My evolving Asian and Oz Christmas traditions

Christmas in West Malaysia 1970s Christmas is a public holiday. I don’t have to go to school. The street is quiet. I wonder how I might celebrate. It is suggested that I...

Renaming Roads and Revisiting History

On a 2010 road trip with my dad to find his childhood home, I discover roads that have been renamed. Our understanding of history is anything but static.

Foreign workers, foreign languages

Each time I return to Malaysia, I eat dim sum, or as it’s known in Australia, yum cha. Pushing trolleys of bamboo steamers and plastic plates, waiters and waitresses...

Boy

I’ve only just realised the significance of my encounter last week with Rashed, the owner of Loveon Cafe and Deli in Adelaide. It was not the Bangla breakfast –...

Graves at sea, graves on land

Today, May the 29th, officials from 17 countries are attending a “Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean.” Myanmar had threatened to boycott...