#expat

What does it mean to be a citizen of the world?

In this new Longreads essay, Thomas Dai writes about a formative year he spent living and working in China in 2017-18, in an apartment complex called Manhattan 2, when US-China relations were on the cusp of unraveling.

In Chengdu, I eventually lost track of my backstory, my wants. Was I an aggrieved American sheltering abroad? A diasporic Chinese recalled to his mother ship? The reality is I was many things. . . .

I came to Chengdu not knowing that a time of cosmopolitan dreaming was coming to an end—not just for me, but for so many other navel gazing expatriates. Now that I’ve left China, and don’t know when I may return, I feel more chagrin than ever about how much I took my time there for granted. That’s the thing about cosmopolitanism: It bamboozles you into thinking the world’s interconnectedness will always win out; that borders may shut, but only for so long. And in the meantime, you never actually feel like you’re living in Chengdu, or Bangkok, or Paris, because to really be in a place, you have to recognize you might lose it.

Thomas explores the ways that expat life rarely delivers on its promises, especially for those born in between cultures. This essay is an adapted excerpt from his new book, TAKE MY NAME BUT SAY IT SLOW, published by W. W. Norton.

peace found...

This area is found along the Dūkšta educational trail in Neris Regional Park in the village of Bradeliškės. It was quite difficult with many points of ascension & descension. The Dūkšta stream was created by glaciers. The trail brings you on a 5 km circular journey. It is one of our favorites!

follow our journey on YouTube!

I'm an American artist living in Thailand with my wife. No safety net. No fallback. When finances hit zero here, they hit zero fast — there's no system designed to catch a foreigner.

I need to fund a 3 month visa extension to stay legally in the country. That's 140,000 baht — $4,313 USD. Without it I'm out of status here.

I create satirical art under The Satire Fuggler creatures, characters, political satire sold as prints. It pays the bills when it works. Right now it isn't working fast enough and the clock is ticking.

If you can help, even a little

I've set up a GoFundMe. Anything helps.

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If you'd rather buy art than donate, that works too.

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Ayşegül Savaş, Gli antropologi, traduzione di Gioia Guerzoni, Feltrinelli (collana Gramma), 2025; p. 148.