“On Fridays” published in Thema (USA) and translated into Bahasa Melayu

 

 

“On Fridays” was published as a reprint in the Summer 2025 issue of Thema.  This was the sixth time that Thema had published one of my Malaysian-set short stories, five from Lovers and Strangers Revisited.  Years ago, I pitched an idea to The Writer about the writing of “On Fridays” based on my Story Behind the Story series, and the editor agreed and requested I follow an established format:  The Work, The Problem, The Solution, Before and After.  It was put on hold for a couple of years (my last article took four years for them to publish).  Then a new editor took over and the project fell through the cracks.  It happens.  When Thema accepted the story last year, I updated what I wrote for The Writer and resubmitted it along with the previous editors acceptance and format suggestions.  Still waiting…

                                   

THE WORK: “On Fridays,” published in the Fall 2003 issue of The Literary Review (US) and Number 19 of Frank (France)—a joint venture on Expat Writing.  Published fourteen times in six countries, originally in Female (Singapore, March 1989), then later reprinted in Cha: An Asian Literary Review (Hong Kong, 2010) and Thema (summer 2025).

THE PROBLEM: The original idea for “On Fridays” came when I lived in Penang, Malaysia working part-time as an adviser for MACEE, Malaysian American Commission on Educational Exchange.  Every Friday I would take a sixteen-kilometer taxi ride into George Town—a shared taxi with other passengers getting on and off at various locations.

From the hundreds of taxi rides that I took, I chose to create one that was representative of all those rides.  By using the senses—see, hear, feel, taste and smell—I tried to make this one taxi ride as realistic as possible by putting the reader in that taxi with me.  If they believe in that taxi ride, then they’ll believe in the story.  That it’s the “truth;” that it “happened;” that there really was “a girl;” and that I’m still “searching” for her.... Invariably my students would ask, “Have you found her yet?”

I saw this taxi as a metaphor for multiracial Malaysia, where various races lived and worked together in relative harmony.  In the story, an expat, an unnamed Westerner, becomes interested in a Malay woman sitting beside him.  She is reading a letter and crying.  He wants to comfort her, but feels self-conscious because of the other two passengers and the Muslim taxi driver.

Normally I write in the past tense, third person but chose to write this story in the present tense to give the story an immediacy, and hopefully a timeless quality…and make it linger, especially the ending, so it would seem like it just happened.  I also wrote it the first person at the expense of people assuming it’s autobiographical.  Unlike the character, I don’t paint, and the character taught English years before I did.  The effect I was going for, I felt, would be better served because I wanted the reader to closely identify with the narrator, to see himself in this, or in a similar situation, and think about what he or she would do.  This was the one story from my collection Lovers and Strangers Revisited that people would mention and relate a similar experience of their own.

When I first wrote the story, I had a lot of details describing the Malaysian sights along the way.  An editor from the UK made the comment that it read too much like a travelogue.  An editor in the US suggested that I lop off the final paragraph.  I didn’t like his suggestion, yet I felt he had a point.  Also, readers unfamiliar with living in Malaysia, a Muslim country, may question the expat’s motives, so that would need to be addressed without intrusion from the author.  Then a few matters of truth were getting in the way of the story.  Already I can hear protests, “But that’s the way it happened!”  Yes, no doubt, but to get to the essential story, the “real” story, sometimes you need to take a step back from your truth and ask yourself, does your truth serve the story, or does it hamper it?  Truth often gets in the way of a good story.

THE SOLUTION:  I cut out most of the descriptions outside the taxi that weren’t essential to the story itself, just those that highlighted that it was miserable, raining day.  With that US editor, we agreed to compromise by rearranging a couple of paragraphs at the end, to make the story more effective, so the focus wasn’t on the man’s loneliness, but on his obsession in trying to find the girl.  It was also suggested that I make the expat character single.  Him being married (like me) raised some moral issues—is he cheating on his wife?  Good advice, which I took—an example of how “facts” or “truth” can have unforeseen consequences in your fiction.

A reader, unfamiliar with Malaysia, asked me what’s the big deal if he does touch the young Malay woman in the taxi, so I worked in the character’s concern about being arrested for “outraging her modesty” with three potential hostile witnesses.  As a writer, you can’t always assume that overseas readers will understand a local concern or what is at stake.

Then I got to thinking, why doesn't he get out of the taxi at the jetty and follow her after that yearning look that she gave him (I would), and if he does, I would need to make it clear why he has to return to the taxi, for fear of losing his job, something difficult for an expat to get without a work permit.  So, I added this new scene to the story.

BEFORE AND AFTER:  Although this story had already been published in five countries and included in a collection of short stories, this revised version was accepted by Frank, a literary magazine in France, whose editor, incidentally, was a guest editor for The Literary Review for a joint venture on Expat Writing.  For me, a double surprise.  As an American living in Malaysia, I submit a story to France and it gets published in the US and France!  Later, Lovers and Strangers Revisited was also translated into French.

