This issue began as a series of random thoughts I penned on Substack Notes as I process my feelings about the bombing of a country I have never visited. A country often demonised and feared, but are now facing fire from the sky. A country that is, at the same time, fiercely fighting with fire of its own.

When I heard about the 165 girls killed by a bomb on the first day of the attack on Iran, I wanted to shout on social media: To the soldier who pressed that button to hurl that missile into the bodies of 7-12 year old girls, how do you sleep at night?

It’s my personal principle not to post anything that would enrage others online, so I didn’t. But I could barely control myself on the first and second day of the war. On the third day, I gave in.

So, I typed this which I know would trigger many:

“I am sorry, prayers, we didn’t vote for this, we hate him too, I protested,” It only assuages the speakers’ conscience it does nothing for people who are watching on helplessly as children are yet again being killed by indifference.

Am still filled with helpless rage over everything. Yes it’s not a normal US citizens’ fault, logically, but a part of me cries: “US people, why won’t you stop this? Why don’t you bother?”

It’s especially barbarous that US and Israel attacked during the holy month of Ramadan.

The Khatoun Journal

For the murdered children of Minab

I’m a human being, a woman, and one that was once upon a time an elementary school student in Iran…

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2 months ago · 156 likes · 6 comments · Khatoun

Yes, I know I shouldn’t blame ordinary US citizens who feel largely helpless about what to do themselves, but this is something people outside the US wrestle with every day: Why won’t they do something?

After years of watching people suffer in Gaza while the US government kept blocking every motion in the United Nations to stop it, seeing war break out on Iran … well I’ve reached a limit.

Do something!

After a while, however, I told myself it’s far more important to write posts humanising Iranians than to rage about the politics, ideologies or engage in the binary arguments swirling around the country.

Instead, I want to tell people: Before you cheer about bombs raining down on Iran because of some abstract idea of “bringing democracy” to the country, please remember that the bombs are raining down on these people, possibly harming them and their families. Normal people like you me, who likes to eat good food and love their families.

So I shared these videos:

I want to remind people that the politics, ideologies, and war strategies they discuss involve real human beings—the very people in those videos.

Yet, the most puzzling thing about navigating Iran-US-Israel discourse online is the comments I receive when I share pictures or videos of everyday life in Iran.

Do you know the most puzzling response I get? “I love the Iranian people, but I don’t like the government.”

Isn’t that chillingly familiar? I hear the same thing about China all the time.

It’s almost as if they’re saying: “Because their government sucks, that’s why we’re bombing them—to liberate these people I love.” At least, that’s what I think they mean.

They genuinely believe what they’re doing is right because they want to help the people in those videos. But how can you claim to love these people while supporting bombing the country they live in? Do they really think raining hellfire on this people would improve their lives?

All I can conclude is that the reality of war feels so distant to these people that they don’t grasp how those they claim to care about will suffer through all kinds of torment—all for a political system promised to deliver them. This mindset is so far from how I think, and how people in my part of the world think, that when I keep getting this reply, I’m left wondering: what is wrong with this thinking? Why do they believe this?

If they feel every burning pain from an explosion, the torment of losing a loved one, or the pain of waiting for a loved one to return but never to return, would they still be as glib?

I avoid commenting about Iran’s politics because I know it’s not that simple. Nuance is needed and I don’t have the context. As an outsider all I can do is to read the perspectives from Iranians within Iran and outside of Iran.

The discussions around Iran are so binary

On the celebration of Iranian diaspora on the streets …

But leaving a country does not give you the right to celebrate it being bombed. It does not make you the legitimate voice of the millions who stayed, who built lives, who raised children, who practise their faith, and who, yes, may also desire reform but refuse to have it delivered by American cruise missiles. - the people of Iran unite to demand revenge for their murdered children and Ayatollah.

Can’t help but reflect that this is very similar to the situation with the Chinese diaspora, whose memories of China is stuck at a time when they left, and having acclimatized to a different way of living cannot imagine their life back home could actually get better.

