(I just did a guest blog for http://www.ritareviews.net, called “Cross-Cultural Storytelling.”  It gives some insight into how I used the cultural contexts of Vietnam in my novel “Beauty Rising.” I’ll give you a teaser here and you can read the rest on her site.  I hope you enjoy.)

I’ve been fascinated for years with cultural differences and the differing worldviews of the many people I’ve had the privilege of getting to know in Asia.  When I first came to Asia as an inexperienced, meat and potatoes, rice-hating American (if you can believe that, how did I even survive those years?), I was thrown headlong, full force into mind-boggling circumstances I knew nothing about. What I thought I understood, I didn’t  When I thought I was doing the right thing, I wasn’t  After living in Asia for a couple of years, someone introduced me to the idea of value orientations – how different cultures have belief systems and values which orient their point of view from completely different starting points.

READ THE REST HERE!