From Cork to the Malaysian jungle

A Cork city author has published her debut book detailing her experiences living in the jungle of rural Malaysia while working as an English teacher.

‘Backroad To Singapore’ by Liz O’Donoghue is the true story of a journey that began in May 2012.

It is over three years since the global economic meltdown and the effects are still being felt. Liz’s work as a substitute teacher have dried up. At the end of 2011 her relationship also came to an end. Those things impelled her to accept a job offer in Peninsular Malaysia. The idea of it was frightening but also intriguing. After a while she came to look on it as a ‘Foreign Legion’ posting to the other side of the world and perhaps a way to forget her broken heart.

The promise of fabulous accommodation in a coastal setting attracted her. When she reached Malaysia, it was a different story. Yet she decided to persevere and what follows is the story of living in the jungle of rural Malaysia among the people who worked the palm oil plantations. As well as grappling with the heat, the insects, driving, and electricity blackouts, she has to grapple with her fellow expat colleagues and learn to live in a conservative Muslim society.

The title of the book came from an early encounter with one of her new colleagues. Liz had driven by herself from Seremban, north past Kuala Lumpur and then due east across the peninsula to Kuantan. On her third day there, she was driven by Zara, who worked for the education company, to the village of Bandar Tun Razak where she would be living. They left Kuantan and drove south for two and a half hours through the jungle into the rural heart of Malaysia.

A quote from the book: “The monotony of palm trees continued but the land became hilly and I managed to catch glimpses of the horizon as the road rose and fell. At last, we reached the junction for Plantations 1,2,3 and 4 and turned west.

Zara said: 'Continuing straight on would eventually take you to Johor. From there you’d cross a bridge to Singapore.'

I smiled at her for that intriguing and fascinating sense of where in the world I was.”

The book is written mostly in diary format and describes the many long road journeys she had to make as part of her work. It touches on the environmental issue of the clearance of natural jungle to make way for the monoculture of palm oil production. Vast swathes of land are cleared. In Sumatra they clear the land and then burn the undergrowth. While Liz was there, smoke from Sumatra was blown across the Malacca Strait to envelop Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. It even reached her.

Liz O’Donoghue began writing poetry in the late 1970s. In 1995, Three Spires Press published her chapbook titled ‘Waitress at the Banquet’. She gave readings widely in Cork, Dublin, and Swansea and achieved many publications in literary magazines. She also produced and directed a film anthology of Cork poets, ‘In The Hands Of Erato’, which was screened in the Cork Film Festival in 2003. In 2004, she received an artist’s bursary from Cork City Council and translated the Lithuanian poet Sigitas Parulskis for the 2005 Year of Culture translation project. In 2008 her collection 'Trian to Gorey' was published by Arlen House. 2010 saw her travel to China and read at the Shanghai International Literary Festival on St Patrick’s Day. Her second film ‘Murphy’s Wall’ was screened at the Cork International Film Festival in November 2011. Her most recent poetry publication was in Washing Windows V.