Eating with other people's families — etc.
The digest: including an old letter on taking the Munich-Berlin overnight train + recently published work.
However you found your way here, welcome! I’m Emily, and I write letters about how we seek and tell stories to make sense of a changing world and our place in it.
New letter from Germany
Their home is on the outskirts of Leipzig, and when we were last here in autumn, they took me on a little tour of their garden where besides vegetables like pumpkin, kale, and rhubarb, they also grow grapes, plums, quince, fig, and strawberries, which they use to make those assorted jams, topping it with a layer of alcohol so they can last three years. I understand nothing of the alchemy of such things, but the jams—the undiluted fruit pulp! the texture nothing like the too-sweet silky-smooth jelly you can slice clean!—were delicious. Gospozha A. often sends packages of homemade goodness to W.C. in Berlin, and though he can guzzle up a jar of jam in two days, he still has about nine jars in his pantry waiting to be consumed. At breakfast one morning, W.C. and his brother both eyed a jar of apple-and-quince jam: his brother declaring that he was going to smuggle it back with him to Erfurt, W.C. threatening to divert it to Berlin—and through all this, Gospozha A. giggling, her face glowing in the wan winter’s morning light...
Stories I wrote elsewhere
This longform piece for South China Morning Post, which includes a historical retelling of the Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia, about why we should all care more about the increased frequency of zoonotic disease outbreaks. It’s also printed in the April edition of SCMP’s monthly magazine. (It has a lot to do with how we eat and produce our food, so highly relevant to how we live!) Since SCMP is paywalled, you can read the story on my website. I found this piece fascinating to report and research, and there will definitely be a newsletter riffing off it.
This multimedia story for Between the Lines, a newsletter of Malaysian affairs, based off a reporting trip I did in Sabah’s Lower Kinabatangan-Segama Wetlands. (Do allow the page to finish loading before scrolling, as it’s pretty media-heavy.) I had wanted to see the Wetlands’ more remote reaches for myself, and learn about how its local and indigenous inhabitants are working with activist nonprofits and government authorities to better conserve the ecological integrity of its mangroves and other ecosystems while maintaining their economic livelihoods—and whether they could be an example of proactive, rather than reactive, stewardship. I may post some reflections as a letter in the near future, but for now, read this piece I wrote about the start of my journey and follow me on Instagram to see the photo journal I am sharing of my trip. I had also posted more context about this piece on a Mastodon thread.
From the archive:
From the Munich-Berlin overnight train
I find it weirdly satisfying to put myself through the paces when I travel. The demands of being on the move invigorate me. There’s something about the straining my body that makes it feel used and useful—a welcome reminder, perhaps, that I’m in control of it, that I can make it do what I want it to do, and that it can withstand some wear and tear from sustained activity. The tightness in my right shoulder from always carrying my backpack on my right side. The clawed tension in my feet and the swelling in my calves from really using my legs again (I make myself walk as much as possible when I travel, so I pay closer attention to my surroundings). The lack of sleep from trying to squeeze in too many activities in a day while keeping up with other time zones for work outstanding, and trying to accommodate the sleeping cycles of others when I stay in hostels. Even the occasional angry red spots that mar my skin from bug bites of undetermined origin (luckily so far, nothing antihistamines haven’t help)—not letting them bother me too much can feel like a small triumph.
Read the rest of this letter here.
Friends & Familiar Strangers
A shoutout to Mae, who wrote a guest letter for Movable Worlds in March about the eternal dilemma of leaving or staying that so many people—and not just fellow Malaysians—found they could relate to. I was really gratified to hear that writing that guest letter helped her get into the groove of writing again after years convincing herself that maybe she didn’t need to write write, and that it helped her get back to beginning her newsletter, so wonderfully named MAEmoji. Read her first letter, in which she describes her writing journey:
Getting back here feels a bit like discovering an old piece of clothing you once wore all the time but got sick of how it made you feel as your perception of yourself slowly changed.
I’ve loved working with all the people who took the time to pen thoughtful guest letters for Movable Worlds. I love being edited by a good editor, and I try to do the same here for other writers. So, if you’ve got a story you think you’d like to have a go at, please get in touch.
Something I loved
Haulout, a short film about a lone scientist in the Siberian Arctic witnessing the death of walruses caused by warming seas. I came to it because I love Evgenia Arbugaeva’s photographs, which—like this film she recently made with her brother—always have something of the fairytale about them and celebrate the meaning that can be found in solitude at the farthest edges of the world.
And I leave you with
These doggies are finally out of the woods—one growing out of her most vulnerable puppy stage and the other recovering from a bad hindpaw injury ❤️ Glad that W.C. and I no longer have to shuttle back and forth to the vet’s…
Until the next,
E.