Many published travel memoirs concerning the "exotic Orient" or "Far East" are written from the perspectives of white Westerners, who while facing alienation and perhaps even occasional hostility in the lands they visit, nevertheless have a degree of privilege that non-white foreigners do not have. This privilege is usually taken for granted and seldom acknowledged. While not trivializing the challenges faced by white visitors in East Asia, the contributors to this issue have chosen to acknowledge the additional burdens that expatriates of color have to bear.