here’s what will happen in Asia this week (August 3-9):

The financial district and Marina Bay, from Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Photo by me.

Marcos turns on his own family

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is escalating his anti-corruption campaign and this time, it is hitting his own family. After using last week’s State of the Nation Address to criticize his cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the legal process is now moving forward. The Office of the Ombudsman has given Romualdez 15 days to respond to allegations of plunder, graft and money laundering linked to roughly ₱56 billion in flood-control funds. Marcos presents the investigation as proof that nobody is above the law, not even relatives. But the case could become more complicated. Whistleblower Zaldy Co has also accused the president of involvement, and one of the largest shares of the disputed funds reportedly went to the congressional district represented by Marcos’ son. The key question this week is whether the investigation stops with Romualdez — or reaches further into the country’s most powerful political family.

Taiwan’s biggest war games begin

On Wednesday, Taiwan launches its annual Han Kuang military exercises, the island’s largest and most comprehensive test of its ability to respond to a potential attack from China. Over 10 days, the drills will rehearse scenarios including Beijing using military exercises as cover for an invasion—an increasingly plausible contingency as China intensifies pressure on the self-governed island it claims as its own. This year’s exercises will also test Taiwan’s ability to relocate defense production and sustain military manufacturing during a conflict.

Japan remembers Hiroshima while strengthening its military

Japan marks the anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing on Thursday, followed by the Nagasaki ceremony on Sunday. Every year, the commemorations focus on peace and nuclear disarmament. This year, however, they take place as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi pursues Japan’s biggest military expansion in decades. Her government has accelerated defence spending to 2% of GDP, ordered long-range Tomahawk missiles, relaxed restrictions on arms exports and argued that Japan must prepare for a far more dangerous security environment. Those policies have also drawn attention because of Takaichi’s outspoken support for Taiwan. The contrast will be striking: ceremonies remembering the devastation of nuclear war alongside a government investing heavily in military deterrence.

Singapore celebrates National Day amid growing uncertainty

Singapore celebrates its 61st National Day on Sunday with its annual military parade, fireworks and patriotic celebrations. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong enters the anniversary after securing a strong election victory earlier this year. But beneath the celebrations, economic concerns remain. Rising living costs continue to dominate domestic politics, while Singapore’s export-dependent economy faces increasing pressure from US-China tensions and a less predictable global trading system. The city-state has long succeeded by maintaining close ties with both Washington and Beijing. As rivalry between the two powers intensifies, that balancing act is becoming more difficult.

Essential read

The Guardian: “Just the tip of the iceberg”: How a Bali run club reignited tourist tensions on the holiday island

A controversy over a popular run club has become a symbol of something much bigger. Entourage Bali, a Canggu-based club founded by two Dutch entrepreneurs, came under fire after Indonesians said they were rejected from joining while foreigners were accepted. The founders blamed a technical error, but Indonesian authorities deported them and accused the club of creating “a state within a state.”The article argues that the real story isn’t the run club. It is Bali’s rapid transformation since the pandemic. Digital nomads, co-working spaces and luxury wellness businesses have reshaped parts of the island, pushing up rents and changing neighbourhoods. Many Balinese now feel they are losing control of their own island and that they are becoming outsiders in places that once belonged to them.

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For more background on the Thailand-Cambodia border conflict, this DW explainer traces why the dispute keeps returning despite repeated ceasefires.

The number

59 - ASEAN turns 59 on August 8.
The organisation was founded in 1967 to promote regional stability and cooperation. Nearly six decades later, it remains Southeast Asia’s main diplomatic forum, but its influence is increasingly tested by internal divisions, Myanmar’s civil war and growing competition between China and the United States. As the region becomes more contested, ASEAN’s ability to stay united may be its biggest challenge.

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here’s what will happen in Asia this week (July 27-August 2):

A vendor in Old Delhi during Holi season. Photo by me

India's student protests force education minister to resign

India’s youth-led “Cockroach” movement achieved a major victory over the weekend when Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned following a series of leaked university entrance and government recruitment exams. It is a rare setback for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The next challenge begins now. Modi must appoint a new education minister, while the Cockroach Janta Party has suspended — but not ended — its protests as it waits for the government to deliver promised reforms and compensation for affected students. The key question this week is whether the government will fix India’s deeply troubled exam system or whether the resignation was enough to calm public anger.

Shein publishes IPO filing

Fast-fashion giant Shein is expected to publish its first public filing this week, possibly as early as Monday, ahead of a Hong Kong listing. China's securities regulator signed off earlier this month, clearing an IPO the company failed to land in New York and then London. Hong Kong is the third choice. The filing will force Shein to disclose more about a supply chain long dogged by forced-labour allegations, and its reception will test whether the city can serve as a refuge for firms frozen out of Western exchanges. A win for Hong Kong's market; an awkward spotlight for Shein.

Marcos delivers his State of the Nation address

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will deliver his annual State of the Nation address on Monday at a difficult moment for his presidency. The past year has been dominated by the political feud with Vice President Sara Duterte, corruption scandals linked to government projects and continued pressure on the economy. Marcos is expected to highlight his infrastructure plans and his “Bagong Pilipinas” (”New Philippines”) agenda. But many Filipinos will be looking for answers on corruption, rising political tensions and whether the president still has control of the country’s political direction.

The essential read

A joint investigation by Rest of World and Grist examines the hidden cost of Myanmar's booming rare earth mining industry. Myanmar has become the world's biggest supplier of heavy rare earth minerals used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and military equipment. Much of the mining takes place in remote areas controlled by armed groups, where workers face dangerous conditions and toxic chemicals pollute rivers and forests. The minerals are then shipped to China, processed and mixed with other supplies before being sold around the world, making their origin difficult to trace.

Watch this

India's "Cockroach" movement went from an online satire to a mass youth uprising that toppled a cabinet minister in under three months. This DW News report has footage from the Delhi clashes and explains what's driving it:

The number

99 - On Saturday, August 1, China's People's Liberation Army marks its 99th anniversary. Officially, the message is one of strength: a modern military moving towards Xi Jinping’s goal of being ready for a possible conflict by 2027. Behind the scenes, however, the picture is very different. Xi has removed dozens of senior military leaders in an anti-corruption purge, including the two vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission, He Weidong and Zhang Youxia. By one estimate, 41 of the 47 officers who have held the army’s highest three-star rank since 2022 have now been removed or are believed to be out of office. As China pushes its military to prepare for war, it is also rebuilding much of its top leadership.

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It’s a Friday afternoon, I’m sitting on my couch with a cute cat mug by a local potter and outside a roaring tropical thunderstorm unfolds. It is moments like these when I love my freelance life most: no need to run into an office, catch germs in the subway and a stiff neck from too much Aircon. Just me, my laptop and my To-Dos ticked off without any rush. My 40-year-old back hates the sofa but my cozy soul loves it.

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My favorite mug from Un_Studio

I realised the other day I spend 90 percent of my life at home and ever since we moved from an uncharismatic shoe box apartment to a larger - albeit older - townhouse, that’s okay for me. I can work at my desk or on the sofa or at the dining table, I can walk on my small foldable treadmill to get my steps in if I don’t leave the house at all, I can “ground myself” barefoot in the garden and say hello to the tropical chickens and stray cats passing. And I can look at my art. That sounds a bit blasé doesn’t it? But it doesn’t have to be. A few years ago when I still lived in Berlin I started my own art collection and I continued it here in Asia. This month I’d like to tell you how I did it.

1. Buy what speaks to you

One of my first pieces was a photography of Hong Kong with a man stepping over from HK island to Kowloon painted on top by German artist Christoph Niemann. It’s a print so not too expensive. I think I followed him on Instagram and saw the image and the option to buy it. It spoke to me because I studied at Hong Kong University in my early twenties and it was where I fell in love with Asia and where I felt adventurous and free like the man taking the big step.

Hong Kong, from the book Sunday Sketching by Christoph Niemann

2. Pick a genre, maybe

I have always loved photography. I even took a creative digital photography class at St.Martin’s College in London when I lived there (but sadly forgot most of it, turns out I’m not a technical person). Maybe it’s because I work as a journalist and love to tell people’s stories and my texts are often accompanied by photography. I have worked with amazing photographers around the world to illustrate my articles. The second thing I’m fascinated by is Asia as you can probably tell from this newsletter and why I made it my home. So photography + Asia: the theme of my art collection. That being said many people collect across the field and subject and that’s okay. It’s still personal as long as it has meaning for you.

Two photography pieces from Asia: “Good Old Days of Kai Tak, Hong Kong, 1998” (showing the old inner city airport in HK which had planes flying in the middle of the city) by Birdy Chu and “Young Love” by Sean Lee from Singapore. I bought the first from the HK-based photography gallery “Blue Lotus” and the other by contacting the artist on Instagram asking whether I can buy a print.

3. Find a good framemaker

Often art doesn’t have to be expensive. As long as it’s valuable to you it can be treated like art. I have a couple of posters and mass produced prints bought of simple websites which I upgraded by putting them in a nice frame. I have my frame guy in Chinatown (Singapore) who knows instinctively what frame fits what image and doesn't charge a bomb for it. It’s also easier for me to go see him than to find frames from the internet which might fit but look cheap.

From left to right: A penciled landscape I bought at a market in Seoul, an elephant sketched from Ang Kor Wat temple I bought from a street vendor in Siem Reap, Cambodia, an ancient elephant stamp from India bought in a paper shop in Delhi, the two blue images are by Singaporean artist Fleur Kakasi in Singapore (bought of her website) and the right one is a photography by Jordana Kalman bought on her Instagram.

4. Keep the documentation

At some point during my art collection journey I made an Excel list with all the info of my pieces: when I bought them, from where/whom, how much I paid and whether there were any certificates of authenticity which I keep in a folder. It seemed ridiculous at first as my pieces are not super valuable but maybe one day they could be. For instance two of first pieces were by Ren Hang, a contemporary Chinese photographer and poet who took playful, dreamlike photographs that celebrated the human body in ways that were repeatedly censored and banned by Chinese authorities. Sadly he took his own life in 2017 at just 29 which probably made my pieces much more valuable than they were when I bought them.

Untitled and Untitled, 2012 by Ren Hang

5. Be creative where to buy from

Buying art doesn’t have to be difficult. I have bought art from all kinds of places: I Dmed artists on Instagram whether their prints are for sale, I have roamed street markets and browsed gallery websites, I have visited exhibitions of artists I like and then hunted down a print of their work from an art dealer. The below two prints are from the Japanese store Muji which had a special exhibition of silk screen prints in one of their shops (left) and from Avant Arte (right), an online platform that collaborates with contemporary artists to produce limited-edition artworks at prices that are generally much lower than unique originals.

Kiyo Yamada, Ikazaki Giant Kite Battle (left) and Keita Morimoto “Evening Embers” (right)

6. Treat your own work (and that of your kids) as art

Below are two pictures: one of myself in a swimming pool when I must have been around 8 years old. A friend of my parents took it and gave it to us and I framed it and put it in my bathroom. I have always loved to be in the water and it reminds me of my carefree childhood and to have more fun in life. The other pictures shows some of my son’s art work from school as well as a poem by his grandmother and his great grandmother. I hope it teaches him that everything can be art and that it deserves to be exhibited and valued.

Me in a swimming pool in South of France round 1992

My son’s art work and poems by his grandmother and great grandmother

Currently reading

Singapore is often presented as a model of efficiency, prosperity and social stability. In Unease: Life in Singapore Families, sociologist Teo You Yenn argues that beneath this polished image lies a another reality: many families are exhausted, anxious and struggling to keep up with the demands of everyday life. Drawing on extensive interviews with parents from different backgrounds, she explores how inequality, public policy and social expectations shape family life in one of the world's wealthiest cities. Rather than blaming parents for being overly competitive or "kiasu", Teo reframes these behaviours as rational responses to structural pressures. The relentless pursuit of academic success, expensive enrichment classes and constant optimisation are not simply cultural quirks, she argues, but coping strategies in a society where the stakes feel extraordinarily high. This is one of the book's greatest strengths: it replaces judgement with empathy and makes you think about the daily rat race we’re all somehow a part of.

My new newsletter series: This Week in Asia

In my day job, I work as a journalist mainly for German newspapers and media covering geopolitics of Asia. Every Monday I scan the news and other sources to find out what will happen in Asia that upcoming week. I then send suggestions of what I could write about to my editors. That is why I decided to make a newsletter from this research. If you’re interested in Asia from a geopolitical perspective “This Week in Asia” is for you. You’ll get it every Monday if you subscribe to this newsletter (unless you decide to opt out of course). Here’s this week’s issue:

My favorite corner of my house uplifted and personalized by art.

