​AUDREY CHIN 

This week’s headlines haven’t been encouraging – Chinese political appointments, White House firings, school shootings, old Russian spies fa

Last week, I made a hole in a fence. Guess what? It was no_big_deal. I realized – we take fences too seriously

Will insects fly into your mouth if your child is too obedient

I’m drunk with stars. My nephew, the artist and poet, is visiting with his family. We’ve been indulging in artsy-fartsy conversation, talk that makes me feel drunk with stars. Poetry is … A word picture, my nephew said. Or a frame of words with room for interpretation, I replied. We tossed the definitions back and forth: – an echo of the world – words that call to each reader’s memory – spaces between that resonate with the holes in each reader’s own story … In the end we agr

No pictures, just some words describing a scene while waiting for a flight in the domestic terminal at Yangon Airport. They were five Off the plane Crossing the airport hall In jungle green In control – the tallest A  ranger hat slouched over his head Protecting a face already turned to stone On the right flank – the one just grown His teak brown cheeks newly shaven Smooth as planed wood and as unmoved Then two more – pushing a baggage cart Captives? Cargo?  Kin? I c

I was reading in Myanmar. It was my time, my panel appearance at the Irrawaddy Literary Festival with Canadian literary prodigy Karen Connelly. We were to be speaking about my novel As the Heart Bones Break. We ended up speaking about Myanmar. Not of course in so many words… But as I learnt last week in Mandalay, there’s text and then there’s sub-text. As the Heart Bones Break is a novel about Vietnam but it’s also about division, isolation and transition. It’s about layers o

Believing in magic, we’d hide these found treasures between the pages of our text books, sprinkling bread crumbs over them to feed them. If we loved them enough, we used to believe, the feathers would sprout fluff at the bottoms of their shafts and eventually (very very eventually) grow into the birds themselves. I suspect the fluff that appeared was probably mould. And of course, the feathers always fell out of the books and disappeared before they had time to turn into swan

Our writing-dieting selves like to think we’re all frontal lobe, all about visioning, reasoning, planning and problem solving. But hidden deep in the centre of the head are our reptilian brains – the amygdala associated with memory, emotion and fear, and the  hypothalamus which controls thirst, hunger, sleep and sex. These are the hunting gathering parts of the brain that refuse to let us starve to death or to think too much before acting.  They’re why, despite dieting, we ca

You can love a place before you see it.  A place you continue to hold in your heart even after you know it, faults and all. That’s the Mekong Southland for me. My husband is a man of the Mekong southland. He was born in the deep south, in a town on brackish salt marshes a hundred kilometres from the southernmost branch of the nine-mouths of the Mekong River. He grew up in a small city on the Hau Giang, the largest branch of the river, and he went to school in Saigon, 40 kilom

It’s February already and I haven’t thanked you all enough for your support of Oddznns –  for dropping by and commenting, for your ‘likes’ and your ‘rants’. Your involvement helped me to grow in my writer’s journey and to discover that words do help. Writing has allowed me to reach out to you with my thoughts and musings. I’ve been enriched by your sharing both on the blog and off the blog. We’ve connected. In celebration of the magical ability of words to help build bridges

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 #

Photo Credit: Sarah Monagle Well, the mid-Autumn festivities have come and gone.  The moon’s shrinking ing again.As it goes away, I’d like to share this lovely poem by Sarah Monagle –  a  mom, writer, counselor, photographer, traveler and brain tumor survivor  – who blogs at http://www.sarahmonagle.wordpress.com. I’ve been inspired by her poetry sharing of her ups and downs. She’s got a great eye for seeing the world through. Through this mid-Autumn, I’ve been musing about ho

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

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/camyluna 13th day of the 9th moon of the year of the water dragon.It’s raining again. Unless the weather changes, catching sight of the mid-autumn moon this year looks like an “iffy”  affair. Of course, whether the moon’s fat or thin, covered in cloud or hidden by rain, still it’s there circling above us. It’s just a question of what gets in the way of us receiving her light.It took me a long time to understand the moon’s constancy.

Full moon through stained glass Photo Credit: http://www.wilandra.com 12th day of the 8th moon in the year of the water dragon … and what a watery day it’s been. I woke up to a drizzle. By mid-morning, we had a windy hard plopping equatorial deluge.  The storm tantrummed itself out by tea-time, but now it’s hazy. I don’t know if it’s residual moisture hanging about, or the ashes of burning rain forests blown across the Malacca Straits from Sumatra.  What I do know for sure, t

11th day of the 8th moon in the year of the water dragon. Photo Credit: John Garozze http://www.jagwah.blogspot.com Tonight it was cloudy. When I first went out to the park for my after dinner walk, I couldn’t see the moon at all. But by the time I was done, an hour later, there it was. A slightly bigger than half moon, fully revealed. Jallaluddin Rumi, b.1207-1273, the Persian Sufi has a wonderful verse about this gradual unmasking. Here it is – Last night the moon Last ni

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

8th day of the 8th moon of the year of the Dragon. We start with the verses of the most unaccomplished – mine. Photo Credit: www.roschdeshnewmoon.com New Moon The new moon enters Tentative Before her time A slim curve of silver Hiding Behind yesterday’s flowers Hesitant Unconscious of her charms —– Do you have a favourite moon-poem. In the spirit of awaiting Mid-Autumn share it. Leave a comment! #Poetry #MidAutumnFestival #crescentmoon #Mooncake #Moon #zen #Asia #Arts

.I wrote a post the other day about how a diagnostic profiling tool called Emergenetics could help improve communications dramatically. http://oddznns.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/better-communication-with-emergenetics-profiling/ It elicited a really thoughtful question – Would talking to people according to profile remove the complexity of human interaction. A counsellor I knew commented on Facebook that he would be wary of diagnostic tools as they tended to simplify. But perhap

It’s the end of the old year. A time to throw away old grudges and forgotten grievances, a time to make room for what will come in the new year.  A time for reconciliation in the spirit of Nelson Mandela’s Rainbow Nation … Reconciliation Our bruises Photocredit: addhika.blogspot.com Red and purple Black and brown Forgotten Forgiven Forgiving We run through green paddy Our cheeks meet Rosy pink Under watchful clusters of dragon eyes Our fire crackles Orange and gold #Po