Our first issue of 2015 is a veritable international soirée! “Off-Season With Snake” chronicles writer Xu Xi’s return to Hong Kong to care for her aging mother. Raymund P. Reyes’s “Asian Goddess” introduces us to Jameel, a Filipino hustler applying his trade in Saudi Arabia. In Zdravka Evtimova’s “Distinction,” we visit Bulgaria and an epic cart race with love and brandy hanging in the balance. All this and more.