05.08.08
Posted in Coming out, Emotional Health, Identity, LGBT Rights, Relationships at 3:00 pm by jin
Image Copyright of Sayoni
One Sunday I had lunch with my uncle. We get along fairly well and I am out to him, but we are not at the stage where we have copious open free conversations about my relationship status or my partner. Anyhow, during lunch, it was just the two of us because my aunt was out of town. We were having a routine, run-of-the-mill conversation as usual (What are you ordering; how was your trip to Bangkok, how much did you pay for a massage; did you know that iceberg lettuce lowers blood sugar; the car is due for servicing etc)
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- About: Jin believes the big bad homophobic world can be changed one small step at a time
- Forum discussion:
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04.14.08
Posted in Fashion & Beauty, Feminism, Women's Health at 8:56 pm by jin
Image from signaturehealthsystems.com
Yesterday I went for my first facial treatment. For the past few months I have been thinking about starting to have them. I have been told that they are supposed to make you look more beautiful. I have also heard that they are painful, which has been the main reason for my hesitation. Plus I’ve never paid much attention to the way I look; I mean, I wash my face every day, mask it and moisturise it now and then, but not much else. Read the rest of this entry »
- About: Jin believes that the cliche "True beauty lies within" does hold true and was not invented merely as a consolation prize.
- Forum discussion: Fashion & Beauty
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11.21.07
Posted in Coming out, General, Identity at 1:38 am by jin
Just some thoughts on what I did on Mothers’ Day this year.
I normally have lunch every Sunday with my uncle and aunt. Usually it is just the three of us (since my grandfather passed away, my cousin went to study in Sydney and my sister moved to Malaysia). On Mothers’ Day my aunt and her siblings were doing a big family lunch with their mum, and they invited me to join them. My partner was not invited, because I am only out to my aunt and uncle (not to her extended family), and also because they still think it is wrong and they disapprove.
So lunch was at a lovely Thai restaurant and the food was delicious. It was all very “decent” and “civilised”, by which I mean that there was no mention of my partner. But of course how could there have been when the majority of the company do not know about us.
I think that being in the closet is both an active and passive thing. It is like walking a tightrope, a delicate balancing act. It is like sitting on one of those large rubber balls supposed to strengthen your core muscles; your aim may be to remain perfectly still but you are expending lots of energy just to maintain your balance on the bouncy sphere.
That is how I feel when I am with company that I am not out to. I feel as if I am always on guard, holding my breath in case they ask me the dreaded “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”, double-filtering all my words before they come out of my mouth, and other fun varieties of mental Solitaire. Read the rest of this entry »
- About: By Jin
- Forum discussion: Sayoni Forum
- technorati: glbt, lgbt, queer, lesbian, family, mothers' day, acceptance, discrimination
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06.22.07
Posted in General at 10:24 am by jin
I had lunch with my aunt and uncle on Good Friday. This was different from the usual family lunch because there were only the three of us. After we ate, my uncle left first to go play golf, so my aunt and I continued chatting. Soon, and without warning, she turned the conversation to my Lesbianism. I breathed slowly and wondered where it was going. This uncle and aunt (my mother’s brother, and his wife) are the ones I am closest to because my sister and I used to live with them for a period of time. I came out to them just over a year ago. The way that they have reacted is that they still love me and treat me no different than they did before, but only now they pray for me more. They still think that being gay is a sin, but they continue to “Love the Sinner”. So, with this background, I was wondering how the conversation would go.
