Oct
2012 14
2012 14
Tuesdays with my Mother
Tuesdays with my mother were akin to Morrie’s life lessons. I was in my late teens and every Tuesday, after school, we’d begin our ritual. Slice five limes in half, scoop out the pulp and you’re left with lime shells – the perfect tealight contraptions. Besides the waste of a perfectly good lime, I learned ...
Oct
2012 6
2012 6
A traditional offer
For my family, Lunar New Year – tet in Vietnamese – is the most important celebration of the year. My parents used to host huge parties where the men would get wildly drunk discussing politics and recalling the past, and the women would gather in the kitchen chatting about their day-to-day lives and preparing plates of food. ...
Oct
2012 6
2012 6
The turning land
The Old Man Van gives up precisely at the turn-off from the main road to the dirt track that leads to our destination. Noxious grey smoke spews out from the engine located in the front cabin and my companions scramble out. Shit, I think, crunching on the handbrake. How will I get us back ...
Sep
2012 29
2012 29
Ways of Writing, Reading and Translating: genre-crossing in the 21st century
After attending the Qinghai International Poetry Festival in early August this year, I decided to find my way about the provinces by first going to Sweet Serious, my direct translation of Gansu. Even before I left Western Peace, or Xining, capital of Green Ocean or Qinghai, the old itch came back: to write anywhere and ...
Sep
2011 20
2011 20
Poh/Pho
Without invitation, Sarah reaches over to pick at my larb gai. When it comes to meals, clothes, and perfume, my friend doesn’t recognise boundaries; she does, however, pay particular attention to the chicken on her fork, unhappy that it has been sliced, not minced. For Sarah, foreign cuisine is a marriage between her two passions: food and...
Sep
2011 20
2011 20
Cuisine
It’s very watery, the first memory, diluted from being carried so long. The colours are thin as the scene plays out slowly, as though going any faster, it would disappear altogether. Half a dozen men restrain a turtle with black cord and stand it up on its hind legs, a machete pressed against its neck ...
Nov
2009 27
2009 27
Why are we so unkind?
Two perspectives on recent Indian-Australian issues by Angela Dewan and Amrita Dasvarma...
Nov
2009 27
2009 27
The original introduction to “Growing Up Asian in Australia”
Alice Pung's original introduction to "Growing Up Asian in Australia"...
Nov
2009 27
2009 27
Watch out for LOCA – they can incite a riot!
At the 2008 Melbourne and 2009 Adelaide Fringe Festivals, LOCA’s Ladies of Colour Cabaret show sold out every night they performed.Merge an Adelaide street magazine rated LOCA second in their “top ten most controversial, unexpected and weird moments” at the Adelaide Fringe.They came second only to Cunts – an exhibition of 140 porcelain...
Nov
2009 27
2009 27
Michelle Malkin: Awful yet strangely hypnotic
Political pundits in Australia have it difficult sometimes. When your job requires making politics engaging—even outrageous—to the public, it’s taxing when the source material is so monumentally boring. Cast your mind over the past few months. The most interesting talking point Canberra has yielded has revolved around a ute. Did Kevin Rudd...