If you are against US & Israel’s actions, that means you must approve of the Iranian government and the Ayatollah Ali Khamanei is a revered figure who died a matyr.

If you support the war, Iran is evil, the Shah has to come back and dropping bombs on the country is a necessary evil.

Iranians celebrate on the streets so they want this war and are thankful to the US!

Iranians are grieving on the streets so they don’t want this war and hate the US!

But two or three things can be true at once!

I think most of the problems I see online in English-speaking spaces is due to binary thinking.

Take the Malaysian perspective for eg. One of our PMs, Mahathir Mohamad, did not-so-great things that we are still trying to recover from today. At the same time, he also did many great things that have resulted in the infrastructure and governance that we have today.

What’s the truth? Both.

The inability of modern online spaces to have a nuanced debate/discussion is more and more apparent each day.

Ciara’s Substack

Somewhere Between Relief and Fear: Reflections on the U.S. & Israel’s Assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader

I’m in disbelief as I write this. A day that many Iranians thought would never come finally arrived, though not in the way we imagined. The dictator is dead. The assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei certainly felt like a possibility if the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran again, but I never thought it would happen in less than 24 hours of strike…

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2 months ago · 31 likes · 3 comments · Ciara’s Notes From Elsewhere

To be honest, Ciara’s story feels so familiar.

I’m Chinese, very much part of the diaspora. We are very different from our cousins in China. But I still feel a deep kinship with them.

However, there are members of the Chinese diaspora that are deeply ambivalent of China. Some even outright hate them and wish for bombs to rain down China to “liberate” the country. Who, then, speaks the truth about China?

Maybe there’s no such thing as truth, just different perspectives. All shaped by their own realities.

Ciara’s Substack

Why the Iranian diaspora must reimagine itself—and do so now

If the last few weeks (and years) have revealed anything, it’s that the Iranian diaspora urgently needs to be reimagined…

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3 months ago · 55 likes · 10 comments · Ciara’s Notes From Elsewhere

Pray for Iran. I don’t care what side of the political debate you’re on. These souls deserve better than to be content fodder for geopolitical enthusiasts sitting comfortably in their air conditioned homes debating via their expensive smartphones about whether Iran deserved her current fate.

Substack’s algorithms can be tricky, so let’s not rely on it alone. Follow me on my websites and other channels via RSS or email — that way, we won’t lose touch: elizabethtai.com / Mastodon / Drama Tea (where I write about Chinese dramas).

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PS: This issue will be paywalled a few days after it is published.

When AI first came out, like all other writers, I was pissed off that our work was used to train an LLM model that would replace what made us valuable and special.

Despite all the arguments that LLMs won't replace actual writers, you bet your socks that some companies and individuals would try.

However, I am a realist, and also a tech nerd, so I began pushing buttons to see what the fuss was all about.

What I found for myself was that AI (LLMs, anyway) gave me relief.

A lot of it.

And it may have also solved a decades-old problem that I've had with writing fiction.

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I realised with a start, that the reason why I’ve been feeling so shit the last few weeks (no, months) was that I was burned out.

Like, my brain is totally fried.

Last Saturday, despite sleeping a full seven hours, I still woke up so tired. I dragged myself to my favourite cafe, thinking that a cup of coffee would finally …

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Ya know, I was supposed to write something light-hearted, especially after the month that I’ve had, but wrote The Great American Exodus, so how can I not respond to that great essay?

First, thank you, Lily for mentioning my essay, American friends, you can’t love your country only when its strong.

This title, by the way, was inspired by a comment on 小红书 (xiao hong shu aka Red Note).

However, the essay made some readers upset and angry.

I was frankly surprised by the finger wagging I got. Especially since I was trying to encourage Americans who cannot leave the United States.

I wanted them to feel some hope that their country will improve one day, no matter how bleak everything seems to be. That they are not a loser for staying behind.

To sum it up, the comments more or less said that since Chinese people are moving to Western countries, how could I, a Chinese person, object to Americans or Westerners doing the same?