That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next time – under the palm shadows!

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here’s what will happen in Asia this week (July 20-26):

Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, April 2025. The intersection is one of the world's busiest pedestrian crossings, with up to 3,000 people crossing at a single light change.Photo by me.

Monday: India's parliament returns — and protesters threaten a showdown
India's Monsoon Session opens today under unusually tense circumstances. Police have banned a planned march on parliament by supporters of the youth-led "Cockroach" movement, which grew out of nationwide anger over exam paper leaks and youth unemployment. Protest leaders say the demonstration will go ahead regardless, raising the prospect of clashes on the opening day. At the same time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government plans to push a series of controversial bills, including its "One Nation, One Election" proposal.

Tuesday: ASEAN’s big diplomatic week

The Philippines hosts the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting and related summits until July 24. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, China's Wang Yi, Russia's Sergei Lavrov and Australia's Penny Wong are all expected to attend. Ministers will discuss Myanmar, the South China Sea, energy security and the Thailand-Cambodia border. The most closely watched meeting could be between Rubio and Wang, who are expected to prepare for a possible Trump-Xi summit later this year.

Friday: Thailand and Cambodia: One year after the fighting

Thailand and Cambodia mark one year since fighting broke out along their border on 24 July 2025. The clashes lasted five days before a ceasefire, but tensions have continued ever since. Trade across the land border remains very limited, and both countries still accuse each other of violating ceasefire agreements. The conflict has also disrupted trade and forced many Cambodian migrant workers to return home.

End of the week: What will Beijing do?

China’s economy grew by 4.3% in the second quarter, its weakest pace since late 2022. Later this week, the Communist Party’s Politburo is expected to meet to decide economic policy for the rest of the year. Most economists expect Beijing to speed up existing infrastructure spending rather than announce a major new stimulus package.

The essential read

Five people were arrested after police raided two independent bookstores in Hong Kong as reported by The Guardian, accusing them of selling books with "seditious" content. The case highlights how the city's shrinking space for free expression has expanded beyond journalists and activists to booksellers and publishers. After independent media and much of the democratic opposition were dismantled under the National Security Law, bookstores had remained one of the last places where politically sensitive titles could still be found. The raids suggest those spaces are now under increasing pressure too.

Watch this

Japan is debating a law to create a backup capital in case Tokyo is hit by a major earthquake or other disaster. The new site would temporarily host the government and parliament if the capital became unusable. Osaka is widely seen as the most likely location. This video explains the idea:

The number

500+ - More than 500 people are feared dead after two boats carrying Rohingya refugees disappeared off Myanmar in late June and early July. According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), around 530 people are believed to have died or gone missing. Myanmar is expected to be one of the main topics at this week's ASEAN meetings in Manila.

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here’s what will happen in Asia this week (July 13-19):

Women and children on Thitu island where I visited in August 2025. The island is in the middle of the South China Sea and is populated by Filipino civilians but surrounded by Chinese warships as the PRC claims it. Photo by me.

China: the number that sets the tone for the rest of the year

Beijing publishes its second-quarter growth figures on Thursday. The first quarter came in at 5.0% — the very top of the range the government had set itself — and most economists expect this one to slow to somewhere in the mid-4s. Chinese factories are still producing and exports are still selling, but people at home are not spending, and the property market, which for years was where ordinary families kept their savings, is still falling. Growth is being carried by what China sells to the world rather than by what its own citizens buy — which is precisely the imbalance Beijing has spent years promising to fix.

ASEAN heads to Manila — and the ruling on the South China Sea turns ten

The Philippines hosts the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting from July 18, with the ministers in Manila on the 20th–22nd and the Quad meeting on the sidelines. The agenda - the South China Sea Code of Conduct, Myanmar, how hard to lean on Washington - runs along a date the host won’t let anyone forget: Sunday marked ten years since the tribunal in The Hague gutted China’s nine-dash line. Manila calls it West Philippine Sea Victory Day; Beijing has spent a decade calling the ruling a farce, and in March sent coast guard and militia vessels to declare “clearing operations” at Scarborough Reef. Ten years on, the Philippines has the law and the chairmanship but China has the ships.

World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai

Shanghai hosts the WAIC, which is “dedicated to exploring the frontiers of AI technology and driving innovation in the field,” according to its website. The four-day event will see “record-breaking” participation, China’s state-run Global Times said, with more than 1,400 guests and 1,100 companies showing over 3,000 exhibits.

The essential read

Reuters found what China's growth figures don't show: Bao Zhang, a 30-year-old software tester who lost his job and now drives a ride-hailing car in Beijing from 7am to midnight for about $885 a month. "Those who used to take taxis now have to drive them themselves," he says. He's one of an estimated 320 million Chinese in "flexible employment" — no permanent contract — up from 280 million last year, a workforce nearly the size of the US population. It's the shock absorber for a dead property sector and a frozen job market, and it's hollowing out the welfare system: of twelve gig workers Reuters spoke to, only two paid into social insurance.

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China's week of extreme weather: A rare tornado tore through Hubei with winds around 260km/h — strong enough to pull a man out of his 12th-floor apartment, sofa and all — killing 11 people and injuring hundreds. Days later, Typhoon Maysak drowned swathes of Guangxi, and in one flooded village near Hengzhou a snake farm gave way: roughly 900 snakes, cobras among them, swimming out into the streets. Sounds like a horror movie to me.

The number

3.6 million: people displaced inside Myanmar, according to the UN. That is roughly one in fifteen of the population. Conflict since the 2021 coup drove most of it; last year's earthquake and the floods did the rest. A third of the country will need humanitarian aid this year.

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here’s what will happen in Asia this week:

Manila in August 2025. I went to the Philippines to fly to a remote island in the South China Sea inhabited by Filipinos and surrounded by Chinese ships claiming then land as theirs. Photo by me.

Philippines: Duterte's second impeachment trial begins

Vice President Sara Duterte’s second impeachment trial begins Monday at 2pm — her first attempt was thrown out by the Supreme Court on a technicality, so this one has been built to survive scrutiny. She faces four articles: misuse of confidential funds, unexplained wealth, bribery of education officials, and grave threats against President Marcos and his family. A conviction on even one article ends her career and the 2028 presidential run she’s been openly building toward. The court has scheduled 92 trial days, making this the longest impeachment trial in Philippine history, with 6,000 police deployed around the Senate for the opening session. This will run for months and dominate Manila’s politics for most of the rest of the year.

China and Russia send their navies out together

Beijing and Moscow announced "Joint Sea-2026," a week of naval drills running Monday to Sunday in the Yellow Sea off Qingdao. China is contributing two destroyers, a frigate, a submarine, a supply ship and a rescue vessel; Russia's Pacific Fleet is sending a cruiser, a corvette, a diesel submarine and a rescue ship. Officially it's reconnaissance, anti-submarine and air-defence exercises, plus a joint patrol somewhere unspecified in the Pacific. Unofficially, it's a message: this is the same week Wang Yi told Washington to handle Taiwan with "utmost caution" in his first cabinet-level call with Marco Rubio since the Trump-Xi summit. Beijing is running two tracks at once — reassurance for the Americans, muscle for everyone else.

NATO meets in Ankara, and Asia has an awkward seat at the table

Turkey hosts a two-day NATO summit this week that Rubio has called one of the most consequential in the alliance's history, with the agenda centred on Washington's push to shift more of the defence burden onto allies — including, increasingly, the Indo-Pacific ones. Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are all attending as partner states, alongside Ukraine and four Middle Eastern partners. The one notable no-show: Sanae Takaichi herself, who's staying home to manage the Diet session before it closes on July 17 and sending Foreign Minister Motegi in her place. A summit built to press US allies on spending, and Japan's prime minister isn't in the room for it.

Malaysia: Johor votes, and Anwar watches nervously

Malaysia's southern state of Johor holds assembly elections on Saturday, 172 candidates contesting all 56 seats in what's shaping up to be the country's most closely watched state vote this year. It won't change the federal government, but it will be read as a referendum on Anwar Ibrahim's unity coalition — and could shape whether he calls an early general election ahead of the February 2028 deadline rather than waiting it out.

The essential read

Trafficked, beaten and raped: the scale of abuse of women in Asia's cyberscam centres is described in this week's essential read. It follows women funnelled into scam compounds across the Mekong region — Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia — who were trafficked, in some cases while pregnant, and forced to run romance-investment scams targeting strangers abroad while enduring violence and sexual abuse from their own bosses. What makes it land is the specificity: the compounds, the shift patterns, the scripts workers are made to follow almost word for word. It's the ground-level companion piece to every "pig-butchering scam" headline you've skimmed past this year.

Watch this

Love Japan? Dream of owning a house there? Then watch this video on foreign buyers snapping up Japan's akiya, the abandoned homes once considered too old or too remote for the domestic market. Some of these houses cost less than a used car. But is the deal too good to be true?

The number

300,000: the estimated number of people working inside scam compounds across Southeast Asia, according to UN human rights researchers — most of them in the Mekong region, and a significant share trafficked or coerced into being there in the first place.

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here’s what will happen in Asia this week:

The Strait of Malacca, seen from the Melaka waterfront in Malaysia. Every barrel that survives Hormuz still has to pass through this second chokepoint to reach East Asia. Beijing calls this vulnerability its "Malacca dilemma." Photo by me.

Hormuz: pulled back from the brink, for now

After a dangerous weekend since the war began — an Iranian drone hit the Singapore flagged “Ever Lovely” on June 25, two nights of US strikes followed, and Iran fired missiles and drones at Kuwait and Bahrain — Washington and Tehran have again agreed to halt attacks and let ships pass freely through the strait, with talks resuming this week. But the truce has now buckled twice in ten days, and the hard part is unresolved: Iran says it will resume charging transit fees once the 60-day suspension ends, and Oman has told European officials there is "no way back" to the pre-war status quo. The waterway carries about a fifth of the world's oil and gas, and Asia, its biggest customer, still pays for every wobble.

Japan courts India to de-risk from China

Japan's new prime minister Sanae Takaichi makes her first official visit to India from July 1–3 for to meet her counterpart, Narendra Modi, trailing a delegation of 50-plus companies including Suzuki, Itochu and Toyota Tsusho. The summit will discuss trade, semiconductors, critical minerals and supply chains. Takaichi says the goal is "economic security," the polite phrase for de-risking from China. The two US allies are drawing closer as Beijing looms over both.

Indonesia's tech golden boy faces his verdict

The Jakarta Corruption Court is due to rule on Nadiem Makarim, the Gojek co-founder turned education minister, in the "Chromebookgate" graft case. Prosecutors want 18 years, plus a $1 billion-rupiah fine and repayment of 5.6 trillion rupiah ($340 million), over a pandemic-era school-laptop program they say steered procurement to Google's Chromebooks and Chrome software. Makarim, who read his final defense on June 23, denies wrongdoing, arguing he never signed the contracts and that the choices were made by technical teams. The case is fuelling fears that Indonesia is starting to criminalise ordinary policy decisions, a chilling signal for anyone in public service.

North Korea launches its nuclear navy

Fresh off commissioning the 5,000-ton destroyer “Choe Hyon”, Kim Jong-Un has vowed bigger warships every year and a navy armed with nuclear-capable missiles, likely built with Russian help. Watch the response: Seoul has just unveiled its own nuclear-submarine roadmap. Northeast Asia's quiet arms race is moving out to sea.

The long read

Who is China? Ian Johnson in Foreign Affairs, reviews Xu Guoqi's new book The Idea of China. which describes that for most of its history there was no "China". The Qing called themselves the Great Qing and rejected the foreign label, and the idea of a single, eternal nation whose people were always "Chinese" is a modern invention, now stretched to the point where officials lionise even Genghis Khan as "a great man of the Chinese people." Xi's reach for traditional culture is the playbook of an anxious authoritarian but the richer, multicultural China underneath is the one that will endure. The sharpest thing I've read this week on why the official story is so insecure.

Watch this

“I was kicked out of China”: The New York Times correspondent Vivian Wang tells her own story of how she was expelled from Beijing in February after years of reporting on ordinary Chinese lives. Hers is the first expulsion of a US outlet since 2020, leaving the Times with a single correspondent on the mainland and the American press corps there the thinnest in decades - a bad sign for press freedom in China for everyone.

