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Saturday, April 25, 2015
{ 10:58 PM on 'Interview with Rei Kimura: Author of Memoirs of a Community Cat' }


A couple weeks ago, I received a message from Rei about her lovely book, titled Memoirs of a Community Cat! It tells from the perspective of a community cat Abby. Rei kindly agreed to do an interview for our readers: 1) Can you give our readers a brief summary of your latest book? First of all, this is the synopsis which will give readers some idea what this book is about and how the story line goes. This book is touching, poignant and at the same time laced with an ascerbic sense of humor told by a community cat on how he sees and lives his life and the love hate realtionship with humans and is a book suitable for most ages from low teens to adults and may instil awareness in the community that community cats are not pests but actually warm living creatures with hearts, feelings and a capacity to love and have fun if given a chance. SYNOPSIS This is a heartwarming story told by Abby, a veteran stray cat who insists “We are not strays, we are community cats! Just as humans are citizens of their countries, we are citizens of the communities we live in!” It brings to life the many stray cats who live in almost every community giving each cat featured in this book a face, a heart, feelings, thoughts and the same fears and happiness of the humans who can make their lives a blessing or a curse. Abby, the macho yellow male cat walks us through his very colorful adventures and experiences as he and his siblings and friends live each day to the fullest of their nine lives, never knowing whether they will be alive at the end of the day! There is never a dull moment and some harrowing matching of wits with those who hate their very existence and believe that community cats should neither be seen nor heard! The lead star of this witty community cat drama is Abby, strong, arrogant and adventurous, he is the boss and what he says goes! Then there is Choc, his brother, good natured, sanguine and a perfect gentleman who is wise and calm beyond his cat years! It has even been said that a woman would choose Abby for a lover and Choc for a solid dependable husband! There is Calico, Abby’s friend and “crush,” pretty, precocious with a temper to match and her direct antithesis, Sister, a surly, snarling aging matriarch of the neighboring cluster of community cats whom Abby calls “the ugliest and meanest feline that ever existed.” Each cat is a vibrant character of its own that you will mostly love as they share their lives with you. There is this rhetoric that every creature is created for a purpose so what on earth are community cats created for? Perhaps to bring out the compassion and better qualities in humans manifested here in the much loved “feeders” who feed and care for them, giving of their time and money to make the lives of these less fortunate creatures of God, tolerable. The bond and love between feeder and community cat is very poignantly shared here and as Abby put it, “God, did everyone think that the only relationship between our feeders and us is food? Didn’t they know that we become attached to our caregivers as well and that’s why we wait eagerly the whole day for them to come so that we could have that little pat on the head, that ruffling of the fur or that nagging about not being choosy about food and our 30 minutes or so of love.” “People came and went as and when they could and we were expected to deal with that, get over that emotional and missing someone we had become close to and loved stuff and just accept what and who came next. We were, after all, community cats, the lowest tier in the hierarchy of the cat society and that humiliating reality depressed me so much I crawled into the deep drain hole that had been our childhood home and cried for Helen. It just wasn’t fair that people, even our most beloved feeders, think that it doesn’t matter who comes to feed us because ultimately, it was just food we needed. But it does matter, it really does! But in the morning, I woke up with a burning determination to survive and live on, we had a right to be in our community and we weren’t going anywhere because this was our home too!” 2) What motivated you to publish this book? What motivated me to write this book? Wow, ever since I can remember, I have always loved animals especially cats and dogs. As a child, I would bring home strays I found cared for them and found homes for them and as our mini "zoo" in the house grew, my mother was exasperated but she was an animal lover too and didnt have the heart to say NO! So I grew up surrounded by cats and at least a dog or two and I believe caring for them made me a compassionate and responsible person. Of course when I got to know a couple of feeders caring for 9 com cats in my area I offered to help every time I was in Singapore, usually quite often so they could get some rest. I grew to really love these cats and saw how "human" they were and it was quite awful that some people regarded them as pests and didnt care taht they needed food and help! Also I met a number of feeders and got to know some animal shelters here and saw how much of a struggle it is without government support to raise funds to feed and care for the com cats. i contribute to their food funds as much as I can but its never enough. So I decided to write about these lovely intelligent com cats to raise funds for their care and also to educate the public. This book is intended not only to benefit the community cats in food fund contributions but also to give them a voice, a face, their own stories to tell and hopefully instil in the public greater tolerance of their existence as they have nowhere else to go! 3) Do you have any cats and/or other pets? Yes I have a pomeranian dog called Eric (I wrote a book about him too "My Name is Eric" ) and I would really love to have a cat but Eric is very possessive and will never allow a cat into the house, sad to say. But many many years ago I did adopt a cat called Frisky from a construction site in Singapore and brought her back to Japan where she was very much loved and lived to the ripe old age of 18! I cannot imagine a life with at least 1 pet! 4) How different are cats from Singapore and Japan? Are they pampered the same here as their neko counterparts? I think cats are pretty much the same whether they are in Singapore or in Japan except that Japanese cats are much bigger and furrier in part perhaps of the weather. Frisky was a typical Singapore short hair cat but after I brought her back to Japan, in the cold season her fur grew longer and much thicker because of the climate change, I was quite amazed to discover that. Japanese people love cats very clear in the number of cat cafes, accessories, clothes etc featuring cats and I am sure you have heard of the famous cat islands in Japan where cats outnumber the humans who stay there to fish and look after them! I think cats are very popular in Japan as pets because Japanese houses and apartments are small and its easier and more manageable to keep cats than dogs. And oh yes, house cats are very much pampered and there are all kinds of accessories created for them, clothes, shoes, even sunglasses in summer to protect their eyes!!! 5) Will you follow up with a second community cat book? I would really love to write a sequel to this book and will be observing other com cats to build up stories to write about them. Memoirs of a Community is now available in all 4 (Orchard; Ĺiang Court, Bugis and Jurong) Kinokuniya bookstores under the Japanese literature department. Part of the royalties goes back to helping our fellow community cats!

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