(By the way, most of my readers were quite constructive and even supportive in their feedback, so, thank you.)

Is the migration of Westerners to Asia a form of neo-colonialism?

Maybe, it can seem overwrought to label it as such, but please do not dismiss the concerns of Asians talking about this is. It may not be accurate, perhaps, but the feelings come from somewhere.

I spoke about this matter to a friend and we both concluded: It’s really useless trying to explain our feelings about this or our point of view to Westerners*. They will never get it because they’ve never, ever experienced what we have. The subtle discrimination and condescension that we’re “lesser than them” in culture and intelligence, the historical awareness of colonialist tactics….

When you’ve enjoyed privilege all your life, you can only imagine what it’s like to be in the shoes of the disadvantaged. And when you do try, you imagine it badly.

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Many foreign vloggers love Malaysia. They love it so much that they declare that they’re moving to my country.

In fact, there’s one American vlogger who “moved” here despite not having a proper job or income. Just living off, well, savings, I guess. He is able to mostly because the dollar is a much stronger currency and his money goes far. However, at one point, he ran out of money and started asking for donations.

His kind followers did give him some money and he thanked them for enabling him to stay in Malaysia longer.

I, on the other hand, was turned off by it all. Why are you in Malaysia when you can’t even pay for your life here? What are you doing in my country if you’re not doing anything to contribute to it except making vlogs about how cheap yet modern my country is?

Whether it’s the United States or England or Canada, whatever, many people are thinking of escaping their countries. Usually to Asia. They often say in the videos that Asia is where they can “live for cheap in luxury”, which always makes my stomach twist with slight disgust.

(This is also really ironic because it used to be, once upon a time, people like me who wanted to move to the West. Watching the reverse happen is rather surreal.)

So, when I saw so many Americans saying that they want to move to China, I sighed a little and imagined a flock of foreigners dreaming about “living for cheap in luxury” in China.

The response is surprisingly blunt. (Yes, the Chinese can be very nice, but they’re also ruthlessly blunt.)

Here’s one post I saw on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book):

Here’s an AI translation of the post:

After understanding these days, I also discovered some differences between the Chinese and American people. Although everyone is hardworking and brave, and willing to endure hardships, Americans are more able to endure hardships. You can even work two jobs, sell blood, and have children without going to the hospital...

But the problem is, many American friends are saying "to leave this damn place." We Chinese people never think that way. If there is a problem, we should change, fight, and build. We have been like this for thousands of years, never avoiding it.

When the flood comes, we don't build an ark, we build a river, build a dam, instead of running from one place to another, and then screwing up and running.

If you have enjoyed the prosperity and glory of your country, you should accept its failure and backwardness. What you need to do is protect her, build her, and defend her, not letting her be destroyed by those worms.

Another comment said: “Over a decade ago, many people would talk all day about how great foreign countries were, such as their various welfare benefits and product quality, etc. However after hearing this, the thought most of us had was, ‘This is so good! I also want to build our country like this’. It is this kind of thinking that has led to the China of today.”

Many Chinese netizens also commented in various posts": “We’re not an immigration country” or “it’s very difficult to get a permanent resident here”.

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She was sleeping at the corner of Spencer Street and Flinders Street, her back to the wall of the 7-11. She had curled up in a fetal position under her bright blue sleeping bag. Beside her was a red suitcase. It looked new.

I could see the tear tracks on her pale cheeks. The sign she had with her was nearly covered by her sleeping bag, but I could read the message. In fact, I don’t think I’d be able to forget what she wrote on that piece of cardboard:

“Help. I’m 21-years-old and pregnant. I need $150 to sleep somewhere safe tonight.”

It was a bitter cold night. Winter had come early to Melbourne, as it did in Adelaide a few weeks before.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her. Was she new to the streets? Her things looked new. Why wasn’t she with her family? How was she going to take care of her baby?

Just moments before, my siblings and I had been enjoying ourselves in Melbourne. I think we easily spent the $150 the girl needed on coffee, cakes, clothes and other amusements.

