Born in the Year of the Fire Tiger, Ann Wee moved to Singapore in 1950 to marry into a Singaporean Chinese family. One of Singapore’s pioneering social work educators, Ann shares her experiences frankly and with great humour. She remembers the things that history books leave out: questions of hygiene, terms of endearment, the emotional nuance in social relations, stories of ghost wives and changeling babies, rural clan settlements and migrant dormitories, what disappeared when families moved into HDB estates.                   

Affectionately observed and wittily narrated, with a deep appreciation of how far Singapore has changed, this book brings to life the country’s social transformation by talking about the family, “in its 101 different shapes and sizes, with its capacity to cope which ranges from truly marvellous to distinctly tatty: still, in one form or another, the best place for most of us to be”.