Tag:courts

I have always had a soft spot for Thailand’s unapologetic relationship with condoms. Yes, I said it. In a region where adults still whisper the word “sex” as if it might explode in their mouths, Thailand once inflated condoms into party balloons and handed them out at temple fairs. That kind of audacity deserves respect. I first encountered International Condom Day in Bangkok years ago, on a sticky February evening when volunteers were distributing free packets near Siam Square. Teenagers giggled, aunties pretended not to look, and a group of...

So let me get this straight, darlings. Japan finally elects its first woman prime minister, and the reward for that historic breakthrough is… fewer women in parliament? If irony were a political system, we would call it proportional representation. I have spent enough time in Nagatachō corridors and East Asian power circles to know that symbolism and substance are very different creatures. A woman at the top does not automatically open the floodgates for other women. Sometimes she simply proves that one exceptional woman can survive in a system still...

Hundreds of pages of patriarchy have been written in India’s courtrooms over decades — sometimes in the name of “tradition,” sometimes in the name of “morality,” and often in the name of “common sense.” So when the Supreme Court decided in 2023 to publish a Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes, some people rolled their eyes. A style guide? Really? Is sexism going to disappear because judges swap a few words? Well. Let me tell you something, my darlings: words are never “just words.” When a court calls sexual harassment “eve...

Spicy Auntie has sat in enough roadside cafés during her work trips across Asia to know that the dim light is never just about electricity. It is about negotiation. About discretion. About survival. When we talk about warung remang-remang or kopi pangku, the conversation too often slips into easy moral drama: fallen women, corrupt men, decaying values. I’m not interested in that script. I’m interested in power. In money. In who has choices and who is improvising under pressure. East Java’s roads do not create desire — they channel it....

Oh, Hong Kong. A city where you can order Michelin-starred dim sum at 2am, close a seven-figure deal before lunch, and still somehow fail to schedule a second date. I read about the matchmaking boom and I both smile and sigh. Of course it’s happening. Of course people are paying professionals to find them love. In a place where time is money and money is survival, romance becomes another investment portfolio. Diversify your assets: stocks, property, and—why not—a curated spouse. And yet, beneath the irony, I feel something tender. Because...