Tag:aid workers

By the time you reach a certain age, Valentine’s Day starts to feel like a party you’re technically allowed to attend but no longer invited to. You can see the balloons through the window. You just don’t have a seat at the table. Spicy Auntie has lived long enough to remember when February 14 felt like a test. Were you loved enough? Desired enough? Worth the flowers, the dinner, the trouble? Then came marriage, and suddenly the test was declared “passed,” permanently. Exam over. No retakes. No bonus points for...

I’ve lived long enough in Asia to know that when a city insists it is “gentle,” “cultural,” and “pure,” someone is quietly paying the price for that image. Chiang Mai is a masterclass in this. Temples glow at sunrise, monks collect alms, digital nomads sip oat lattes—and somewhere just out of frame, young men sell intimacy while pretending not to exist. Male sex workers in Chiang Mai are not loud, not glamorous, and certainly not celebrated. They are discreet because discretion is survival. The city does not want them visible....

I’ve been in enough hospitals across Asia to know this: the smell of disinfectant, the thin curtains, the way your dignity gets folded up with your clothes and placed on a chair while strangers poke, prod, and tell you to relax. You tell yourself it’s temporary. You tell yourself it’s safe. You tell yourself this is medicine, not theatre. And then you learn that somewhere, someone pressed “record” and never stopped. Let me be very clear, darlings: this is not a “tech problem”. This is not an unfortunate side effect...

I’ve walked past places like Questa Casa my whole adult life. Different countries, different names, same uneasy pause in the body. People pretend they’re shocked, but really they’re uncomfortable because the building remembers things the town would rather forget. Gold towns, port towns, boom towns—men come first, money comes fast, and women’s labour quietly keeps everything standing. Then everyone acts surprised when the paint starts peeling. Let’s be honest: brothels like this didn’t survive because they were tolerated. They survived because they were useful. Useful to police who wanted order...

Spicy Auntie nearly spilled her coffee when she read the words “import women.” Import. As in rice. As in cement. As in something you stack in containers and clear through customs with a stamp. Not women with mothers, ambitions, WhatsApp groups, opinions, and a very sharp sense of when they’re being insulted. If this is the level of imagination some local officials bring to a demographic crisis, no wonder young people are running away from marriage like it’s a bad group chat. Let’s be clear: South Korea’s population problem is...