Novelist Yang-May Ooi shares a special object that reminds her of generations of her family. 

“My grandmother was six when her grandmother made this doll for her. The doll represents her in her school uniform and there are two little chickens to go with it. They lived in China in a rural village. My grandmother went to a school run by missionaries and I picture her as a child running around their little yard at home, chickens squawking at her feet, while her grandma looked on, sewing at the kitchen table.  

“My grandmother's grandmother was the wife of one of the first Presbyterian pastors in South China, Rev. Lim Huang. Their daughter, my grandmother's mother Lim Chiang Teck, married another Presbyterian pastor Reverend Quek Keng Hoon – they met when he was a young man at seminary school and he saw her washing clothes by the river. Their daughter, my grandmother Quek Eng Lan, married Dr. Lim Swee Aun whom she met at medical school in Singapore, where her father had been sent as a missionary. My grandfather, Dr Lim Swee Aun, became the Minister for Trade and Industry in the first cabinet of independent Malaysia and was also a signatory to the Malaysia Agreement, the document that liberated Malaysia from British rule. 

“My grandmother gave this doll to me as I am the eldest grand-daughter of the eldest grand-daughter – and the eldest daughter of five generations of eldest daughters.”

Yang-May Ooi is a writer of Malaysian heritage living in London. Her creative work focuses on East/West themes and include novels The Flame Tree and Mindgame and a family memoir Bound Feet Blues. www.TigerSpirit.co.uk and @TigerSpiritUK