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Alma's find

Notwithstanding, Alma decided to keep the coin. The trophy that the typhoon washed ashore on the edge of the West Lake. That token of providence in the devastation. Earlier this morning, Alma was walking Lupa, her faithful four-legged female companion. Toppled trees with their exposed roots, tangled and wiry like Medusa heads, framed the shoreside road - a dismal reminder of nature’s ferocious spectacle. Suddenly, a scraping sound woke her up from her pre-caffeine reverie. Metal scraped against gravel underneath her ballerina flat. Alma bent down to remove the unwanted object and froze in what may have appeared as a static seizure to the onlooker. For a few seconds, she blended with the Medusa head tree roots, her eyeballs popped out in disbelief, her wide open mouth suppressing the miscarried gasp that was about to become a lump in her throat. The unwanted object was a 10 lire Pegasus coin from the 1950s, Republica Italiana. The coin her mother wore on a pendant around her neck until
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Brave in Beijing

I can’t begin to tell the world how many beautiful and soulful humans I met in the two days I’ve been in Beijing. Yes, I did arrive with a tiny chunky prejudice fed by early-life memories, the tone of news articles and the sheer limitations of our binary world views.  So far, I visited four neighbourhoods in this colossal twenty-one-million-resident city and I haven’t registered any other white expat. The treatment I received everywhere has been heart-touching. In spite of the language, cultural, political and infrastructural barriers (or maybe because of them) the human connection has been triumphant, life-affirming.  There is something precious about communicating with our eyes and smiles. We cannot care less about political beliefs, sexuality or intellectual tastes. The message is the connection.  I can’t begin to tell the world how many humans caressed me with their eyes, waitresses mothered me with gleeful smiles, cabbies befriended me with apologetic, childlike grimaces. And we u
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Our tale

Now that Jesus has departed and ain’t returning to her Brixton queendom, I’ll attempt to tell one of the most intimate and moving tales of our extraordinary coexistence.  Around that time last year, I had already decided to move to Vietnam. It certainly wasn’t an impulsive choice. I had endlessly gone back and forth through all the pros and cons. One morning, around 4:30, I jolted awake, in the throes of a severe anxiety attack. I had ended a relationship, was about to move to another continent and my life was upside-down. This was proper anxiety with shortness of breath, heavy head and a constellation of creepy syndromes that I struggled to tame.  I walked into the garden and sat on my wooden bench. A thousand rocket ships were zigzagging in my brain. Then… the bushes opposite me parted and Jesus appeared. At that time, she was only visiting once day and she’d already had her supper. Confidently, knowingly, she started walking towards me, her eyes fixed on mine. Jesus picked a spot on
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I saved Jesus and then she saved me

“Wake up! Are you still dreaming?”  Over the last six months, I have been telling one story consistently and fervently - the story of my friendship with Jesus…the fox. Storytelling is my creative lifeblood. It brings me in this wonderful state of excited urgency where I can explore and dream. Some stories take epic effort to write. Others write themselves or have always been written. Such is the story of me and Jesus - the boy and his fox.  Ever since the four-legged fairy walked towards me on Good Friday, with that heart-wrenching air of anxious bravery, hungry, ailing and pleading for kindness, I knew that this was big. It was as if she had chosen me to tell the world about her in what was going to become my best story. Our best story. “God…you are obsessed with this fox.” You think? Well, erm…yes, I am obsessed. When have I not been obsessed with the matters that move me? What should I be doing instead? Skimming the surface? Dipping in and out? Sounds like a bloody waste of effort. 
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Blind massage

I opened my eyes to the wonders of blind massage in Hanoi. Visually impaired people provide services in many Vietnamese spas. This expands their employment opportunities, and their worlds, helping them become more independent and gain visibility in society.  A dear friend recommended the Omamori spa in West Lake area. One November Monday, I pedalled towards it, sedated by the balmy twilight and semi-sightless under the thick cloak of motorbike smoke. The spa was housed in a 3-storey colonial villa accessible through a narrow downhill alley. A sense of awe descended upon me once I stepped over the threshold and set my bare foot onto the glossy dark wood.  The ground floor consisted of a reception area that led to a vast museum-like chamber. Abstract life-size oil paintings claimed their places on the wooden walls like bespoke entrances to Wonderlands. They offered hectic visual gibberish to the naked eye and could, perhaps, be fully decoded only by those equipped with inner vision. Spot
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Banya

My recent visit to the traditional Russian “banya” in the London's Docklands is an event I shan’t forget anytime soon and one I’d strongly recommend to anyone with a taste for the authentic. A dear friend of mine had dared me to go and witness “the most raw & real bathing ritual”. It was a challenge I could not resist. The outside was intimidating enough. The dingy alley along the railway track in Canning Town where the establishment was situated reminded me of a back street in Bangkok minus the heat and the radiant mango-selling grannies. Barricades of rubbish led me to the entrance of what resembled an unemployment centre in Northern England, left to its own devices since the 70s. The reception area featured a plain eatery / vodka room with a constellation of sturdy square tables covered in green vinyl tablecloth - undoubtedly high-camp material in Shoreditch…but not here. Two big-belied comrades in baggy swimwear had positioned their giant pyramid torsos in front of a tv sc
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London

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This is my 10th year in London, the brash, alluring, cruel, sexy giant of a city. Almost 10 years ago, I left my adoptive (and forever second) home - the wondrous dollhouse village Amsterdam.    I dreamed of coming to the jungle that is London and here I am - almost a Londoner. I feel love for this mesmerising jungle, a love that’s fed by the many songs of innocence and songs of experience I sang and heard.  I am the (almost) Londoner who sheds a tear down the tube escalators and smiles at street musicians as he jumps over puddles of rain, then sighs at the sight of bird ensembles pirouetting above black cabs.    Like the half-opaque buildings in this photograph, there is always more to excite and lure in this jungle. The beating heart of the West End on Saturday night, the soul-nourishing cheer of the farmers markets on a spring morning, the weathered hands of the homeless, the kindness of strangers, the dead pigeon splattered across the asphalt, the dawn of a new beginning…it’s all p
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