life baby panda and brought him to the western world.  That alone was a record but what was pivotal was her attitude towards the animal.  Before her, the interest of the hunters was in killing and pelting as many exotic animals as they can, to fulfill the demand of museums and private collectors in Europe and America.  When she emerged cuddling a cute little baby panda, the attitude of the world changed.  The world fell in love with little Su-lin.  The chubby body, large eye spot, flat face and fuzzy fur stirred every man’s heartstrings.  Veteran hunters held the baby and professed that they could no longer shoot another panda.   The cute panda lets people put a face to those animals and change their focus to keeping animals alive rather than shooting them dead.

Thus started the frenzy to capture pandas alive.  Hunting teams were sent to comb the animal’s native habitat; zoos price shopped.  Being held captive may not necessarily be better off than being killed.  Numerous died en route to the west, due to stress, inappropriate diet or living condition.  But it’s nonetheless a step up, without which we could not move to the next step of environmental conservation, to admire fauna and flora in their natural habitats.  

Harkness accomplished what her husband died trying to do.  However, as she sat alone in a guest room in Chengdu, she pondered the consequences of her action of the first capture of Su-Lin.  Pandas were dying in untold numbers. Watching the listless panda Su-sen in the cage, she saw a kindred spirit, independent, fearless and indominable, and decided to trek back to the mountains and return her to the wild. 

“There wasn’t much she could do to save the world from itself, but she could right her own path.”

My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was Falsely Accused of Being a Spy

by Wen Ho Lee and Helen Zia

I listened to the audio book.  I had always thought that the accented narration was done by the author himself until I read the journals here.  Now I feel duped.

The book gave me a lot to think about.  First, on hearing the abuse received by Lee, a defenseless, educated, mild mannered old man, I wonder what kind of treatment those with more stigma will receive, and what abuse those at Guantanemo have to go through.

Second, it is simply dirty the way the government leaks information to newspapers, who print it with glee and little verification of the actual facts.  Such a easy way to “kill” and “convict” a person.

Like Lee, I have not been politically active.  While I have friends who organizes and volunteers for civil rights group, I always find the work boring and not as fun and gratifying that, say, washing a homeless dog waiting for adoption.  However, when I read how happy he was to receive letters written to him, how encouraged he was by the news of the civil rights groups, I realize that their work are touching someone, giving them support and helping change someone’s fate.  That they do more than making noises by picketing and sending protest letters to newspapers and TV stations.

Eat, Pray, Love

by Elizabeth Gilbert

 I am infatuated with this book the moment I laid eyes on its lovely cover.  When I read the introduction, I know I fell totally in love.  It’s one of the most beautiful introduction I’ve ever read. 

I love the book for its beautiful prose, and for the candid, unflinching presentation of one woman’s journey.  It takes a lot of courage: to travel the way she did, and to bear her soul to millions of readers. Her unpretentious voice makes her spiritual experience sounds personable, even when some may find it outlandish.  And as someone in my bookclub suggested, she has to be well off enough to spend the year the way she did, but the book never feels like a rich lady’s travelog.

My favorite part is about signing the petition.  It’s so moving. 

I am also curious about the fate of Yudhi.  It’s terrible how the paranoid of the government damages so many innocent lives.  I hope it will end well soon…

Heat

by Bill Buford

This review, copied from Amazon.com, was written by Anthony Bourdain, one of the foodie gods!

Heat is a remarkable work on a number of fronts–and for a number of reasons. First, watching the author, an untrained, inexperienced and middle-aged desk jockey slowly transform into not just a useful line cook–but an extraordinarily knowledgable one is pure pleasure. That he chooses to do so primarily in the notoriously difficult, cramped kitchens of New York’s three star Babbo provides further sado-masochistic fun. Buford not only accurately and hilariously describes the painfully acquired techniques of the professional cook (and his own humiations), but chronicles as well the mental changes–the “kitchen awareness” and peculiar world view necessary to the kitchen dweller. By end of book, he’s even talking like a line cook.

Secondly, the book is a long overdue portrait of the real Mario Batali and of the real Marco Pierre White–two complicated and brilliant chefs whose coverage in the press–while appropriately fawning–has never described them in their fully debauched, delightful glory. Buford has–for the first time–managed to explain White’s peculiar–almost freakish brilliance–while humanizing a man known for terrorizing cooks, customers (and Batali). As for Mario–he is finally revealed for the Falstaffian, larger than life, mercurial, frighteningly intelligent chef/enterpreneur he really is. No small accomplishment. Other cooks, chefs, butchers, artisans and restaurant lifers are described with similar insight.

