Tag:celebration

I see them every day. Sometimes I’m still in my pyjamas, hair doing its own little protest, when the doorbell rings and there she is: helmet off, phone in hand, sweat on her brow, polite smile fully intact. The woman who just brought my food. Not a mascot. Not a “girl boss”. A worker. And yet, somehow, we still talk about women riders as if they’re a curiosity. As if they appeared out of nowhere on motorbikes one fine feminist morning. Let me be very clear: women did not join...

Secrecy can be delicious. Let’s be honest. The locked door, the stolen hour, the phone on silent, the feeling that the world must not know—this is the stuff of old novels and bad decisions and very good kisses. Secrecy sharpens desire. It makes hands bolder and time sweeter. It tells lovers: this matters enough to hide. But Auntie has lived long enough, and crossed enough borders, to tell you this: secrecy is a spice, not a diet. In some countries, secrecy is playful. In others, it becomes labor. Emotional labor....

Spicy Auntie here, and no, I’m not shocked. Angry, yes. Tired, absolutely. But shocked? Not after years of watching how “tolerance” evaporates the moment it starts to look like rights. The shooting outside trans activists’ homes in Karachi wasn’t a random act of violence. It was a warning shot—literal and symbolic. A message saying: We see you. Stop existing so loudly. And let’s be honest, Pakistan is far from the only place where that message is being delivered with bullets, batons, or court rulings wrapped in religious language. But Pakistan...

I have nothing against food, alcohol, or people laughing together after work. I’ve eaten my way through more office dinners across Asia than I care to remember. But hoesik—that sacred Korean ritual of “voluntary” after-work bonding—has a special talent: it turns grown, competent women into decorative furniture wedged between drunk men with loosened ties and fragile egos. Let’s be honest. Hoesik isn’t really about bonding. It’s about testing obedience. About proving you can endure discomfort with a smile. About showing that your body, your time, your liver, and your evening...

I grew up inside the Chinese New Year kitchen. Not visiting it. Not “helping a bit.” Inside it. As a child, I stood next to my mother while she chopped, stirred, tasted, cleaned, smiled. I passed plates. I washed vegetables. I learned early that celebration was something women manufactured with tired hands and controlled faces. The men appeared when it was time to eat. Back then, I thought I was being useful. A good daughter. A modern girl who understood tradition. What I didn’t understand yet was that I was...