Movable Worlds

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Peering around riverbends
A reflection on the river journeys I've taken, past and present.
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Emily Ding
Living in a world not of our own making
On Abang Adik and the tragedy of statelessness in Malaysia & what fiction may do, differently from journalism, for social justice. (Plus: a companion…
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Emily Ding
Watching Gaza
On ceasefire, condemnations, and the deterioration of language.
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Emily Ding
Recapturing memories in a place I loved before: a fool's quest?
On revisiting Nusa Penida, now that it's become a popular destination for daytrippers from mainland Bali. (Really an essay about rethinking why and how…
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Emily Ding
Rebecca Chew: "I think being an outsider, or having that perspective, helps"
Q&A: An art director on moving from Malaysia to the U.S. for a dream job at the start of the pandemic, the differences in being a creative here and…
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Emily Ding
Remembering Sanmao, the Taiwanese travel writer who lived in the desert
She was born some eighty years ago today.
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Emily Ding
Mabel Ho: “I still flirt with the idea of leaving. But that dream plays to a different tune now.”
Guest essay: After years imagining what her exit plan would look like, A Malaysian finally comes to terms with her choice to remain.
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Emily Ding
Writing about the vivid “waving” frog that vanished suddenly
An ode to the Chiriqui harlequin frog, and how to think and tell stories about species extinctions.
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Emily Ding
Wael Qarssifi: "Everyone saying what they think, out of love, is an act of activism"
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…
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Emily Ding
Ways of Writing
Can travel writing be redeemed? An essay based on a reading of Tim Hannigan's Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre.
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Emily Ding
Waggle dancing
A tentative first step in discovering new stories for the table: on growing, eating, and sharing food equitably in a rapidly warming world.
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Emily Ding
Abby Seiff: "The water failing them, they take to the land"
Dispatch from Cambodia + Q&A: A journalist tells the story of the stateless Vietnamese forced to leave their floating homes on the Tonle Sap.
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Emily Ding
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