Currently: Malaysia

I'm enjoying a blissful two weeks at home in Malaysia. Such is the perils of being an immigrant that I can only visit my favorite people for such brief spurts. I went to the US for college in 2009. As I grow older, I ache with the knowledge that my time with family is fleeting because I chose to stay.

On a brighter note, if you're interested in learning more about different types of Malaysian food, I've been posting about them on my Insta stories. The whole series is saved under the 🇲🇾Food highlight. It's surprisingly difficult to distill the essence of many Malaysian dishes into a sentence. In fact, I've never had to think about how to describe the dishes to a non-Malaysian, English-speaking audience. Thank you to those who've DMed me with questions and/or salivations. You've made creating this food series even more enjoyable.

A sample of what I've been posting on Insta

Besides eating, my time here is a flurry of decades-old friends and family. We don't do much, just bask in each other's company. I like accompanying my mom in the morning as she shops for groceries for the family (the vendors know her by sight and greets her with welcome, a scene that differs greatly from my grocery shopping experience in New York), drinking tea in companionable silence with my father, completing escape rooms with my brother and sisters. My friends are mercifully understanding of how little time I have with my family, so they would usually come to my house to hang out.

As I write, morning light is streaming through the curtains and I'm lying on my favorite sofa, listening to the hum of a household that's about to awake. I am happy, I am home.