Speaking of translation, I recently discovered by chance that “On Fridays,” had been translated in Bahasa Melayu and uploaded a year ago for a Universiti Teknologi Mara course, from College Sidekick, which, I gather, gathers material.  They claim that they are not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university.  Did they ask me or my previous publisher for permission to translate that story?  Did they even attempt to contact me?

Makes me wonder what other stories from that collection have been translated in Bahasa Melayu?  Or even the whole book.  At one time, I thought that would happen.  Maybe it has, and I’m just unaware.  Maybe it’s time I investigate, even look at the possibility of having the collection officially published into Bahasa Melayu.

            —Borneo Expat Writer

Encyclopedia Britannica: A Mother’s Gift Honored in Time for Mother’s Day

 

In Borneo, I finally found a proper place for my Encyclopedia Britannica, a gift from my mother.  I was fifteen years old when I filled out one of those mail-in cards inserted inside magazines.  One evening a knock came at the door and a salesman from Encyclopedia Britannica appeared, saying they had received a request.  My mother and my stepfather were quite baffled until I meekly admitted that I was the guilty party.

I knew at the time that they couldn’t afford such a luxury item when no one, other than me (and occasionally a brother), read.  They did know that I had good grades and that I planned to go far.  They were not thinking in terms of geography so it never crossed their minds that I would travel to 36 countries and live in Malaysia for forty years (21 years in West Malaysia, Penang; 19 years in East Malaysia, Kuching).  They also knew that I planned to go to college, not that they could afford that either. 

They invited the salesman, who strategically didn’t call ahead of time, inside our house and sat with him at the dining table and listened to his sales pitch and how much this was going to cost them.  Trying to keep a low prolife, I circled behind them now and then, wondering how all this was going to play (or pay) out.  To my utter astonishment, my mother and stepfather agreed, and the entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica was mine.

Neither was I punished nor reprimanded, other than mildly—they did strongly advise me not to fill in any more of those cards inserted inside random magazines…

My mother, which I just rediscovered, had written inside the cover of Volume One: 

           The owner of all these books is Robert J. Raymer, June 1972

After attending Miami University and spending three months backpacking in Europe, I moved from Newark, Ohio to Boulder, Colorado, and the encyclopedias came with me.  They also followed me to Madison, Wisconsin where I began to write using a typewriter.  In those pre-computer, pre-Internet days, those encyclopedias did come in handy.

Then I moved to Penang, Malaysia, bringing my typewriter and encyclopedias with me.  I consulted them regularly.  It was part of my job as a writer—there was always something to investigate or research.  One child (two actually) was born in Penang and the other in Kuching, Sarawak on the island of Borneo.  Future users of my encyclopedias, which they mostly ignored.

Over the years the encyclopedias resided (or took up space) in various boarding rooms, apartments, condos, and houses.  If space was an issue, sometimes under my bed or in various offices upstairs and down, in storage boxes, and on a bookshelf nestled inside a storage closet for relatively easy access.  As my Encyclopedia Britannica began to age, some of the numbers and letters on the spine became too faint to see, so I used white-out.  I know, tacky. 

Recently, our second child graduated from secondary school, so after removing various school-related boxes out of the way, voilà, a space became available that I thought would be just perfect—perfectly suitable for my Encyclopedia Britannica.

Now all I had to do was convince my wife that these fifty-year-old encyclopedias that I hardly touch these days deserve a fitting location in honor of my mother who passed away in 2019.  Thankfully (perhaps reluctantly on her part), she agreed.  For how long, I don’t know.  For now, they are in place in time for Mother’s Day—for the mother who presented me that set of Encyclopedia Britannica when I was just a kid, obviously going places.  Thank you for investing in my future as a writer.                                                            

            —Borneo Expat Writer

Writing Excerpts and Entering James Jones First Novel Fellowship

 

After blogging about taking two years to rewrite six novels, I received some nice comments from an editor at Shenandoah about an excerpt I had submitted.  She suggested, however, that I submit an excerpt from the beginning of the novel—that way the reader could get acquainted with the characters and the setting as the ‘story’ develops.  Good advice, I thought.  Excerpts from the middle or near the end of the novel might be harder for them to stand on its own without the necessary character developments or backstories.  That would depend on the novel or its structure.

While contemplating the beginning of the novel as a stand-alone excerpt, I suddenly realized (or forgot) that the James Jones First Novel Fellowship deadline was near—for those who have not published or self-published a novel.  Since they require the first fifty pages of the novel and a synopsis/outline, I decided to take a closer look at those fifty pages (even going through each chapter three times, then those fifty pages three more times as I did before).  I figured since the first fifty pages (or the first three chapters) is what I normally submit to agents, I’ll benefit from that, too.

