Vahana's Face

Nehemiah was born in South East Asia in 1952, the youngest son of a large family of twelve. Growing up in that region, he imbibed a great deal of multiculturalism and respect for other races. In independent post colonial Malaysia, he acquired an education, in which English was the principal but not the only language to be used or examined. And although, English was not his mother tongue, he developed a great affinity for this new language, picking it up as a second language, alongside what was spoken at home; a kind of home-brew babble of Cantonese and English, reminiscent of British Hong Kong. He worked for a while as a professional magazine writer after high school, but later due to a family crisis, the death of a beloved eldest sister, he opted for further studies in theology. For thirty years, having graduated with a B.TH, he worked variously as a teacher, counselor, trainer and missionary at different stages and places. Presently, he’s doing duty as an English instructor in China, having taught both university  and junior school students. However, two years ago, due to the frustration living a mechanistic clockwork life and the resurgence of creative, imaginative, impulses, he started writing again. To his very great surprise, his early efforts were quickly rewarded with successes, on both sides of the Atlantic. His poems and stories were published, having won in open international competitions against others. Nehemiah has come to the charming realization of how amazing life can be in turning one full circle without even trying. That no matter how far one has traveled forward along the timeline; one cannot fully escape from the traction of one’s own roots.