... --Steven Sills "So he spoke, and the bright-eyed goddess, Athene, was pleased that she was the god he prayed... ... goddess, Athene, was pleased that she was the god he prayed to before all the others. She put strength in his shoulders and knees, and set in his he... ...e put strength in his shoulders and knees, and set in his heart the daring of a mosquito, which, though constantly brushed away from a man's skin, sti... ...ushed away from a man's skin, still insists on biting him for the pleasure of human blood." --The Iliad Homer Book I: P... ...at being dark was never an attractive trait in Thailand where the lighter, Chinese skinned Thais were thought to have more material success, sensualit... ...it; although from it, despite its limitations, he was always introduced to people so different than he was. They were the favored ones whose ideas we... ...icemen, who could easily be bribed, were never to be trusted. The favored people did not have everyday to roam the streets like homeless but highly m... ...ourning. Carrying suitcases and bags with his brothers and a woman of Chinese complexion, he sensed the rapacious discord of Bangkok-- virulent a... ...pedia one time that the American president, Abraham Lincoln, said, 'In the civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different fr...

...ter and imitate any object, and should propose to make a public display of his talents and his productions, we shall pay him reverence as a ... ...owning him with woolen fillets; but for ourselves, we shall employ, for the sake of our real good, that more austere and less fascinating ... ... with woolen fillets; but for ourselves, we shall employ, for the sake of our real good, that more austere and less fascinating poet and le... ...re and less fascinating poet and legend-writer, who will imitate for us the style of the virtuous man." Plato (Republic) Chapter One At Tok... ...ephone clicked off. Sang Huin felt hurt. He felt a morbid clarity behind how people always left his life. He thought about what he "knew" of this Chin... ...ind how people always left his life. He thought about what he "knew" of this Chinese friend, Yang Lin, if he knew anything at all: he was adopted and ... ...ing only in personal interactions? Was he nothing but the composite of other people's impressions of him? These impressions--these judgments-- could n... ... of their enclave they would have sewn not only rice but the continuation of civilization. Their footprints in mud were ephemeral, but they had their ... ...of the many miscellaneous parables in the thickets of pages that comprised a Chinese literature anthology; however, she had never radiated the enlight...

...rean culture and that his own life is an outlier to this conservative society. As he lives there, making his living as an English teacher, he writes of Gabriele, a single parent in Ithaca New York who manifests a more open and less asphyxiating rebellion against society...

...is By Steven Sills 1 He assumed that in being exhausted from sporadic fits of sleep and wakeful spans of dull, hypnagogic thoughts matching the inerti... ...adic fits of sleep and wakeful spans of dull, hypnagogic thoughts matching the inertia of his confinement he would finally become ensconced there, in ... ... sleep and wakeful spans of dull, hypnagogic thoughts matching the inertia of his confinement he would finally become ensconced there, in this train j... ...in jostling him around, and at last fall asleep. This was his hope; but in the meantime there was a languid battle with insomnia and inordinate time t... ...lk about--some type of fight with a guy where you acted like a coward or a civil war in your own home that-" "Hard to explain," interrupted Nawin. "Ok... ...n of such comfort to them as teenagers. Back then, before finding the dead people and each other, each of them had been wandering respectively through... ...re it belongs out of the corners. This was his response to silence. - Why, people ask me are we, I, an archaeological anthropologist and you, a playbo... ...ecko was similar to Xinuae, whom long ago he had bestowed the nickname of "Chinese Karen" so as to commemorate the day in which he had learned that he... ...are a vain lot--solitary cowards behind face fortresses. They are like the Chinese in that sense, and both Thai lightees and darkees with money preten...

...This is the continuation of Nawin's story. Now a famous prostitute painter suffering a midlife crisis, he abandons supercilious makings of wealth for a train trip ride to Laos where he repudiates and ventures onto something new...