non-fiction

Being black in Taiwan – by Mycal L Ford

In front of me, a sea of bodies stretches for what seems like miles – though it couldn't be more than a hundred yards. I am on stage at the elementary school I'm about to start teaching at in Kaohsiung, southwest Taiwan. All eyes are on me. The sun beats down on my skin, cooking it almost well-done. Something liquid races down the side of my rib-cage to my hips. If I raise my arms, sweat will pour from my armpits and swallow the hundreds of students waiting to greet me. I keep my hands down to save myself the embarrassment.

A deep, almost god-like voice echoes from the speakers. That’s my cue. I puff out my chest, stand up straight, shake out my new dress shoes, adjust my khakis and straighten the collar of my wrinkled polo. That’s when the orator, the principal of the  school, introduces me as President Obama.

A run-in with reality – by Derek Sandhaus

THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED IN MALA LITERARY JOURNAL

There are few better places to be than Shanghai in the springtime. Sandwiched between the frigid bleakness and sweltering mosquito-infested blanket of the Yangtze Delta extremes are a perfect few weeks of shirtsleeves and al fresco dining. Under spring’s clear blue skies, one starts finding excuses to be outside. For me it was an impromptu editorial meeting with an author.

I had been in Shanghai for just over two years and was attempting to transition from nobody to entry-level somebody; from aimless transient to anchored expat.

The white laowai's burden – by Amy Daml

For foreigners or "laowai" living in China, it’s important to keep in touch with friends from home – you know, by stalking them on social media. Some of the conversations I had on Facebook last year were about race in America, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in July finally brought the term “white privilege” to mass consciousness. Though I’ve only been an expat for three years, living abroad gives you just enough of an outsider’s perspective to trick you into thinking that these are not your problems. But they are my problems – or should I say, my privileges.

Whether out of frustration, innocence, the insistence of a Chinese friend, or just out of being an asshole, we’ve all played the laowai card.

From cultural revolution to rent collection – by Alec Ash

It's always a pleasant surprise when my landlady drops by unannounced at eight in the morning. I'm familiar with the early bird rap tap on my door by now, and the first thing I do before opening the door is put on the kettle. Sometimes she's there to collect the rent. Sometimes it's to check the heating came on, or to write down the electricity meter digits, or to switch off the water supply to the roof so it doesn't freeze in the pipes during winter, twiddling with hidden knobs under the kitchen sink.

This time, rap tap tap, it was just to have a chat.

A Christmas gone wrong in Shanghai – by Tom Pellman

I realised I wasn’t ready to handle Christmas alone around 5pm Christmas Eve. It was 2007, and I was sitting in the Shanghai office of the media company I worked for at the time. Ricky and Pang Pang from design were two of the few people still hanging around. Most of my foreign colleagues had left days ago, including my boss. I had a mountain of work to get done, but I wasn’t working on Christmas Eve because of my deadlines. I was still at the office because I didn’t have anywhere else to be.