The number

89 percent: the share of crude oil leaving the Strait of Hormuz that is bound for Asia, according to the latest US Energy Information Administration data. China, India, Japan and South Korea alone take 74 percent of it. When the Gulf burns, it is Asia that pays the bill, and this week the meter is running.

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I hope you’re well and enjoying summer. I just returned from my biannual Euro-trip (Spain and Germany this time) which was lovely but also generally much cooler than I anticipated. I had to search my childhood home in Frankfurt for winter clothes as the weather felt more like autumn than summery June. My tropical wardrobe was utterly unprepared.

This month I’m reflecting on friendship. Why? Because I recently cancelled my fortieth birthday party, which was to take place in the South of France this September. Four people had confirmed out of the thirty I invited. At my thirtieth, in an old Soviet-style bar in Berlin, there were two hundred people, a few of them friends of friends, but I still knew most of them. I’ve spent the decade in between learning that the gap between those two numbers comes down to two things: first, our lives have changed and we are in a season of our lives in which everyone is too stressed to commit to a weekend away from family and responsibilities; and second, I’ve paid the price of leaving my home country with the dissolution of many friendships.

Enjoyed some nice Spanish food in Mallorca, where we went for a wedding.

When I talk to my friends about our lives right now, I’m constantly reminded of this U-shaped graph:

It shows that happiness tends to dip in our 40s and early 50s when we’re shouldering the weight of work, kids, aging parents and endless responsibilities not to forget the current state of our world. This is exactly where my (girl)friends and I are at right now: caring for young children while working full time (or at least being expected to, and shamed if we don’t), staying fit and trying to look youthful (Do strength training! Eat more protein! Get Botox!) while actually operating on five hours of sleep most days, worrying about our ageing parents, maintaining our friendships and our romantic relationships, and making enough money for retirement — all while fearing we’ll lose our jobs to AI or the struggling economy.

No wonder people don’t have time to come to my party. Life is tough (even though it’s comparably good of course), and adult life playing out between the office and the nuclear family also means we have fewer natural opportunities to actually see our friends. When I lived in Berlin and liked to party, I saw the same people every weekend in the clubs and bars we frequented. We had time, and we still called each other without planning it in advance - spontaneously! If I do that these days I almost never get an answer. Some friends have reverted entirely to voice messages because their stressful lives don’t allow them to speak on the phone in peace.

Me in 2016 about to go to Berghain in Berlin to dance the day away on a random Sunday morning.

That observation about phones sent me back to an essay I’d saved, “The quiet grief of adult friendship,” which named something I’ve been feeling for a long time but couldn’t name: that we simply have no language for losing a friend. Romantic heartbreak comes with films, songs and advice columns; friendships almost never end in a scene. There’s no final conversation, no clean break. They dissolve through accumulation, the postponed call and the “sorry, life’s been hectic,” until one day the person who once knew your inner life only knows what you post on Instagram. Friendship has, as a result, become almost a radical act: the one relationship nobody is obliged to keep, sustained purely by people stubbornly choosing to show up for each other anyway.

And here’s the hopeful half my title promised, because it isn’t all loss. Some of the people I call close friends, I only met on the other side of the world. When my child was born I couldn’t do a prenatal class - this was during Covid - so I joined a postnatal group instead, a roomful of equally sleep-deprived, slightly shell-shocked new mothers, and I’m still close with those women today. There’s something about being thrown together in a foreign country at one of the most disorienting moments of your life that forges friendships faster than years of polite proximity ever could.

Would post a photo of my Singapore friends here but I’m not sure they want to appear in my newsletter so here’s my favorite park in Frankfurt instead, Liebighaus Park.

Singapore is unusual that way. In most expat cities people rotate constantly - a two-year posting, then gone - but here many stay ten or fifteen years. They fall in love with the convenience, the safety, the ease of raising kids, and they put down something closer to roots. That doesn’t mean I haven’t lost people: I’ve waved friends off to Abu Dhabi, to Germany, to Australia, and felt that particular expat ache of a good friendship suddenly relocated to another time zone. But the strange gift of it is that gaining friends abroad makes the world smaller rather than larger. I now have people scattered across the globe, and a standing reason to visit almost anywhere. It’s also recalibrated my sense of distance entirely: I won’t think twice about an eight-hour flight to see someone, while my German friends still consider eight hours from Singapore to Sydney an act of madness.

My girlfriends and me enjoying some gelato in Milan in 2018.

Currently reading

I went to my local bookstore in Frankfurt to stock up on contemporary Geman authors and read “Allegro Pastell” by Leif Randt so far. I won’t recommend it not because I didn’t like it (I kind of did, it was very pre-Covid hipster) but because this newsletter is in English and I don’t think this book exists in translation yet. Instead please find some of my favorite novels by Asian authors here:

Whom to follow

Have you noticed that all things Chinese are getting more and more popular these days? Chinamaxxxing is a thing where Americans who have never even been to Asia start drinking warm water every day, wearing slippers and practicing Qi Gong. Another popular Chinese thing is TCM - Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is older than Western medicine, uses acupuncture, cupping or herbs as treatment. I have my own acupuncturist here in Singapore and while I’m not a super firm believer I like to use it complementary to swallowing Western pills and supplements. For readers interested in learning about TCM, Feng Shui and the general Chinese way of life I recommend following Sara Jane Ho. She also has a podcast called “Hot Water” (of course):

My son admiring old olive trees in Spain.

That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next time – under the palm shadows!

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you might know me as the author of Palm Shadows, my monthly newsletter on travel, literature, art and culture in Asia. That continues, unchanged. But in my day job I work as an independent Asia correspondent for German language media, including WELT, NZZ, Deutsche Welle and others, covering the geopolitics, economics and culture of the region from Singapore.

Assuming you’re interested in all things Asia, I’ll send you a short preview of what’s shaping the region in the week ahead, every Monday. Why? Because Asia is the most dynamic place in the world, home to two thirds of humanity, and still largely underreported in the West. I get to watch it up close, and I’d like to share that view with you.

If the weekly note isn’t for you and you’d rather keep only the monthly Palm Shadows, you can easily opt out: open your account settings at palmshadows.substack.com/account and switch off “This Week in Asia.” Everything else stays exactly as it is.

Visitors at the Ram Mandir (राम मंदिर) temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India. Photo by me.

US and Iran talk in Switzerland, and Asia holds its breath

Over the weekend and continuing into this week, American and Iranian delegations sit down in Lucerne to try to turn a fragile ceasefire into something that lasts. It reads like a Middle East story but it lands hardest in Asia. Everything hinges on a narrow stretch of water called the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil and a fifth of its liquefied natural gas has to pass.

Four Asian economies, China, India, Japan and South Korea, take about 75 percent of the oil and 59 percent of the gas that moves through it. When the strait was effectively shut earlier this year, the International Energy Agency called it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.

That is the quiet truth of this region: a war thousands of kilometres away arrives here as an electricity bill, a factory's costs, the price of a bowl of noodles. If the talks hold and the oil keeps flowing, the whole region breathes out. If they fall apart, everything below this line gets more expensive. Watch it before anything else.

Wang Yi flies to Delhi for BRICS as China and India relations thaw

The photo above is the India that doesn't usually share a frame with diplomacy: a weekday crowd at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, families filing past the police barricades to the spot held to be the god Rama's birthplace, a temple that is now as much political symbol as pilgrimage, the proud face of a confident, Hindu nationalist India.

On Monday, New Delhi hosts two days of meetings between the national security advisers of the BRICS group, the bloc of large economies outside the West (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and newer members) that likes to cast itself as a counterweight to the order the West built.

The detail I'd notice: China's foreign minister Wang Yi is coming in person, invited by India's security chief Ajit Doval, as relations between the two giants slowly thaw, even while a border dispute and India's unease about leaning too hard on China still hang over the room. Two countries that fought in the Himalayas five years ago, feeling for common ground. How far they go bends the shape of the whole region.

Summer Davos opens in Dalian, China's pitch to the world

The same morning, the World Economic Forum opens its Summer Davos in the port city of Dalian, more than 1,700 figures from business, government and science there to talk trade, AI and jobs. China will use the stage to argue that its economy is healthy and open for business. That pitch runs straight into a quieter mood at home, an exhaustion, a stepping back (more on that in the long read below), and the gap between the official story and the one people are living is the thing worth keeping an eye on.

Thailand weighs a rate hike, Bangkok picks a governor

The Bank of Thailand decides this week whether to hold its key rate at 1.0 percent or lift it to keep inflation down, which is the same oil story arriving in a Bangkok household budget. And Bangkok votes for a city governor, a local race watched closely in a country still working through its political weather.

The long read

The quiet refusal: The South China Morning Post on how “lying flat” went from an internet joke to a way of life, young Chinese and now people deep into their careers, even officials, stepping off a treadmill of competition that pays less and less. Beijing’s spy agency has started blaming foreign forces for “brainwashing.” The people walking away say the exhaustion was theirs all along. The clearest window I’ve found into the mood beneath China’s confident messaging.

The number

671,236: the babies born in Japan in 2025, a record low, the tenth straight year of decline, with the fertility rate down to 1.14. Demographers hadn’t expected births to sink this far until 2041.

That's the week. If the Monday note isn't for you and you'd rather keep only the monthly Palm Shadows, you can switch it off anytime in your account settings at palmshadows.substack.com/account. See you next Monday!

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I hope you’re well. As for me, I’ve spent the past month largely housebound, recovering from an appendectomy. My stomach is healing well, but I’ve been wrestling with a bone-deep fatigue that makes sleeping the day away feel like a very reasonable life choice — which reminded me of the protagonist in Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, whose entire ambition is to sleep for a full year, sustained by a pharmacist’s worth of sedatives and one daily trip to the corner bodega. It sounds bleak, but it’s actually a surprisingly fun read.

The silver lining of all this horizontal time is that I have something much better to convalesce in. We recently moved from a ninth-floor condo into a house with a small garden. I do occasionally miss the glittering Singapore skyline from the old balcony, and yes, the pool and gym were nice — but I don’t miss the cramped space, the wait for the lift, or the grumpy management staff who (sometimes) treated visiting friends like a security threat. From my sofa now, I look out at coconut palms. I can wander up and down the stairs. I haven’t once felt the walls closing in.

The other upside of forced stillness: I’ve been reading voraciously and finally taking in all the art I recently put up around the house. I’m currently reading two books simultaneously - one for daytime, one for the last hour before sleep - which feels like an almost decadent luxury. And since I have no exciting new corner of Asia to take you to this month, let me do the next best thing: tell you about the novels that have most shaped how I understand the lives of women in this part of the world. (I’ll do another part about other aspects of the region).

Five novels to understand women's lives in Asia

I love reading contemporary novels by female Asian authors to understand the region through the women living here. There is something these writers do that no travel guide, no history book, and no think-piece quite manages: they put you inside an ordinary life, inside a body, a kitchen, a marriage, a city block, and let you feel the particular texture of a place from the inside out. The constraints women navigate, the small rebellions they stage, the things they want and are not supposed to want: these tell you more about a country than almost anything else. Here are five books that stayed with me.

1. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (Japan)

Murata’s slim, deadpan novel follows Keiko, a thirty-six-year-old woman who has worked in the same convenience store for eighteen years and feels no desire to want anything else. In a society that pathologizes anyone who doesn’t conform to the standard trajectory of marry, reproduce, climb Keiko is cheerfully, bafflingly content. It’s funny, unsettling, and one of the sharpest portraits of Japanese social pressure you’ll find in contemporary fiction. The convenience store, with its scripts and rituals and perfect orderliness, is both sanctuary and indictment. You finish it in an afternoon and think about it for weeks.

2. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo (Korea)

This novel reads almost like a case study, tracing the life of an ordinary Korean woman from birth through marriage and motherhood, cataloguing every moment the world reminded her to make herself smaller. A teacher who steers her toward secretarial work, a husband who means well but doesn’t see her, a mother who loves her but has already made her peace with limitation. It sparked a genuine cultural reckoning in Korea when published and remains essential reading for understanding gender in contemporary Asia.

Read this one in German

3. Sister Snake by Amanda Lee Koe (Singapore)

Koe, one of Singapore’s most distinctive literary voices (and coolest ladies on Instagram, check out her profile) weaves together the stories of two women across centuries, connected by mythology, desire, and the figure of the white snake from classical Chinese legend. Lush, queer, and daring, it refuses the tidy narratives of nation-building and belonging that official Singapore tends to prefer.

