Posts tagged "blog"
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Kolkata Kalling
12 years ago I came to Kolkata for the same time. At the time it was still mostly referred to as Calcutta. Kolkata, where every return feels both familiar and new. The city doesn't change; but you do. Every picture I have of it from 12 years ago still looks like it could have been from December, when I last visited.…
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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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Is the Self-Hosted Blog Dead?
Fuck Medium. Seriously. I have had enough of their terrible user interface, narrow writing experience, and the empty platitudes of ‘recs' and comments from people looking to improve their lives by reading inspiring content from people they don't care about. Worst of all? I hate people whining about Millennials more…
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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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Paths
12 years ago this time I was deciding where I should go, what I should study, at university. I was also four months away from deciding I would try to be happy in spite of my newfound queerness. 11 years ago this time I was in Kolkata, volunteering with an organization, not knowing I would go on to do that in the…
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The Cult of Busy
I do quite a few things. Run a startup. Run two non-profits. Mentor queer kids. Spend a lot of time with my family, partner and our dog. Play video games. Paint the house. Cook for friends. Take my dog on long walks. Even, gasp, sleep! A lifetime ago on my first entrepreneurial rodeo, I did not know many of the things…
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A Sucker Punch in the Gut
It seemed like a good idea to quad-bike around parts of Turkey, 2009. The difference between travelling alone, which I’ve done plenty of, and exploring possibilities alone, which I’ve done less of (but gotten more from), lies in how much of a sucker punch those decisions give me, specifically in my gut. I don’t follow…
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12 Years
I’ve been publishing on the web for the last 12 years. It was because I wanted to write and publish on the web that I learned to look under the hood and build things. Which is why I do what I do now. This is a list of stuff over the last 12 years. 2003: Stupid and heartbroken at 18 An Exercise of Faith X Weeks of Not…
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The Borneo Express
For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be somewhere else. In all of my childhood day dreams, of which I had many, daily, and often, I imagined being an explorer out at sea. Being a pilot about to set off for yonder. Even the short stories I scribbled all had to do with stowing away, seeing new lands,…
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I’m Over Here
Love and losing from somewhere else. If you were to look into the ISD/STD phone booth in Park Street, when it was flooding in Kolkata one year, I was there. My heartbreak was metered: sixteen paisa per second. Whatever they were saying on the phone, I can’t remember. I just know it was raining and that the men were…
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The Manual of Intimacy
First, meet a girl for the first time on the lawn in front of her house. Sit very closely by each other. Say hello, I'm a poet. What do you do? When she replies, I'm an entrepreneur. But I also run a charity. Laugh, and give her whisky, the same one that you've been nursing. She comes and she gives you a cigarette, and…
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Lying on a Sack of Rice
I had one of those days today. The day when your to-do list is piled so high that you can't see the end of the tunnel. The day when your caterer cancels your big order a few days before Culture Kitchen. The day when all of your mega business problems are on the verge of getting solved, but almost. The day when you feel…
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My Life on a Bike
Every morning, I get on a bike to work. Except I don't ride it. I bargain with someone on the street, or use an app to book one at other times. Do you want masker? They ask. It's the Indonesian word for face mask. Gak mau masker, makasih pak. Sekarang pergi ke Jalan Hang Tuah bisa? A string of words that I sometimes…
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The Lonely Road
If it has ever occurred to you to start something, you know how lonely that can get. If you do that chronically, you probably over-estimate your abilities, have a high threshold for pain, or you're downright insane. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Welcome Drew Graham. Let's kick some ass. For almost a year,…
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Split Language Disorders
It is a well-documented fact: multi-lingual people have multiple personalities. I am no different, though I was only recently cognizant of that. Of how my languages affect the way I perceive myself, present myself to the world. How I trade, make contracts; how I fall in love. For as long as I can remember, 'foreign…
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Swatow
When my people speak of who we are and where we come from We do not say, China. When my relatives reclaim our collective past, Those words—China—dance on our lips, foreign. We do not say China. We do not say China at all. Instead, we are the people of the coast. We are the subjects of the Tang Dynasty. We are the…
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Mee Lay
When I was growing up, I thought all families had the same weekend lunches as mine: a giant cauldron of yellow noodles, simmered so long in an anchovy broth that they fell apart when you picked up your noodles with chopsticks. You had to use a spoon. Ah ma made them every Sunday, but ah gong made the chilli. Even…
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To the Mountain
Going to the mountain. In all of my 29 years, my grandparents had been such a big part of my life that I could have never conceived of a life without them. Like the 1128-episode TV serials they watched, Ah Gong and Ah Ma just went on and on. In the background, their voices blended in with the voices of the Chinese TV…
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Two Pairs of Pants
I've been selling and hustling for much of my young life. I've learned loads from each part of it, no matter how small or insignificant it may have been at the time. I sold cable car tickets. iPod cases. DVDs. Button badges. Most things, really. In hindsight, they've come together to define what I do today. It's…
194 posts tagged "blog"