top of page
A friend who studies Art History asked me how my trip to Athens once. Indeed city's monuments, its many ruins and its statues of the most renowned philosophers are all embodiments of such a rich history and culture. Athens is the epitome of History literally rooted in every corner and precipice of the city. In all its glory and beauty, I also remember feeling a sense of gloom. At the centre of the city, surrounded by well-known ruins and other monuments, I remember a young lady, withering flowers in her hand. "Here's a flower for you," she said as she approaches me and proceeds to put a stem in my hand without a second beat. Just as I was about to thank her, she lays out her palm and gestures at her belly. "Baby coming, I need food. How much can you pay for the flower?" I made the wrong move to pull out my wallet because as I pulled out a euro for the single stem, she looks into my wallet, points at my €5 bill and asks for it. At the same time, a younger kid walks up next to her, also holding stems of flowers, and watches me. I didn't know how to react in the moment, and gave the bill away. Suddenly I looked around and noticed so many more of them around the area. There were others who would ask for tourists' hands and wound a bracelet around their wrists or pushed a ring onto their fingers. Just a sad sight to see in a country that has so much to offer.
​
other gems: overheard conversations at the Parthenon about how its columns aren't perfectly aligned in a straight line, and when I'm lucky, occasional smart discussions about other structures' history and architecture / the many puns and references to Greek philosophers plastered on souvenirs / first time swimming in a natural lake with one of the clearest waters I've ever seen / overlooking the beaut of the city from atop a hill / GYROS EVERYWHERE!! /
A friend who studies Art History asked me how my trip to Athens once. Indeed city's monuments, its many ruins and its statues of the most renowned philosophers are all embodiments of such a rich history and culture. Athens is the epitome of History literally rooted in every corner and precipice of the city. In all its glory and beauty, I also remember feeling a sense of gloom. At the centre of the city, surrounded by well-known ruins and other monuments, I remember a young lady, withering flowers in her hand. "Here's a flower for you," she said as she approaches me and proceeds to put a stem in my hand without a second beat. Just as I was about to thank her, she lays out her palm and gestures at her belly. "Baby coming, I need food. How much can you pay for the flower?" I made the wrong move to pull out my wallet because as I pulled out a euro for the single stem, she looks into my wallet, points at my €5 bill and asks for it. At the same time, a younger kid walks up next to her, also holding stems of flowers, and watches me. I didn't know how to react in the moment, and gave the bill away. Suddenly I looked around and noticed so many more of them around the area. There were others who would ask for tourists' hands and wound a bracelet around their wrists or pushed a ring onto their fingers. Just a sad sight to see in a country that has so much to offer.
​
other gems: overheard conversations at the Parthenon about how its columns aren't perfectly aligned in a straight line, and when I'm lucky, occasional smart discussions about other structures' history and architecture / the many puns and references to Greek philosophers plastered on souvenirs / first time swimming in a natural lake with one of the clearest waters I've ever seen / overlooking the beaut of the city from atop a hill / GYROS EVERYWHERE!! /
undergrad portfolio
> Comparative Literature (Arts) and Media & Cultural Studies (Social Sciences) BA graduate from The University of Hong Kong (HKU)
> Projects worked on:
- HKU Common Core Office, Transdisciplinary Research Project
Title: "Hong Kong University: Re-imagining Spaces for Dialogue"
- HK Unison Community Engagement Project: be/longing (instagram page: @belonging.hk)
+ Community project aimed at reframing stereotypes and perceptions of Hong Kong's ethnic minority communities, through methods of storytelling with photography and poetry
