Bound. An Expatriate's Journey To China And Beyond

Cover Type: Softcover
Book Condition: As New
Jacket Condition: None Issued
Publisher: Horizon Publishing Group
Publisher Place: Sydney
Publisher Year: 2014
Edition: First Edition

Description: 311 pages. Book appears to have hardly been read and is in As new condition throughout.

Publishers Description: Bound explores a ten-year period in the life of "Kristen", an Australian expatriate in Shanghai. Living in a foreign country is transformative, because it attracts opportunities for learning, discovering and becoming. However, "turning to the foreign", presents many challenges for western expatriates moving from the West to the East. Bound aims to ensure that the past is not forgotten. It emphasises the importance of the freedom to choose and create one's life, to take risks and to live "outside the square."This literary memoir explores the reasons why "Kristen", an Australian expatriate and others from Australia, Europe and the UK choose to live and work in a very different culture to their own and the challenges they face in China. Although there have been discussions about challenges faced through East to West migrations, the literature about West to East migrations is meagre. Yet these migrations are becoming more frequent due to the advances of technology and the fact that people's work increasingly involves a global role. Bound helps to fill this gap in the literature.This book illustrates the experiences of both Chinese and western expatriates and their contributions to life and work in Shanghai. Philosophical and literary themes such as loss, attachment to place, freedom and transformation are highlighted throughout. Photos which depict the daily life and some of the history of Shanghai are included. Poetry was considered integral to the writing of the memoir because it provides a more layered and visual meaning, than prose alone can express. The poetry is mostly Chinese, but also includes three poems written by the author.Interviews were carried out with other expatriates (strategists, entrepreneurs, artists, architects and writers) both in Shanghai and Hong Kong during May, 2012, and are reported in narrative form. The memoir differs from other works in the field in that there seems to be an absence of contemporary memoirs about Shanghai - the people, the city, the events that shaped it and what it was like to live there from a western expatriate's perspective. Nor are there memoirs that show how a "turning to the foreign", leads to irretrievable change and transformation in both artistic and personal development. The "Epilogue" presents the view that the expatriates represent a Chinese version of "tide players" or "movers" and "shakers" who are incrementally moving a contemporary China forward.Bound highlights the fact that few people take risks to live their life differently. Turning to the foreign also attracts many challenges for expatriates, such as "culture shock". Writing a memoir acts as a cathartic process, which helps to make sense of an expatriate's experience, and leads to "seeing through new windows".

ISBN: 9781922238283