The Spirit of Silk

For better, for worse, or NEVER This is the story of one woman who refused to conform. Emboldened by financial independence from working at the silk factory, Su Yin and her best friend Lan Yee resisted marriage. After Lan Yee committed suicide in defiance of her parents’ insistence of her being married Su Yin, at sixteen, took a vow of celibacy according to the culture of the sisterhood, zishūnŭ. As a spinster her position in the factory was secure but disaster struck when Wall Street crashed and the silk industry collapsed. Su Yin found herself caught up in the wave of women heading from South China to British Malaya. After working as a domestic servant, an amah, in various households, she came to work for James MacAlpine and his young family. James, who had previously fought alongside the Chinese in the Malayan jungle during the Japanese Occupation, was now using his experience and knowledge of the jungle to fight the communist Chinese guerrillas when a state of Emergency was proclaimed. Su Yin was happy and content with her lot serving the MacAlpine family and meeting up with her fellow amahs regularly until Liew, a young man from her past turned up and rocked her world. Would Su Yin renege on her vow?