Tag:temples

I looooove this small city. I love its density, its chaos, its absurd mix of baroque churches and windowless casinos, its aunties doing tai chi next to neon palaces built for bored billionaires. I love how easy it is to eat well at 2am, how nobody pretends this is a “wellness city,” and how pleasure here is practical, not performative. So when a global lifestyle magazine announces that Macau is Asia’s most sexually active place, my first instinct is not outrage. It’s a raised eyebrow and a long, knowing sip...

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve sat at dinner tables across Asia and heard someone say, with absolute sincerity, “It’s better to wait one more year.” One more year for luck. One more year for the right zodiac. One more year for a Dragon instead of a Goat, anything but a Tiger girl. And every time, I look at the woman at the table, smiling politely, nodding, swallowing her own timeline like it’s another mouthful of overcooked dumpling. Let’s be clear: women’s wombs are not factories. They are...

I’ve attended more weddings than I can count, in hotel ballrooms, beachfront resorts, and once memorably under a leaky tent in the tropics. But few ceremonies have stayed with me the way those LGBTQ commitment ceremonies in lovely Quezon City have. Maybe it’s because everyone present knows exactly what this moment is and what it is not. There is no illusion here, no pretending that the law is suddenly on our side. And yet, the joy in the air is thick, stubborn, and deeply earned. I went to support my...

I remember the first time I watched Japanese porn with a group of foreign friends. There was wine, there was giggling, and then there was that collective pause. Someone finally asked the obvious question: “Why is that blurred but that isn’t?” Welcome, darling, to Japan’s most committed relationship: the one between sex and denial. Japanese censorship isn’t about modesty. If it were, the country wouldn’t have an adult industry so vast it could probably prop up the economy in a bad quarter. It’s about choreography. A ritual. A shared agreement...

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...