Plucking grey hair with your family member is a right of passage in Vietnamese culture, as in many Asian cultures. I could name you the countless times where I’m on my phone or in my room and my mum or aunties would just start going through my hair, or the occasions where I see my parents squatted on the bathroom floor taking turns to pluck each other’s grey’s.

A commonly told story about skin colour in my family was that darker skin meant you were akin to a field worker/farmer, and consequently of lower class, whereas lighter skin meant the complete opposite.

I don’t really believe in beauty pageants. But, I do believe in the power of representation, and how it can be used to combat colourism - the prejudice or discrimination that is held against individuals with dark skin tones.

I enjoy an ASMR video or two. I'm quite particular with the videos I like, but ultimately I am seeking a feeling of gentle relaxation that just washes over me. Midnight Diner is a TV show that delivers that relaxing feeling I want, and serves it up with some good ol' storytelling and heavy feels.

I remember finishing Avatar: The Last Airbender and wondering how its sequel, The Legend of Korra, could possibly compare (that was my first fatal flaw: you simply cannot compare the two).

Few things have made me as excited over the last year than the formal announcement that Avatar Studios would soon grace us with their very own cinematic universe.

I’m currently writing a paper on the very subject of the ‘bamboo glass’ ceiling at the moment, so you’ll have to indulge me.

Discourse on the glass ceiling – the metaphor of an invisible barrier looming above women in the workforce – largely focuses on white women. The discourse on how the glass ceiling intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, disability or socioeconomic status are often overlooked.

One of the best things I've seen all year is Yung Singh's curated event for Boiler Room this month. A complete South Asian line up from the Daytimers collective featuring artists mixing house, UK garage and jungle with South Asian influences made for some absolute HEAT.

I’d like to share a quote from a reading I was assigned from one of my classes in week one of the semester:

“After 200 years of colonisation and immigration, it has become commonplace to describe Australia as a ‘multicultural’ society. Yet perhaps it could be more properly characterised as a society with a multicultural population, regulated and governed by a monocultural power structure.”

It's been a hot minute everyone, and apologies for the radio silence on our front! We've been busy launching Asian Futures and have taken a short break since.

I'm not a huge sports fan but when the Olympics come around, I am glued to my TV 24/7 and my productivity declines by a bare minimum of 200%.

I've never been a massive sports fan. I've always enjoyed playing various sports, but have never been an astute follower of a particular league or competition. I have however been following Naomi Osaka's journey closely, as I strongly believe she is a catalyst for change in the sporting world.

Often, I find myself mid-lunge in a Pilates class, or stretching in a yoga studio, to notice that I am the only Asian person in the room. 99.9% of the time, the class is filled with white women, rarely men, and is taught by white women.* Disappointingly, I’m never surprised by this. For far too long, whiteness has become synonymous with wellness.

One of my biggest dreams within the realm of scientific advancement is the invention of smell-o-vision. Whenever TV hosts say "boy I wish you could smell this!", I'm always like fuck yes I wish I could smell that.

I'd pick a bar over a club any other day but, I am proud to say that I went Asian clubbing (D1!) for the first time in my life recently.

Beyond the pure fun I had, it was an interesting ethnographical experience to be immersed in an environment full of 'LGs' (little girls) and 'LBs' (little boys).

It's finally time for me to leave the nest. The pandemic curbed my plans to move out last year, but the moment has finally arrived and has served as a great moment of reflection.

Wonderful, wonderful Minari. Honestly, it only took 5 seconds into watching Minari for me to start crying. Beyond the significance of seeing Asian faces on the big screen, Minari told a story that was profoundly moving.

Do you really need another person telling you to read/watch Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin)? No. Am I still going to do it? Yes.

Asians are often the brunt of a joke: we’re bad drivers, we’re good at math. Targeting Asian male masculinity, or their lack thereof, is a topic that receives particular attention - one that I might emphasise, is hurtful and false.

April 4th 2021 marked the Chinese holiday known as Qing Ming Jie or Tomb Sweeping Day. Whilst not a day that I've traditionally celebrated much of, today was the first Qing Ming Jie since the passing of one of my parents' best friends. It's tradition to burn sacrificial offerings for the deceased (e.g. fruit, money, clothes) as a means of transferring goods for them to use in the afterlife.

Why is it that Asian immigrants are often valued through the labour and food they provide, rather than through their inherent value of being a human?