For my dear friend Romain, who showed me the importance of understanding and will. This spotlight is yours. Based on Actual Events Whenever I reflect on my old life as a college student in El Cajon, California. I am temporarily … Continue reading Memoir: Perfect Target for Experiencing Racial Prejudice and Ignorance in El Cajon
A home away from home We arrive with nothing but a backpack, and we leave with happy hearts, full of new friends and with beautiful memories. Is it the ambience? Are the owners so kind that we become their friends? … Continue reading Hostels like Home Give Me a Sense of Belonging
As a native belle of the south, I fancy myself to have a lot of fondness for some of these particular haunts of the south that makes my heart yearn for this patch of dirt-no matter where I am in … Continue reading Savannah: Pearls of the South
Part I Two stories in one. Two attitudes in the same but different worlds. Monday morning welcomes partly sunny skies and mournful breakfast sandwiches. 8 a.m wake up call also calls for drip coffee from the same percolator machine on … Continue reading A Student’s Day in COVID Style
Walking Through Europe It was 2015, I was several years younger and the world was more open than it perhaps is now. My parents had saved enough money from their shared income to plan a holiday in Egypt. This was … Continue reading A Summer’s Journey Through Europe
Introduction: Interviews and Ethnography I had been fumbling with the ethics of constructing a life history. So I decided to narrate a life under influence. In university, I learnt that ethnography was the primary tool of an anthropologist. It is … Continue reading Lives Under the Influence: An Ethnobiographical Study
Dad is getting a suit made in Central as his children gather in Mong Kok’s Sneaker Street. Mothers visit anything from Giordano to Givenchy. Hong Kong is shopping, history, food and closer to Australia than Singapore, and it’s also cooler. … Continue reading Hong Kong: The City State that Never Sleeps
There was one silver lining, there were no bumps in the road on the way to the Corridor. We were flying. I could see the flat lands to the right and left below and the tops of the mountains were now eye … Continue reading The Corridor
I am sitting in a room with a man. He can speak multiple African languages, he can speak French. I can only speak English. His brother is here. His brother smiles often when he is upset and trying to … Continue reading Xenophobia in South Africa