I was in Singapore for a trip to Borneo, Indochina and Siam and was looking for a general servant.I asked my friends if they knew anyone in China who was looking for a job, and the ones they thought would be suitable for me were all unlucky enough to have already found a job or went to Guangzhou for vacation.Then someone gave me the address of an office.It took me a while to find it; the place was a small, boxy bungalow with a small garden around it, which gave me an inexplicable sense of foreboding.The person who received me was a Eurasian, with bright eyes, a flat face, a slightly darker complexion, and white teeth.He was very attentive, always had a smile on his face, and knew what I needed before I even asked, so precise that I didn't even have a chance to explain myself.He told me that he could help me achieve my goals without difficulty, and he opened an impressively large book with the names of his hired workers.He was annoyed when he found that every suitable person had either found a job or was on vacation in Guangzhou.Finally, with tears in his eyes, he begged me to come back in three or four days, or a week, or a month later, and then he would definitely have the most suitable candidate for me.I explained that I was leaving Singapore the next day and had to take a boy with me.He swore it was impossible, wrung his hands in pain, and said to me that if I would wait half an hour, he could go and see if he could find someone.I light a cigar and wait.He left.

He came back an hour later with a young man in his twenties, with a smooth yellow face, shy black eyes, not tall, but dressed in white, looking clean and calm.He can speak English.He showed me his letters of introduction, written on used half-sheets, and the referees were all very pleased, saying he was decent, proactive, courteous, and good at his job.I was so pleased with his appearance that I hired him right away. We set off the next day.I soon discovered that although he spoke English well, he couldn't understand it, so our communication became one-way.He stayed with me for six months.He's a perfect servant.Know how to cook, can be a personal servant, can park cars, and can also serve meals.He was alert, dexterous and not talkative.He was always at his ease.Nothing frightened him, no tragedy disturbed him, no difficulty exasperated him, no novelty attracted his attention.He never tires.He is smiling all day long.I have never met anyone who is always in such a good mood.He's quite a personality.He loves baths very much, and when I found him in my bathroom when I didn't need him, bathed with my soap, and dried himself with my towel, I was slightly offended at first.But I cautioned myself not to be too critical.His only fault was that, when I was about to catch a train or a boat, I couldn't find anyone for him.I sent someone to look for him, but he was nowhere to be seen.No one knows where he went.In the end I had to set off alone, but every time, when the train neighed to leave, or when the last boat carrying guests was about to leave the pier, he strolled over, unhurriedly, with a smile on his face; What the hell was going on with him, he was still smiling.

"I don't miss the train," he said. "There's plenty of time. The train always waits." I asked him where he was, and he looked at me calmly, and replied: "Not going anywhere. I went for a walk." After the trip, I came back to Singapore and planned to take a boat to Europe from there.I told Ah Jin that I don't need him anymore.He asked me for a letter of recommendation.I gave him the letter and the reward, and gave him a present. "Goodbye, Jin," I said, "I hope you find a new job soon." Then I found out he was crying.I stared at him in surprise.He was an excellent servant, and met all my needs for six months, but he seemed to me always to be strangely alienated from me; care.I hadn't noticed at all that he thought of me as anything other than a queer, stupid employer who paid him, fed him, and lodged him.It never crossed my mind how he felt about me.I felt embarrassed and felt a little uncomfortable.I know that I am often impatient with him, acting annoying and demanding.He was crying because he wanted to leave me.It is because of those tears that I now name after him this collection of short stories written during my travels with him.

I'm sure these will be some of the last stories I'll ever write that could technically - though I don't think that's quite accurate - be called "exotic".It is not appropriate to set a story in an exotic setting just because a certain place is picturesque.If you're going to narrate events that could just as well have happened in England, and you're an English writer, it's a bit artificial to put them abroad.If you're going to set the background in a foreign country, then the story must be based on the foreign background.Of course, I am not saying that the stories in this book can only happen in the places I describe.I think they could have happened in India, or any of the other colonies of the British Empire; but there is no doubt that they would not have happened in England, because they depended on the circumstances where the subjects had to rediscover themselves , under the influence of a way of life which is not normal for them.In my kind of stories, I never actively involve scenes from the lives of local residents, unless they affect the white people who live in them.It is exceedingly difficult for an English writer to know everything about his countrymen, though he may know them not only by observation, but by his own feeling, habits, and knowledge akin to them; people, a Frenchman or a German, that's even more impossible.In some respects he could guess that they belonged to the same race after all, but there were many other things, especially the more essential aspects, which he did not know at all: they played different games from him, read different books, And brought up in different ways, according to different traditions, by their own mothers; in many respects they were completely foreign to him.When it comes to other races, I doubt he knows anything about it.The behavior of brown and yellow people is a code that white people cannot decipher.He doesn't even know if his understanding of a simple action is correct.Some writers have vividly portrayed Indians or Chinese figures; and I cannot help asking myself whether these figures appear so lifelike only because they are conventional.

In my stories I only looked at the way white people in faraway countries behaved.But the topics are limited.Life in these places is novel, but simple.It's like a painting painted with a palette that lacks color.When a writer uses subjects that require exotic settings, eventually he finds that he has run out of them.The characters he has to portray are usually somewhat unusual, because in these environments, the development of personality is often far beyond that of people in other environments, but they all have some similarities.They tend to converge towards a certain type.Even if they were eccentric, there was something to be found in those eccentricities.In fact, they are all ordinary people, and the same cause has the same effect on them.There is usually not found in them that complexity of civilized beings in highly social surroundings, which makes them the subject of perpetual inquiry.If a writer has successfully portrayed strangers or strange events in foreign settings, then he can master all stories.If he can only conceive a story by choosing materials based on personal taste in the field he is familiar with, then the writer can only find characters that resonate with him emotionally.The mineral deposits of resources can be mined as much as you like, and you can use them at your will.It has never been diminished by previous excavations.Although I have used this material, other writers can still find that there is still infinite room for imagination.