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Defiance
I AM IN AWE. If you listen to one thing this week, listen to this interview: Legendary BBC presenter and China editor Carrie Gracie, live in London, on the Sinica podcast. “It is the defiance that I learned in China that enabled me to take on the BBC. Because I had been forced to think…
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Kite
Watching an eagle soar across the hilltop circle of Bukit Dumbar Reservoir Park, and then be ambushed from seven o’clock by a Brahminy kite with its cotton-white head and red-rust body, and seeing a large snake writhe in the eagle’s claws as the two birds fly off into the distance still squabbling, with the little…
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When the sky is starless
My man put his book down, turned off his headlamp, and rolled over, back to me. We were planning to wake up before sunrise to get a good start on the long drive back to Cape Town airport, so although I wasn’t sleepy yet, I decided it was a signal to wind down too. I…
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Mendahului propaganda anti-vaksin Covid-19
Sumber (versi asal dalam BI): https://www.malaymail.com/news/what-you-think/2021/02/23/pre-empting-the-anti-covid-19-vaccine-propaganda-amar-singh-hss-alan-teh-ke/1952040 23 FEBRUARI – Rencana ringkas ini bertujuan membantu kita memahami sebab-sebabnya jika berlaku beberapa kematian dalam kalangan mereka yang menerima vaksinasi Covid-19, terutamanya golongan warga emas. Tujuan rencana ini adalah menentang pengaruh lobi anti-vaksin serta sebarang ancaman terhadap keberkesanan program pemvaksinan COVID-19 kebangsaan. Dalam rencana ini, kami akan merujuk…
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Addressing the rumour that mRNA Covid vaccines can cause infertility
Cross-post from Facebook === I’ve now had 2 different friends on 2 different continents mention the rumour that mRNA vaccines will cause infertility due to “shedding of the genetic instructions” for the corona spike protein messing up the “naturally occurring spike proteins” in the human body. So i decided to post a copy of my…
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As in a mirror, dimly
(crossposted from Facebook/added links/might expand on my thoughts later) Someone on a Malaysian expats group shared that they were trying to learn Chinese so other people started sharing their experiences, I wrote a very cheong hei comment so I thought I’d repost it to my own timeline if anybody cares.I grew up in an anglophone…
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Lord of the Rings audiobook reread
Little details I didn’t pay attention to when I was a kid: The journal of the recolonisation of Moria was written by multiple people in multiple scripts. Near the end when they were under attack, someone, probably Ori, switched to elven script instead of the runes favoured by the dwarves. Why? They were in a…
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Oh Leila
Half an hour to curfew. The streets are already silent. People often ask me if I’m afraid to be out at night. To cycle at night. To walk at night, a woman alone in Durban. It seems foolhardy but in six years no harm has come to me on two wheels. I have had my…
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What is the taste
Recently, I like to heave open the half-jammed balcony door and take my food or coffee outside. The unspoken, superficial excuse is the piece of paper on the door of the lunchroom printed “Maximum 3 persons in this room”; I pretend to be considerate and yielding. I nod at my colleages before shutting the door…
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The labyrinth
(crossposted to Facebook) In my dreams there is a labyrinth that comprises the world. Every landmark building in my earlier life has dissolved into this amalgam. The first time I went to a hospital. The first shopping mall I saw. The stairs of Chowrasta Market. Every church my father has preached in. My schools, primary…