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A MOTHER’S TEAR

As a mother, there are a lot of responsibility that need to be carried out. There

is nothing in this world quite like a mother's unconditional love. However, every

mother also has a painful story to relate. A Mother’s Tear, by Soo Cham, is a fiction

book of 220 pages. The story takes places in Peninsular Malaysia and China. This

novel is a tale of a mother who wonders if she has lost the love of her children. Her

life was filled with suffer as she held on to the hope of receiving the love of her

husband and sons. It involves two major different races in Malaysia, which are Malay

and Chinese.

The main character of this novel is Abu. Abu is a caring and loving mother who

was sent to Peninsular Malaysia from China to marry Achek. Both of them are

chinese. Abu married to Achek because of her parent’s choice. Achek does not love

Abu because he had fallen in love with another women. Love, however blossomed

between them. During their marriage, they were given nine children, but

unfortunately, three of them died because of some diseases. Achek is a gambler and

always spend time with gambling. Because of the demands of life, Abu had to send

three of her eldest children to China to live with one of her relatives. Only three of the

most youngest children live with her in Malaysia which are Ah Yong, Ah Chin and Sui

Yin. All of them were born and brought up in a Malay village. After Achek died, Abu

had to raise her children by her own.

Their close interaction with the malay community leads to their embracing

Islam and the sons taking Malay brides. From that moment, Abu life becomes more

miserable. Abu cannot accept their changes. She keeps asking, “Why do Chinese

people want to be Malays?”. For Abu, becoming a muslim was akin of becoming
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Malay. After her sons converted to Islam, they never return home and visit Abu for

ten years. Abu keeps waiting for her sons everyday especially on Chinese New Year,

but they never show up. When Abu sicks, they never visit Abu. Abu cries all the time

because she really miss her sons. She cries untill she lose the sight in her right eye.

She never get to see her beloved sons until the day she dies.

There are a lot of interesting events in this story, but the event that I remember

the most is when Ah Yong always buy ‘bak’ (pork) for his Abu to cook. Abu was very

happy at that time because her lovely son loves it. Another interesting event is when

Abu has fallen ill and she has to stay at one of her son’s house together with her

daughter-in-law. Her daughter-in-law treats her so bad that she cries alone in her

heart.

A person can learn many lessons from this novel and Abu’s life. Abu is a very

tough mother. No matter how suffer her life and how sad she is, she never hate her

children. She keeps waiting for her beloved sons. Other than that, we must love our

mother. No matter what religions we embraced, it is not an obstacles between the

love of a mother and children. Besides, Islam never encourage its followers to

neglect their mother.

This novel is very interesting. The language that the writer used is not too

difficult to understand. It is just suitable for our level. Beside that, there are also some

bombastic words that the author used such as emanates, hues and so on. so, it is

good for us because we can learn many new words. The author also used an ideal

word size, which means it is not too small or big. We can read and see every words

clearly.
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Soo Cham has written such a wonderful book about a mother’s life and the

sadness that she has to face because of her children. When we read the book, we

will also feel the sadness that a mother has to bear. This book is extremely good. It is

suitable for all people regardless of race and age. It makes us think about our mother

and all of the hardships that she had to face to take care of us. The readers will be

delighted to know more Abu’s life and maybe they will cry at the end of this story. I

have completely read this entire book.