Language and the Experience of Exile

Hi, I'm Melissa Adwory and you're listen to NPR's Book of the Day In names have been changed, The main character is an exX con in hiding. It's the debut novel from Yum Mei Bala Singhum Chao. And as the main character assumes multiple identities, keeping her real name safe She begins to lose any real sense of who she actually is Balasingham Chao talks with NPR's Aisha Rosco Oh Fear is the host of a hit podcast But Ophir isn't her real name She's in hiding and on the run from Singapore police after skipping town with a duffle bag filled with sixty thousand dollars in cash. I haven't been crying I just stare into space and feel my insights twisting tighter and tighter I gasp and strain for air. until I remember where I am and come back to myself For those of you listening for the first time probably isn't what you expected Tina told me we had lots of new subscribers after the last episode Thousands and thousands small There's been quite a tissy in Singapore over me. A long lost wanted criminal telling my story to the world resolving a loose end in a sensational public murder. That's author Y Me Balla Singham Chow, reading from her debut novel, Names have been Changed. Thank you so much for being with us Thank you for having me Names carry a lot of weight in this book. The narrator goes by Ophir. but also We Ying and Haley and Kara and other names, but we never hear her real names Why not I think names are something very ordinary, but when you're deprived of it against your will, almost that it suddenly takes on an additional emotional weight And so Ophia, when she flees Singapore after committing a crime, she stops using her real name because she doesn't want to get caught And that just seems to be the logical thing to do. And she starts using assumed identities, all the names that you were just referring to But the more time passes, the more she really just wants someone to kind of acknowledge a real name. I think one of the first few things she tells us in the book is I just wish someone would call me by my real name It's been about ten years that she's been on the run And so it's almost like she's lost sight of herself in that process of hurtling forward you know, around the globe Tell us more about who Ophir is and why she had to go on the run. Oopfir is someone who was leading a fairly ordinary life, unremarkable, so to speak, the youngest of six children and was getting by as a voice actor until her best friend pulls her into a scheme or a scam rather. They become money mules And Ophia falls into it kind of almost without thinking too much about the consequences. She just thinks, Oh, this is a great way to make some extra cash And it seems pretty foolproofven No one will know what I'm doing, so let's just go for it It's only much later that she has to stop and reflect on that And it's fascinating to me characters, like how they behave under pressure When sort of push comes to shove and they show you who they really are I think I was interested in a so called like ordinary person and if you get wrapped up in something like this How do you make sense of it after that? And how do you live with yourself or with the consequences at least, of what you've done So the book is her doing a podcast anonymously telling her story There's also just like this focus on language. like it seems like one of The things that she misses most about home is the language Tell us about this idea of Singlish What is that? How does that sound After Rophia goes on the run, she decides she's going to disguise her voice. She's not going to adopt a Singaporean accent, which is the natural way she would speak. And she's not going to use Singlish. Singlish is like a Cole language in Singapore If you live there, you kind of absorb it into you with the water, that kind of thing. It's not like a formal language, but it's a vernacular. Everyone speaks it. And she decides not to use it because it's too much of a giveaway to her identity as a Singaporean What she doesn't realize after she's been denying herself this is that she's kind of cut herself off from part of her Her identity. I think the way we speak, like, you know, the body, the way we actually make the sounds And especially when we're talking to ourselves in know what we would call our natural voices. L that is in some way maybe the most honest part of ourselves coming up. I like to think that and for Ophia when she's on the podcast and She thinks, okay She says, I'm going to speak my mind and live with it And she also feels safe like she's kind of created a safe space for herself with a podcast because she could have Listeners around the world, but nobody knows where she is. Yeah. Ofar call Singapore a tiny crowded, sweaty, glorious island and also a place a lot of people probably couldn't find on a map You were born there. I know that you've lived in other places, but what do you hope that readers learn about the country and how do you feel connected to Singapore Singapore is really small but really culturally rich and complicated place, like politically complicated socially, you know too big to fit into a novel I think what I tried to do with this book was to show. the range of many different kinds of people and choices that people make living in Singapore as well as those who have left it There is this turning point in the book when Ophir meets a doctor, a Singaporean woman living in exile for political reasons Why does she see herself in that doctor The Doctor is a character who has been in exile for something like forty years by the time Oheia meets her and hearing the stories about the time that she left Singapore, Ofia realizes, oh my gosh, it is possible that someone who leaves a country really has no chance to go back at all It's like the horrifying future that Ofia didn't quite fully picture for herself So I think that There's a sort of sympathy there in some ways, even though otherwise the two characters, you could say wouldn't have very much in common Obviously it's a unique story to be on the run There are people who do have to leave their country, their home country and they can't go back, whether it's because they don't have the means to go back. or too much time has passed or you know maybe their immigration status is unstable, so they can't go back. Like was part of this also just that exploration of, well, who are you if you can't go home U I think of the novel as exploring diaspora rather than immigration in that sense. And so O fe the doctor many of the other characters that Ofia meets around the world There are Singaporean women who have left the country for different reasons. I mean, Ofia's the only one that's a criminal. Y. But even though they choose to live abroad or in the doctor's case she can't go back, they're always kind of glancing over their shoulder back at Singapore and remembering it. also They have this sort of active relationship in Singapore. They still want to know what's going on there. They haven't cut themselves off And I think especially today with all the technology we have at our fingertips, it's easier to like leave a place, but still be quite strongly tethered emotionally to it. That's youa bal a singham Cho Her new novel is called Names Have been Changed. It's out this week. Thank you so much for joining us Thanks so much for having me And just a quick reminder that signing up for Book of the Day plus is a great way to support NPR's book coverage and public media. And you'll get to listen to every episode sponsor free So please go find out more at plus. npr. org slash book of the dayay