Posts tagged "bestof"
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My Singapore List
Food is extremely subjective, and in Singapore it's a national pastime and passion. The following lists are based on my tastes. Other people may disagree, and you may want to do further research based on your own dietary preferences. If you're from Singapore, resist the urge to tell me I missed your faves: I'm…
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Wives and Lives
Some thoughts on being a gaysian immigrant to California A scan of a black and white photograph of some Chinese calligraphy writing on a wall in a Chinese restaurant in Oakland, California Two weeks ago, I helped to plan and organize a Lunar New Year dinner for 120 queer and trans Asian people. It's a tradition that…
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Life in Anxious HD
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 or return home.…
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In Small Rooms with Betawi Women
Not for the first time, I found myself in a tiny room on a hot day, the youngest among old women. Each with a different thing to say to me, also the only person not from around these parts. You're so old now! And unmarried! Your hair is too white! Eat more soy beans! One woman rubbed my tattoos, making a screechy sound…
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When I Was Young
I'm seated now by the side of an old vending machine in Jakarta airport, with power sockets so dirty and old I had to think twice about plugging my cables in. Yet in all of Terminal 1, one of the oldest airport terminals in a country not known for modern aviation facilities, there was only this one socket free.…
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Tan Boon Chye
When I came home (to Singapore) a couple of days ago, I instructed the taxi driver to go to the Caltex station at East Coast. Most cabbies know this place, but he didn't. He's 74 years old, so he only knew this spot as "Tan Boon Chye & Co" (brain GPS never update firmware). Tan Boon Chye & Co was the…
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Mahabandoola
At the hotel I had the receptionist scribble the name of my lunch spot in Burmese. Lunch that day was to be outside my sphere of Yangon familiarity: I had never been there, but I had been told by some locals that I must have a typical Burmese lunch at Aung Thu Kha. Yangon in motion: traffic, heat, and everyday rhythm.…
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Before & After The Fire
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 a shed. He carries…
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A Drinkable History of My Family
The following piece is an original piece written specially for Ceriph #3, published by Math Paper Press. It's on sale at my favourite bookstore, BooksActually, and also at Kinokuniya.. Fish Sauce We are Teochew, people of the coast. Fish sauce, more than hot food, opera, more than even yam paste desserts - is what…
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There Is Always Chicken Curry at Funerals
Last Rites Living in Singapore is not easy, one can quickly see. Could it be that we tire quickly from our programming — the PSLE, the Os, the As, the university, the serving the nation, the feeding your family and all these things? Or is it that we pack the rush hour morning and evening trains daily, increasingly…
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Ah Gong and I
Let’s just say I don’t do death. I’ve never had to deal with it, never thought about it, possibly because I never had a pet, and never had family or friends who’d passed on or contracted anything major. People lived, in my family, and lived quite long. Especially my grandma and grandpa, who seemed to just go on and on.…
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And All The Roads That Lead You There Were Winding
I came to the Middle East to do just one thing: see a part of the world that I felt I needed to learn more about. Its language was alien, but familiar – many Malay and Hindi words have roots in Arabic. Its customs and food strange, but not dissimilar – much of the Indian subcontinent that I love and call home was…
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The Country Codes My Girlfriend And I Have Known
Some people do long distance relationships. Most don’t. Some can’t spare the time or the effort. Others can’t be bothered. Some refuse because they think of the potential heartbreak the distance will cause: the time difference will compound the distance, the new social environment will open up possibilities that…
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Peanut Butter, This What?
postcard from Banten I never learn. If there are two items you must not forget when travelling, they are your universal travel adapter and your watch. I keep forgetting either one but that is seldom a problem. Forgetting just a travel adapter means you can tell time with the other essential item, the watch; forgetting…
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Chasing the Monsoon
Where I dig through my archives and repost the stuff I like. This is from 2007. Ask me again a year, three, or five from now and all I will remember is driving up, around, up, around, up, around, in the swirling clouds as the rain lashed at my windows and I feared for my life, balanced so daintily in this tin can…
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Sudder Street
Reposting stuff I like from the archives. This is from 2007. At the stroke of eight each morning, I awoke. All my days in India have always had purpose, and it was especially purposeful in Calcutta, my crazy, lovely, chaotic, I hate you I love you Calcutta. This was a luxurious hole in the wall, 400 rupee a night room…
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A Bus and Chai Story
Reposting stuff I like from my archives. This is from 2006. Rajasthan, at the peak of summer. There are no tourists around for miles, except the two of us. For a good reason too. Tell any Indian you were in Rajasthan in May, and he is bound to exclaim, “Vhat? It’s… hot!” And when an Indian says it’s hot, believe me,…
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Portraits Unphotographable
Whether it’s a long-haul transatlantic flight or a regional short hop, or even just a trip out on a local bus, the process of meeting and eventually talking to strangers, can lead one to use quick heuristics in sizing them up. Perhaps it’s our automatic mechanism to do so in order to pass the time, while travelling and…
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Amar Shonar Bangla
Where I dig into my archives and repost stuff I like. This one’s from August 2006, when I'd spent some time in both sides of Bengal. Nine in the morning, every morning — a chef in Sirajgonj district’s “only acceptable hotel”, the Hotel Anik (Residential), cooks me a breakfast of two parathas and two eggs. My decision…
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Why I Am Still A Feminist
Reposting stuff I like from the archives. This is from 2006. It has also been republished in print in GASPP, A Gay Anthology of Singapore Poetry and Prose. I am still a feminist because I am no longer ashamed of saying I am one. I have grown tired for apologizing for so many of the things I am: for being liberal,…
26 posts tagged "bestof"