​AUDREY CHIN 

I thought I was a global person but it turns out I’m not … My novel As the Heart Bones Break is making its debut globally at Singapore Writer’s Festival in November. Well, almost globally. Singapore based international publisher Marshall Cavendish has the rights to everywhere except North America. I’m a global Asian. Jennifer’s Asian-American. The book, written in the 2nd person, is about a conflicted Vietnamese man and what happens when his American Vietnamese wife discovers

To find out more about what we ate in Yunnan, including my encounter with a 40 year old mother of all hams, read the article here: A myth Growing up, I was regaled by tales of the mythical mellow richness of the Xuanwei hams from northeastern Yunnan.  They were small boned, thin skinned, thick fleshed and tasted of high mountain air our China-born cook reminisced.  A plain winter-melon soup could be miraculously transformed by the addition of a piece of the bone. A few slices

We’re just back from remote Lugu Lake, Yunnan China where my friend Choo Wai Hong traded in her high-flying high-stress corporate lawyer’s life for this: – the view from her front window – a handcrafted tribal living room – and time and more time to look back at her choices and write all about it. It was a huge change going from tropical rush-about Singapore to the quiet of these Northwestern Yunnan mountains to live among the matrilineal Mosuo. For our friend, it was the rig

At 12 noon on Friday 21st June, the Pollutant Standard’s Index hit 401 in Singapore, the highest in Singapore’s history. The PSI, which measure sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone and particulate matter of 10 microns or less in the atmosphere, exceeded the 300 level considered hazardous. Average 3 hourly PSI had exceeded the hazardous level late on Wednesday night and Thursday before hitting the 401 level on Friday. Thank goodness they’ve eased off over

February 10th – it’s New Year again! Popiah wrapping fronted by lettuce, filling, and everything else This is the New Year my family really celebrates. And for our traditional New Year’s Eve re-union dinner, we make a special popiah. Something everyone always clamors to be invited for. (An aside for those not in the know – Popiah is a mixture of braised julienned vegetables and meat wrapped in a soft rice flour roll with lots of ‘sides’…) The popiah at our house is a combinat

What’s our’s The areca clad hills scrolling past the windows The marbled gorge The fertile land We can’t own it Nor even the hours Half drugged on tour guide prattle Haggling and buying Clicking away We pass time Otherwise wasted Gathering images, tastes, pumpkin seed biscuits, pineapple tarts, Bean cakes already mouldy… What’s really ours? The alley in moonlight your hand in mine A shared bowl of dumplings sticky and sweet A ying-yang ocean seen through the mist #

As promised, here’s more on Taiwan. Yilan “theme park” shop Street markets, especially night markets. have been part of Chinese culture for over a thousand years. Most Chinese historical movies have street market scenes where heroes and villains meet to plot. And indeed, this is why night markets were heavily regulated when Taiwan was colonized by the Japanese. Independent again, the night markets are thriving once more in Taiwan. On the 8D7N All Taiwan tour, we were taken to

Banana at close quarters Apparently not, according to Mrs. L. Not even after an 8D7N All Taiwan All Mandarin immersion into Chinese culture. “You’re such a xing something something…” she said as she shoved me away, aghast. I’d just given her a big heartwarming bear hug. She’d looked out for me the whole trip, making sure I went on my rest-room breaks, retrieving my purse each time I left it dangling from the back of my chair during meals, recommending the best souvenirs for m

Moonlight over Clementi Rail Bridge Finally, 15th day of the 8th moon – Mid-Autumn Festival.  The moon a beautiful yellow orb. The moon cakes set out with tea. The children traipsing around the garden with their lanterns. The children want to know why. Why on this night we eat these pastry crusted cakes. Why we walk around with lanterns. Why we sing these silly songs – to the jade rabbit, the lady Chang E? What do I tell them? That the cakes and the lanterns commemorate a rev

10th day of the 8th month of the dragon year – a busy buzzy sort of day running around delivering Mid-Autumn gifts to friends and associates.  Something new this year, we’re distributing fresh fruits and flower teas, not the usual fatty cakes! Finally sitting down to my own cup of tea now and a quiet stare at the moon with Wumen Huikai‘s poetry for company. Wumen Huikai, b. 1143-1217, was the  abbot of Longxiang Zen monastry. His name means, Wisdom Opens Without a  Gate. Belo

This is when I step out, new clothes on (even to the underwear inside).  When I breath in, New Year morning midnight air all around.  And I step over, crossing the intangible threshold in-between what can be left behind, what can be looked forward to. The foods we eat signal our hopes as we cross over, the fears we want to leave behind.  My husband’s people set out five fruits – bananas, soursop, coconut, papaya, mango – homonyms for a very humble request for just enough to s

In Xinjiang, the water tables are buried deep.  The winters are cold, the summers burning – a  geography perfect for forcing fragrant grapes, tiny heady perfumed roses, and the saffron yielding crocii that carpet the mountains during the brief snow-fed springs. Yes, even then during that summer, political unrest was already brewing.  Our Uighur tour guide, for example, had rejected a government job to do something “more meaningful” he said. He insisted on using local time, no