She began by relating her experience at the Mardi Gras parade in Sydney this year. She and my uncle had gone to Sydney to visit my cousin who is in university there. Their visit had coincided with the Mardi Gras weekend, and because my uncle and another friend of theirs had never seen such a parade, they decided to watch it. My aunt then told me that she had once watched the Mardi Gras parade in Perth. At this point I was thinking “Wow, my aunt has been to more Mardi Gras parades than I have!” A few years ago, she was on holiday with her mother, visiting my sister who was then studying in Perth, and coincidentally their trip had been on the Mardi Gras weekend too. The three of them were having dinner in a restaurant which happened to be along the parade route and when it started they thought “Hey, let’s go see what it’s all about.” My aunt and my sister soon figured out it was a gay parade, but anyway they enjoyed the bright colours and decorated floats and lively atmosphere. Even my aunt’s mother had a good time, now and then she would ask my aunt in Cantonese why “the people were dressed so oddly”.
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tags:
glbt,
god love gays,
perth,
sydney,
bigotry,
christianity,
coming out,
discrimination,
family,
gay,
homophobia,
lesbian,
mardi gras,
lgbt
- About: Jin
- Forum discussion: LGBT Rights
- technorati: LGBT, GLBT, gay, lesbian, coming out, family, christianity, bigotry, homophobia, discrimination, mardi gras, Sydney, Perth, God love gays
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03.31.07
Posted in Feminism, General, Humour, Identity at 3:15 pm by jin
Make-up
So, now that I had bought a dress, I had to face the issue of make-up (no pun intended). I actually had already started thinking about make-up months before. At first, I had thought I could get away with not wearing any make-up to the wedding. But then various people started telling me that I had to. OK, they didn’t say it was compulsory, but the person who managed to convince me was my colleague (different from the dress-shopping one, but also another straight female one) who told me “If you are not wearing make-up, and when you take photos with your sister or the others who are wearing make-up, then you will look like a ghost in contrast to them.” No, my colleagues are not big on subtlety.
Before I continue, I should perhaps explain that I have a love-hate relationship with make-up. It goes beyond mere unfamiliarity due to never wearing any. I actually do believe that make-up is a form of oppression. Why do women have to go through so much effort just to look natural ? Don’t they look natural to begin with, the way they were created? Why is it normal for a man to spend just 5 minutes getting ready to leave the house, but unheard of for a woman? And obscene amounts of women’s salaries go to keeping the cosmetics industry probably the largest industry in the world.
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- About: jin thinks that it is more important to make-up her mind
- Forum discussion: Sayoni Forum
- technorati: glbt, lgbt, feminism, lesbian, gay, queer, makeup, wedding, women
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02.06.07
Posted in General at 2:06 am by jin
Part I
My sister got married in October last year. It was an event which caused me many mixed emotions, and I haven’t even finished ‘processing’ the whole episode with my counsellor. But perhaps for Part 1 of this narrative I should start with the funny trivial incidents, and leave the serious emo stuff to later posts.
My sister wanted the colour theme to be Blue&Silver. She decided that her bridesmaid, and other key people, be dressed in some shade of light blue. So, it was off to find a proper dress for myself. I wasn’t the bridesmaid (thankfully) but nonetheless had to get something halfway decent, as would no doubt be appearing in a dozen or so photos.
The words “jin” and “dress” rarely appear in the same sentence, so I enlisted the help of a colleague and went shopping one Saturday afternoon. Thank goodness for straight colleagues blessed with a sense of fashion.
So off we went to a shopping mall, and located a shop specialising in pretty gowns and party frocks. Shiny, satiny, flowy, sexy… and that was just the gowns in the store window. I was visibly nervous at having to step into the shop. I spent a good few minutes inspecting the window display, the miniature pool of water with its plastic flowers swirling at the mannequins’ feet. And all this while stalling for time making inane conversation with my tolerant colleague. Though it turned out to be a good thing eventually, because I stumbled upon the subject of footwear. She quickly informed me that “you have to wear strappy heels with the gown. If you wear closed shoes, you will look like an auntie”. But but but they do not make girly strappy heels in size 41 … “No, you will not look nice at all” …Oh great now I have to embark on a mission to find shoes as well….