After seeing her, I walked to our hostel which was a few feet away. I wondered if I should do something. Would the money go to drugs instead of accommodation, I wondered. Was she a really good scam artist, perhaps? But I remembered the tears.

I shoved $150 into my pocket and went downstairs.

But she was gone.

My chance to help the young woman was gone too. Yet I couldn’t deny the relief I felt for not having to wonder if I was doing more harm than good by giving her the money.

Was she chased away? Where is she sleeping now?

A few days before that, my brother and I were at a cafe on Flinders Street. While sipping at our $4 very excellent cappuccinos, we watched a bundle at the foot of the entrance to the posh Grand Hotel.

The bundle suddenly moved, and a man sat up. He carefully and systematically unfurled a pair of pants and put it on over his long johns. Then he rolled up his sleeping bag. He put on a coat, and walked down the stairs with a bag and sleeping bag.

He could pass off as one of the many hippie Bohemians sipping coffee at Melbourne’s lane cafes. No one would have a clue.

Later, he sat with his rolled up sleeping bag on a bench right opposite our seats at the cafe. We stared at each other. He, puffing on a ciggy, us, drinking our cappucinos.

He didn’t seem to see us. Or perhaps he chose not to see us because he assumed he was invisible to us: he, the roofless one, we the privileged tourists who got to sleep in a soft, warm bed instead of cold concrete.

I wish incidences like these were isolated. The homeless are there if you look hard enough.

It’s hard to miss – the sleeping bags neatly folded under the bridges of Southbank. You just wonder where the owners are: The unlucky ones of a “lucky country”.

This was originally published on my official website. And yes, this really happened to me. It was my last week in Australia as I made preparations to return to Malaysia for good, despite having a valued permanent residence. And I remember thinking - unlike these people, I had another safe haven to return to.

I’m currently on a sabbatical from the newsletter as I put on my thinking cap to prepare and restrategise for 2025.

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The other day, I was watching a lecture by the former Singaporean foreign minister George Yeo when waiting for dinner to start at my parents’ home. He was talking about Europe’s position in a world where China is ascending.

My Mum sat next to me, and as she watched, she frowned.

“Why are you watching this? Interesting meh?”

“It’s my current obsession.”

“I thought last time you were crazy about gardening. Now you want to know about China politics? Don’t you think there are better things to think about?” she tuts.

We both shrugged and I continued to watch George Yeo debunk the commonly held beliefs Europeans had about China while my mum complained about how boring the lecture was.

I get obsessed about topics, and there’s no common thread to my topical obsessions. At one point I was obsessed with jewellery making. Then I quickly got bored and moved on to plagues and vaccines. And then it was the Indie Web.

You get the idea. I find many things interesting and this unique trait has helped me greatly in my career, even the one beyond journalism.

But none of my topical obsessions would get me in trouble or paint me in a bad light like my obsession with China.

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Paid subscribers will get a longer clip where I segue into random topics like the pandemic, learning Mandarin and general elections. As you do!

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I like watching videos of tourists making videos of their trips to Kuala Lumpur. Apparently, it's a very Malaysian thing to watch these videos. Some say it's down to our insecurity as Malaysians, we just like to be reassured that we're awesome, and these foreigners most assuredly would say something nice and complimentary ab…

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Casually over dinner, like he was talking about an item on a shopping list, my Dad said: “Eh. You know? I think that house we lived in was haunted.”

The family paused just for a few seconds.

And just as casually, we said, “Yeah, we know.”

And one by one, we shared our ghostly encounters in that house numbered 14.

(You’d think us Chinese folks would get a clue not to rent a house with the number 14¹, but I suppose we were daring the Heavens to do something about that move, and it responded.)

After hearing our stories, my Dad chuckled and said, “Heh, interesting.”

And went back to eating dinner.

A friend, after hearing my ghostly tale, looked at me wide-eyed and asked: “Why in the world did you not move out of that house??”

I blinked and realised that the thought had never crossed my mind.

So, I asked my Dad. “Hey, Daddy, why did we not move out of that haunted house?”

