Martina Sylvia Khamphasith's stories, often humorous, are memories of adapting to a new culture. Again and again, the roles of life learned in Germany are turned upside down and questioned. The European values she has learned as a child continue to be challenged as she engaged with those of her adopted country. This often gives her day-to-day-life a surreal quality, and shows her that Western interpretations are not truth but only possibility.