What’s new on the Princeton in Asia bookshelf?

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Excellent Daughters: The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World

By Katherine Zoepf (Vietnam ’00)

For more than a decade, Katherine Zoepf has lived in or traveled throughout the Arab world, reporting on the lives of women, whose role in the region has never been more in flux. Only a generation ago, female adolescence as we know it in the West did not exist in the Middle East. There were only children and married women. Today, young Arab women outnumber men in universities, and a few are beginning to face down religious and social tradition in order to live independently, to delay marriage, and to pursue professional goals. Hundreds of thousands of devout girls and women are attending Qur’anic schools—and using the training to argue for greater rights and freedoms from an Islamic perspective. And, in 2011, young women helped to lead antigovernment protests in the Arab Spring. Excellent Daughters brings us a new understanding of the changing Arab societies—from 9/11 to Tahrir Square to the rise of ISIS—and gives voice to the remarkable women at the forefront of this change.

Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience

By Melanie Kirkpatrick (Japan ’73)

We all know the story of Thanksgiving. Or do we? This uniquely American holiday has a rich and little known history beyond the famous feast of 1621. Award-winning author Melanie Kirkpatrick journeys through four centuries of history, giving us a vivid portrait of our nation’s best-loved holiday. Drawing on newspaper accounts, private correspondence, historical documents and cookbooks, Thanksgiving brings to life the full history of the holiday and what it has meant to generations of Americans.

While the rites and rituals of the holiday have evolved over the centuries, its essence remains the same: family and friends feasting together in a spirit of gratitude, neighborliness and hospitality. Thanksgiving includes recipes and bills of fare, and Readings for Thanksgiving Day, designed to be read aloud around the table.

Candace Jackson-Akiwumi (Thailand ‘01) finally made her way back to Thailand, after 15 years, with her husband Eric in tow. Candace and Eric traveled from Chicago, where Candace works as an attorney and where the couple married in 2015, for the wedding of Thai friends she’s known since her PiA days. The trip was also a wonderful excuse for a reunion with old friends and colleagues from Chiang Mai University.

Princeton in Asia: It’s for life

Former NRDC Fellows Chris Page and Craig Spencer (3rd and 4th from left) reunite with their former NRDC coworkers (Anthony Suen and CC Huang) in Berkeley. Naturally, they color coordinated like the Air Quality Index.

Roya Motazedi (Japan recently wrote us, “I visited Yakage for the first time since I left two years ago and it was SO lovely and perfect and wonderful. It was also great timing because I may have barged in on the new Fellow’s first English lesson at one of the kindergarten schools when I was doing my visits. He confessed that he has already fallen asleep during nap time at the nursery schools, so I know that he’s adapting to the role just fine!”

Have an exciting life update to share, or just want to see your name in lights?

Email us at piaalum@ princeton.edu!

Will Julian (China ’11) spent the summer in Xinjiang learning Kazakh and…wrestling?