So I finally mustered up courage to step into the shop. I do like looking at elegant gowns and all that, but to picture myself in one of them took all the strength of my imagination. My philosophy is COMFORT. My favourite material is cotton. My shoes are all sensible. There is a shop I buy many of my clothes from; the lady working there thinks I am a teacher. (Well, close enough: I work in healthcare. No one would fault you for dressing for practicality.)
Anyway, back to my fashion escapade. I finally found a dress that I didn’t mind trying on. It was a pale shimmery blue, bias-cut ankle-length thing, with a strap / sash over one shoulder so it looked like a Roman toga. Inside the fitting room, I wiggled and struggled into it, paranoid that I would rip some stitches. (Unlike t-shirts, it would not have stretched. Of course.) Managed to jiggle myself into it eventually. But horror of horrors, I could not breathe. Well, OK, I could only take small shallow breaths. I was struck with the thought of 18th Century ladies with their corsets, and the men armed with smelling salts to revive them when they fainted. Serious conflict with dyke image…
“Hey, it suits you!” my colleague said, when I drew back the curtain. “Yes, but I can’t breathe” I whispered. “Ah, yes breathing is important,” she agreed “your sister will say, I told you to get a blue dress, not turn blue yourself!” So we abandoned the shop, and continued to search elsewhere.
Dozens of shops later, we drifted to yet another mall. I finally managed to find an outfit which a) was my size, b) didn’t make me look fat, and c) allowed me to breathe. I immediately decided to buy it, and was very relieved that my quest was completed. And in the end, when I wore it at the wedding, people did tell me I looked nice.
Morals of the story:
1) Be adventurous! It is safe to try new things, provided you have adequate supervision.
2) An outsider’s point of view is often very valuable
3) Persevere and you will find what you want
4) Fashionable female straight friends are very useful!
- About: Jin
- Forum discussion: Sayoni Forum
- technorati: glbt, lgbt, queer, lesbian, women, sister's wedding, gay, singapore, survived
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10.15.06
Posted in General, Identity at 11:09 am by jin
Nowadays, the catchphrase seems very often to be “minority issues”. It’s Us vs Them. A tiny minority fighting against the overwhelming majority. If you are not out, you must be in. And as queer Asian women, it feels like we are a minority of a minority of a minority. But I think this dichotomy of classification is too limiting. I propose we look at it from the perspective of “differences”. Differences which are to be accepted and respected.
Because while being a lesbian makes me part of a “minority” group, cut society along other lines, and I become part of the majority (because I’m Chinese). Cut it yet another way, and I’m in the minority again; (my flat isn’t an HDB one, and the government will never construct a covered walkway from my block to the bus-stop). Hence I think this way of defining society by polarizing it oversimplifies things. I prefer to think of people like a Venn diagram, which uses circles to represent different sets and the overlapping portions to define shared areas of the different sets. My circle will partly overlap the circles of other people who have some common traits, but their own circles will also overlap yet others with whom I have nothing in common, and there will be parts of my circle not overlapped at all perhaps because I haven’t yet met anyone who shares those traits with me.
Therefore with this illustration, it’s easier and fairer to think in terms of Differences. I think that differences should be expected as the norm, rather than an exception. After all we are not gingerbreadmen who came from the same cookie-cutter.
And in our mission to gain acceptance from society, we have an expectation that the majority should give space to the minority. However, as individuals we have to remember that depending on the situation we are sometimes part of the majority and be careful not to marginalise other people.
Have you ever, if you are a non-Muslim, casually asked your colleague “Hey, are you joining us for lunch?” only to have her reply “No, I’m fasting”. Then you say “Oh pai seh” (translated: “Oh I’m sorry, my bad”) I know I’ve made that slip before, and I’ve heard other people say it too. Forgetting that it’s Ramadan, the fasting month for Muslims. Of course it is not something that is said out of malice. It’s not deliberate that you ask someone who’s fasting if she’s going to have lunch. It is a genuine show of concern and courtesy, but absentmindedly applied wrongly. It’s also not that we didn’t know that our colleague is Muslim. It’s not that we don’t know that Ramadan exists.
