One morning in Singapore more than 50 years ago, a wealthy, respected, handsome Chinese patriarch, head of a large household of three wives and many children and grandchildren, takes a walk by a cemetery. There, a young village egg-seller, Silver Frond, is amusing herself with a comic song-and-dance act based on popular gossip--about him. The meeting instantly changes their lives. With characteristic verve and wit, Catherine Lim traces the struggles of an unusual couple through the jungle of human quandaries and predicaments created by the force of tradition, and celebrates the ultimate triumph of an even more extraordinary force--love.