The other day’s incident stayed with me. But the truth is, it’s not an isolated moment. It’s a pattern. Across many homes, not all but enough to matter, domestic helpers are treated less like employees and more like something in between obligation and ownership. One helper expected to serve an…
Category: Society & Culture
Observations on Bruneian society, culture, and social issues
Brunei Darussalam
Dignity Should Not Be Optional
It wasn’t dramatic. No shouting match. No crowd. No one pulling out a phone. Just an old man in a wheelchair. An Indonesian helper beside him. And a stream of words that didn’t feel right. You don’t stop because you want to stare. You stop because something inside you tightens…
Brunei Darussalam
Traffic and the National Psyche
Ever noticed how traffic tells you a lot about a country’s personality? It’s the national psyche on wheels, honestly. You can learn more from fifteen minutes on the road than from a three hundred page vision document, because traffic is where people show their true colours, when no one’s watching…
Brunei Darussalam
A Decade Later: Overcoming Fear, Cyber-Bullying, and Injustice
It’s been ten years since a simple Facebook post about an event in Malaysia aimed at reducing fear of dogs among Muslims turned my life upside down. What began as a personal share, reflecting my own fears of dogs, spiraled into a nightmare of cyber-bullying and personal attacks. This online…
Brunei Darussalam
Breaking the Silence: A Unified Stand for Global Peace
In the tranquil heart of Brunei, we often find ourselves at a safe distance from the global upheaval of religious extremism and conflict. Yet, this distance should not translate into detachment. I was recently reminded of this imperative through a compelling article by Paul Mereki, titled “Why The Peaceful Majority…
Brunei Darussalam
In Shadows of Sorrow
In the shadows of sorrow, under a grieving sky, Lies a land where echoes of anguish never die. Palestine, oh weeping land, where tears like rivers flow, Where the heartbeats of the innocent, face a ceaseless woe. Through streets scarred by sorrow, under siege of endless night, Lives a tale…