Dad looked at me like I was asking him why he didn’t become an astronaut. “What for?”

“Uh, because it was haunted?”

“You got used to it, didn’t you?”

“Well….”

“So, what’s the problem?”

Mum chimed in. “Do you know how inconvenient it is to move houses?”

Welcome to the Asian household, where even ghosts do not evoke the slightest pang of sympathy from parents. It’s just a ghost-lah why so worried? Tiger parenting at its best!

And, I am seriously not kidding when I say this, but my parents only got worried about the ghosts when my sister’s mathematics scores started dipping from her usual As to Cs and their theory was that the ghosts distracted her from her studies.

That’s why I said that this clip below is absolutely 100% what would happen in an Asian haunted household. My household anyway.

To be fair, and even my parents agree with me, the ghosts were not that bad.

For one, they never threw things at us. They just stared at us from different corners of the house.

Tolerable.

Though I have to say my first encounter in House 14 was rather dramatic.

Cursed with the ability of awakening at every noise, one night I was awakened by a low moaning sound coming from the foot of my bed.

Before opening my eyes, I realised that the room had gone incredibly cold, and the woman – if that was its gender – was crying really loudly. I knew immediately that this was not a living thing.

I opened my eyes, and I saw a bluish figure standing at the foot of my bed. I could not see a face, I could not see any limbs. It was just a human-shaped shadow, like someone had cut out a human-shaped cutout from the fabric of reality.

At that point my only thought was: There’s a freaking ghost in my room, and it’s really upset. It better not know that I know it is there OMG I hope it leaves soon!

The rational part of my brain was going: “Oh wow, it’s totally true when they say that the temperature drops when a ghost appears. How interesting!”

So, I closed my eyes and hoped that the ghost didn’t realise I was awake. I don’t know how, but somehow, I dropped off to sleep.

The next day, I didn’t tell any of this to my family, not even my siblings.

It’s true, all of this. It’s not a figment of my imagination, nor was it a dream.

However, I kept it from my family because I didn’t want my father to be upset (or my mother to be majorly freaked out). You see, I was convinced then it was my grandmother – only she passed away a week ago then. I didn’t want my father to think that she was upset in the afterlife.

Strangely enough, we each had our separate encounters, which we didn’t know because we kept it from each other until we shifted out!

And when we spoke about this years later, we realised that all of us shared the same “insights”. We thought that the master bedroom was spooky, and we “felt” that someone was staring at us from the exact same spot!

My sister said that she saw someone with long hair walking into my room, and when she went inside to have a look no one was there.

My brother told us that he saw an apparition in the haunted master bedroom.

One night, my mother was on the bed folding clothes and he was on the floor playing. The door was open. Suddenly, he sensed “someone” at the door. To his shock, he saw a shadow standing there. It had arms, and it was reaching for my mother, but for some reason it couldn’t. The arms keep lengthening, but it couldn’t reach my mother.

It was funny that all of us kept our ghostly encounters a secret from each other until much later. I think we didn’t want to scare each other. That house was pretty normal most of the time, anyway.

Us Hokkiens call a haunted place lah-sam (Hokkien for ‘dirty’, a word to describe haunted), and House 14 was definitely lah-sam, but a mild kinda “dirty”, if you know what I mean. A tolerable haunting, even if some of its denizens followed us to the new house.

I read that in the West, there’s a divide between the spiritual and the intellect, that the two cannot meet. I’m not sure if that’s correct – so correct me if I’m wrong.

In the East, many of us believe in the existence of the supernatural, or have no trouble at all with the idea that they exist.

Perhaps my family is unusual, but the ruthlessly pragmatic way my parents dealt with living in a haunted house has made me, I don’t know, more accepting of supernatural phenomenon? Not too freaked out by it? I treat ghosts like a natural phenomenon that mankind would one day be able to explain. It’s there, you just have to live in a way that doesn’t piss that side of the universe off.

Like I mentioned earlier, some of the ghosts did follow us to the new home. One of them (or a few, anyway), liked to steal and hide things.