After submitting my entry, I then created that new excerpt for Shenandoah.  From chapters One-Four, I cut out the parts not relevant to the ‘story,’ though relevant to the novel, thus cutting the length down from 11,276 words to less than 8,000 words, their maximum length.  I titled the excerpt, “Ask Questions Later.”  By then, unfortunately, Shenandoah’s submission period had closed (they had reached their quota early and wouldn’t reopen for several more months.)  So, I had to find another market that accepted novel excerpts—so long as they could stand on their own.  Fortunately, I found several.

Years ago, I used to do this with my first Penang-set novel.  Parts of the five chapters have been published fourteen times in six countries, including the US, UK, and Australia.  I had less success with excerpts from other novels.  Maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough to market them or gave up too soon or failed to update them after a rewrite…

I’m now considering rewriting the first fifty pages of all six novels before the year is out (half way through, actually) and seeing what I can fashion into excerpts that can stand alone. Hopefully the excerpts can attract interest in the novel itself as I continue submit to agents.  So far, I’ve resisted self-publishing, despite some amazing success stories, or co-publishing, despite one enticing offer.  (That first novel could’ve been published twenty odd years ago in Singapore!  Regrets, maybe.)

Plenty of novels, of course, have grown from published short stories (and plenty of unwritten novels have died after that first chapter since it had nowhere to go, even though it worked as a short story).  Plenty of novels have also spawned excerpts or short stories as well.  It goes both ways.  As I writer, you got to do what you can with your fiction, take those necessary steps that can lead to publication and move you closer to where you want to be.

              —Borneo Expat Writer

 My interviews with Malaysian writers:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize. 

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey

Preeta Samarasan, author of Evening is the Whole Day, finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009. 

Chuah Guat Eng, author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change.

Malachi Edwin Vethamani, author of Complicated Lives and Life Happens. 

 

Catching Up: Reading a Backlog of Short Stories…

I admit I had been putting off reading several collections of short stories.  I kept them on a separate shelf divided by those I’ve read, those I haven’t.  A couple of months before the end of last year, I committed myself to plowing through them once and for all.  I began with Nadine Gordimer’s anthology, Telling Tales with award-winning writers like Gunter Grass, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and Arthur Miller. 

Then came Bobbie Ann Mason’s Shilo and Other Stories; Joanne Greenberg’s Rites of Passage (read the first story a couple of decades ago, liked it, but never got around to reading the rest); Isaac Asimov’s Nine Tomorrows (signed copy, though second hand.  “The Last Question” blew me away—never saw that great ending coming!)  Later, I came across an interview where Asimov stated that was his favorite story.

Next, I read Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America (I sort of met her in Madison, Wisconsin before I knew who she was, other than a writer making photocopies, before I began writing my own stories.  Never on a first name basis, though; a missed connection).  Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth (loved her first collection so don’t know why it took me years to read this.); Alice Munro’s The Love of a Good Woman; The Stories of John Cheever (the big red hard cover that won the Pulitzer Prize); The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford (another Pulitzer Prize winner); and Thomas Pynchon’s Slow Learner (his early work).      

I was just getting warmed up.  I then read three anthologies:  American Short Story Masterpieces edited by Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks; Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, third edition, R.V. Cassill; and Anthology of American Short Stories edited by James Nagel.  These last three alone had combined pages of 3,038, which may explain why I kept putting them off.  Some of the stories were repeats of what I had read earlier or years before.  Many of those, I reread.  Others I had never heard of, nor the writers (some brilliant stories, too).  I enjoyed the sheer variety of great, well-written short stories, some dating back 170 years.

Some stories you read once and stays with you a lifetime like an Edgar Allan Poe story, or Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.”  Haunting stories about life and death and survival, like escaping capture in the desert and finding yourself sharing a cave with a panther as in Honoré de Balzac’s “A Passion in the Desert.”

So, the next time you have the urge to pick up a collection or an anthology of short stories, do so.  You won’t regret it.  In fact, it may inspire you to write one of your own, even set in your own country like Malaysia—a great story, no matter where it is set, is a great story…. I began writing my own set-in-Malaysia stories a couple of years before I decided to move here for good.  One of the stories, “On Fridays,” after rewriting it (rewriting all my stories), is appearing this summer, as a reprint, in Thema (USA).

Next up, or maybe next decade, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare which I bought four decades ago when I was still a bachelor living in America before I began to write...

        —Borneo Expat Writer

 My interviews with Malaysian writers:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize. 

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey

Preeta Samarasan, author of Evening is the Whole Day, finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009. 

Chuah Guat Eng, author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change.

Malachi Edwin Vethamani, author of Complicated Lives and Life Happens.