I put it to a plain simple lack of social consciousness. An awareness that society is made of people who are all different from us. It is a very human trait (maybe even animal instinct) to only be able to see things from our own perspective. It is a learned skill, which takes conscious effort to practise, to be aware of the fact that rules which apply to us don’t necessarily apply to everyone else. And it doesn’t even have to be big issues like religion or sexuality.
In my previous workplace, I would sometimes bring a sandwich from home as lunch. And how many times over the years, was I asked by my colleagues “You eat bread for lunch?” They could not fathom how you could eat a non-rice for lunch. It was just out of their paradigm. “Ah you must be on a diet”; and the best was “Oh you must have learnt to eat bread while studying in London”. They had to invent explanations that fit the rules of their little universe, as if my sandwich needed any explaining at all.
So my point is, on one hand, we have to cultivate our own social awareness, yet we also have to recognise that other are also in the process of developing their own awareness. For example: My aunt, I am out to her. She still loves me for who I am, but she still asks me strange and silly questions about being a lesbian. I cannot immediately write her off as homophobic. As much as I may think that some of her questions are redundant or ridiculous, I have to remind myself that she’s just trying to show her concern for me, and she is only able to do it within the construct of her own little universe. So by living my life authentically, being myself, and being out to her, it gives her a chance to see and learn that although the Lesbian part of my circle doesn’t overlap her circle on our Venn diagram, there is still a large part of my circle that still overlaps with hers, because I am still the same person that she knew before.
And I am also always seeing and learning. During the recent mid-Autumn festival, one of the Chinese girls said “Let’s buy some mooncakes for the others to share. But we must ensure that the mooncakes are halal, and that we have a clean knife to cut them with. Then the Muslim girls can share too.” I think that she showed me a brilliant example of being very socially aware and conscious of others. Me, it didn’t even occur to me that besides needing a knife, we also had to be aware of the knife that we used. It’s not that I do not know these things in my head. It’s the need to apply the head knowledge to daily life and letting it be seen in our actions.
Giordano’s slogan “World Without Strangers” doesn’t mean that we can instantly be friends with everyone we meet and know everything about them. I think it means that whenever we meet someone, we must be conscious that they are different from us, with different needs and different backgrounds, and are all at different stages of their own life journeys.
Therefore in being aware that the differences do exist, we will be able to embrace those differences, and make others feel welcome and included, being just who they are.
- About: Jin believes that there's no one else in the world exactly like her.
- Forum discussion: Sayoni Forum
- technorati: glbt, lesbian, differences, diversity, gay, a world without strangers, social awareness, acceptance, coming out, queer,
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08.31.06
Posted in General, Humour, LGBT Rights, Relationships at 5:52 pm by jin
Gay activists are all around us! They are people just like you and me! And what with IndigNation just ended, they have had ample opportunity to flex those activist muscles (for which they are so beloved). Suspect your partner might be an activist in her free time? Suddenly finding she has no more free time? Here are more tell-tale signs.
1. The boot of your car suddenly has a stack of A2-sized IndigNation posters plus boxes of A4- and A5-sized IndigNation flyers…(dead giveaway)
…then you and your gf drive around one evening to the various friendly bars and nite-clubs giving them posters to put up to spread the word about Pride Month.
2. Your gf suddenly has many meetings to attend and/or chair…
…so much so that you go to her favourite cafe after a gym session, surveying the place for her. The helpful waiter, recognising you, says “Looking for your friends? The group of girls, one is quite tall, wears glasses…? Yeah, they left about 5 mins ago”
3. Your gf’s bedtime ranges between 3am and 6am.
You go to sleep, she’s online, IM-ing with other energetic souls, organising things. You wake up, she’s still online, IM-ing with other energetic souls, organising yet more things…
4. You try to phone or send her a text message, but there is no response…
Don’t worry! She’s not ignoring you. Try getting onto, say, MSN. She’s probably online, IM-ing someone to convince them to emcee one of the events, or organising yet more logistics.
