Cultural Writing. Asian Studies. HUA SONG is the history of the Chinese Diaspora, the period in the late 1800s and early 1900s when war and pestilence drove thousands of Chinese to every part of the world in search of a better life. This unique history celebrates the spirit and memory of those who left their homes for a dream, weaving together the threads of this epic journey and giving voice to the men and women who undertook it. This jewel-box of archival images artifacts recalls a common past, bringing to vivid life the continuing story of the Chinese overseas. "The story of how [the] Chinese set forth, how they were treated where they landed, how some returned and others fought to stay on, and how their descendants helped to develop their adopted lands, is succinctly and graphically told in this volume..."--Wang Gungwu

Su-Chen Christine Lim (born 1948) was born in Malaysia and had her early education at the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) in Penang and Kedah. At the age of 14 she migrated to Singapore with her parents and two brothers, and continued her education at CHIJ Katong. She read Literature at the National University of Singapore, and graduated with a post-graduate diploma in Applied Linguistics. After her graduation, Lim joined the Ministry of Education as a curriculum specialist, and devoted her time between family, work and writing throughout her years with the Ministry. Her first novel Rice Bowl was published in 1984, and co-wrote the award-winning short play The Amah: A Portrait In Black And White in 1986. Her second novel Gift From The Gods (1990) was nominated for a National Book Development Council award in 1992. In that same year, Lim won the inaugural Singapore Literature Prize for her third novel Fistful Of Colours (1992). A Bit Of Earth (2000) was nominated for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2004. In 1996 she was given a Fullbright Grant to attend the prestigious Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, and returned to the University as Writer-In-Residence in 2000. This Residentship honor was also extended to her at the University of Western Australia in Perth, the Moniack Mhor Writers' Centre in the Scottish Highlands and Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. Lim retired from the Ministry of Education in August 2003, to devote her time to writing. That devotion subsequently bore fruit in the novels published as Hua Song: Stories of the Chinese Diaspora (2005) and The Lies that Build a Marriage: Stories of the Unsung, Unsaid and Uncelebrated in Singapore (2007).