“The women around me grew up enduring an inborn hostility against their gender and spent their entire lives accommodating it. They’d become almost blind to the manoeuvring and compliance necessary to keep themselves safe, as they cheered each baby step towards progress, hoping that things would get better. Unlike me, they did not have an escape hatch.”

— “Did You Think You Were Safe?” Aeon

“I wondered how the others saw QJ and me: two chinkis who may or may not be the waitstaff taking a break. I was not a local in any sense: I could barely speak any of the city’s languages, did not have a history here. But even if I did, I doubted I would ever be regarded as one of its own.”

— “Chinese in India” Hinterland