Missy Big Bungalow

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)>The early 1900s introduced many European men to life in Siam and Malaya - what implications arose for local women? On reading </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)>Elephants Tigers and Tappers</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)> set in colonial Malaya Jean Brewster was struck by Michael Thorp's words on the local women many British men lived with: '</span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)>It would be an incredibly interesting task to try to document the lives that some of these women had.</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)>' She immediately thought '</span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)>I can do that. That's the story of my grandmother!'</em></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)><em>Missy Big Bungalow</em></strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)> based on the nickname her grandmother Chalerm received is an eye-opening saga spanning nearly one hundred years of four generations of a family of mixed European and Asian heritages. 'Exotic beauty 'in Chalerm's Chinese-Burmese family proved to be an important asset allowing Chalerm and her relatives to collide happily with French Danish Polish and British cultures. Fascinating turns in her life provided both highs and lows although survival in colonial times for local women also taught her hard lessons made more brutal by Japanese occupation. Chalerm was able to use her beauty to save her family but at a high cost. This astonishing panorama focuses on mixed-heritage families striving to establish their own identities and flourish in times of war and a fading Empire.</span></p><p></p>