Translation:
Hey, duck babes. Did you come to look for something to eat? Yes. You came to look for something to eat. But I can't give you anything to eat because of bird flu.
Today was a wonderful day with helping out two Aunties & hanging out with my Mom. We are becoming best friends, slowly.
Mom took this photo of me, in our backyard, when we got home. We're sending lots of newer family photos overseas this month & this will be one of them.
Age 30. At Coquitlam Town Centre.
On one of my part work/part leisure trips to Vancouver. I signed 2 work contracts on that trip😊
Back when my hair was jet black & hung down to my thighs. I wore it in half/full up-dos or in messy buns often back then.
Mom was 26 yrs old & I was 8 yrs old. In front of BC legislature. Wearing my fave red ruffle neck sweater vest, wide leg jeans; Mom let me wear her red lipstick that day. I'm unhappy about my mismatched Frankenstein orthotic boot - ppl used to stare at/make fun of them/me. It took years for me to be able to wear regular, matching boots.
#Expo86 in #VancouverBC
Mom was 29 yrs old, brother Jerry was 8 yrs old. In a cyclo, at the #Singapore exhibition. Our very first family holidays trip, a ferry ride over. We stayed in a motel & had fancy dimsum for first times on this short trip. We had lots of fun at Expo86. The monorail rides were my fave.
#Cholon#Saigon#Vietnam
2nd Auntie & my #Matriarch Grandma, visiting Dad's family home. Last photo taken of them, until late 1980s(Mom returned to visit village home). I take after my Matriarch Grandma a lot.
Dad's family home only exists in photos now.
US bombed it & nothing remains.
I was 13 yrs old & being taught how to target shoot pop cans with a pellet rifle. Jake Masselink - one of our family's sponsors who funded our family to come to Canada & helped us apply for asylum & then Canadian citizenship - was teaching me. It was on #PenderIsland at their family homestead, in Hope Bay. My 2 brothers are waiting their turn.
1978 - Me, my brothers & cousins at #Bidong Island, #Malaysia#RefugeesCamp before we were transferred to #Galang refugees camp in Indonesia, in early 1979. One cousin, Bill, was born at Indonesian camp & was in my Aunt's belly at time this photo was taken.
Bringing Chinese pork & cabbage soup plus grass jelly with chia seeds(raw honey added) to Auntie. She's been transferred back to Jubilee & in negative pressure isolation room because her latent TB went active while in hospital. Feeling some bad deja vu because that happened to Dad 2 years ago & he was in hospital for over 3 months.
I'm stressed out/very worried again.
Heading to hospital now.
Ventilator will be put back on if her breathing doesn't improve soon.
@SRDas Thanks. I found out after Dad's experience that many South East Asian diaspora here often have latent TB become active in hospital after severe first time covid infections. It is never reported in the news & public - especially #SouthEastAsian diaspora folks, should know this.
Nearly a quarter-century after its launch, #CentreA : Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art remains the only public art gallery in #Canada that is dedicated to contemporary #AsianArt
( Forced #exile , grief, pressures of #assimilation and #GenerationalTrauma are recurring themes for many, if not most narratives about the refugee experience. They're at the heart of author Cecile Pin's first book, “Wandering Souls”, which recounts the lesser known stories of #Vietnamese#BoatPeople who fled to the #UnitedKingdom . She joined us for Perspective.)
#Asian#writers of all cultural backgrounds are encouraged to submit non-fiction articles, stories, poems, and profiles relatable to #AsianCanadians , many of whom are global citizens with ties to other parts of the world.