4. The Accidental Malay by Karina Robles Bahrin (Malaysia)

A sharp novel about identity, race, and belonging in Malaysia following a Chinese-Malay woman who discovers she was registered as Malay at birth, a bureaucratic accident with enormous legal and personal consequences in a country where ethnicity determines rights, opportunities, and even who you’re allowed to marry. A fascinating and often infuriating window into the fault lines of Malaysian society, written with both anger and compassion.

5. Pick a color by (Thailand)by Souvankham Thammavongsa (Laos/ Thailand)

Souvankham Thammavongsa's Pick a Color is a slim but powerful debut novel of a nail salon in which every employee at wears a name tag reading "Susan," so the client who asks for her favorite worker will always be accommodated — because, to them, the women are interchangeable anyway. Unfolding over a single workday, the owner’s, Ning's narrative voice, remains guarded and strategic, still that of a fighter, even long after she's hung up her boxing gloves. Thammavongsa uses that compressed canvas to explore loneliness, class, and the violence of being rendered invisible. Underneath its hardheaded surface runs a current of fierce love, humor, and humanity, making one day in a nail salon into a meditation on community, beauty, and care. Under 200 pages, it punches well above its weight.

Do you have recommendations for novels from Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Nepal or others?

Currently reading

Another book I can’t recommend enough: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. I don’t usually gravitate toward memoirs, but this one completely won me over.

Zauner, the lead singer of Japanese Breakfast, writes about losing her Korean mother to cancer in her mid-twenties. Growing up in the States with an American father, she spent summers in Seoul but never fully claimed her Korean identity, speaking only the basics of the language. When her aunt also dies young, that sense of cultural loss deepens into something painful: the fear that an entire part of herself might disappear with the people who carried it.

What makes the book so distinctive is that it’s also, unexpectedly, a food memoir. Zauner renders Korean food with such warmth and specificity that each dish becomes a vessel for memory, a way of staying close to her mother long after she’s gone.

Teaching my son the love for reading.

That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next time – under the palm shadows!

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This newsletter was supposed to go out on Sunday but instead I was in hospital in Singapore getting emergency surgery for appendicitis. I am back home and recovering on my couch now but it taught me again, how quickly things can change, what a blessing our health is, when we have it.

I wrote most of this post from the island of Koh Samui in Surat Thani, Thailand where I spent three nights last week by myself writing, swimming and getting cheap massages. It was my annual solo-trip away from stuffy Singapore and childcare responsibilities. My days looked like this: I got up at 7, did yoga, worked at the pool until lunch, took a nap, went for a walk on the beach, worked some more, had a sundowner and early dinner at 6pm and then watched shows (currently season 3 of Euphoria and Margo’s got money troubles) to my heart’s content in my climatised villa in a King size bed all to myself. Heaven!

Thailand is in its hottest season right now and fittingly the weekend before last was Songkran, Thailand’s traditional New Year festival, where people throw water on each other in massive street-wide water fights. The tradition evolved from the gentler practice of pouring scented water over elders’ hands and Buddha statues as a blessing and a symbolic washing away of bad luck from the previous year. Last night, I left the hotel to explore the local Fishermen’s village and then got back to my trusted routine. Here’s proof:

Please see below for my sweaty tomato-face, for now here’s my hand in the sunset.

Germans are everywhere on this island. They are next to me at the pool, I hear them on the beach and even through the walls of my villa as they’re also my neighbors. Although these people are here on holiday and will most likely return to Germany soon it reminded me of one the first pieces I wrote as Asia correspondent for German newspaper WELT in 2023 which ended up becoming my most-read article to date. It received more than 2200 comments, around 6700 people agreed with my point of view, only 840 disagreed. The title was blunt: “How happy I am not to be living in Germany anymore.”

It clearly struck a nerve. I still feel slightly uneasy about it, because I don’t like Germany-bashing, even though since the economy and with it quality of life took a hit, it has become almost fashionable in recent years. Germany, and my hometown Frankfurt in particular, will always be my home. It shaped me, it gave me my early education, my way of thinking. I am not interested in dismissing it.

But something has shifted or maybe I have. After almost five years in Asia, I’ve noticed a pattern: whenever I go back to Germany, I leave in a bad mood. Not because of one dramatic experience, but because of many small ones that add up. Everyday life feels harsher. People complain more, service is often unfriendly, things that should be simple take an enormous amount of time. You wait, you queue, you fill out forms, you call hotlines where no one picks up. Trains are delayed or don’t come at all, public systems feel outdated, and there is a constant sense that things are somehow harder than they need to be.

When I first moved to Singapore, I remember noticing the opposite. When you ask for anything that would be dismissed as “impossible” in Germany, people here will find a way to make It work. If I need an official document here, I order it on an app and receive a response within days. My tax return takes less than twenty minutes. When I take the bus, I simply tap my credit card and can see in real time when the next one arrives. Life is expensive, yes, but it works.

In Germany, I remember waiting an entire morning at a doctor’s office, sitting in an overcrowded waiting room, filling out physical forms about data security (Datenschutz) whereas in Singapore I can see doctors the same day and they send me results via WhatsApp. Scary? Maybe, but oh so convenient. I remember the endless bureaucracy, the feeling that no one is really responsible, that processes exist but don’t function. Once, I moved to Singapore the German bureaucracy continued to haunt me. Even something as simple as issuing a birth certificate for my son took a year and I waited 2 years and 2 months for Germany to pay me back taxes they had falsely deducted from my salary which I tax in Singapore.

The irony: In Germany, you pay close to fifty percent in taxes, and yet daily life often feels unnecessarily difficult. Systems that should support you instead slow you down. And over time, that does something to you.

In December last year, I interviewed a woman whose experience pushed this logic to its extreme. She had built an international career, returned to Germany with her three kids, and found herself caught in what she described as a loop of stress, chaos and paperwork. At some point, she did the math - and then she quit her job. Because after taxes, childcare costs and the sheer administrative burden, she was left with almost the same amount of money she would have received from state benefits.

“What kind of system is this, where it doesn’t pay to work?” she asked me.

The sentence stayed with me, because it captures something deeper than just frustration. It is about incentives, about what a society rewards - and what it discourages.

Living in Asia has changed the way I think about ambition, not in the sense that I suddenly became more driven, but in the sense that I became less willing to accept friction as normal. Here, ambition is visible. It is not something you hide behind irony or downplay in conversation. People want to move forward, and systems are built with that in mind. Things are supposed to work, and when they don’t, it feels like a problem to be solved, not a permanent condition to be endured.

You also notice it in how success is perceived. In many parts of Asia, people who have money, who drive nice cars, who live in large houses are openly admired. Success is something to aspire to, not something to hide or justify. In Germany, by contrast, wealth often comes with suspicion. There is a deep-rooted sense of Sozialneid, a discomfort with visible success. There is an underlying assumption that if you have a lot, you must have taken something away from others and you certainly ought to give it back.

You even see it reflected in culture. In Tatort, a weekly crime show that many Germans watch Sunday nights, the villain is often the manager, the businessman, the one in a suit. The idea that economic success could simply be the result of ambition and effort feels almost secondary to the suspicion that something must be wrong.

Enduring the freezing cold in my hometown Frankfurt last Christmas

“Tax the rich” is not just a political slogan, it is, in many ways, a lived reality. And over time, this creates a subtle but powerful message: ambition is something to be contained, not encouraged.

At the same time, there remains a quiet belief in Germany’s own reputation - that we are efficient, punctual, diligent - and for a long time, that was undoubtedly true. But the image lingers longer than the reality. Many Asians I meet who travel to Germany for the first time arrive with very high expectations and leave disappointed. They expect precision and reliability and instead encounter delays, bureaucracy, and a level of inefficiency that feels out of place in a country that still prides itself on engineering excellence. That is also why many qualified Asians (think Indian software engineers) ditch Germany for Canada or the US.

Living in Asia hasn’t made my life perfect. But it has changed my expectations. I now expect things to function. I expect my time to be valued. I expect that when I put in effort, there is at least a reasonable chance it will lead to progress. And perhaps most importantly, I have become less apologetic about wanting that and not accepting a broken system with frustrated resignation.

Every time I leave Germany now, I find myself wondering whether this is simply a matter of perspective, or whether something deeper has shifted - not just in me, but in the balance between places that still believe in forward movement, and those that have grown used to standing still.

Of course there’s upsides to Germany. I love spending Christmas there. What’s better than a German Christmas market or an open fire and a glass of bubbly while watching the next generation play together?

Currently reading

There’s a Japanese woman on death row who is said to have seduced and murdered multiple elderly men. Her weapon? Butter. Rich, European, outrageously expensive butter, cooked into elaborate meals that she fed her victims while society looked away, too busy being horrified by her appetites - for food, for money, for men - to ask harder questions about who she really was.

Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is one of those rare novels that uses a lurid premise to say something genuinely unsettling about the world. The story follows Rika, a journalist (which I love of course) in Tokyo who begins corresponding with Manako Kajii, the imprisoned killer, ostensibly for a profile. What unfolds is something more like a slow possession. Kajii sends Rika on missions: find this specific brand of butter, cook this dish, eat it alone, pay attention to how it feels. And Rika, ambitious and starving in ways that have nothing to do with food, obeys.

What I like most is that Yuzuki never lets Kajii be simply a monster. She’s sharp and often right about how Japanese society punishes women who take up space, who enjoy things, who refuse to be small and accommodating and grateful. The novel asks whether a woman can be a villain and also have a point.

It’s also, unexpectedly, a book that will make you want to cook. Specifically, with a lot of butter.

It was 40 degrees celsius in Koh Samui yesterday so my hand-ventilator is my bff.

That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next time – under the palm shadows!

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I am writing to you from a sunbed overlooking the light-blue Andaman Sea, my view only slightly blocked by a single, lopsided coconut palm. I have my laptop on my lap, an iced latte on a small side table next to me, and I just woke up from a nap to the gentle sound of crashing waves. This sounds so cliché but it’s also true and wonderful and exactly what I needed after a couple of stressful weeks in Singapore, whose soundtrack is not crashing waves but the constant hum of construction work paired with unbearable tropical heat.

Sitting here, I was reminded of why I stayed freelance since leaving my job in late 2019. Back then, I got sick with mononucleosis - yes, the kissing disease, which most people get as teenagers but which, weirdly, hit me in my early 30s. I was sick for a whole year and could barely leave my bed at times. On my worst days I had to crawl to the bathroom because I was too exhausted to walk. I had what was then called “post-viral fatigue” - what people would experience just a year later under the name “Long Covid.” It’s why I still feel deeply for anyone going through this, because if you haven’t experienced bone-crushing fatigue, you truly have no idea what kind of hell it is.

I did eventually recover after a 10-day fasting stint at a Bavarian clinic, which had me lose 15 kilos and helped my body repair itself. I started working again as a journalist - only this time not in a stressful full-time editor role with weekend night shifts, but as a freelance reporter covering Asia from Europe. The pandemic had hit, and we had to wait for visas and flights before we could relocate.

When I finally moved to Singapore with my husband in August 2021, I was 8 months pregnant. My pregnancy wasn’t easy, which was another reason to stay freelance and work from home because I could rest between assignments. After giving birth, being home for breastfeeding was another convenience. Today my son is 4 years old, but I’m still freelancing, now for different reasons.

First, I may have an authority problem but over the years, I’ve had several micromanaging bosses who hovered over my computer, commenting on my browser tabs. They were clearly more interested in controlling their staff than in their actual output. I have always been extremely disciplined. I have never missed a deadline in my life, and in return I expect my managers and colleagues to trust me without constantly looking over my shoulder. I would rather write an article in three focused hours and then go to yoga, swim, or meet someone for coffee than sit in an uninspiring office for eight hours pretending to be busy long after my work is done. I’m more creative and motivated working on a beach, in a pretty café, or while travelling knowing I can explore a new place the moment I’ve sent off my article.

And then there’s a newer reason: the age of AI. Every day brings news of people being laid off because AI is now doing their jobs. And yes, people ask me too: aren’t you scared AI will do your writing soon? Honestly, yes. AI is well-suited for weather reports, sports write-ups, or even straight news articles. I’m less convinced it can do good interviews, which often require genuine human connection to draw out the best answers, or long-form reporting, which means leaving your desk to observe, smell, hear, and feel a place and its people.

But the main reason freelancing makes sense in the age of AI is diversification. You can write for ten different publications, so if one replaces you with AI, you still have the others. You can consult on the side. I used to do PR and marketing for startups and am now exploring consulting in geopolitics and storytelling. You can build a side business. The options are endless.

Of course, the risk is burnout. As an employee, you go home after work and switch off. As a freelancer, you are your own boss and that boss is often unkind, strict, and indifferent to weekends. There’s always more money to be made. You often have to arrange your own health insurance and retirement savings.

