Social Issues

Queerness scares people – that’s the truth. But the truth is rarely pure and never simple. What does it mean to be queer? If you wanted the pure and simple truth, then it just refers to being anything other than heterosexual or cisgender. But the world we live in doesn’t abide by dictionary definitions – neither does judgement nor discrimination. To be queer is to be invisible, to be seen through pejorative glances, to be the antipode of normal. In the small city-state of Singapore like anywhere else, the history of queerness is the history of marginalisation. Although many assume…

It was a drizzling Friday night when I met Lincoln Lim at a bar in a nondescript corner of Bugis. He greeted me as if I was an old friend, extending his hands out warmly with a wide smile and said: “Hi, you must be Stacey!” Surprised by his nice reception, I shook his hands and greeted him back. Although he was scheduled to perform at the Jalan Klapa bar at about 7.30pm and it was already a little over 7.15pm when I had arrived, he assured me that he would have enough time to have a quick chat with…

“In the moment that you are waiting for your food, do you not become the waiter?” Puns aside, most teenagers from middle-class families probably have no idea what it’s like to be serving someone else at the other end of the table. As a fresh JC kid back in 2014, I was looking for a way to kill time and to pick up a little life experience and thus chose to venture into that other side. This decision would eventually lead to a part-time stint at Sunday Folks, a humble, quaint ice cream café situated in Holland V. Having no…

Listening to music while we commute, the chatter of friends, and the general ambiance of a crowded office are all pretty mundane detail for many of us. Yet, trying to come to terms with our world of sound slowly turning silent, is something completely unfathomable altogether. Meet Edmund Koh, who was only formally diagnosed with hearing impairment at the age of 17, thanks to the pre-enlistment medical checkup for Singapore’s National Service (well thanks, NS!). Although he faced difficulties in hearing his teachers back in his old school days, he coped by choosing seats closer to the front of the classroom…

This reflection started off with a close buddy of mine asking: “How in the world do you deal with life? I mean, like with that many messages from so many different chats!?”  Maybe it’s because a million thoughts go through my head a day, or that I’m probably just an asshole. Either way, I almost always forget to text people back, and sometimes I really just don’t give a damn to do so (which makes me want to put my money on me being the latter). Anyway, on average there’s Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Telegram and WhatsApp, all of which are just…