“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.
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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