This is why I believe in building financial freedom through full-time employment before going freelance. While you’re young and healthy, working in an office, learning how companies actually function, earning a decent salary, and saving as much as you can is invaluable. The key to financial freedom is investing: something so simple, yet something so many people, especially women, are still hesitant to try. Once you’ve saved the equivalent of a year’s salary and your money is working for you, you can go freelance and keep investing whenever you have something spare into an index fund, consistently, over time. Knowing I have my portfolio to fall back on is what lets me sleep at night. It’s why I can say no to jobs that would burn me out, because I know my investments are already making me money. If you’re new to this topic, keep reading, the next section is for you. Right now, the waves are still crashing, my latte is almost finished, and I have absolutely nowhere to be. That, more than anything, is what financial freedom actually feels like.

Whom to follow: Simran Kaur, Friends That Invest

Simran Kaur calls herself the Elle Woods of investing and honestly, the comparison is spot on: she’s sharp, she’s fun, and she makes you wonder why you ever thought this stuff was intimidating in the first place.

Her podcast Friends That Invest - also the name of her book - is my go-to when I want to learn something without feeling like I’m studying. I’ll be honest: sometimes I put it on just because her voice is so calming. She sounds like a friend sending you a voice note explaining how to make your money work for you, casually, between life updates. You forget you’re being educated.

If you’ve always assumed investing was for someone else, some older man in a suit somewhere, start with Simran. She’ll change your mind fast.

Friends That Invest Pro

Sharing exactly how my stock portfolio brings me $200,000 a year, without the jargon.

The perfect family-friendly eco-resort in Indonesia which give parents a real holiday

This is our third time on Nikoi island from which I am writing this post. Normally, I dont like to go to the same place twice. There’s just too much to explore in Asia so it seems like a waste. Nikoi is different. It is in my opinion the most perfect eco-resort on earth (unpaid advertising haha).

The salt water pool overlooking the ocean

Nikoi Island is a private resort on its own small Indonesian tropical island, not far from Singapore making it a perfect detour if you’re already travelling around Southeast Asia. It’s especially wonderful for families, though not in the way most resorts are.

There’s no plastic-bright kids’ club with video screens here. Instead, children have their own shaded area under the trees with a wooden pirate ship, climbing frames, and toys made from natural materials. In the mornings, staff take kids to climb coconut palms - properly harnessed - and afterwards they make bows and arrows from driftwood or weave bracelets from shells they’ve collected on the beach. Every afternoon there’s a treasure hunt around the island, and in the evenings, marshmallows over a beach bonfire. If you’re lucky, you might even watch turtle hatchlings making their first scramble to the sea. It’s the kind of childhood adventure that parents secretly wish they could join - though frankly, the comprehensive kids’ programme means you can also just lie on the beach unbothered, which is its own kind of luxury.

The island itself is 15 hectares of private land off the coast of Bintan. White sand beaches and turquoise water are broken up by enormous granite boulders scattered along the shore, and about 60 percent of the interior is dense rainforest - banyan trees, vines, palms - where otters and lizards live under a thick canopy of green. There is, naturally, a zipline through the jungle.

The 18 villas are built from driftwood, largely open-air and without air conditioning. The breeze does the cooling, and at night you fall asleep to the sound of waves. The resort keeps things deliberately simple in the best way: just two restaurants - one Indonesian, one Western - each serving a single menu per meal, with many ingredients sourced from their own farm on Bintan. You eat with bare feet in the sand.

One thing you absolutely must try: the homemade coconut ice cream, made fresh from the coconuts that fall from the trees. It is, somehow, exactly as good as it sounds.

Currently reading

If you’ve read Breasts and Eggs or Heaven, you already know that Mieko Kawakami is not like other writers. She writes with an almost uncomfortable intimacy - close to her characters’ bodies, their fears, their humiliations - and somehow makes you feel like she’s writing about you too.

Sisters in Yellow is a departure, and a thrilling one. It’s been described as a Japanese Breaking Bad, which sounds like hyperbole until you’re 100 pages in and can’t put it down. The story follows Hana, fifteen years old, broke, living in a tiny Tokyo suburb apartment with her mother who works at a local dive bar. Then Kimiko appears, she’s older and magnetic, and suddenly Hana has a job, friends, and for the first time, the feeling that her life might actually go somewhere. It doesn’t, of course, go anywhere simple.

What I love about Kawakami is that she never lets her characters be just victims or just survivors. They’re messy and desperate and sometimes make terrible choices and you root for them anyway. The book explores the relationship between facts and memories, victims and perpetrators.

If you’re new to her: start with Breasts and Eggs, then Heaven and All the Lovers in the Night, then come back to this. Let me know what you think.

Today is “Nowruz”, Persian new year, there’s a new moon and it’s the start of the new Western astrological calendar. If your year hasn’t been kind to you so far here’s your sign to start fresh!

That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next time – under the palm shadows!

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Gong Xi Fa Cai — and Happy Year of the Fire Horse!

I’m writing to you in the week of Chinese New Year. The streets in Singapore are emptier than usual, yet glowing with lanterns and horse-themed decorations. I can hear the noisy lion dances from my garden, families are gathering, tables are overflowing with festive dishes, perfect oranges and ang bao/ and pao (little red envelopes filled with crisp banknotes) are being exchanged.

More than a billion people around the world celebrate Lunar New Year. And it increasingly feels as if it’s being celebrated - or at least commercialized - in Western countries too. Luxury brands like Chanel and Hermès send out polished New Year greetings. The horse suddenly becomes a global design motif. CNY (or LNY) seems more talked about than Lent, which also began this week.

Does that signal a shift in soft power? Is China quietly shaping the global cultural calendar? Recent discussions about “Chinamaxxing”, a TikTok-Trend in which people pretend to be Chinese by drinking hot water, eating congee for breakfast and the likes suggest exactly that.

I don’t personally celebrate Chinese New Year, yet I am very much affected by it this year. I’m supposed to travel to Beijing next week to accompany German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his business and press delegation. However, my Chinese journalist visa - notoriously difficult to obtain and requiring intense correspondence with embassies in Germany, Singapore, and China - is currently in limbo.

No one is working during the holiday. Embassies are closed. My application is somewhere in the bureaucratic ether.

So at this point, I genuinely don’t know whether I’ll be boarding that plane. Adding to the irony: all my proper winter clothes are stored in Vienna. I’m not entirely sure how I would survive a Beijing winter armed only with a Singapore wardrobe.

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Onto sunnier subjects

I spent the last ten days in Sydney and on the Central Coast of Australia. We were there for a wedding/ Valentine’s Day party of my husband’s cousin and stayed with family in Umina, a quiet seaside town north of Sydney.

On our first day we visited the Australian Reptile Park - a slightly misleading name, as it’s not just reptiles. Yes, there is a lake full of lurking alligators, but also free-roaming kangaroos (which you can feed!), koalas, Tasmanian devils, emus, and more. It’s a wonderful alternative to Sydney Zoo and probably far less crowded.

My son was particularly thrilled to feed the kangaroos.

My son happily feeding the Roos.

What I loved most about Australia (it was my first real visit, apart from stressful short work trips to Perth and Darwin) were the beaches - and the coffee. I did not have a single bad coffee. Their flat whites and lattes are outstanding.

What surprised me? The weather. Australian summer, it turns out, can be quite wet - and, coming from Singapore, even chilly. Why did I have an image of eternal sunshine lodged in my head?

And then the food. I didn’t love it. You can feel the British culinary heritage: Sunday roasts, fried and heavy dishes. After a week, I found myself longing for rice and Asian flavors.

We spent the final days of our ten-day trip in central Sydney: exploring the harbour, taking the ferry to Manly (charming!), visiting Bondi Beach, seeing a few galleries, and consuming heroic amounts of coffee. Standing at Bondi, I couldn’t help but think about the recent deadly attack by Muslim extremists on peacefully celebrating Jews there - how even postcard landscapes can be touched by terrorism.

Here are some more snapshots of the trip:

Two koalas sleep-hugging in Australian Reptile Park

Hunter Valley Gardens — where we had the best steak of the trip and went wine tasting

Seeing Bondi beach for the first time

The iconic Icebergs pool overlooking the sea

Sydney’s brick houses and business district - somehow reminiscent of London

Ferry + Sydney Opera House - a classic

View from the ferry to Manly

Manly beach

Sydney Botanic Gardens

Currently reading

It doesn’t happen often that I become completely absorbed in a book - but when it does, I love it. That was the case with The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.

The novel is written entirely in letters, mostly by its main protagonist, Sybil van Antwerp, a seventy-something divorced American woman living in Annapolis. I would never have expected to be so captivated by the life of someone so different from me. Yet Sybil’s voice is vivid, intelligent, and sharp. And there are events unfolding in her life that are far from ordinary. In essence, it is a story about loss and grief but also about the richness of a fully lived life in general.

What makes the story even more fascinating: this New York Times bestseller was Evans’ eighth novel. She wrote seven before it - all rejected. From the age of 19 to 39, she kept writing, manuscript after manuscript, without finding a publisher. That kind of persistence astonishes and inspires me deeply, especially as a writer myself.

You can listen to Virginia Evan’s story on the “Book Review” Podcast by the New York Times here.

A piece of art

When in Sydney, I visited the “White Rabbit” gallery, a space where contemporary and often very controversial Chinese art is exhibited. I didn’t see a particular artwork I admired aesthetically, but I was struck by the openness with which highly sensitive subjects like the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 or leadership transitions in China were addressed through art.

Song Yongping’s enormous canvases confronted Mao, Deng, and Xi not as distant icons but as distorted, almost grotesque figures embedded in chaos between tigers, tanks, slogans and bodies. In another room, Xiao Lu’s Dialogue, the photograph of her firing a gunshot into her own installation in 1989, felt eerily current. A moment that blurred art and political rupture, forever tied to Tiananmen.

Ai Weiwei’s handpainted porcelain Sunflower Seeds reflected something different: up close, each porcelain seed is distinct; from afar, they dissolve into an anonymous mass. The work captures the tension between the individual and the collective - a subtle but unmistakable reflection on conformity, memory, and power in contemporary China. And then there was a small tank made entirely of one-yuan banknotes - money literally turned into a weapon.

What moved me most was not a single piece, but the fact that all of this is shown so matter-of-factly in Sydney. Art, here, becomes an archive of what cannot be openly debated elsewhere.

Getting the iconic tourist shot in front of Sydney opera house. Also did you know Sydney can be quite rainy in its Summer?

That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next time – under the palm shadows!

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welcome to 2026! In Singapore everyone is preparing for the “Year of the fire horse” which will begin on Chinese New Year on February 17th. Supermarkets are full of red and gold horse ornaments and have you read your Chinese Zodiac signs horoscope yet (I’m an Ox and things are looking pretty good despite my sign clashing with Tai Su this year. Please don’t ask me what that means exactly).

Horsies in my local supermarket

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Now to the topic of this month’s letter: beauty trends in Asia. There are so many. Of course, some of the best ones come from Korea. K-beauty is booming. Every time I go home to Europe, I bring my friends, family, and colleagues Korean face masks - and yes, the ones with snail slime are the most popular.

But then there are trends that haven’t reached the West yet, like the “small face” facial. What is this about? Well, pretty much what the name suggests: it’s designed to make your face smaller. Some Asians tend to have broader faces, but since beauty standards here favor a smaller, V-shaped face, there are ways to make that happen.

First, your therapist loosens up your shoulders, neck, and scalp with a vigorous, sometimes quite painful massage. Then she presses your cheekbones together as if squashing your entire face, pulls on your jaw, nose, and eyebrows, and basically alters the bone structure of your face - a bit like an osteopath would do on other parts of the body.

Here’s a video for illustration:

I’ve been going for the Japanese version of this type of facial (there’s also a Korean version) for a year now. Not because I want a smaller face, but because I love the super-intense massage for my stiff neck. However, I also get the added benefit of my double chin disappearing after each treatment. A friend who saw me before and after said my face actually looks much smaller!

After the treatment: Does my face look smaller? Who cares? I feel relaxed!

Another trend I tried is a Korean head spa. This one is all about the scalp: something that, until recently, I had barely thought about at all. In Korea, scalp care is treated much like skincare: as the foundation for healthy, shiny hair.

The treatment usually starts with a close-up scalp analysis, often shown on a screen in front of you. You see things you may or may not want to see: dryness, buildup or stressed follicles. Then comes a deep cleanse with exfoliating treatments, followed by layers of warm water, cooling serums, and long, hypnotic massages. At some point, water is poured over your head in steady streams while your temples and neck are massaged, and you drift into a half-sleep.

