@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io
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skinnylatte

@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io

Queer Southeast Asian in California working on #civictech. I lead the product team at San Francisco Digital Services.

I write about food, immigrant life, pets, steel bikes, photography and other analog hobbies.

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skinnylatte, to random
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Saw a Taiwanese university commencement thing which was 2000 people having dinner outdoors together with delicious food. Seems so much more fun than any other type of commencement activities. Including like, graduating.

skinnylatte, to random
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I keep threatening to move to the ‘burbs and then I walk to everywhere I need in 20 minutes and I’m like, nvm

skinnylatte,
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@jawnsy I already complain about the Chinese food in sf I can’t imagine going anywhere smaller (well I probably wouldn’t complain in Queens but that’s a whole other thing)

skinnylatte, to random
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One of my fave cameras. On land too

https://mas.to/

skinnylatte, to random
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My neighbors are having an argument. The uncle bought 600 cans of beer and his wife is upset at not knowing where to put it. (And that it’s 600 cans of beer.)

skinnylatte,
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@Ameliaagain they live in an apartment, and they’re hoarders

skinnylatte, to animals
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She’s a happy girl!

skinnylatte, to magASEAN
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I’m at an Indonesian bazaar in San Francisco and they have an indomie eating contest. The prize is 6 boxes of Indomie. Can I be persuaded to join?

#TootSea #Indonesia

skinnylatte,
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I didn’t do it. I already have a lot of indomie. I don’t need more. Also export version indomie (the one not for Indonesia) is not spicy enough

skinnylatte, to BelieveInFilm
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Let's try a new format for photography / storytelling.

--

Lately, I've been thinking about what it means to have come from the equator. Imagine growing up with no seasons, except 'rain' and 'monsoon' and 'hot' and 'hotter'. Everything around you is green, all year round, never brown. Lush is not just the word they use in magazines about tropical travel, but it's the only world you know.

skinnylatte,
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Everything smells like something. It wasn't until I left the equator that I realized, most places don't smell at all like home.

Flowers, for the temple. Onions and garlic, for the food. Durian, for dessert.

a scan of a color film photo of onions and veggies stacked in a truck
a scan of a color film photo of durians lying in boxes on a table at a vendor

skinnylatte,
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It's the colors green and red and pink that I feel I miss the most. I was never aware of it, but that was the color palette of my life.

the same way i never cared for blue skies until i got to san francisco. sure, blue sky days are nice, but i had blue skies 365 days of my life.

skinnylatte,
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When I return 'home', home feels like these two photos.

Home is the view from the 30th storey of my parents' home. Home is the sweaty, messy stickiness under your armpits in the food centres nestled in high rise buildings with the roar of woks as loud as jet engines. Home is sweating in 95F / 35C and still electing to drink boiling temperature soup, and hot beverages, in a hot not airconditioned food court inside a high rise building.

skinnylatte,
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Home no longer exists.

Coming from the equator, specifically from the place that tears things down and builds new things in the blink of an eye, means that everything you ever knew as a child is bound to be gone.

After a year away, there are new airport terminals, new train lines. The neighborhood you ran around in as a child is slated for demolition.

In the shiny parts of the equator, nothing lives except my memories.

a scan of a color film photo of pastel pink and yellow and blue architecture features in a housing estate they are tearing down in singapore
a scan of a color film photo of the gumball machines you put coins into to get toys

skinnylatte,
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And in my memories, the ones in which I'm only speaking Hokkien and Malay are the ones that feel the most real to me. But who am I kidding: I haven't lived there for any real length of time for two decades. I am simply a tourist who speaks the languages well, and who knows the best food. I'm the tourist who goes to see this lady before I go to the airport so I can buy my favorite soy sauce brand, so I can feel less alone, 8000 miles away from home.

a scan of a color medium format photo of a housing estate in singapore
a scan of a color medium format photo of a lady in a wet market selling dried goods like soy sauce and mushrooms

skinnylatte,
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@franktaber that shop is open at 5am, because we do not have 'breakfast food'.

skinnylatte,
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This is a photo from my favorite restaurant in Indonesia. My best friend and I always stop here for the empal goreng and nasi rawon on the way to Tretes. She asked, 'why are you taking photos of chairs and tables?'

I said, so when I am 8000 miles away and I miss the food and smell and sunlight and you, this photo will make me cry.

And it does. Just looking at it makes me miss all of the things that I miss. And this is why I take photos.

skinnylatte,
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I gave a talk online with a version of this here: https://youtu.be/ahrAOeOK5eM?t=3583

"My Equator Home".

thesquirrelfish, to random
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I got real mad at a journalist who described e-bikes like they all cost $5000+ a couple years ago because I've had 2 e-bikes that each cost under $1000 and regular bikes that cost the same.
I am absolutely lusting after fancy e-bikes that cost more than $5000 but that's like.. a high luxury e-bike that can fit my golden retriever in the basket in the front for rides across the Golden Gate Bridge to campgrounds. I remain annoyed that those are depicted as normal - they're a totally different class of bike.

skinnylatte,
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@thesquirrelfish Lamborghinis are expensive. Therefore all gas cars are. Ian’s article was so weird

skinnylatte, to random
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Saw a bunch of East Asian Americans running a class (hundreds of dollars) on how women above 40 can benefit from ‘eastern wisdom’ and they’re just listing all the things we just call, well, food. I’ll save you a hundred bucks. Ginseng chicken soup. Lots of mushrooms and vegetables. Cantonese hot desserts (with snow fungus, lotus seeds etc).

skinnylatte,
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@atomicpoet next class. $1000

skinnylatte, to LosAngeles
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Two ways to LA

(Hasselblad 500C, Kodak T-Max 400, Rodinal)

a scan of a medium format film negative of a classic car in LA

skinnylatte, to LosAngeles
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East LA last week. View from a great taqueria, of course. (Tacos Al Vapor El Canelo)

(Hasselblad 500C, 100mm, Kodak Portra 400, developed in Bellini C-41 chemicals at home and scanned on a Fuji Frontier SP3000 at my community darkroom)

skinnylatte, to random
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Every day is #Caturday when you have a #Tortie

skinnylatte, to random
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I wonder if this job posting is.. totally illegal??

skinnylatte,
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But also ‘bring lovable product to poor children’ is so Bond villain

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