CategoryMoments in Life

One evening, as I was walking past my parents, my dad told me off for forgetting to stoop …

‘We’re going on holiday,’ a customer would tell me over the phone as I was booking them in for their loan appointments.

Quite often, I used to respond cheerfully with ‘Oh? Anywhere nice?’

After a few times of asking the question enthusiastically, I cringed as a profound realization hit me at the back of the head with a rolled up newspaper ...

One fine summer day, I came face to face with a creature that would be regarded as bad luck in Burmese culture.

I have discovered two activities that help with maintaining my mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, they cause problems in the real world …

I got on the bus and bought the ticket from the bus driver who called me 'duck.' Wondering what part of me resembled the quacking winged animal, I sat down at the front of the bus. Then things turned really bizarre.

The other day, I found a wedding invitation card that would have given the mother of a Burmese bride serious heart attack. There are four reasons why this card would have been a disaster in Myanmar.

I believe that people shouldn’t be restricted from doing anything because of their age. So, I decided that I won’t refrain from anything I want to do just because I am well into my thirties. But I have found this is not always feasible. There was certainly one thing I did effortlessly in my younger years. With some sadness I have come to terms with the fact that I’ll never be able to do that...

Though English is not my mother language, after a decade of living in the UK, I now even think and talk to myself in English. From time to time though, I am reminded by certain phrases that actually maybe I am not quite a native speaker. Still, I maintain that I am one … well, most of the time.

‘Why can’t you sit still like your cousin?!’ my mum scolded me at one of the family gatherings.

Those three words ‘like your cousin’ that fell onto my ears loud and clear seemed harmless. But they were the very codes that wrote the invisible script insistently working in the background of my mind, dictating my every move.

‘My poor brother! He had a good brain, but it malfunctioned,’ said my mum. ‘He was very bright,’ she continued, ‘but crazy from birth.’ Annoyed, I defended my uncle, ‘No, he wasn’t crazy. He was just different.’ I knew that fell on stony ground. She grunted some sort of agreement with my statement, but she still believed him to be crazy and will forever remember him as ‘my poor crazy brother, A...