It’s incredibly relaxing. When it’s over, your scalp feels lighter, your head clearer, and your hair noticeably softer. I left wondering why this level of care for the scalp hasn’t yet become standard in the West.

Of course there are many more beauty trends in Asia like facial acupuncture (eek needles in the face!), facial gua sha (which has arrived in the West already), “glass skin” treatments and the whole world of make-up. I’ll leave it at that for today.

Currently reading

I’m still reading Katabasis by R.F. Kuang featured in my last newsletter and struggling a bit with its length and complexity. I’m looking forward to something more accessible soon. Considering the deadly protests happening in Iran right now, where thousands of unarmed, often young people have been brutally killed by their radical islamist regime because they’re asking for basic human rights, I am considering this book which has been on my shelf for a while next:

My husband is Persian and speaks Farsi to our son whom we gave an Iranian first name (Joubin). I learned Farsi for two years during the pandemic to keep them from having a secret language. To be honest, I have already forgotten how to read the alphabet but I understand most of the basic conservations my husband has with our son.

The book “Sechzehn Wörter” (Sixteen Words) recognizes that language, and often single words, can be a key to a whole culture or identity. The author, Nava Ebrahimi, was born in Teheran but moved to Germany when she was three (hence the book was written in German). Sixteen Persian words give the book its structure and chapter headings. From “Maman-Bozorg” meaning grandmother to “Azadi” meaning freedom. These are words from the main character Mona’s mother tongue that she often heard as a child growing up in Germany but couldn’t associate with any real meaning. Until she starts to translate them and a whole other world of her identity opens up. I haven’t read the book so I can’t fully review it but I am eager to read more Persian literature as Iran is known for its beautiful poetry and rich culture. Hopefully my son will one day be able to go there and discover the culture behind his father tongue.

A piece of art

I love the Serbian performance artist Maria Abramović and have been following her career and art for a long time. I always found she looked a bit like Maria Callas, the opera singer. Apparently, Abramović thinks so too, otherwise she wouldn’t have created this piece combining their two faces. Callas inspired much of her work, including her ambitious project The 7 Deaths of Maria Callas - an opera that premiered at Munich's Bayerische Staatsoper in 2020. The opera recalls seven deaths from the singer's most celebrated roles, concluding with her own death from heartbreak in 1977 – a finale that Abramović herself performs on stage. This new limited edition print is being distributed by Avant Arte and you can still buy it here.

Song of the month

If I were honest, my song of the month would be “The Gruffalo Song” by Julia Donaldson, because my son demands to listen to it daily. Apart from that, I’ve been listening to Max Richter while writing. Like most writers, I can’t tolerate lyrics, and Richter’s compositions are not as dramatic as some classical music but feel more like a minimalist slow burn. He is often described as creating “music of the inner life” — how fitting for any writing process. Here’s one of my favourite pieces, in which he recomposed Vivaldi’s Spring.

Here’s a photo of me skiing at the beginning of January in Austria. My first time after 27 years and I can still do it!

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That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next time – under the palm shadows!

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we did it - 2025 is almost over. I hope it was a good year for you. My travel highlight this year was definitely going to Japan for the first time. I think once you’ve been there you’ll want to come back again and again for the rest of your life. It is such a special place and hard to explain why exactly. My advice? Just go!

Are you in the Christmas spirit yet? I definitely am.

I put up my fake plastic fantastic Christmas tree at the end of November and am now “working from Christmas tree” on my couch most days. It is glorious. Last year we bought a real tree and it dried out quickly in Singapore’s tropical weather. I had to mist it with water every day and then I gave up and it dissolved on our living room floor. I am now happy with my fake tree and will leave it there until mid January if nobody stops me.

My love of Christmas trees extends beyond the home. For a few years now I have been photographing them in Singapore all over town. Why? Because this place just overdoes it. We’ve got giant, perfectly straight trees pumping fake soapy snow out to Jingle bells tunes while kids dressed in summer clothes are squealing underneath it. We’ve got giant real trees imported from Canadian forests put in grand hotel lobbies illuminated by chandeliers and serenaded by carol singers. We’ve got proper Singaporean Christmas tree versions decorated with local hawker food. I’ve been posting them on my Instagram account but here are a few impressions for you.

The local food tree at Lau Pa Sat hawker centre:

A giant one by Dolce&Gabbana in one of Singapore’s luxury malls:

Tiny Christmas trees, big palm trees. Tropical Christmas at its best at Marina Bay Sands promenade:

The most magnificent real tree at Raffles hotel. Me an my friend Gina and some other friends went there for Christmas high tea:

First snow in Singapore (it’s soap):

Look at this bubbly monstrosity:

And while we’re at it, here are some Christmas trees that have lost the plot in China:

Currently reading

Academia is hell, university is hell. At least that’s the metaphor I’m getting from reading Katabasis by R.F. Kuang. The author of Yellowface (which I loved and still talk about) is actually a great magical-realism writer. This novel is set in actual hell, which looks suspiciously like Cambridge University, where the main protagonist, Alice, is a PhD student of “Magick.” Does this sound like Harry Potter? Yes - but it’s less cute and more cutting.

Kuang, a highly decorated academic herself (she studied at Oxford and Cambridge), knows exactly what she’s talking about. Katabasis reads like a savage insider joke about academia: the endless hierarchy, the cruelty masked as rigor, the way brilliance is exploited and exhaustion normalized. Hell, in Kuang’s version, isn’t fire and demons - it’s committees, gatekeeping, power games, and the quiet terror of never being good enough.

What I like most is how unapologetically intellectual the book is. Kuang doesn’t simplify or soften her references; she expects the reader to keep up. At the same time, the novel is surprisingly emotional, especially in its portrayal of ambition, envy, and the strange intimacy between people who are locked in competition with one another.

A piece of art

The print below is what I’m giving myself for Christmas. It reminds me of Japan and its cozy convenience stores, where you can find the best snacks and drinks at any hour of the day or night. The painter, Keita Morimoto, is known for his distinctive use of light: neon glowing against darkness, shop windows radiating warmth into empty streets. His work is often compared to Rembrandt for its dramatic lighting and to Edward Hopper for its quiet, cinematic sense of solitude.

I’ve been collecting art from all over Asia since I moved here four years ago - small pieces, emerging artists, works chosen for mood and memory rather than prestige or investment value. Each one is tied to a place, a moment, or a phase of life.

Would you be interested in a little tour of my (very humble) collection?

Playlist of the month

One of the first Substack-Newsletters I subscribed to (before I even started my own) is the by Berlin-based writer, . It satisfies my fringe interest in fashion and aesthetics. Franzi has great taste in basically everything so I had to download her Christmas playlist for the holidays.

Finally, please enjoy my Christmassy nails, one of the perks of living in Asia: you’ll get great manicures for little spend.

That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you in 2026 – under the palm shadows!

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Since moving to my new place in central Singapore, I walk past Uniqlo and Muji every day. Both brands were once completely unknown in the West; today they dress half of New York and Berlin. It made me think about how dramatically Asian brands have risen in global pop culture.

When I went to secondary school in Frankfurt, we wore sweatshirts with enormous American flags — unironically. The coolest thing you could own was something vaguely “USA.” And I still remember Daichi, a classmate with Japanese parents, being teased for bringing homemade sushi to school. Imagine the social capital he’d carry today. My four-year-old worships sushi with the devotion other kids reserve for Happy Meals.

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The shifts are everywhere. This year’s Labubu craze? A tiny, slightly deranged-looking figurine from China that adults queue hours for. A few years earlier, people across Europe were suddenly Marie-Kondoing their entire existence — guided by a Japanese woman who didn’t even need flawless English to land a global Netflix show. Teens in the US and Europe now meet up after school to drink bubble tea (originally fromTaiwan) instead of Coca-Cola, while scrolling TikTok — a Chinese company — as naturally as we once flipped through Bravo or watched MTV.

A stall in Singapore selling Labubus and other bag charm figures.

Then there’s the soundtrack of global childhood: “Baby Shark,” that maddeningly catchy earworm? Korean. Just like BTS and Blackpink, the latter having produced “ATP,” a song that will stay in your head for days if you dare to listen to it once. Korean is now one of the fastest-growing languages studied on apps like Duolingo — overtaking Italian and French because teens want to sing along without Googling translations.

What ties all of this together is how effortlessly Asian trends have gone from niche to mainstream. Minimalist design, kawaii culture, bubble tea, Muji-calm, K-pop maximalism — all coexisting in the same global lifestyle ecosystem. We’ve reached a point where it’s cooler to drive a BYD than a German car in parts of Southeast Asia, and where Western brands are the ones racing to keep up.

For decades, “globalisation” meant Western culture radiating outward. Today, the flow runs both ways — and increasingly from East to West. And honestly? It makes the world a more interesting, colourful place. These are my thoughts for today. Can you think of any other Asian brands or traditions that are popular in the West?

My local Uniqlo store does not only sell clothes but also fresh flowers.

Gift guide

If you’re on Substack or subscribed to their newsletters you can’t escape them these days: Gift guides. I spend so much money before December even starts buying stuff I see in beautifully curated Canva collages - mostly for myself and not for others. So, of course, I had to add my own guide.

One thing to know about me: I am extremely good at remembering when someone says they like something. I get my friends handbags, T-shirts or whatever they said they liked up to a year before their birthday. Gift giving is my love language which is why I have a note on my phone listing gift ideas for different people, some of them ridiculous. For instance I’m giving my older brother this Jennifer Coolidge worship candle because he mentioned about the time The White Lotus was streaming how funny it was. I’m giving my sister in law the original “Kim is my lawyer” hoodie because we synchronically watch The Kardashians and love Kim who has - yet again - failed her bar exam. (We still believe in her!). But because this is an Asia-focused newsletter here are my favorite gifts to give to people who love the region:

1. Crispy Chili oil to add to everything you eat with five different chilis from Hong Kong.

2. Yummy pineapple cakes. Taiwan’s cult pastry gift — and they ship globally.

3. Matcha candy from Uni, Kyoto. The online shop also sells ceremonial grade matches, hojicha (roasted green tea) and other Japanese tees.

4. Love hawker food? Singapore’s street food culture has been declared a UNESCO cultural heritage. This cup lists the most popular dishes.

5. A real Japanese tea set to pour your matcha from.

6. Need a bag for all your shopping? These foldable ones from Singapore can be stuffed into your handbag and are each made of 7 recycled plastic bottles.

7. Scary looking but highly effective Korean sheet masks from the popular Korean brand Dr. Jart.

8. A little Tokyo on cotton: BEAMS’ Mount Fuji tee.

Currently reading

Ever sat in a nail salon wondering whether the nail artist ladies are talking about you in their language? If you read “Pick a color” you will find out that they do, all the time. But the novel is about far more than gossip and acrylic tips: set over the course of a single day in a cramped nail salon, it unpacks an entire hierarchy of workers and clients, lower-class Asian and middle to upper class white women.

The owner, a former boxer, watches her clients with the sharp, analytical eye of someone who has fought much harder battles than chipped polish, decoding their marriages, their ambitions, their loneliness. The result is a wonderfully intimate social study disguised as a quick read. I finished it wanting more of Souvankham Thammavongsa’s world — so next on my list is her award-winning short story collection How to Pronounce Knife.

A piece of art

Not a piece of art per se but I love taking photos of all the colorful Chinese shophouses in Singapore like this one:

Singapore’s shophouses are miniature time capsules, stitched from cultures that once met along the Straits. Their narrow, elongated frames were designed for traders who lived above their shops, but the façades became canvases of a melting pot culture: Malay timber shutters, Chinese calligraphy panels, European pilasters and pastel stucco swirled into one architectural language found nowhere else in the world. Built between the 1840s and the 1960s, each shophouse tells a story of migration and adaptation. In a city obsessed with the future, shophouses remain Singapore’s most vivid remnant of local architecture and heritage.

If you come to Singapore, make sure to visit Joo Chiat Road which is famous for its colorful shophouses.

Album of the month

I know, I know, album of the month should be “Lux” by Rosalía. I loved that one but because as a writer and journalist I love language (the kind I can actually understand; I don’t speak Spanish), I thoroughly enjoyed Lily Allen’s “West End Girl”. You really have to listen to the album from start to finish, because it unfolds as an almost chronological break-up story. It reminded me of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” — not in style, but in the way every track pushes the narrative forward, scene by scene. It’s sharp, funny, painfully honest, and so London you can smell the rain on the pavement.