One time, I remember getting ready to get out of the house. I had a coat in my arm and wanted to wear it, so I decided to put down the car keys.

However, as I did so, I heard a voice saying, “Don’t do it! It will go missing!”

It’s not an audible voice per se, more like a thought that suddenly burst into my head.

I thought it was a weird thought to have, and since there’s no logical basis for it, ignored it. I placed the car keys on the cupboard next to me.

I wore the coat, and turned around to retrieve the keys.

It was gone.

I turned the place upside down to find it, but couldn’t find it.

After a while, exasperated, I yelled, “Damn it, I don’t have time for this! I have an assignment to go to! Give me back the keys!”

Not sure why, but I felt a prompting to go to the kitchen, so I walked into the kitchen … and looked under the fridge. The keys were there.

How did the keys get there? Who knows. I certainly didn’t put it there.

I grumbled at said ghost, saying that he has made me late for work and left without a thought.

I did worry for a second that maybe I had a dissociative moment and tossed the keys there, but that thought was even scarier than the idea of a ghost hiding things. And since things didn’t go missing in front of me again, I think it’s just a plain ol’ ghost.

The ghosts even made my poor dog act funny. He would refuse to walk through the hall. He would use elaborate routes to go to the kitchen, often, climbing and ducking under a series of furniture against the wall to get there.

So, one day, after years of watching the dog do this (and tripping over him by accident a few times), dad finally called a few monks to bless the house.

Only because the dog’s weird behaviour annoyed him.

Asian pragmatism at its best.

Cultural bits

Footnote 1: The No.10 and 4 is considered bad luck in Chinese because both numbers sound like the “death”. So, 14 is doubly bad.

The Hungry Ghost Month or Ghost Month falls during the seventh month of the lunar calendar, which is around August. According to Google, in 2024 it runs from August 4 to September 2.

During the Hungry Ghost month, the Chinese believe that the gates of the underworld have been thrown open, and spirits and ghosts are allowed to roam the living world.

Kinda like a vacation I suppose? Nice of Yama to do this.

Apparently the most active day for these spirits is on the 15th day of the month, known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, which will be on August 18, 2024.

Around this time, in Malaysia anyway, it is unsurprising to encounter food and joss sticks being laid out in front of homes or at street corners. (Like this photo I snapped just a few days ago in front of a shop lot.)

They do this to appease wandering spirits, who is understandably in a bad mood after spending time in the Underworld. Sort of a “Here’s some food, please leave us alone and don’t hurt us” kind of gesture.

That’s why my Mum would often caution me about going out late at night around Hungry Ghost month. You, er, don’t want to invite a visitor home by accident or encounter some ghostly mishap outside.

Did I believe in all this?

Well, having lived in a haunted house, I never take traditions for granted. I think my ancestors were on to something…

PS: The featured image is a promotional illustration for the Chinese drama the Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty 2, which is an absolutely fabulous show by the way.

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I've had a really tough week at the office where my work literally tripled, so I'm not going to be terribly coherent today.

I really wanted to write an elegant response to ’s newsletter, but since my brain is fried, I think this rambly newsletter is the best you'll get.

First, yes, Robert's newsletter is awesome, go read it.

China Translated

The end of West's ideological monotony

This essay has been sitting in the corner of my draft box for a long time. Unlike other articles in this newsletter, this one is not about China, but about the West. So for some time, I struggled to find the right occasion to publish it. Seeing those people who don’t know much about China …

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2 years ago · 80 likes · 91 comments · Robert Wu

And, honestly, he's a braver soul than I am because when I had look at the comments section, whoo baby! I don't know if I can handle such ... vitriol, condescension and ignorance.

So, I'm not as diplomatic as Richard. Part of the reason why I avoid talking about politics is that I've always been a straight-talking girl, and this often gets me in trouble in the corporate world let alone the "diplomatic" world of social media. I reassure you, nobody's going to hire me as a mediator anytime soon.

I’m a child of a hybrid world

Like Robert, as a Malaysian, I did think that the West was best.

