Tag:freedom

Once, when I was younger and thought time was something you could borrow against the future, I fell in love with a Bangladeshi girl. It wasn’t dramatic in the way movies like to sell love. No declarations shouted into the rain. No running away. It was quieter than that. Softer. And because it was quiet, it lasted exactly as long as it was allowed to. We met in the ordinary spaces where women’s lives overlap: shared rooms, shared secrets, shared exhaustion. She had the kind of beauty that doesn’t announce...

I’m not surprised. Not even a little. Every time I hear someone gasp, “Young Koreans are dating foreigners now?” I want to hand them a mirror and ask if they’ve actually looked at the dating landscape lately. Because if romance were a housing market, Korea’s would be Seoul prime real estate: wildly overpriced, emotionally exhausting, and everyone keeps telling you it’s “normal” to suffer through it. Let’s be honest. Dating in Korea today is not about candlelight and long walks by the river. It’s about income brackets, apartment sizes, parental...

I’ve said enough about Kelantan. About its undang-undang zalim (cruel laws). About politicians who wrap intolerance in piety and call it governance. About moral policing that somehow never seems to catch corruption, domestic violence, or child marriage, but has laser focus on what adults do with their own bodies. Enough. I’m bored of lecturing power. Now it’s time to talk about the people being crushed under it. Because behind every “historic case” and every dry legal phrase like pertukaran jantina (gender change) is a human being who woke up that...

Spicy Auntie has a confession: every time I hear politicians and pundits talk about women freezing their eggs, they sound like they’re discussing frozen peas. Efficient. Rational. Slightly cold. Nobody wants to talk about the messy feelings underneath—the quiet panic, the careful calculations, the exhaustion of pretending we’re all just “waiting for the right time”. Women don’t freeze their eggs because they’re confused about biology. We freeze because we understand it too well. We know exactly what those charts say. We know what “advanced maternal age” sounds like when whispered...

I keep thinking about the girls, because everyone else in the Golden Triangle already has language to protect themselves. The men have contracts, titles, security teams, expense accounts. The buildings have permits (maybe). The money has routes and lawyers. The girls have… what, exactly? Dresses, heels, a smile that’s part of the uniform, and the very clear understanding that hesitation is not an option anyone wants to see. You can spot them easily once you know how. They walk slightly behind, never in front. Their eyes learn to look down...