The Archives - 2020
2020 (11 posts)
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Before I came to this country I led a very different life. My luggage was never unpacked. My passport was tethered to my body. My weeks often began with breakfasts in Yangon on Mondays and ended with drinks on Jakarta rooftop bars on Fridays. On weekends, I might retreat into a Balinese forest alone…
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In my younger years, meaning when I was a tween, I became acutely aware that my life would be different. I dated boys because I was supposed to, but whenever they said they loved me or that they wanted to marry me, I just shuddered. I don't like it when men sweat, I told them. In hindsight, that was…
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Today's headlines: Orange is the new bleak Surreal orange skies as wildfire smoke blocks sun in Bay Area Orange Oakland Why does the West Coast's Sky Look Like Literal Hell Right Now? Today's soundtrack: channel ORANGE I don't have any commentary other than 'oh shit'. So I grabbed my camera and…
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Every overseas Singaporean has the same fear: that when we return, we will not know our way home. Our city builds and tears down much quicker than most other places. Nothing is safe. The price of progress: everyone's memories. No time for nostalgia, or poetry, when we can have... growth. When I move…
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On Twitter, where I live, I posted snippets of the things I have done, the places I have been, the places I have gone. Where they might have felt jumbled up and messy on a blog or Facebook post, the Twitter thread / tweetstorm format seemed to be a natural home for my adventures. I am grateful for…
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I could not believe my eyes when my wife Sabrena put on an Indian movie on Netflix and we saw at least two Northeast Indians at once. On screen. Having lines. Being whole people. Doing something. Something that seemed important. "Axone" (pronounced Akhuni) - is a Naga speciality dish made…
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If you are a queer person in Asia, like I was, moving away and starting a family might be top of mind as something you should do. To be fair, I did not feel extremely oppressed, I did not often face homophobia, and I generally felt like I could do whatever I wanted to do as a queer person in Asia.…
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Why don't we blog anymore? I don't know. In 2003, I certainly was, and I had been for a while. I started my blog on Greymatter CMS, then Movable Type. At some point, B2, then Wordpress. Blogger got sold to the Borg (Google); LiveJournal.. what happened to them? They were so cool. Tumblr felt inane…
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The last few months have been all about the virus. Having lived through SARS and several other viruses growing up in Singapore, I wasn't particularly worried at first. Now, it's clear the best way to deal with all of this is too impose extreme social distancing measures. Where I live, in San…
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When we first moved to San Francisco, I was excited to have a new environment but I was not sure I would enjoy the city as much. My previous visits to the city had been mostly work/tech related. While I love many of my co-workers and friends in big tech and in startups, parts of San Francisco felt..…
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Dream of the Noughties # It feels like we all just woke up from a collective dream. The dream of the '10s, where we gave our content, perhaps even our personalities, away for free to Facebook. No longer. Not only have I cut that toxic company out of my life, I have also started thinking about how…