I grew up in a world where every Malaysian wanted to migrate overseas. And when they say overseas, they mean Australia, England United States, basically anywhere Western. Nobody said that they're going to move to Thailand, or China.

Like Robert, I had my awakening when I started travelling abroad. First, for studies, then for work, when I was a jet-setting journalist. Some of the cities I had visited: London, New York, Los Angeles, Edinburgh, Dublin, San Diego and San Francisco to name a few. But I also travelled extensively in Asia, which included China, and had the privilege of watching Beijing grow, over a decade, from a dusty, run-down city to the shiny megapolis of today.

The contrasting conversations I had with people from all these regions made me realise something very early: Malaysia is not that bad, even if fellow Malaysians think I’m talking out of my arse.

The Western nations may have nicer-looking buildings, and the weather is less stifling, but they have the same problems we do.

I also realise taht I really loved being a Malaysian, that living in Malaysia was quite a good thing. I felt lucky to live in a country where there was no violence, where I don't have to freeze in winter, where no natural disasters touch us, water was abundant and vegetables and fruits grow all year round.

I love the fact that in Malaysia we understand many cultures at once or make a lot of effort to do that. Our history books are not just about Malaysia. I grew up learning about the history of China, India, the Middle East, the US. The only sad thing is we left out African nations. Sorry, my friends.

I love that in Malaysia, we live the ASEAN way, which is to talk to our neighbours rather than label them evil or good. And I was able to think this way because of where I'm from, my linguistic abilities and I'm very grateful for that.

Not that Malaysia doesn’t have problems. Oh boy do we. But like Robert said, “the world is a hard place” but we make do with what we’ve got.

Anyway, the event that really made me question the whole dogma that the West was the great benevolant leader of the world was the 2003 Iraq war. (Or invasion, as my part of the world prefers to call it.)

In Malaysia, we have news channels in English, Malay, Chinese, and Indian. So, we have the perspectives of the West but we also have perspectives from China, India, South-East Asia and the Muslim world.

Imagine having this massively diverse media diet from such a huge number of regions all your life. Imagine how that shapes your mind.

I realized very quickly during the Iraq invasion, that Americans don't have the same thing I do.

No matter how much I reason with my online American friends that the Iraqi war wasn't something they should champion, all I got was cancellations. That really broke my heart because I lost many good online friends.

Watching much of the Western world condoning and sending their troops to Iraq made me upset. A few years later when it emerged that “the weapons of mass destruction” did not exist made the entire East roll their eyes. And our hearts broke for the people of that region who were left devastated over this “mistake”.

After Iraq, more wars followed.

Dear West, I’m exhausted by your wars.

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Oh hey, look! It's a letter only for paid subscribers. I have a very good reason for this. Ironically, despite actively broadcasting about my life on the Internet via Substack and my blog, I do value my privacy. Some letters are just meant for certain eyes only, and this is for my paid subscribers, whom I thank you from the bottom of my heart for valuing my writing enough to pay for it.

Well, today's letter takes place in an office two years ago. There was barely any furniture inside except for a bright yellow chaise which I avoided, and a man in an armchair.

He said three words that changed my life.

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The conversation almost always begins on Chinese New Year eve.

Me, in the morning: Mummy, seriously, can't we just go to a restaurant and not cook for once?

Mummy, looking baffled at such a suggestion: How can I not cook? We have to pray!

Later in the evening, after slaving over the wok for hours, and producing a few days' worth of food, Mummy: "Next year I will not cook anymore!"

Me: "That's what you said last year."

Mummy: "I will not cook next year! Tired already!"

Me: "You promise? Promise?!"

Next year, the same conversation will repeat, like some Chinese version of Groundhog Day.

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Ah, Chinese New Year.

That time of the year when I beg my bosses if I could work so that I could give my parents a valid excuse to not visit relatives.

I used to work for a newspaper where they would gladly accept my offer (news never sleeps!), but one year my editor told me: "Eh, your mother better not come after me one day for making you work on Chinese New Year, okay?"