5. Your house gets redesignated as Lesbian Community Centre.
Living away from home has its advantages. Your gf can organise meetings, parties etc… and which other community space has three friendly cats to accentuate the lesbian-ness?
6. You realise you are on display
As the partner of someone who’s a familiar face in our community, I find myself surrounded by new friends, some of whom are younger than I am. We/I get all kinds of questions from “Can I borrow some non-fiction books on sex?” (Sure, just keep them clean) to “So what’s it like, being attached, and old?” (Just wait til you get there yourself, honey)
7. You find yourself at a whole range of gay pride events…
…and see such queer icons as Alex Au and Russell Heng (I mean, Dr Russell Heng)…and find them introducing themselves by their first names! Well, I’ve decided that Uncle Alex and Uncle Russell are more appropriate. And respectful.
I hope these clues help you determine if your gf might secretly be a gay activist… Or indeed, if YOU yourself might unwittingly be one too!
- About: jin: (thinks) Gay activism? huh...whazzat...?
- Forum discussion: Sayoni Forum
- technorati: lgbt, gay, lesbian, queer, gay activism, gay activists, glbt, relationships, singapore, indignation
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06.19.06
Posted in General, LUSH, Relationships, Support Groups at 12:05 pm by jin
Last week I attended a friend’s wedding. The bible passage chosen for the reading was 1Corinthians 13:4-8 about Charity aka Love. “Love is patient & kind etc”. Probably the most quoted verses at weddings. The ceremony was also traditional in the sense that the bride and groom had slightly different vows. Both of them promised to be Loving and Faithful, but she in addition had to be Obedient too.
I’m sure this practice has its roots in Ephesians 5:22-33. (Probably the 2nd-most quoted passage at weddings.) “Wives, submit to your husbands … for the husband is the head of the wife … blah blah etc”. Coincidentally or not, this verse came up during Bible study during the cell group session the day before I attended the wedding. And ironically or not, this passage was the main reason why I stopped going to church many years ago.
For the period of my life when I had boyfriends, I was disillusioned about Christianity and one big reason was this verse. Submit?!? I wasn’t about to yield to anyone, regardless whether they held the status of my boyfriend or lover. It conjured up images of docile, spineless women who tiptoe around like cowering mice. Doormats, basically. It all made me want to cringe or puke.
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- About: Jin aspires to be a loving, faithful, obedient christian wife
- Forum discussion: Christianity
- technorati: lesbian, gay, queer, christianity, gay christians, glbt, submission, submit
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05.22.06
Posted in General, Relationships at 12:33 am by jin
http://www.usfca.edu/counseling_center/groups.html
So… I’m standing in the rain, on the grass. At a political rally. Me, the epitome of political apathy. I’m here only because my girlfriend wanted to come, and she almost begged me to come with her. So I gave in. So, I’m here, wondering “What am I doing here?! Is this what it means to be a couple?” You see, we have vastly differing political views. In fact, I don’t even care about politics, whereas my girlfriend is the sort who feels such a high from the electric atmosphere at political rallies. That is just one of our many differences.
Another difference is the way in which we communicate. To me, every little word that is uttered provides its own little nuance, whereas she listens to the whole story and only remembers the summary of the main points. Believe me, this has caused countless arguments between us. From the same message, both of us can draw two conclusions. Actually this issue about communication causes the most problems. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that relationships don’t have conflicts. It is perfectly fine for two people in a relationship to sometimes disagree or fight. But this idea in itself was a paradigm shift for me!
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- About: jin firmly believes that everyday you learn something new
- Forum discussion: Same-sex Dynamics
- technorati: lesbian relationships, same-sex relationships, glbt, queer, conflicts in a relationship
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