One great book I picked up and read recently was ‘Ponti’ by Sharlene Teo. The author went to primary and high school in Singapore but then went to university in England. The fictional story is done from the perspective of an actress Amisa, the actress’s daughter Szu, and the actress’s daughter’s friend Circe. 

The title ‘Ponti’ itself is short for ‘pontiniak’ which is a female ghost story character from Chinese Malay folklore. The story is an old wives tale that a beautiful young women dressed in white would approach young working men and then, once in private, eat them alive.

The story starts in the 70s and then progresses to the modern era (the book itself was published in 2018).

In the story Amisa starts off poor, as a child, in the 70s in a small village outside of Singapore, presumably on the Malay peninsula. She eventually moves to Singapore to work in a film theatre. She ends up getting married but then is approached by a local film director to star in a local film called ‘Pontiniak.’ While everyone who encounters amisa (both on set and off set while she is eating at hawkers and commuting to and from work) is touched by her beauty the film doesn’t really work out as a monetary success. amisa then becomes disillusioned and burnt out and her marriage breaks down. Her daughter’s life is impacted by amisa’s depression and Szu is bullied and teased at her all girls school for a variety of reasons. Circe is the friend that sort of sees something in Szu that her classmates and teachers miss. Although Circe is often sneering and critical with her dialogue towards Szu.

One themes of the book I guess is how cruel Singaporean society can be. The girls in Szu’s class who never give Szu a break, the men who always give amisa attention (objectifying her) when she’s out in the city of Singapore. Singapore is known in 2025 as one of the world’s safest cities but in the world of ‘Ponti’ Singapore also seems very cold. amisa plays a fictional character of Ponti but in a way she’s not playing a character. As such a beautiful women as she is, amisa arouses a lot of jealousy in the men that give her attention and the women around the men that approach her.

Eventually Arissa ends up as a sort of fortune teller in Singapore with her sidekick Aunt Yunxi. What’s depressing about this set of circumstances is how realistic it is. Chinese people especially seem prone to silly and ignorant superstitions. This is in accordance with my own experiences in China and Singapore. Though of course Singaporean Chinese are a different kettle of fish. Whats depressing aswell is when you see such a hard working bunch of people as the Chinese, who are such reliable savers,  wasting money in the silliest of ways. Just look at the whole branch of so called Chinese medicine! I guess it just goes to show that you can have money without intelligence and without class.

But anyway, Ponti is a beautiful book about the sufferings of 3 women through the decades and in the backdrop of the Tiger economy of Singapore. It deals with the harshness of society, beauty and sisterhood.