Belonging in the China Coin

In "The China Coin" written by Allan Baillie, the main characters Leah and Joan went on a journey to china in purpose to find out the mystery of the broken coin. As the journey progresses, Leah learns to be independent to look after herself and help Li-Nan with some easy job when Joan was in the hospital. She gains understand of her cultural heritage. This is shown in her attitude toward the journey is changing from being uninterested to passionate and joyful. Leah gain new insight by learning to be patient and understanding. This is shown when she realized the Joan has bad memories of riots in Singapore in younger pf her age, which leads the over protectiveness and furious action was taken by Joan when Leah in the crowd in shanghai. Eventually Leah finds out the story behind the coin and develops an intellectual journey to understand the world around her by discovering the power of resistance to the politician repression of the government which might also mean imprison and death.
Baillie depicted that the characters gained new insight and understanding of themselves through the journey by using numbers of techniques. Compelling adjectives "evil aunt"," snake woman" compares Leah's attitude towards Joan, and effectively to show that Leah's maturity has been developing. Written in the first person and the used of monologue "you're not Chinese, you don't even look like them." enables the reader hears the direct thought of the character more closely, and allows the reader to involved in Leah's world and experience her learning process that how she understand herself. As well as dialogue "what do you think you are doing? People may think that you are one of them." Reveals the anxiety and anger of Joan that she does not want to separated with Leah, which enables Leah to gain a new insight of her mother. Used of Irony as Heng supports the student against the government shows the two faces corruptive governors and displayed the politician situation in china at the time.