Will Buckingham

Somehow, I've not yet mentioned this on Bluesky. But my latest book, "Hello, Stranger" (Granta 2022) is about how most of the 8 billion people on this planet are strangers. So dealing with strangers is one of the central problems of human life. blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

In other news, it’s Thadingyut in Myanmar, and for those who want a cute insight into Burmese traditional culture, this game is adorable. nibban-zay.vercel.app My students shared it with me last week.

Having emailed the publisher of my next book (all going to plan) with my responses to the peer reviewers, I’ve checked in with the god of literature, Bûn-chhiong, to enlist his help. Because, frankly, I’d be a fool not to.

So much fun, banter and tomfoolery at today’s bilingual philosophy salon in Tainan, this time talking about the philosophy of laughter. 🤭

You fancy folks in Taipei may now be calling it Prosperity Plaza, but here in Pingtung (because, as people say down here, once you cross the Pingtung/Kaohsiung Creek, even murder is not a crime) we still call it "Carrefour". Or "Ca refour", in fact. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Getting tired of emailing organisations in the UK telling them that having "Taiwan (Province of China)" in their drop-down lists is not only politically highly loaded, but also factually inaccurate — unless suddenly we're in the year 1888. Just "Taiwan" will do fine, folks.

𝐍𝐄𝐖 @asiancha.bsky.social 𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐘 | Will Buckingham reviews Timothy Billings’s 𝑇𝑤𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑦-𝑁𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑏𝑦𝑒𝑠 (Fordham University Press, 2025), which reveals the challenges and pleasures of translating Chinese poetry through different versions of Li Bai’s farewell poem. 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗: chajournal.com/2026/10/14/l... 。。。

It was fun working on this review of Timothy Billings' "Twenty-Nine Goodbyes" for the lovely folks at @asiancha.bsky.social. It's all about #poetry, #translation, #李白, and the art of saying goodbye. chajournal.com/2026/10/14/l...

Pingtung, in Taiwan, has been battling large, invasive lizards for years (true story — you can read about it here: www.rti.org.tw/en/news?uid=...). I personally didn't believe these stories until yesterday, when went to our local park and saw the evidence with my own eyes.

Glacier—An Icebound View of the Firth of Forth, by Garry MacKenzie Garry MacKenzie’s poem-essay about the Firth of Forth flows implacably forward in time, from the Last Ice Age to the present. books.windandbones.com/product/glac...

This is one of my favourite covers of all time. 😍

A dull but necessary question: do any folks from #Scotland know of a good, friendly (and not too pricey), and preferably artist/philosopher-friendly (whatever that means) accountant who understands CICs / social enterprises, and who might be nice to have working for us at @windandbones.com?

I picked up my Taiwan permanent residency card from the immigration office today. The woman who works there was unusually frisky (she's sometimes quite fierce) —maybe because she knows that she'll never again have to face my endless questions about small bureaucratic nuances.

Here in Pingtung, it's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees, they're putting up reindeer…

#antics 😆

Towards the end of my Burmese class today, we were interrupted by loudspeakers in the background: the military announcing that this month 8 young people from that particular ward would be conscripted. And I was reminded how, for those in Myanmar, this nightmare just goes on and on.

I've posted this before, but I've not listened to 曾立馨 / Hug Muzik for a while. Listening again on the train from Pingtung to Tainan, and remembering what a wholly joyous burst of sound this is. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idr-...

Wow. Today's Burmese class was punishing. As I recover, I'm having to remind myself that learning Burmese has probably never been (directly) responsible for anyone's untimely death.

It's been nice to have a day off, rambling out and about in the outskirts of Pingtung city.

It was such a pleasure to be interviewed by Su Shin from Bookman / 書林 about our work at @windandbones.com yesterday at the Kaohsiung Reading Festival. I had a total blast. And it was good to catch up with so many old friends. 😍

Our local guardian deities here in Pingtung, Taiwan have been given a lick of paint, and now they are all spruced up and ready for the annual Pingtung Park Christmas Spectacular.

No big deal, it's only the totally lovely, International Booker Prize winning translator of Taiwan Travelogue, Lin King, giving a shout out to our book, Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic! ❤😍

We love the folks at BookSource on account of their wild enthusiasm for getting books into the hands of readers. If you want to get our @windandbones.com books in your bookshop (and you should... they're lovely), BookSource are the people who are here to help you.

No big deal, it's only the totally lovely, International Booker Prize winning translator of Taiwan Travelogue, Lin King, giving a shout out to the book I co-edited with @willbuckingham.com and published at @windandbones.com ❤️

Truly, if there is software in hell, it will be almost exactly like Nielsen Title Editor.

Fighting a losing battle trying to persuade my Burmese students not to instinctively type "Kant" (the philosopher) as "Khant" (the popular Burmese name).

Today, I asked my philosophy students (who are based in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Kenya, Laos..., and who are all, in their own way, geniuses), to come up with a universal moral principle. After some thought, they suggested the rule: "one should not fart in front of others when they are eating."

Damn, Indonesian metal rabble-rousers Voice of Baceprot were on fire in Pingtung yesterday. This concert was on our doorstep, and totally free. Also, it was lovely to see my pal Pacak Palasasav / 巴查克 strut his stuff on the same stage. And so many other amazing performers as well.

Hell: trying to get Taiwan's Ministry of Finance portal to work with a card reader and health insurance card / digital citizens certificate. Heaven: going to the local tax office to ask a cheerful volunteer auntie wearing a tabard to help this sorry, confused foreigner out.

A friend I ran into in a Pingtung bookshop the other day recommended the extraordinary documentary Pesta Babi, and its well worth a watch. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpdr... #Indonesia #WestPapua

I can’t help reading “gelotophobe” as a term for somebody who has a mortal terror of ice cream.

Who is going to the Kaohsiung Reading Festival? Because WE ARE 👇 #Taiwan #books #reading

This is a terrific read.

Back in Taiwan, in a blizzard of admin. Notaries, government offices, police stations, the tax office, immigration.... On the one hand, there's that curious bureaucratic mixture of dull and demanding. On the other, there's a secret pleasure to fluidly navigating esoteric bureaucracies...