​AUDREY CHIN 

From the winning entry for the Asian Women Writers Festival Short StoryCompetition... It takes 38,000 mgs of ibuprofen to kill yourself.

A fifty six year old on a swing

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

The best made holiday plans can be upset. Weather, short-staffed inn-keepers and unforeseen road closures can conspire to turn an itinerary upside down. Often the disappointment poisons the whole vacation. But, it only takes a pause to change our perceptions and save the day. In Queensland, we ran into road closures along the Gold Coast. Our hotel in Cairns couldn’t check us in early because they’d been fully booked the night before.  It rained for 4 of the remainder of our 5

Have I prayed in vain? Wai’s funeral was yesterday, Ish’s more than a year ago now. Kwan is in a deep coma. There’s very little chance he’ll wake. No. Despite the fact that Wai and Ish died, that Kwan isn’t likely to wake up from his hospital bed, prayer helped. It comforted, it left a legacy… I first began to circling the park with my rosary beads because of eighteen year old Ish. I didn’t know Ish but her mother was part of my women’s prayer group. When she was diagnosed wi

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

THE GALLUP POLLS – SHOULD WE IN SINGAPORE CARE? Photo Credit: http://www.stanford.edu According to Gallup Singapore ranks as the least emotional country in the world and also the least positive Is this heartbreaking? Should we be concerned? First, lets see what the poll questions are  – Gallop measures daily emotions of a sample of about 1,000 persons in each country. The questions that they ask residents are: Did you feel well-rested yesterday? Were you treated with respect

SILENCE! Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com Dani Batz’s photostream I’ve just returned from my 3rd retreat. When I first started going, people kept asking me “Why?”The question was usually accompanied by a concerned expression or a caring touch. “What was happening with my life?” “What was getting too much for me to bear that I needed to check out? To re-arm and recuperate?” I had to re-assure everyone I was fine, I wasn’t re-treating from anything. It was more a call from

It’s a boat person’s festival that’s why… When we lived in the US, it was a public holiday, an opportunity for far flung too busy friends and relatives to get together. With memories of the war and of hunger still stalking them, my husband’s people commemorated this American migrant feast with the solemnity of ancestral anniversary days.  To have enough food to eat in a land of plenty, it was something to give thanks for. We don’t owe our livelihoods to that land of plenty no

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

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

Like any other big city, you can’t ever find a taxi at rush-hour in my city. And of course the buses don’t move when there’s gridlock. That leaves the trains. I don’t take the trains much. I don’t like the feeling of being stuffed into a metal container like a sardine. But I had to the other day, when the monsoon was falling hard. And behold – I experienced magic! Just shows, the divine is everywhere. One just has to be aware. When have you had a glimpse of the divine while r

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

It’s taken me almost a lifetime to learn to sit and be with myself, to be aware of my now and to let go. Animals, they do it naturally...

With each birthday, death becomes more forward.  Good face days become fewer and farther apart. Death begins to make her presence felt...