On my way to somewhere in my brightest summer dress. Can’t believe it is winter in Europe. I am craving hot chocolate and a fire place to warm frozen toes. See you soon, Germany!

That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next month – under the palm shadows!

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I first wanted to title this newsletter post “How my life as an expat started out” but then I was reminded of a recent article I read (sorry, I can’t remember the author) arguing that “expat” is a glorified version of the term “immigrant” and that it signals some kind of superiority associated mostly with wealthy, white people moving abroad for fancy jobs as opposed to having to emigrate to somewhere out of need.

Indeed, I do have Indian and Korean friends here in Singapore who have complained to me that they are sometimes not regarded as expats, even though they definitely are, just because they are not caucasian.

So anyways, back to the topic of this post.

It has now been four years since I moved to Singapore and the way it happened was, let’s say, unusual. In February 2020, I had come for a holiday in Indonesia (where my brother lives with his family) plus a stopover in Singapore. A well informed friend had warned me of “that virus” circulating in Asia but I wasn’t worried.

Once here, me and my boyfriend at the time (now husband) quickly fell in love with Singapore and decided to move here - not being intimidated by the constant temperature checks during the onset of Covid when all of Europe was still oblivious to it.

I had lived in Berlin for ten years and was up for returning to Asia where I had once had the time of my life as an exchange student in Hong Kong in my early 20s. So we flew back to Europe and long story short, got stuck in Vienna for 1,5 years in various lockdowns and when it was finally time to move, I was 8 months pregnant.

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Day of arrival in Singapore.

Determined to finally start our life abroad I got a medial certificate saying I was “fit to fly” and got on the plane for a 12-hour-flight. What followed were two weeks of government-mandated quarantine that I documented obsessively in a text and photo diary — mostly views from our glass balcony, a growing belly, and meals in plastic containers.

Here are a few excerpts from that diary:

The view from our quarantine apartment.

“The container ships lie motionless like stranded whales on the blue-grey water. Below them, toy cars race along the highway. I sit at a stained wooden table, one hand on my planet belly, the other taking photos of the view I’ll soon grow tired of.”

Since we landed, we’d been under watch. A black wristband on my arm — part smartwatch, part shackle — connected to a blinking device in the living room. If I walked too far, it would alert the Ministry of Manpower, or MOM (yes, really).

Most mornings MOM checked in by voice or video call to confirm my wristband was still blinking green. MOM was always watching — and very caring, according to the app called MOMCares, where I had to report my temperature three times a day.

Trying to get soak up some Vitamin D, extending my wristband arm to the sun from our balcony in quarantine.

"Our 90-square-metre apartment is objectively luxurious. It has two balconies (which means fresh air!), and a sea view. Yet the place smells faintly of pesticide and stale air. The photos I take make it look serene; in reality, the place feels haunted." 

At night, I’d lie awake watching the tropical thunderstorms crash against the glass, thinking how absurd it was to start a new life this way — eight months pregnant, trapped, sleepless from jet lag, suspended between worlds.

The view from our bedroom at night.

“I order everything: breakfast, lunch and dinner, groceries, baby clothes, even a stationary bike. The more I order, the more I feel like I am regaining control — until my inbox is filled only with delivery confirmation emails.”

Vietnamese pho soup came in plastic bags, common in Asia, but new to me back then.

"I came up with a basic routine: breakfast at ten, yoga at six, taking my temperature at noon. The numbers I type into the app — 36.7, 36.8, 36.9 — are as repetitive as the days themselves."

Our days blurred: breakfast on the balcony, temperature logs, online yoga, watching everything on Netflix and reading all the books I could order.

Unflattering photo of me doing yoga.

Books I was reading back then.

"At night, I thought I saw someone standing in the shower. Maybe a ghost, maybe my imagination. The walls feel heavy with the boredom and anxiety of those who’d been locked in before us."

Day of our release in the elevator on our way down. Time to find an apartment and give birth!

When we were finally released, I felt like I could have stayed on. The place was starting to feel like home. Maybe I had a bit of Stockholm Syndrome.

The memory of those two weeks still feels dreamlike: a mix of fear, wonder and expectation - like watching your own life through glass. Sometimes I look back at those photos — the container ships, the balcony, the countless takeout food — and think: That’s how our life in Asia began. Not with frantic adventure, but with stillness. With waiting.

Currently reading

This book with its intriguing cover was recommended to me by the owner of Book Bar, a quaint little bookshop in Duxton hill, Singapore which sells mostly literature by Asian authors.

Amanda Lee Koe’s Sister Snake is a lush, unsettling reinvention of the Chinese “White Snake” legend — a story of two serpent sisters who take human form and spend centuries circling each other in love, jealousy, and loss. Set between Singapore’s polished restraint and New York’s raw chaos, the novel mirrors their divided selves: Su, the one who wants safety and belonging, and Emerald, the one who refuses to be tamed.

I’m halfway through and I’m not usually into magical realism/fantasy but thoroughly enjoying it so far.

A piece of art

The prints in my living room.

After seeing Ren Hangs photographs in a solo exhibition in Berlin’s c/O museum in 2019 I immediately fell in love with his style.

His models—often his friends, often nude—seem both exposed and free, as if they’ve shed not only their clothes but the weight of expectation. He photographed them on rooftops, in bathtubs, among blossoms and wires, their bodies folding into shapes that felt more like poems than poses.

Born in 1987 in Changsha, he lived in a country that told him his kind of beauty was indecent. His art was too “naked” for the taste of the Chinese communist party so he had to work in secret.

I bought two of his photo books and finally splurged on two prints which have been accompanying me in my last three apartments.

When I look at his prints on my wall, I’m reminded of that courage—to insist on softness in a world that tries to harden you, to find poetry in places where others only see shame. His work feels like a love letter to freedom, written in the language of skin and light.

Album of the month

Not an album but I recently made a 2000s bangers playlist for my friend Jia-Lin’s birthday. It’s full of juicy tracks from the early naughties so enjoy and don’t mind that it is called “Lins birthday”:

Are you even pregnant if you do not try to balance a can of something on your belly?

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That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next month – under the palm shadows!

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in my last letter I wrote about the flip side of paradise: the mould, the sticky heat, the tropical diseases. Now let me tell you about some of the upsides of living in the tropics.

As you might have guessed from my previous writing I love to travel and I love a good beach or nature escape. Being a city girl at heart I sometimes need to exchange concrete for sand beneath my feet, breezing in salty air instead of smog and picking up sea shells from the beach with my kid instead of plastic toys from the floor in our crammed apartment in Singapore.

In the past few years I travelled to a couple of islands in the region. With autumn just around the corner in Europe please enjoy a smorgasbord of tropical impressions and their locations below as Inspo for your next island escape - or simply for some daydreaming.

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This beach which belongs to the luxury hotel “The Datai” (paid work trip) is one of the most pristine stretches in Langkawi, Malaysia with soft white sand and calm, clear waters, while its surrounding rainforest is 10 million years old, teeming with hornbills, dusky leaf monkeys, and ancient trees.

One of the most beautiful beaches in Asia in my opinion is Selong Belanak beach in Lombok, Bali’s underrated sister island. Surrounded by mountains with crystal clear water and the occasional buffalo herd walking by.

We stayed at the stunning Sempiak villas which are built into the hills so you get amazing views of the mountains, forest and sea.

Their restaurant Laut Biru at the beach makes yummy fresh juices and great Indonesian food which can you enjoy with your feet in the sand.

Rainforest around the active volcano Mount Batur (which you can hike) near Amed, northern Bali - an unspoiled, quiet part of the Indonesian island for great surf, yoga and swimming.

Our AirBnB there was an authentic Balinese villa with its own shrine in the garden and right next to a volcanic black sand beach.

Tioman island is where Singaporeans go to learn diving but we stuck to snorkeling and playing with our son in the quiet waters (no big waves here which is great for babies and toddlers). It’s reachable by ferry from the Malaysian peninsula.

We booked a chalet with Bamboo hill, right at the beach, simple (no Aircon but sea breeze) and with a restaurant that serves fresh fish every day.

Our lovely hosts of Bamboo hill offered rainforest walking tours. We saw a couple of chameleons and a Rafflesia flower, the largest flower in the world!

Generally I’m not the biggest fan of Phuket, Thailand. It is crowded, expensive but it still has its pros such as great kid-friendly hotels and resorts. If you go, I recommend staying near Kamala beach.

Finally, if you make it to Singapore, we also have a beach on Sentosa island. This one is Tanjong beach which has its own beach club with the same name. Swimming in the sea here is not recommended because of the big tanker ships but the atmosphere at the beach is great.

Still feel so lucky that I live 15 minutes by car from a beach!

Goods of desire

With autumn coming up in Europe and wanting to prolong sunny days or if you live in eternal summer like me, here is some inspiration for looking like an island girlie sans sand between your toes:

1. Seaside inspired charm necklace stack. The label also offers customization so you can choose your own charms.

2. Raffia slippers because you can never wear enough raffia. They also do beautiful silk ones to be worn at home or out. I have the pink ones.

3. This authentic panama hat from the Singaporean label “Hat of Cain” is called “Big Mama” and I think every mom should own one. Also comes in natural.

4. Sea shell imprint earrings from my favorite saltwater resistant jewelry label OLAMii.

5. The giant two-toned straw tote to fit everything be it for the beach or the city.

6. This slip mulberry silk dress was designed by an artist I admire, Fleur Kakasi, featuring shells and seaweed on a cut that mimics the fluidity of water. Can be worn with a leather jacket in cooler weather.

7. Outfit too monochrome? Why not tie a beach themed silk scarf in your hair, around your head or waist to add some colour?

Currently reading

I have to admit, the cover of this book isn’t too inviting. Like most European teenagers of the early 2000s, I used to smoke, but these days I’d rather not keep a pack of cigarettes—real or illustrated—on my bedside table. What’s inside, though, is absolutely worth it.

Sang Young Park’s Love in the Big City is a sharp and tender novel about a young gay man in Seoul searching for love, friendship, and meaning. It’s as much a love letter to Seoul—with its smoky bars, cramped apartments, and fleeting nights—as it is a story about survival and belonging.

Park’s writing sparkles with wit and sarcasm, yet beneath the humor lies a disarming vulnerability that makes the story ache in all the right ways. Reading it took me back to my time as a 21-year-old student in Hong Kong, a city equally chaotic, gritty, and exhilarating, where I was searching for the same things as Park’s narrator. If you love the electricity of Asian mega-cities and writing that lingers: this one’s for you.

A piece of art

I am sending this newsletter sitting with my laptop on the bare marble floor of my new home. We moved two days ago and I am surrounded by boxes and misplaced furniture yet I couldn’t be more happy. For four years we lived in a tiny condominium unit where I was stuffing my dresses besides my suitcases in my drawer, trying to decorate in a way to make this impersonal space feel like me.

The view in our old place was nice, yes: sparkly Singapore skyscrapers often accompanied by lilac sunsets at dusk. When I look out the window now I see: green instead of grey. Coconut palm trees and other tropical plants I cannot name yet accompanied by bird song. There’s even a whole tree inside the small house we moved to: a 5 metres tall long-leaf fig in the atrium protecting us from bad spirits.

I’ve brought all my pictures and art of course and will have to decide where to put them but I am also dreaming of hanging some new pieces which fit this new mood. Lou Lauwerys is an artist who is making beautiful (and affordable) tropical handprinted prints in Singapore. Check out her work on her website or her Instagram account.

Album of the month

Listening to Laufey’s luxurious jazzy music puts me in the mood of European advent (the four weeks before Christmas) spent sprawled on the sofa in front of a fireplace, sipping hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream, good book in hand. Or of strolling the streets of Paris or London on a carefree weekend, maybe buying some flowers or visiting indie bookstores while being newly in love and feeling a bit insane waiting for a message on my phone to pop up.

Laufey’s third album “A matter of time” returns to the lush, string-brushed world she’s known for, but widens the frame to include more cinematic swells, bolder pop contours, and that hyper-honest storytelling Gen Z does so well. It’s warm, romantic, and a little mischievous: music for rainy-window mornings and late-night city walks alike.

If she’s new to you: Laufey (full name Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir) is an Icelandic–Chinese singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Her earlier releases, from the debut Everything I Know About Love to the Grammy-winning Bewitched, set the stage for this album’s bigger, more cinematic sweep.

That’s it for this month, thanks for reading and see you next month – under the palm shadows!

