It is 2008, and our conversation is yet to ride the waves of the internet. Like a bird that seeks to beat a fast-moving train, it is getting harder to pick up where we left off. No matter how furiously we scurry and scribble through each page, our letters tarry to the finish line, lagging three months behind, responding to a stadium that has long emptied.
Read MoreThe three of us viewed the crowded steam venting streets being worked for subway tunnels as an industrial Disneyland. Men swarmed up and down bamboo scaffolding. We snaked our ways along the queues for the old red double decker buses that bumped their way around Kowloon...
Read MoreWhat is there to fear? There is no place for fear when this world doesn’t fear for you.
Read MoreSo what happens when one day you wake up on the other side of the world and the place you come from no longer exists?
Read MoreOne day my mother passed me a book. It was called ‘The Harafish’ and written by the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz (winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988). I picked up the book and only put it down once I completed it....
Read MoreDancing is everywhere in Peru; it’s a way to share history and tell stories. The country is rich in traditional dances, and I grew to love this part of Peruvian culture. It didn't matter that I was never very good at it...
Read MoreI would be there, waiting, percolating in the heady cultural mix of art and artist; a moth ever drawn to their bright blooming flames. Each masterpiece was a welcome segue from the mundaneness of everyday public service life; a provocative play on social boundaries that relentlessly questioned the conservative mores of the Saudi Arabia of my teens, and revealed just how far removed I had become from the Lebanese traditions of my youth...
Read MoreEstablished in 1940 by two Sikh brothers as the India Tea House, it was renamed Pak Tea House after the partition. What was more significant than the small cups of sugary tea that were served, was that Pak Tea House signified freedom of thought and expression...
Read MoreYou tell me, eyes clouded by the heaviness, of a culture that has long moved away from your history, yet you cling to so stubbornly...
Read More“There, far away in the mountains of the Chugak, where birds fly over on their way north to the land of white night, there was a couple walking below.” You see the knife draw two stick figures below with dots to show foot prints. “They will hunt and gather.” You see a river and flecks that look like fish in the water.
Read MoreI find the Turkish language so beautiful, and when it is sung it becomes even more so. It didn’t hurt that I had crushes on most of the popular female Turkish pop singers back in the 1980s either...
Read MoreThe rest of preflight runs pretty smoothly. Our passengers are happy and in good moods. They want to get the plane up and to their tropical destination as soon as possible...
Read MoreIkigai is made up of 4 elements:
Passion: that which you love
Mission: that which the world needs
Vocation: that which you can get paid for
Profession: that which you are good at...
When I am asked this question, I immediately think of my parents. My mother was born on the island of Coron, a mere freckle nestled within the larger island province of Palawan off the west coast of the Philippines...
Read MoreMy grandmother spoke in Javanese a lot, especially to my grandfather. This was usually when she was talking about me or my sister, assuming that my attendance at an English and Indonesian speaking school meant I would not understand her...
Read MoreDinesh rubbed Mark’s arm with his thumb to help his partner feel comfortable as the crew gathered around behind the camera for the last round of shots for the day. “Is this too close?” Mark asked. Out of habit, I wondered if I would be reproached for the intimacy of the pose...
Read MoreI think the crux of this article is that my background as a TCK led me to never worry too much about the specific job I was doing. As long as it was somewhat in my area, and in a place I could live with — even if I wasn’t an expert I figured I could always learn...
Read MoreDaydreams also hit roadblocks. Living across cultures as a travel writer is all well and good if you only have yourself to look after. It is harder if you are trying to raise kids and need a 9 to 5 to provide for them...
Read MoreDuring one of the karaoke interludes, I was tapped on the shoulder, firmly but warmly by a tall indigenous man, with light green eyes and a captivating smile. “Mate, how are you doin’?”...
Read MoreI think of a mental curse to send telepathically to the man as the dust settles. “May the sharks of this city devour you,” something along those lines, but much less poetic and much more livid. I feel like I am a character in a film, complete with a story unfolding in front of me...
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