Tapioca Age
My grandfather was born in Malaya, a first-generation ethnic Chinese immigrant. Gong-gong’s temperament – quiet and minimalist – fits a man of his humble background, but his eagerness for adventure is exceptional. His extensive travels grant him a remarkably inquisitive palate that is rare amo
Ecdysis
She starts off in vibrant red, the same colour as chandlos on the brown foreheads of Indian women. The scene changes. Countless embroidered mirrors glint on the folds of her lehenga, the sky-blue skirt flowing down from her brown midriff. Cue another scene change. She emerges in a yellow salwar kame
Letter from the Marquesas
We board a tiny plane to Hiva Oa at dawn. An old fisherman sits next to me on the flight. He speaks in rapid, broken French whilst brandishing a photograph of his prize catch. Out of the window, I watch the land heave up in peaks then sink into valleys, falling in cliffs and buttresses. […]
Cannibalism in Oxford
While recently reading a lip-smacking review of Bill Schutt’s entertaining new history of cannibalism, Eat Me (2017), I was reminded of a hair-raising epicurean moment in an Oxford seminar room. In 1987, I participated in the Sixth International Oral History Conference on ‘Myth and History’, a