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It’s August, the height of summer. Maybe you imagined this time of year in January when winter left your toes without feeling in the freezing cold. You might have dreamed about August as motionless and hot, whole days wasted with sand running through your fingers at the beach and worshipping lilac sunsets smeared across baby blue skies in the evenings. And then August came and there was: rain. A lot of it.

I’m writing from a European perspective here. Up until recently it has been raining non stop in Germany and neighbouring countries for weeks. People are jokingly complaining about having seasonal depression in summer. They are posting videos of summer activities like drinking wine with your friends al fresco - only that it’s happening in a storm which the group is bravely trying to ignore. This weather situation reminds me of a song I love by the DJ duo Andhim called „German Summer“. It only has one line of vocals: „Rain, rain, rain“. It’s quite a happy tune though. I guess everyone is trying to make the best of a bad weather situation.

Posting selfies with my eyes squinting from too much sunshine and of my coconut palm tree back garden in Singapore feels mean in this context. Which is why I am writing this month’s newsletter to assure you: not everything is greener (or sunnier) on the other side of the world.

There is a flip side to living in the tropics that you rarely hear about.

So here it goes:

First, the mould. It lurks everywhere: In sofa cushions, wardrobes, on kitchen and bathroom walls - a friend of mine found her baby’s stroller entirely covered in mould after leaving it outside her apartment when traveling. Shoes disintegrate, leather turns greenish, and once-beloved handbags flake like croissants. I now keep silica gel sachets in every drawer like little emergency first aid kits.

Then there’s the fear of dengue fever. Unlike your typical mosquito bite, dengue can land you in hospital as it did for me in February last year - for a whole week and weeks of recovering after I got home. Every buzzing sound is a potential threat. Before leaving the house I have to put on a double layer of 50 SPF sunscreen and deet containing mosquito spray, not the nice organic lemongrass one. And often I forget the latter and live in low level fear when evening comes and the little blood suckers appear.

And of course there is: the air-con dilemma. They call Singapore the ultimate “air-con nation”. It's too hot and humid to live without it — but running it all day makes your throat and nose dry and your energy bill weep. Plus, the constant switching between outdoor sauna and indoor fridge means I’m always either sweating or shivering. There is no in-between.

Because of the heat and the average 90 per cent humidity most days it is also too hot to leave the house during the day. The regular tropical thunderstorms we get bring almost no relief. This means, especially when you’ve got kids, you have to go to air-conditioned malls or indoor playgrounds to keep them entertained. Have you ever been to a huge indoor playground, so big and full of slides, mazes and toys that you loose your kid for a minute and get super stressed? I have, many times.

Talking about Singapore specifically, in many ways, it feels like a luxury cruise ship — impeccably clean, astonishingly safe, and immaculately managed. And that can be nice. But like on a cruise ship, life here can sometimes feel predictable or sterile. You rarely get surprised — by a grumpy waiter, a missed train, or an unkempt street corner. At times, I find myself missing the chaos, the friction, the beautiful messiness of Europe, even if it comes with unpredictable weather. At least there’s hundreds and thousands of years of culture to discover. Singapore only turned 60 years old this month.

So if you're reading this from under a grey sky, know this: I see your soggy sandals, your ruined barbecue plans, and your longing for real summer. And I raise you a closet full of mouldy shoes and a constant low-level fear of insects.

Life isn’t possible without Aircon. This picture was taken in the quaint Singaporean neighborhood Tiong Bahru.

Read more about my life without seasons here:

Currently reading

I don’t know what it is about Japanese translated fiction that always makes me feel zen — but Days at the Morisaki Bookshop had that effect on me. Like Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, this quiet little novel by Satoshi Yagisawa manages to say a lot with very little. The prose is simple, the pages few, and yet the story stays with you.

At its heart is Takako, a 25-year-old who’s never liked reading. When her boyfriend announces he’s marrying someone else, she retreats to her uncle’s secondhand bookshop in Tokyo’s Jimbocho district. Hoping for solitude, she instead finds human connection, comfort in routine, and the unexpected joy of getting lost in books.

Many of the literary references in Morisaki Bookshop were lost on me, but that didn’t matter. Because people connecting over books and coffee is a universal joy. And there’s comfort in knowing that bookshops — from Tokyo to wherever you are — offer the same kind of refuge.

Read about some of my favourite places in Japan:

A piece of art

This month’s pick is a photograph by Hong Kong–born artist Birdy Chu, taken in 1997 during the city’s last days under British rule. It captures a moment of pure Kai Tak drama: a passenger jet flying low over Kowloon, so close you can almost see into the apartment buildings. At the time, such hair-raising approaches were routine — but with hindsight, the image has become more than an aviation thrill. It’s a portrait of a city suspended between worlds, framed in neon signs and dense concrete, holding its breath before a future that was about to change forever.

As I studied at Hong Kong University in 2007, I feel very nostalgic about this place and bought a print of Chu’s work from Blue Lotus gallery in Hong Kong. It now hangs in my home office where I took the below photo.

Whom to follow

Coco Mellors (@cocomellors on Instagram) writes about women who are messy, brilliant, fragile, and full of fight. Her novels are raw and tender explorations of love, addiction, ambition, and grief told with a clarity and lyricism that lingers long after the final page.

She’s the author of two novels:
Cleopatra and Frankenstein — a sharp, devastating portrait of a whirlwind marriage between a twentysomething British artist and an older New York ad man.
Blue Sisters — a sweeping novel about four sisters shattered by the sudden death of the fifth. It's a story of sisterhood, rage, and survival - a family drama that’s both bruised and glittering.

Coco also has the kind of personal style that makes you look twice: elegant but unfussy, romantic but real. Her long, angelic blonde hair only adds to her aura. Following her feels like stepping into a world that’s both emotionally sharp and visually dreamy - a perfect match for the characters she creates.

Find @cocomellors on Instagram

Song of the month

There’s something exquisitely melancholic about listening to the song “Estate” in August — a song whose name means summer, yet whose mood drips with longing. João Gilberto’s interpretation of this Italian jazz ballad is haunting and tender, his soft voice and intricate guitar turning heat into haze, and sunlight into memory. Originally written as a lament about summer heartbreak, “Estate” becomes, in Gilberto’s hands, a quiet farewell to the season itself — a perfect soundtrack for the last, slow afternoons of August, when the light is golden and the air feels heavy with something ending.

A week before ending up in hospital with dengue fever: always appreciate the moment!

See you next month – under the palm shadows!

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I know, I know.. you expect my newsletters to be about Asia but there are palm trees in the South of France, too! So I thought I’d dedicate my newsletter this month to this magical place on earth which has been my second home since I was born and where I am currently spending my summer vacation.

I am writing to you from a small provencale village called Callian which sits on top of a hill between Cannes and the perfume city of Grasse. The house we are staying at once belonged to my father’s British aunt who used to spend her winters here escaping the harsh weather of her home country. It is because of her that the house’s interior looks rather English with its mahagoni furniture, florals running down armchairs and sofas and old black and white photos of aunt Cynthia in her chic bikini at the Côte d'Azur.

As a kid I used to spend all day in the garden with my brothers playing made up games, climbing trees, picking plump tomatoes, sun-drenched figs, mirabelles, lemons and khakis (depending on the seasons) from the trees and collecting lavender to put into little sachets to be given as gifts for Christmas.

In my teenage years I was bored to death as I was too young to drive and felt like there was “nothing to do”. Later I took advantage of my driver’s license to go to horribly tacky night clubs in Cannes or Saint Tropez. Today, as a mom and late thirty-something I am lavishing the quiet: The sound of the cygales in the baking midday sun, the soft song of the pigeons, the dead quiet at night - so different from the hustle and bustle of Singapore. I love to spend my days at home and in the garden having rosé with ice cubes for lunch and dinner, taking a swim in the nearby lake, having a nap on one of the sun chairs in the shade of the old Sycamore tree.

But then, if you get restless, there are so many things to do and discover: Snacking olives and cheese at the farmers markets of nearby villages, having seafood in Cannes, visiting the Musée Matisse in Nice and walking through the old town with its Italian flair, seeing an exhibition at the Fondation Maeght in the charming artists town of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, visiting wineries, testing perfumes in Grasses and so much more.

Below, some snapshots and links to some of my favorite places in Provence:

Farmers markets of all kinds like this one near our home village Callian. Yes, these are all tomatoes!

The city of Grasse with its perfume museums and lovely shops. My favorite: Fragonard.

Just like out of a movie: hotel and restaurant “Les Deux Rocs” in Seillans.

Truffle heaven restaurant “Chez Bruno” in Lorgues.

The seafood restaurant “Astoux et Brun” in Cannes. Order the moules farcies!

The alpine river “La Siagne” which has only around 15 degrees celsius in the height of summer. The best natural ice plunge!

The lovely restaurant “La Pause Tourrettane” in Tourrette. Not pictured: the heavenly view.

The turquoise waters of the Gorges du Verdon lake, framed by dramatic limestone cliffs, make it one of France’s most breathtaking natural wonders.

The Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a modern art museum and sculpture park renowned for its remarkable collection and harmonious integration of art, architecture, and nature (More further below).

There are so many beaches to choose from at the Côte d'Azur. I like this one called Plage de l’Aguille with a super cute restaurant called “La Cabane du Pêcheur” where you can enjoy fresh fish with your feet in the sand.

Markets, market, markets like this one in Fayence happening every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

My home village of “Callian”, a typical medieval “village perché” built around a hill with a lovely village square, giant stone church and even a castle. Secret tip: Walk to the graveyard to visit the tomb of Christian Dior who lived here before he died.

Currently reading

Fours years ago this summer, I married a Persian man (who was raised in Vienna) and have been trying to learn his mother tongue and about his culture ever since. It is because of him that I picked up the novel “The Persians”, Sanam Mahloudji’s darkly funny and sharply observed debut novel about an Iranian family unraveling — and reinventing itself — in exile. Mahloudji, born in Tehran and based in London, brings wit and depth to the story of the Valiats: once a prominent family in Iran, now scattered across America and struggling to matter in a country that barely notices them.

At the center is Elizabeth, the proud matriarch who stayed behind in Tehran, visited now and then by her rebellious granddaughter Niaz. Her daughters, meanwhile, fled to the U.S.: glamorous Shirin, a Houston event planner clinging to old illusions of grandeur; and Seema, a wistful dreamer-turned-L.A. housewife. And then there’s Bita, a disillusioned law student in New York quietly giving her possessions away, trying to make sense of it all.

When a family vacation to Aspen ends with Shirin in jail, the cracks in their carefully polished lives deepen, and a bittersweet, absurd quest to reclaim their dignity begins. Spanning decades, from 1940s Iran to post-9/11 America, Mahloudji weaves satire and tenderness into a moving exploration of identity, belonging, and what remains when your homeland — and your old self — are gone.

Wry, warm, and quietly devastating, “The Persians” lingers in all the best ways.

A piece of art

I really wanted to make it to my favorite museum in the world, the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence this summer but alas I had made too many other plans and family obligations and work kept me from it at the end. Apart from their excellent exhibitions they also have a fantastic museum shop with lithographs and other prints by artists like Miró, Chagall and Matisse. I have to admit their online selection is a bit limited. That is why I also follow the galerist Yoyo Maeght, granddaughter of Aimé Maeght, who founded the Fondation. She is a champion of two great artists: Aki Kuroda and Thierry Lefort. Kuroda is a Japanese painter based in Paris and Lefort makes vibrant oil paintings of Californian landscapes and moods and I am dreaming of buying one of his works or prints one day.

Aki Kuroda, Red Flower

Thierry Lefort, Pointe limite zéro

Whom to follow

Ashley Tinker, the artist and photographer behind Curious Provence moved from Canada to Provence 12 years ago and has been living the kind of creative, slow life you dream about — renovating a 250-year-old farmhouse, painting surrounded by wild herbs and mistral winds, and capturing the beauty of quiet, everyday moments with her camera. She’s a photographer and oil painter who draws inspiration from nature, like old bones and seed pods she finds around her home. If you love art, nature, and seeing Provence beyond the usual postcard clichés, Ashley’s feed is full of soulful snapshots, painterly details, and honest reflections on life as an outsider finding her place. Definitely worth a follow.

I also featured her in my podcast “Pandemic Provence” in 2021 (in German) where we visited the famous farmers market in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence together.

Playlist of the month

Please enjoy my timeless Provence/French chansons playlist which I made in September 2020 when I stayed here during the height of the pandemic to isolate in a beautiful place:

In front of “Chez Bruno” with my son.

See you next month – under the palm shadows!

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