From live news reporting in Manila to assignments spanning five continents and two of the largest news networks, Marga Ortigas has, quite literally, led a storied life. She covered the Iraq War from its inception for CNN International. As one of the original correspondents of Al Jazeera English, she reported on the growth of China, the Great East Japan quake in 2011 and Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. She covered the Muslim rebellion in the Philippines for many years, earning for it an award for humanitarian reporting. It’s the kind of life that inevitably leads to a book.

But in “There are No Falling Stars in China and Other Life Lessons from a Recovering Journalist” (Penguin Random House SEA, 2023, 210 pages), Ortigas shares her own personal stories—set against the same history-defining events—and the impact they made on her. “These are just some of the stories I remember, the little joys and woes off-camera that have stayed with me,” she says in the book’s prologue. ”I share them in the hope that they might strike a chord—and that you find a bit of yourself in them, too. Because like you, journalists are but storytellers.”

A cut above

Ortigas is, of course, a cut above the regular raconteur. A British Council Chevening scholar, she holds a master’s degree in literature and criticism from the University of Greenwich. There is good wordsmithing to be enjoyed as she takes you to the Middle East, Europe, Asia, North America and South America—continents doubling as her book’s section titles.

The tales are made memorable by the people she introduces in them: Duraid, her CNN producer friend hit in a Gulf War ambush; the women in Gaza eager to meet an international TV crew (“Can I please tell you how I feel?”/ “Please, please would you listen to my story?); and Sato from Fukushima, part of the “human wave” of employees working in shifts to contain the nuclear power plant leaks, who said just one sentence in English: “We are kamikaze.”

Is this a travelogue or a memoir? A bit of both, with a dose of comedy thrown in. The best storytellers deliver a memorable laugh at their own expense and Ortigas is no different; let’s just say you might never hear “First I was afraid, I was petrified…” again without thinking of her.

Palpable enthusiasm

She writes with palpable enthusiasm, coupled with an earnest wish to share life lessons which are always spelled out at the end of a story. One might wish otherwise: wouldn’t it be more rewarding to arrive at the insight on my own? But faced with such earnestness and enjoyment, one just lets Ortigas carry us on to her next adventure.

For those who have lived at least three decades, “There Are No Falling Stars in China…” brings back events that shaped modern history—where were you when the Gulf War exploded?—in a jolt of time travel. For Gen Z and millennials, it enables a juxtaposition of the past against current events in the same places. It also inspires living a life of one’s own choosing to the fullest, as Ortigas certainly has.

In reflecting on her past as writers do—with the goal of rediscovering truth—Ortigas encourages readers to do the same. Our own life may not be as exciting but if examined well, it can be just as illuminating. —CONTRIBUTED

Available in select bookstores.