An odd god (Cambodia)
September 17, 2015
Talking since dusk, of my one and half tusk. Yes, I am a God, though I look a bit odd. On a busy street in Phnom Penh
For the love of free food (Malaysia)
July 1, 2015
I dropped into a café in Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur. I was surprised to hear the girls working there speak Khmer. Most wait staff in these parts
The raid (Malaysia)
April 28, 2015
You hear Thai voices outside, and you know that the Sunday food van is here. The larger immigrant community in Johor has its own ethnic hangouts,
Food is just an excuse (Japan)
April 28, 2015
Today, I walked into a Family Mart in Saigon. I picked up some Oden—a comforting Japanese winter dish featuring radish, fish cakes, and boiled eggs,
Skirts (Thailand)
May 11, 2014
Through the 2000s, skirts in the Thai campuses kept getting shorter. It certainly encouraged a lot of students to stay put in the
The reader (Vietnam)
March 12, 2014
I met a reader. I often found her browsing the history section. It was as if all those wars, coups, and treaties happened just so that our reader
Chemistry lessons in rural Java (Indonesia)
May 30, 2013
I was with a newfound friend at a shopping mall in Surakarta. We had met earlier at a tourism conference and decided to skip some dull sessions for
An old raincoat won’t ever let you down (Singapore)
August 16, 2012
These travelling companions are worn and falling apart. They are comfortable. Such are the times when I miss my Saigon backstreets where an equally
The art of getting lost (Japan)
November 17, 2011
I was talking about “The Art of Traveling Lost” at an event at Blue Jazz in Singapore. Incidentally, I used to live in the shophouse next door a few
Is there a god? (Singapore)
October 19, 2010
Was just in a class demonstrating the Wolfram Alpha Knowledge engine. I asked them to try the question that mankind has been asking since we started
The stick men of Chongqing (China)
April 13, 2008
These stick-men (locally known as the bang bang- 棒棒 ) help people to carry their groceries or other heavy things over the ups and downs of
Bandrek in Bandung (Indonesia)
January 1, 2008
It gets cold in the mountains in Java here, but we have the traditional warm beverage called Bandrek. The ingredients (that change depending on who
Finding chicken rice in Hainan (China)
August 20, 2006
In school geography tests, we were made to draw maps of various countries. I remembered China as a hen, with Hainan as the egg. When I moved to
Reading naughty Vietnamese poems (Singapore)
March 14, 2006
I was looking for my favourite Korean food place at the Windmill food-court at Holland Village and I found that they had moved out. Sadding..It was
We were playing war games (India)
October 5, 2005
I have a friend from a place that used to be part of Yugoslavia. He lives alone in a large house. His house has become a regular weekend party hub.
A rakhi from my sparring partner (China)
August 20, 2005
Yesterday, they celebrated the festival of Rakhi in India. “Rakhi” refers to a special wristband made for
88 and 521, bye bye and I love you (China)
April 15, 2005
I was just online with Elf, a friend from China. Elf was surprised when I signed off with the text “88”. I picked up this habit from friends in
Why I love (Burma)
April 9, 2005
I spotted some ladies grooming their friend’s hair and looking for head lice. Reminds me of a similar scene from my childhood growing up in India.
The fashion from the 1970s (Thailand)
March 4, 2005
I traveled along the thin long part of Thailand from the Malaysian border to up north. One of the guesthouses I stayed at Prachuap Khiri Khan had a
Naughty stuff in Chengdu (China)
January 1, 2005
At a Chengdu bookstore, I was surprised to find a translated copy of Fahrenheit 451, the classic novel about censorship. There’s also a riverside
Next page