The Great Affair | Movable Worlds | Emily Ding | Substack

The Great Affair

Essays by, and conversations with, friends, acquaintances, and familiar strangers about how they’re finding their own place in the world—and also occasional reported dispatches.

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Guest essay: After years imagining what her exit plan would look like, A Malaysian finally comes to terms with her choice to remain.

Mar 20

Q&A: A Syrian refugee journalist in Malaysia on piecing together a life for himself in exile in Kuala Lumpur, and reconciling his feelings for his…

Jul 15, 2022

Dispatch from Cambodia + Q&A: A journalist tells the story of the stateless Vietnamese forced to leave their floating homes on the Tonle Sap.

Apr 30, 2022

Q&A: An American acquaintance from my early backpacking days talks about everything that has taken him to his new home along Italy’s Via Francigena.

Mar 25, 2022

Dispatch from India: A journalist on how conflicted she felt when she considered donating part of her liver to her father—in a country where women face…

Feb 1, 2022

Guest essay: A Japanese essayist on negotiating deep-rooted traditions and her own wayward path, and how this shaped her relationship with her father.

Dec 12, 2021

Guest essay: Weaving between past and present, vignettes from a life at sea about solitude and friendship by a travel writer who once taught English on…

Oct 24, 2021

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