Beyond Reasonable Doubt -- a short story

 

Asha faces a manslaughter charge

He believes in ultimate justice

While remanded in custody, his cellmate Veer Singh tells him justice is 

a show, a public performance

and folks like them are just stage props

He’s not convinced

Writing About Asia -- Words and Prejudice

(I wrote this piece for the Hong Kong Writers Circle on-line newsletter to substitute for a panel discussion planned earlier.)

Writing about something as dynamic and diverse as Asia at this exciting juncture could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for writers living here; but chances are most of us would miss it.

Asia is changing at an unprecedented rate, causing a historic paradigm shift yet to be understood, hence the challenge. Most people, writers included, are more comfortable with familiar patterns and hindsight than gazing into the unknown, particularly when the road to future appears chaotically revolutionary as well as hesitantly evolutionary.

When we “write about Asia”, therefore, we could be talking about a dramatically different place depending on whether it’s in the past, present, or future.