Growing up in Asia in a particular time period - the '50s and '60s - I attended a Catholic missionary school where I was taught by nuns and where consciousness of the body was repressed. Yet at the same time, the female body was a highly visible and sensitive site.
Shirley Geok-lin LimI'm nomadic. Even when I'm a visiting professor here at the City University of Hong Kong, in this campus flat, I'm constantly getting up, sitting down, picking this or that up. You can't do that and be a writer. You need to be able to sit still.
Shirley Geok-lin LimWhen I was younger, yes, there was a part of me - and I wrote about that bit in Among the White Moon Faces - that wanted to be a boy. I wanted to be accepted by my brothers and to be their peers.
Shirley Geok-lin LimI'm not sure why my muse is female, except when I am deliberately playing against that figure.
Shirley Geok-lin LimWhen you're a female poet, would you, therefore, invoke a male muse? When nuns get consecrated into their vocations, they become brides of Christ. Christ is the bridegroom. In these symbolic actions, rather than in physical actions, where a male reaches sexuality or participates in intimate exchanges, if one uses a different term - there's often a heterosexual figuring that takes place. The male poet invokes a beautiful female muse. The virginal nun consecrated invokes the male bridegroom, Christ.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim