Posts tagged "lifeandlove"
← All tags-
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…
-
Munduk
Munduk. Two people, suspended between heartbreak and fury, met on Hong Kong Street after almost 2 years without each other. Their hearts, recently broken by others, found each other agreeable — even safe. They made a plan. The universe attempted to foil it. To no avail. Through long public holidays, expensive flights,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
To the Young Queer Nerds
Dear (your name here), Imagine for a second that the year is 2000. Holding hands with your girlfriend in public is either an act of defiance or shame. The world is years away from The L Word: nobody knows yet that it sucks, that lesbian life does not have to be "like that". (Bette Porter is bad for you; Jenny…
-
A Tale of Two Cities
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was a bit of both, really. I'm not one for the mumbo-jumbo of the Myers-Briggs test, but I suppose it was striking that when I did it before my startup I rated very strongly as INFP, and yet now I'm very much on the ENTJ spectrum. It appears that having to do shit…
-
All In
I turn 29 in a couple of months. T-W-E-N-T-Y-N-I-NE. This is doubly a shock because in my head I feel forever young, partly as a function of always having been the youngest person in every single circle I have run in, from friends to career to everything else really. I started blogging when I was 15 — nearly 15 years…
-
What I Learned
Two years ago I found out I have an autoimmune disease. I will always have it. It changed everything about my life from what I do for money to where I live. It prompted a reinvention of myself which was at turns painful, but ultimately necessary. This is what I learned. Never forego sleep. "You'll sleep more over…
-
Don't Lugi Be Happy
In peninsular Southeast Asia there is a word of Malay origin, bastardized by Chinese pronunciation that perhaps best describes the prevalent mindset of the middle class in everything from career to politics: lugi. More than the losing of face and the losing of status, our collective great fear is the fear of losing…
-
Rebuilding
Almost exactly two years ago I was, too, on a flight to India.Only then I did not know exactly how drastic a turn my life would take on when I returned. More and more of my friends are getting diagnosed with diseases similar to mine. Autoimmune diseases are the new black.Across all of these experiences the one we've…
-
Why I'm Hosting Culture Kitchen
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 part — which I…
-
74 Weeks Later
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 deal.Seventy four weeks ago…
-
Over and Over
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 and girl we once were.…
-
The One About Having It All
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 and in Birkenstock…
-
Love, Singapore
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 ("You don't look…
-
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…
-
A Weekend Getaway
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 Coorg. Coorg, also…
-
It Was All New
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 what; this one…
51 posts tagged "lifeandlove"