Showing results for "The Essays" in Asia

Essays, observations and stories about Pattaya and Thailand - humorous, satiric, observational.

A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darkness is Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul’s profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first encounter with India. Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man, and a deluded American religious seeker.

Arising out of Naipaul’s lifelong obsession and passion for a country that is at once his and totally alien, India: A Million Mutinies Now relates the stories of many of the people he met traveling there more than 50 years ago. He explores how they have been steered by the innumerable frictions present in Indian society - the contradictions and compromises of religious faith, the whim and chaos of random political forces.

Thailand, the land of smiles and golden dreams, is languishing, and Pattaya, its biggest fun city, is succumbing to a thousand ills. Pattaya Pains is about living in Pattaya over the long term. Even though the collection of essays, stories, and observations herein would relish the golden dream of painting Pattaya as a romantic hotspot where Thais and foreigners bond, it can’t do so - not only because East is East and West is West, but also because Thais just don’t see foreigners in a good light.

Motions and Moments is the third book by Michael Pronko on the fluid feel and vibrant confusions of Tokyo life. These essays burrow into the unique intensities that suffuse the city and ponder what they mean to its millions of inhabitants.

Khabaar is a food memoir and personal narrative that braids the global journeys of South Asian food through immigration, migration, and indenture. Focusing on chefs, home cooks, and food stall owners, the book questions: What does it mean to belong, and what does belonging in a new place look like in the foods carried over from the old country?

Ever felt like chucking it all and moving to an island paradise? Award-winning journalist David Haldane and his Filipino wife, Ivy, met on an international dating site. Ten years later, with David laid off from his dream job at the LA Times and frustrated by mounting costs in America, they made the bold decision to move to the Philippine island of Mindanao, where Ivy grew up.

Il viaggio più affascinante è un viaggio antico, graduale, privato e sociale insieme: il viaggio in treno. I treni sono teatri, caffè, bazar. L'unico talk-show che non conosce crisi è quello che si replica quotidianamente sulle rotaie. La confidenza genera libertà: ci ha messo insieme il caso, ci dividerà una stazione. I treni aiutano a pensare. Tutti i grandi viaggi - dai pellegrinaggi cattolici al Grand Tour, dalla prima partenza con gli amici al viaggio di nozze - sono, in fondo, una scoperta di se stessi: il panorama che c'interessa sta dentro di noi.