A review by wargwe
The Face: Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw

4.0

Reading Tash Aw reminded me of old feelings that I experienced in youth, but no longer remember. Not until Tash Aw recounts his own childhood as an aspiring middle-class Chinese boy in KL who eventually went on to receive an overseas education that would forever alter how he relates to the world. The desire but inability to be a part of our grandfathers’ past, feeling like a prissy urban dweller imposter when we visited family in (other parts of) Malaysia, backhanded shame over privileges of education and opportunities (having to dispel an elitist label from high school as a 30yo adult).