above the jungle mist
The Island of Penang - a Straits Settlement and free trade port within colonial British Malaya. An atoll lauded as the Pearl of the Orient. And Garden of the East.
On the balmy, lush isle, the wealthy and upper class Müller family sits in crisis. How do they each define their identity - German, Britons or Malayan? European or Asian at heart?
What of their Chinese housekeeper’s kin? At their cores, are they Malayans or do their loyalties lie with China?
The story concerns the Müller brothers, Danny and Reggie; and a working class Eurasian beauty named Shu Mei, her brother Yi Shen, and adopted sister Li Hua. How are they linked? Are blood, clan and kinship the same?
Who, among them, fall helplessly in love? Will any become lovers in a lewd, incestuous romance or affair? Even unwittingly?
The saga begins in a blissful, pre-war Malaya, then vaults to fascism’s rise in Britain. The Blitzkrieg in France and Dunkirk ensues, followed by selfless courage in Norway. Months later, the war erupts in Southeast Asia. It casts them into battle with the conquering Japanese, and the Nazi sub menace based in Penang. And pits them against one another.
A brother’s soul rests with their Eastern home, and by extension, to Britain - the side their father takes. The other, their mother’s favourite, lies with the Führer Adolf Hitler and the Fatherland.
Cruel abuse and stolen innocence, and injustice, challenge the women’s faith and trust in people; and in the government. Will their woes steer them towards the communists? The Brits, Nazis, and Maoists contest the stage for their allegiance.
But are the hatreds driven by ideologies and tenets? Or by grudges? Or the vast family fortune?
Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, teaches the moral in The Art of War of keeping friends close and enemies closer. Given what the protagonists face, a shrewder creed would be: Hold your friends near, foes closer… and your sibling yet closer.
Will they reconcile?
Do fraternal enmity and parental deception know no bounds?
Beyond the hurdles of antagonism and treachery, and perils in the war’s winding road, the tale is one of abiding love. But will it weather the conflicts... and the betrayals? And can they surmount the odds and return to their island paradise, Penang?
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