The Archives - 2013
2013 (14 posts)
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A year and a half ago, my friends sent me to a local emergency ward in Singapore when I moved in and out of delirium in the middle of dinner. I had been unwell for a long time, but there had been no suitable diagnosis or treatment. I lost nearly 20 kilograms, had the shakes, became insomniac, and…
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I got a mention in the Singapore International Foundation's magazine for some of the stuff I do on the side.
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This is a project which has been on my mind for some time now. We've been planning it for a while. A part of this is a response to a worrying trend of anti-foreigner sentiment (c.f. the responses to a drive to raise funds for victims of last year's Downtown Line accident: here and here). The other…
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Once or twice in your life, something, or someone, gets under your skin and stays there. Most of the time it's because you have let them. It does not need to be tragic; it can even be, at times, up-lifting. All of the time it changes your life in some big, unalterable way. Then you learn to…
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Some days ago, a boy I used to date as a wee teenager (yes, a boy!) reached out to me on Facebook. It's funny where we are now: he's now a hotshot international banker, I'm now an international vagrant (I don't really know how else to describe myself), instead of the awkward, school-uniformed boy…
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Also available on Medium. If you were to meet me on the streets of Singapore, you probably would not peg me for ‘gay’. Apparently, ‘gay woman’ or ‘lesbian’ has to be one or several of the following: short-haired, oddball, butch-like; a flaming dyke. You would expect me to show up in a flannel shirt…
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I wrote a small piece for Elle Singapore (Sept 2013) about what it's like to be lesbian in Singapore. Available on the newsstands now, page 147. Mention to someone in passing that you're lesbian and one or all of the following are bound to happen: intrigue ("tell me more"), surprise…
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1961. Rain falling on zinc roofs. Neighbours having sex Hoping they won't be suay again. They have no money. The news coming from the sole television set. Children peeping for a glimpse of world affairs. Condensed milk cans filled with coffee. Ah Ba will have to go to the office. The office is also…
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Frak yes: my Battlestar Galactica tattoo. I got a Battlestar Galactica tattoo I'm pretty pleased about that It's one half of the pair of wings and Caprica constellation that Starbuck gets when she marries Anders Within a couple of hours of getting it, a random stranger proposed to me — saying she…
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As many of you will know by now, I have spent a substantial part of the past decade travelling through India. I still feel like I'm barely done with scratching the surface. There's just so much to see in that vast, amazing country that I call my second home. For some time now I've wanted to go to…
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In several status updates Admittedly I have posted very little on the everyday occurrences in my travel. Here are some snippets, culled from Facebook. Day 1: Two sleep-deprived people board a plane full of evangelical missionaries offering ‘free healing' in the plane (true story), dinner in the…
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I've thrown myself headlong into work — real work, and then foundation work. India is an important part of my life and I owe everything to her. Over the past couple of months, my friends and I have been busy putting a little NGO together, the Gyanada Foundation. Today (Tues, 12 March) between 7 and…
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I've had more thoughts on the anti-white paper protest since the weekend, I'll need to write it down into a slightly longer piece. But here's what I posted on Facebook that got passed around a fair bit. Point is, Singapore is at an interesting stage in our politics and civil society and it's going…
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I have a tattoo on my lower back. It was given to me by the grandson of a tribal village chief. I grimaced for hours on the floor as he used the primitive tools and ingredients that had tattooed his Iban people for centuries, on me, a girl from a big city. I'd always wanted a tattoo, but didn't know…