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Emily Ding

I write about the interconnections between people, animals, and places—to make sense of our rapidly changing world and our place in it, and how we can all better co-exist.

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presently

I’ve been feeling a desire to experiment with storytelling forms beyond journalism and nonfiction, and am trying to make some headway on a couple of personal projects.

While in pursuit, I’m also reading, walking and exploring, documenting, or seeking out the experiences and affinities of others to inform my ideas, some of which I share on my newsletter, Movable Worlds.

Meanwhile, I am still taking freelance or part-time writing, reporting, research, and editing work—for editorial, nonprofit, and commercial clients. Please get in touch to discuss possibilities of working together.

JOURNALISM & NONFICTION

I’ve been a journalist, photographer, and editor—on staff and as a freelancer—for more than a decade. Perpetually drawn by a vivid sense of place, my stories have ranged across varied themes—humans vs. nature; travel, migration & culture; memory culture & the legacies of conflict—and been published in both news and literary media.

As a former columnist for the Virginia Quarterly Review, I contributed a series of narrative nonfiction as braided Instagram stories. I have also written personal and critical essays for the Mekong Review.

My news features have been published in places like Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CNN, Public Radio International, Vice Asia, South China Morning Post, Foreign Policy, Slate, Roads & Kingdoms, Wired UK, New Naratif, Esquire Singapore and Malaysia, and Malaysiakini.

Some of this work was supported by the Pulitzer Center, the National Geographic Society/Out of Eden Walk, and the Fuller Project.

other work

Before I went freelance in 2015, I was the Associate Editor at Esquire Malaysia (which was one of the global outposts of Esquire magazine). Before that, I reported for a stint at The Malaysian Insider in the run-up to the 13th general elections, before it shut down.

At various times, I have done research and factchecking work for TV documentaries (which have been broadcast on National Geographic Asia, History Asia, and Netflix), managed an online literary magazine in London, edited news and feature stories for small Southeast Asian publications, and written travel and commercial copy.

On people & places

REPORTED nonfiction

The Provenance Detective (Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 98/2)
Lonely Hearts Club (VQR, vol. 97/1)
Fossil Combing (VQR, vol. 96/1)
This Land Is Our Land (VQR, vol. 95/2)
The Remained (VQR, vol. 95/1)
Memory Wars (VQR, vol. 94/3)
The Wild Wild West, in Spain (Roads & Kingdoms)
A New Hope (R&K+Slate)

personal & critical ESSAYS

A Family Under Occupation (Mekong Review #36)
Peering Around Riverbends (MR #32) Ways of Writing (MR #24)
Echo in Sahara (MR #20)
Homing Pigeon (MR #15)
Travelling alone as a woman (The Lily/Washington Post)
Killer Fish for Breakfast (Roads & Kingdoms)
Aunties of Chinatown, Guatemala City (GeoEx)

NEWS FEATURES

On human-animal conflict

When the wrong bat met the wrong pig (South China Morning Post magazine)
Can plantations value more than profit? (Al Jazeera)
The vivid ‘waving’ frog that vanished suddenly (The Guardian)
Is there still a chance to save the Malayan tiger? (Al Jazeera)
Pygmies in Peril (Esquire Malaysia)

On migration & conflict

Anti-human trafficking apps were meant to save lives. They’re failing. (Wired)
Malaysia’s Coronavirus Scapegoats (Foreign Policy)
‘A chance to do something meaningful’: the refugee chefs feeding health workers (The Guardian)
Fast friends, Rohingya refugees in exile rebuild lives in Malaysia (PRI The World)
Beyond the Sea (Esquire Malaysia)

On women’s rights

Women’s Public Testimonies in Malaysia Reveal Persisting Gaps in Gender Equality (Heinrich Böll Stiftung)
New sexual harassment bill edges closer to law in Malaysia (Al Jazeera)
Teen murder charge shows ‘gaps’ in Malaysia’s treatment of girls (Al Jazeera)
Malaysia’s sexist citizenship. law is keeping families apart (Foreign Policy)

On politics & justice

In Malaysia, young people find their voice amid a pandemic (Al Jazeera)
After virus outbreak tied to religious event, Malaysian puts the brakes on Ramadan (Washington Post)
Life, death, and the in-between (New Naratif)
In the last room (Esquire Malaysia)

On travel, place & culture

Custodians of the forests between land and sea (Between the Lines)
Petaling Street, the ‘Chinatown’ of Malaysia’s capital, bets on its heritage for a modern revival (SCMP)
In Malaysia, one of the world’s oldest rainforests awaits (CNN)
16 Baris is a Youtube Cypher Show That's Reviving Malaysian Hip-hop (Vice Asia)

On history & memory

A ‘White Rajah’ returns to Malaysia’s Sarawak, but this time to serve (SCMP)
Former Leprosy Patients Search for Children They Were Forced to Give Up (The Malaysian Insider)
Dispatches on the Batang Kali massacre (The Malaysian Insider)

personal GEOGRAPHIES

Born in Malaysia, I went to university in England to study Law (and some History) and lived there for several years, then spent a handful of seasons in Latin America, and more recently began an acquaintance with Germany. I still call Malaysia home but am beginning to immerse myself more in life in Berlin, and I remain ever curious about all the places I’ve been, and all the places I’ve never been. (The longer version.)

Like many Malaysians of Chinese descent whose families have lived for generations in Malaysia, English is my first language (in that I’m most proficient in it—British colonisation of Malaya and all that), though it’s not either of my parents’ mother tongues. I studied at a Chinese-language primary school and grew up learning Mandarin, Malay, and English simultaneously, but with Mandarin as the main language of instruction (non-language subjects like history, geography, math, etc. were taught in Mandarin). Following that, I enrolled in a secondary school where Malay was the main language of instruction.

Throughout these years, though, I read English-language books and watched English-language movies (more American than British, such was the power of American global hegemony), which explains my primary proficiency in English. But being multilingual has helped me ease my way into different geographical and cultural contexts, which has been useful on both a personal and professional level, and for that I am ever so grateful to my parents. I’m also conversational in Spanish, which I learnt at university and on the road in Latin America, and I’m currently studying B1-level German.

JOY IS NOT A CRUMB

When I’m not writing or reading at my desk, I like to walk and wander the city (maybe join a historical walking tour) and eavesdrop on strangers’ conversations, picnic and play boardgames at a park (Ticket to Ride & Azul Mini Summer Pavillion, anyone?), lose myself in a movie I can’t catch online at some quaint cinema, sit in and simply listen to exchange of ideas at literary/storytelling events, partake in communal eating experiences and check out what’s new in vegan food possibilities, swing dance in some tavernous bar or vintage ballhaus, and travel somewhere I love or where I haven’t been. Some of these things still apply back in Kuala Lumpur—but there, I’d also get to spend time with the two family dogs <3

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