“I read once that, in Malaysia, they use kites to catch fish.”

(…) They tie a fishing line to it and fly it beyond the shallow waters so it doesn’t cast a shadow and scare the fish. (…)

REALLY?!?!

True, or otherwise, I usually get a teeeeny bit excited whenever I see my country’s name mentioned in some English novel. I dunno. I guess I don’t really think many people in the Western hemisphere know much about Southeast Asia, much less about a not-so-developed country like ours. And so whenever an author display a slight hint that he actually knows of our existance and mentions our name, I’ll go like “Heeyyy!!”

yeah, cheap thrill, I know. I get excited at all the little things.

Anyway, I found this “fishing with kite” thingy in a book that I was reading on my flight home — The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. I know John Grisham is another author who has mentioned Malaysia in his books (can’t remember which ones tho’). But as with many other examples that I’ve seen with some other Western authors whom I have also forgotten, the word “Malaysia” usually appears in very close proximity with other words such as “ smuggling “, “ forest “, “ tropical “, “ child labour ” etc. Basically words associated with underdevelopment, backwardness etc.

I guess it is true to some extent (the smuggling business is rather rampant here, and there ARE quite some tropical forest left even though we are busy wiping it out so that we can build more overcrowded housing areas). But sometimes I just wish people knew more about our country beyond this aspect.

But anyway, back to the book…
The Kite Runner was an engaging read for me. The story is set in Afghanistan, and spans from the days before the monarchy fell to the current post-Taliban days. Before you go thinking it’s some boring political commentary book, I’m telling you, it’s NOT. The political context is just the background and setup for the story of Amir, and the people around him. Their story of family, betrayal, honour, struggle, redemption and friendship was nicely interweaved with the conflict between the Pashtun and the Shi’a Hazaras, and the political and social oppression of the Afghanis.

I guess I liked it because it gave me a glimpse into Afghanistan. Previously, I’ve only read about it through political commentaries, news and textbooks, and seen it only from an academic perspective. I can’t tell how true the author’s portrayal of Afghanistan was, whether or not he romanticised the past, but what I appreciate is how he painted a picture of how life was in that country, that more things happen there beyond the wars and fighting that we always hear about.

Some parts of the book were painful to read, but that’s how the story is. For me, Hosseini has put a face and a life story to the average Afghani. They are more than just a bunch of people suffering through decades of violent conflicts, but people each with their own story of struggles.

I don’t quite know how to write a good book review. All I can say is that I enjoyed it thoroughly, and if you have some time to curl up in the evening with a book, I’d recommend this.

p/s: if you want to read a few pages to see what the book is like, hop on over to Amazon. Right. HERE .