When I was 10, my dad died, which was very upsetting for me as we had been very close. A few years later, my sister married an Anglo Australian, and about 5 years later she sponsored Mum and I to come to leave Malaysia for Australia, as all my other siblings were by then married. Before we left, we sold or gave away everything. Giving away all our books was the most devastating thing for me, especially my Dad’s encyclopaedias.
I was 16 when I arrived, and I was the only person with coloured skin in my whole school . . .