The story explores the crazy rules of homo-vs-hetero public displays of affection among missionaries — and it was written by one of the stars of the last Sunstone Symposium! check it out!
chanson
C. L. Hanson is the friendly Swiss-French-American ExMormon atheist mom living in Switzerland! Follow me on mastadon at @chanson@social.linux.pizza or see "letters from a broad" for further adventures!!
Lists of Brodie award winners:
X-Mormon of the Year 2021: Jeff T. Green
X-Mormon of the Year 2020: Jacinda Ardern
X-Mormon of the Year 2019: David Nielsen
X-Mormon of the Year 2018: Sam Young 
X-Mormon of the Year 2017: Savannah
X-Mormon of the Year 2016: Jeremy Runnells
X-Mormon of the Year 2015: John Dehlin
X-Mormon of the Year 2014: Kate Kelly
X-Mormon of the Year 2013: J. Seth Anderson and Michael Ferguson
X-Mormon of the Year 2012: David Twede
X-Mormon of the Year 2011: Joanna Brooks
X-Mormon of the Year 2010: Monica Bielanko
X-Mormon of the Year 2009: Walter Kirn
My guess is that this good sister’s plight was probably exacerbated by the realities of serving (i.e., living) in Asia.
I’m a fairly standard-issue American male and can count the number of times I’ve shed tears on one hand. One was when I returned home from Brazil and realized how cold and uncommunicative the people of my country of birth suddenly seemed to me. The other was after about six months into my first stay in Taiwan. I love my life here, but it is a much less expressive culture than even that of the US. Adapting takes time and, unlike the easy adaptation to the greater warmth of a Latin culture, finding one’s place in a colder society like Taiwan’s can often feel like compromising one’s humanity.
Thank God for my Taiwanese wife, her intellectual curiosity, and her dedication to living a polyglot lifestyle.
Looks like a good book!
The coldness of that relationship where someone who “loved her best” would only allow her to touch his sleeve when he clearly knew she was in real distress is stunning!
Visitor — right, but you have to understand that in that culture, he would see his refusal to comfort her as being a noble sacrifice.
Loved this article, well-written (congrats holly). Thanks for the tip chanson.