Dadah: A Meditation on Opium

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Malaysian American writer Chin Woon Ping will read Dadah: A Meditation on Opium, featured in CUNY FORUM Volume 3:1, which evokes the times and life of the overseas Chinese who grew up in Malacca, Malaysia, once a British port for the opium trade. In prose and poetry, in the form of a linked imaginary historical diary, Chin recounts her own family history riddled with deaths from opium, and heroin – its derivative. Chin later moves to Vermont, where she sees “that opium has followed me here too, with addiction and crime reaching alarming portions.”

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Author Bio

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Chin Woon Ping was born in Malacca, Malaysia, and received her early education there. After graduating from the University of Malaya, she pursued doctoral studies in American literature at the University of Toledo, Ohio, and Cornell University. She has published two books of poetry—The Naturalization of Camellia Song and In My Mother’s Dream—and co-edited books on Singapore women’s plays, Malaysian aboriginal myths and Singaporean education. Her family memoir, Hakka Soul: Memories, Migrations, Meals was jointly published by the University of Hawai‘i Press and the National University of Singapore. A translator, playwright and performance artist as well, she has presented her work at venues in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan and Singapore. She currently teaches at Dartmouth College and lives in Vermont with her husband, Duncan Holaday.