These were questions that motivated Chris Bale to look up friends in the region, among them a youngster from a Bangkok slum and a village woman in West Bengal. His search for answers was often frustrating. Bale makes his way around the region in jeepney, rickshaw and whatever transport available. Tracking down his friends requires patience and perseverance.
Directions are sometimes cryptic or plain confusing.
The author must overcome his own embarrassment to inquire into personal situations. Because of time constraints, his visits after a decade-long interval sometimes seem awkwardly hurried. But he balances all this with lucid self-criticism. The chapter dedicated to the sugar-cane workers of Negros island in the Philippines recalls Germinal , Zola's grim novel about coal miners in 19th century France. Following the collapse of sugar prices in the 1980s, non-governmental organizations encouraged starving Negros laborers to set up communal farms.