+ Initiated with Christine Vicera, under the mentorship of former Yau Tsim Mong District Councillor, Leslie Chan
+ In collaboration with Lensational and Cha
+ An exhibition that centres around identity and food culture was held at Chungking Mansions (Aug 1-22, 2021)
+ Featured articles on TheStandNews and HK01
​
> Currently reading:
- Andrew Clapham, Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction
- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
- José Rizal, Noli Me Tángere
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Salman Rushdie, Shame
- Tadem & Morada, Philippine Politics and Governance: Challenges to Democratization & Development
- Barbara Jane Reyes, Letters to a Young Brown Girl
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
​
Updated in February, 2022
-
Comparative Literature- Reimagining an Anticolonial Politics: Reclaiming a Praxis of Living (Y4: Anticolonialism and Decoloniality) - The Impossibility of Representing Trauma in Lav Diaz's Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (Y4: Capstone Paper - Violence in Asia) - Solidarity through Confronting Contentious Politics: Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father and Rithy Panh’s S-21 the Killing Machine of the Khmer Rouge (Y3 at University College Utrecht: Cultural Memory) - Prosthetic Memory in an Age of Digital Remembering: Black Mirror'sThe Entire History of You (Y3 at University College Utrecht: Cultural Memory) - Imagining Alternative Histories: Sonny Liew's The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Y3: Colonialism/Postcolonialism) - Creative Project: Capturing Colonial Structures in the Everyday (Y3: Colonialism/Postcolonialism) - Limitations of Deconstructing Gendered Discourses in African-American Cinema (Y3: African American Cinema) - Video Essay on Ousmane Sembene’s La Noire de… (1966) (Y3: African Cinema) - Constructing Identity: Lessing's The Grass is Singing & Gordimer's July's People (Y2: Nobel Laureates in African Literature) - Creative Project (Poem): Embracing Hong Kong Identity - A City of Constant Change (Y2: Hong Kong Culture: Representations of Identity in Literature & Film) - Films in the Counterculture Era: Deconstructing Marco Ferreri's Dillinger is Dead (Y2: Film Art, Language & Culture) - Film Analysis of Hong Sang-Soo's Right Now, Wrong Then &The Day He Arrives (Y2: Film Culture I) - Balancing Representations of War: Alrick Brown's Kinyarwanda & Terry George's Hotel Rwanda (Y2: History through Film) - The Limitations of Language: Raymond Carver’s The Bath (Y2: Literary Studies) - Individualilty and Physical Environment: Jean Rhys' Good Morning, Midnight (Y1: Intro to Narratives)
-
Sociology / Anthropology- Cultural Imperialism? Chinese Influence on Hollywood (Y4: Sociology Capstone Project) - Evaluating Just Processes in Policy Planning: Settlement Communities in Metro Manila (Y4: Cultures, Social Justice, and Urban Space) - Tourism in Poverty Alleviation: Community-Based Tourism and Enabling Communities (Y4: Tourism Policy and Planning) - Mediating Spatial Agency in Hong Kong: Lennon Walls (Y3 at University College Utrecht: Anthropology of Art and Material Culture) - Colourism in Asia (Y2: Representations of Blackness in Asia) - Failed States and the International Community (Y1: Intro to Politics) - Deviancy and The Labelling Theory (Y1: Intro to Sociology)
-
Free Electives- Memory Mediated through Film and Literature: Access to Argentinian & Chilean History (Y4: Argentina and Chile Dictatorships: Building Resistance in Film and Literature) - Political Activism in Nicaraguan Poetry as Sites of Resistance (Y4: US / Latin American Cultural Interactions) - Capitalism: A Threat and Necessity to Democracy (Y3: Democracy and Its Critics) - The Philippines' Use of Language: Reclaiming National Consciousness (Y3: The Life and Death of Languages: Diversity, Identity and Globalization) - Mock Museum Exhibit: Capturing the Everyday (Y2: African-American History and Culture) - War in the Development of Surveillance (Y1: The Birth of a Surveillance Society) - Materialism & Animism in James Cameron's Avatar (Y1: Spirituality, Religion and Social Change) - Mathematics "Constructed" Through the Ages - Math in Architecture (Y1: Mathematics: A Cultural Heritage)
bottom of page