It is 1958 and Josephine is staring at a Milo tin. She cannot make sense of the letters! To learn how to read, she needs to sell nasi lemak made by her loving mother to her neighbours in Kampong Potong Pasir, so she can have enough money to pay for school fees. Join Josephine on her quest to go to school, and on other adventures through grasslands and attap-thatched huts, to hunt for frogs and eels for food with her friends. This is Josephine Chia's first book for young readers to understand kampong life in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s.
Josephine Chia is a Peranakan Chinese who was born and raised in Kampong Potong Pasir, Singapore, in the 1950s during the colonial era. Josephine is proud of her culture and heritage and loves to wear her sarong kebaya. She is mesmerized by stories and enjoys the dreamtime of writing. She has lived in UK for more than thirty years but had returned home to live at the end of 2012.
Josephine writes in English, in both fiction and non-fiction and has published twelve books. Josephine has won literary prizes and awards both in UK and Singapore. Kampong Spirit: Gotong Royong, Life in Potong Pasir 1955 to 1965, won the Singapore Literature Prize for Non-Fiction in November 2014. She has a BA Honours in Philosophy from Singapore University and an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, UK. She is a member of UK’s Society of Authors and Society of Women Writers and Journalists (SWWJ), and has served on the National Council of UK SWWJ to promote writing in UK.
