Inspiration for the past! #JustTravelWithSandy #TravelBook #BookLaunch

1 May 2025 · 2 min

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1:31

In this video, Sandy (Speaker A) reflects on a serendipitous encounter with a copy of The Little Foreign Devil by Desmond Powell that sits on her bookshelf. An inscription dated April 3 1997, addressed to Sandra Mooney (her married name), mentions a classmate, Solly, who lived in Tientsin, linking the book to her father's past. She recounts her father's colorful upbringing in Shanghai and Tientsin, mentioning characters like a rickshaw coolie and Lee the cook, and admits she knows only fragments of his story. Sandy then shifts to her mother, born in 1925, who survived World War II in Germany. She explains how a later family tragedy and subsequent travel experiences deepened her curiosity about these histories. This convergence of family narratives and travel inspired her to finally write a book—a project she once swore she would never undertake—demonstrating a shift from “never” to “now.”

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I found this book. Well, not found it, but I had it on my bookshelf. The Little Foreign Devil by Desmond Powell. As many of you know, my daddy was born in Shanghai and raised in Tientsin, China, and he had a very, very colorful life with the rickshaw coolie and Lee the cook. He used to tell us stories, not a lot of stories, but a few stories. And Desmond Powell was a classmate or a friend, I'm not 100% sure. But in 1997, on April 3rd, Desmond wrote in the book to Sandra Mooney, which was my married name at the time, in fond memory of my dear classmate and acolyte Solly, who was beloved by all who knew him in Tientsin. Respectfully, Desmond Power. So many unanswered questions of my daddy's upbringing in China. And that's one of the reasons why I decided to write a book. Between my father's upbringing in China, my mother's going through— my mother's story of being born in 1925 and going through Germany during the Second World War, and then how travel shaped our lives after a tragic incident, I just wanted to put it to writing. I wanted to put it to paper. Have you ever thought about writing a book? Because I said I will never write a book. Never say never.