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The first lady I spoke to at the local writers’ meet-up was probably my worst choice.

I was so excited because I wanted to form connections with fellow writers in my neighbourhood. But before I could speak, she asked: “So, what do you write?”

I said, science fiction.

That was about all I could say.

Because she went on a half-hour info dump in a faux American accent about how she’s a published author and doing an MFA in Ameri-kuh, name-dropped a few major authors’ names (she calls them by their first name, don’t you know) and went on a lecture of how I should polish my craft. Then, finally, she turned her attention to me.

“So, are you writing something right now?”

I told her I was working on a novel.

She sighed and said, as if resigned, “Okay, I’ll have a look at your manuscript. But warning: I’m not going to be kind!”

I was so stunned by her blatant demonstration of superiority that I could only stare, speechless, at her. I had no intention of sharing my manuscript with anyone at that stage, and she’s probably the last person I will think of when it is ready.

It was also incredibly ironic because if she had known what I did for a living, she would’ve changed her tune. I knew her type.

This happened more than 10 years ago when I was a journalist. One of my beats was to cover the local and international arts & culture scene, which included writers. I have interviewed authors such as Jodi Picoult, Louise Penny, Tim Harford and more.

I was behind the scenes at literary festivals and worked closely with publishers. While most authors were lovely, some were entitled boors. It made me cynical about literary fame quite quickly.

(If you want proof that I’m just not making exaggerated claims, you can have a look at some of my journalism works.)

I saw what was involved in getting into these literary networks and it turned me off: the snobbery, the schmoozing, the pandering to big-named writers and publishers.

I didn't want to be part of it even if I was part of it since I helped make their names appear in print before millions of readers.

I could've easily joined them by accepting an egregious book contract and legitimize my position among them but I decided to write quietly on the Internet as it gave me more joy.

In the eyes of the Writing Elite, I do not have the right rank so they mostly sniff at me and ignore me. But when they find out what my day job is ... boy how they change.

This dynamic is found in writing communities around the world.

And it's now on Substack.

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We were just having a normal conversation under the warm Adelaide sun when she said, “I hate Chinese people. Hate them.”

I stared at her, wondering if she realised that I am Chinese. I mean, I knew she meant China Chinese, but it still shocked me. It was at that moment that I realised that she didn’t see me as Chinese … because I didn’t fit the mold.

Malaysians are often puzzling to most Westerners, and probably most Asians too. We have crazy context-switching skills.

For the longest time, I thought that just meant our ability to switch from English, Mandarin, and Malay at the drop of a hat. But it’s more than that. Not only can we switch languages, we can switch how we interact with different cultures so that they can be comfortable with us. To do so, we must understand the cultures of the West and the East at once.

This is because Malaysia, like most South-East Asian countries, is squished between the West and the East. To survive, we had to be able to relate and interact with these powerful blocs without being, well, bombed.

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I belatedly found out that another woman I knew had died 17 weeks ago. Brain cancer. She was only 39. I still remember smile as we had a meal. She was young, vibrant, an artist. She was the last person I thought would pass before her time. A few days ago, someone else I knew died unexpectedly.

I have a hard time processin…

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There are some days when I find the blank page very hard to overcome. So I open Otter.ai and start talking. For some reason, this helps get things going. Sometimes, I marvel at how fast I write with Otter!

Anyway, it’s that time of the year when I traditionally reflect on the life that I’ve had for the last 12 months. But blame it on my Tiger Parenting upbringing, but a part of me does not want to list out the good things that happened in 2022 lest I jinx 2023. But let me try to do it without alarming Lady Luck.

Despite the threat of nuclear annihilation thanks to Uncle Putin, compared to the years before, 2022 was a marvelous one for me.

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I broke one of my most cardinal rules: Never follow an election via Twitter.

Around 6pm, I was pulled into the hellsite thanks to a heated race for a seat which a Prime Ministerial candidate was fighting for. I became addicted to the refresh button and the next thing I knew it was midnight.

He won, but the state of democracy in Malaysia is tenuous. A hun…

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