In Chap­ter Three, the nar­ra­tor reflects on her upbring­ing in a house­hold over­whelmed by paper­work and doc­u­men­ta­tion. This clut­ter filled her life with a sense of iden­ti­ty shaped by the tan­gi­ble evi­dence of her fam­i­ly’s his­to­ry, encap­su­lat­ed in invoic­es, old sub­scrip­tions, and her mother’s Cam­bo­di­an pass­port. Grow­ing up in this envi­ron­ment instilled in her an obses­sion with archiv­ing and orga­ni­za­tion, influ­enc­ing her career as a civ­il ser­vant.

Through­out the chap­ter, the focus shifts to the nar­ra­tor’s rela­tion­ship with Gra­ham, an expat adjust­ing to mod­ern life. Despite embrac­ing cer­tain aspects of the 21st century—like music from com­posers such as Bach and Tchaikovsky—Graham dis­plays a reluc­tance toward assim­i­la­tion, often cri­tiquing con­tem­po­rary cul­ture and art. His dis­missal of films frus­trates the nar­ra­tor, mak­ing her reflec­tion on their cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences more pro­nounced.

As the nar­ra­tive unfolds, the expats under­go tests for empa­thy and hon­esty, rem­i­nis­cent of psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tions. The exper­i­ments reveal ten­sions; some test sub­jects resist the notion of moder­ni­ty, reveal­ing their psy­cho­log­i­cal strug­gles. Gra­ham’s adverse reac­tions to the test­ing pro­ce­dures hint at deep­er issues, draw­ing atten­tion to the emo­tion­al toll of their cur­rent exis­tence.

The chap­ter tran­si­tions into the shared expe­ri­ences of the expats as they nav­i­gate life togeth­er, which accen­tu­ates their iso­la­tion from each oth­er due to their dis­tinct his­tor­i­cal back­grounds. Com­mu­nal din­ners become a poten­tial solu­tion for build­ing con­nec­tions, high­light­ing the appalling dis­par­i­ties among dif­fer­ent eras of expats regard­ing social inter­ac­tion and iden­ti­ty.

The nar­ra­tor reflects on her own iden­ti­ty and finan­cial pru­dence stem­ming from her past, cou­pled with her desire for acknowl­edg­ment from Gra­ham. As the heat wave begins, it intro­duces dis­com­fort and exac­er­bates ten­sions in the rela­tion­ships, lead­ing the nar­ra­tor to buy a new bike for Gra­ham, hop­ing to forge a con­nec­tion through shared expe­ri­ences.

Graham’s ini­tial inep­ti­tude on the bike demon­strates his strug­gle with mod­ern life, while his fas­ci­na­tion with the past emerges through his con­ver­sa­tions. Their shared attempts at adjust­ment expose both lim­i­ta­tions, blend­ing the his­tor­i­cal with the con­tem­po­rary while explor­ing themes of adap­ta­tion and empa­thy through their evolv­ing inter­ac­tions. The chap­ter clos­es with an unset­tling mys­tery regard­ing one of the expats, hint­ing at deep­er, poten­tial­ly sin­is­ter issues with­in the time-trav­el project, rein­forc­ing the nar­ra­tive ten­sion that under­scores their jour­ney.