Thirdly, Heat reveals a dead-on understanding–rare among non-chef writers–of the pleasures of “making” food; the real human cost, the real requirements and the real adrenelin-rush-inducing pleasures of cranking out hundreds of high quality meals. One is left with a truly unique appreciation of not only what is truly good about food–but as importantly, who cooks–and why. I can’t think of another book which takes such an unsparing, uncompromising and ultimately thrilling look at the quest for culinary excellence. Heat brims with fascinating observations on cooking, incredible characters, useful discourse and argument-ending arcania. I read my copy and immediately started reading it again. It’s going right in between Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London and Zola’s The Belly of Paris on my bookshelf. –Anthony Bourdain

I don’t suppose I can add more to what Anthony Bourdain said. It’s an interesting book, with lots of insights into the operation of a restaurant and a butcher shop, all very intriguing to a foodie like me.  I admire the author for his courage to really go and do something he likes, not minding the dirt, sweat, and at times humiliation in a kitchen, to start from the lowlinest, all to satisfy his curiosity, not for money, not for a future dream of opening his own restaurant.  I am curious though about his wife, whom he mentioned very little and seems unhumanly tolerate of his unusual pursuit. (living for months in Tuscany so he can apprentice at a butcher shop, hailing home a whole pig in plastic bag…)

I happened to be reading Ruth Reihl’s Garlic and Sapphire, so it was really interesting to read the two sides of how a critic tests out a restaurant.

My favorite paragraph is towards the end, when Mario asked if the author wants to open a restaurant.  The author reflects that no, he doesn’t. <i>”For millennia, people have known how to make their food… People don’t have this kind of knowledge today, even though it seems as fundamental as the earth… I didn’t want this knowledge in order to be a professional, just to be more human.”</i>

Crossing Antarctica

by Will Steger

Face it, seven months on Antarctica can be a bit monotonous, crossing what the author himself dubbed “the most boring terrain on earth,” a white-out world devoid of flora or fauna. The author, however, did a commendable job in chronicling their journey in this book. By interlacing happenings with past events, sentiments, information and knowledge, the book was entertaining enough I did not have a dull moment throughout. Steger’s voice is somewhat lacking in humor or excitement, but I believe that just reflects the seriousness of the expedition and his personality as a analytical organizer. And it certainly makes me see Antarctica more than just a frozen slab of land down under.

My only complain is that the book doesn’t contain more photos, although I can totally understand if those explorers don’t feel in the mood for taking pictures… I probably won’t… Although, surrounding by the palm trees, it really stretch my imagination to visualize the hardship in the cold wilderness. Now, this is one trip I certainly won’t do any other style than armchair. Just imagine having to thaw your toothpaste and towel for the morning ritual, to wear the same underwears for six month, and that your dog could get a frozen body part for indecent exposure…

French Women Don’t Get Fat

by Mireille Guiliano

Happy Bastille Day! Perfect timing to finish the book!

I read the Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat, and can’t help comparing the two.  (Same story – happy young girls go to America, their bodies just balloon up till they revert back to their native diet.  I guess there could be a whole series on this.) The Japanese one is more organized, though the French author seems to pride herself for not laying out the book in point-by-point format.  I like the French recipe better because the ingredients are more available. The tidbit info about French food is interesting and I’d love more of that.

The idea is sound and even though I am not particularly trying to lose weight, her general suggestion for a healthier lifestyle is worth following.  I tried it this weekend at a dinner restaurant, and I found myself being disappointed with the blandness of the tomato served, and noticing other things I didn’t before.  Hmm… it’s going to be harder to find a restaurant to dine at now!

Also a few years ago I started making dinner a smaller meal.  It’s hard, with the limited lunch hour at work, to make lunch the major meal of the day, but I tried to limit my dinner to no bigger than my lunch and it really helped.

Sold

by Zana Muhsen with Andrew Crofts

This is a true story about about two teenaged girls born and raised in Birmingham and sold to be brides in North Yemen.  They thought they were going on a holiday but once they arrived, the holiday turned into a living nightmare when they were forced to sleep with strangers who were their husbands, to live in primitive conditions with no running water or electricity, and suffered beatings from their inlaws. 

The story itself is heart wrenching, although I wish that the writing could be better.  I don’t mean dressing up the story or making up facts to make it more exciting, but right now it feels like the writer simply transcribed Zana’s words without much organization and editing.

Naturally, after finishing the book, I couldn’t help wondering what happens to Zana’s sister, Nadia. For anyone interested, here are some sites:

http://membres.lycos.fr/nadia1/A-nadial.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4385270,00.html

After reading the updates, I wonder if Nadia is just too attached to her children to leave, or if she has gone to be happy with the life she has.  Afterall, she has spent more time in Yemen than in England, and should she return, she may be as unaccustomed to life in England as a new immigrant may be.  Could it be that she choose to stay because the unfamiliar Western world is too intimidating to her? Was it brainwashing, or did she make the choice herself?  Or maybe she was threatened that terrible things may happen to her children.   In some way, we cannot make the assumption that if we hard a way of life, other must hate it too.  There are certainly people who give up modern comforts to live in unbearably primitive regions, for an array of reasons.   Perhaps we will never know the answer. 

Zana is a very lucky girl to be able to get out, and her life in Yemen could have been a lot worse.  I feel sorry for Nadia, and more so for those whose stories we will never know and who have nowhere to turn.