Freedom of Choice

2014

After a certain age,
A girl no longer has the freedom to choose a suitable person to marry.

FULL STORY

May You Be Next

2006

“When do you plan on getting married?” my father, aunts, uncles, and cousins always ask me.
Or if we’re at a wedding, they always say ou’balik [may you be next].
I wonder how the elders of the family would react if I walked around at funerals and poked them, saying “Ou’balik!”

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Delicate

2017

We got engaged, and then married.
My mother never talked to me about anything except on the day before the wedding.
It was the first time we talked about boys.
She was very calm as she told me what to do and that I shouldn’t upset him.
romantic relationships, marriage, sex, parents

FULL STORY

They Say I’m Rude

2017

My mother has been getting on my nerves ever since the divorce.
“She’s become so rude ever since her second marriage,” she’d say whenever I joked around or said anything.
social pressure, gender violence, marriage, divorce, parents

FULL STORY

Disgraceful Words

2007

Tell me! How do you men feel when you say such words? Do you ever mean it? What if it shows in your eyes and voice? How do you men fake it so well?  Or do you enjoy conquering us, and count us as yet another bounty?

FULL STORY

A Quick Trip

2014

Two of my friends fell in love and decided to be together.
Two months into their relationship, he proposed.
I knew my guy friend to be open-minded.
However, he started asking my other friend, his fiancee, not to hang out or talk with other guys.

FULL STORY

The Hair Plucker

2015

I know how to tweeze and thread.
I'm an employee by day, but I do these things at night.
The troll I'm married to sits at home all day and doesn't make a penny to spend on the kids, and he gives me a beating every other day or so.

FULL STORY

Pretty Like You

2016

I want to be pretty like you.
So people think I’m beautiful when I get married.
But what will happen if I never become pretty like you?

FULL STORY
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