As I See It

I come from a big family. The age gap between the oldest and youngest siblings is well over a half generation. The five children, three boys and two girls, grew up in a crammed apartment in Tin Hau fighting over the bathroom and poking fun at each other every day.  Born in the year of the tiger, my big sister Margaret combines the temperament of a ferocious feline and the maternal instincts of a loving tigress around her cubs. Ah Gah (阿家; Big Sis) – for that is how everyone in the family addresses her – was nothing short of a second mother to me. She would check my homework every night and buy me nifty school supplies as rewards for good grades. A "family heirloom" When I turned four, Ah Gah got me a set of 24 coloring pencils in a sleek tin box... _______________________ Read the rest of this essay in HONG KONG State of Mind , available at major bookstores in Hong Kong and at Blacksmith Books . HONG KONG State of Mind

Last month I took a trip to Bangkok for work. It was right around the time when anti-government protestors began entering the capital city to open yet another chapter in the country’s bloody political history.  Frequent visitors to Thailand such as myself have long grown accustomed to its political crises that ebb and flow roughly on a biannual cycle. At best, Bangkok is an epicurean paradise where foreign vacationers and the local working poor pass each other by on the streets like ships in the night. At worst, the city is always one political misstep away from becoming the epicenter of the next social upheaval, military coup and inevitable bloodshed. The Red Shirts And so it started all over again on the hot, breezeless March day when a recent Supreme Court decision to seize the assets of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra triggered mass demonstrations by an army of 100,000 Red Shirts... _______________________ Read the rest of this essay in HONG KONG State of