“Qahua, qahua, qahua!” shouts Amin Jebreen, whose coffee cart, bellowing steam in the frigid morning air, is doing a roaring trade despite the fact that it’s 2:30am. Amin’s stall is one of many selling bread, biscuits, cigarettes and falafel, all under the watchful gaze of guard towers that rise above the border wall separating the…
Another attack in a major city has left us needing to talk about the angry young man in the room, or better, in the hire van. In Toronto, on Monday, a young man drove a van through crowds of pedestrians, killing 10 and injuring 15 more. He wasn’t an Islamist, nor was he an adherent…
The Enlightened /ɪnˈlʌɪt(ə)nd/ (noun): A group of people who religiously practice yoga, and whose enlightenment through the practice turns inwards and into semi-delusion as to their “goodness”.
Synonyms: Yoga wanker, the author
*
The Enlightened are a fun bunch. They’re the ones calling themselves "yogis" and talking loudly in the organics store about how much they…
They say that if you’re friends with someone for more than seven years, you’ll be friends with that person for a lifetime. I say that whoever came up with that quip hadn’t factored in ‘travel experiences’ as a variable.
A solid chunk of my friendship circles are made up of people I met in high…
“Duuuude, the craziest thing happened the other day,” Blue Shirt said in his typically slow and monotoned voice, before proceeding to tell the most un-crazy story in human history.
It was day two, and Blue Shirt had already made himself out to be a huge tool. Throughout Europe, I’ve found hostels will often give a…
It’s dark outside, and I’ve found myself bent over a toilet seat with a hand on my bum and a foot in my face. Grunting softly, my companion pushes harder on my exposed posterior – the Band-Aid just won’t stay put. Meanwhile, our other accomplice is gingerly bandaging up her ankle, inspecting for any signs…
I’ve never been very good at following traditions. I don’t have any annual family meetups, Saturdays are almost never for the boys and I can’t even dedicate myself solely to one coffee shop. So when I travel and I see all these people buying a pin in every country they go to, or religiously tracking…
She’s young, pretty and bored.
She fake tans and applies makeup. Cleans her room and makes her bed. She changes out of her brother’s old T-shirt she wears as pyjamas and into a new dress, clicking away at the iPhone screen.
She slides back into the daggy tee, swipes through 284 photos, marks her favourites…
Looking down at my feet, I have to keep reminding myself I’m wearing takeaway boxes as shoes. I curl my toes as I feel the heat from the tarmac penetrating the not-so-durable cardboard that protects my feet. I never thought I would find myself in the middle of an airport clad in such footwear, in…
I am part Indonesian, part German; in other words, I am Eurasian.
I grew up in Singapore, living there for most of my life. I walked the same streets every other day, met the same friends out by the park and ate the same food at hawker centres as cravings hit. I became familiar and…
I realised recently that I had spent a large proportion of my young adult life as a fuckwit.
Let me define a fuckwit:
Someone who keeps a religious count of how many “chicks” they’ve pulled and uses this number to gain social status. Someone who refers to going out with their male friends exclusively as…
“Oh, pardon madame… pardon monsieur,” I repeated as I bumped through the crowd of people contemplating the camembert selection.
I was anticipating accusatory glares. Adrenalin was pumping through my body. The threat of a sudden need for negotiation in a language I didn’t fully have a grasp on loomed over my heart, and my shopping…