Tra sen

Tra sen Hue is a Hue specialty. Enjoying this tea is a traditional ceremonial art of the imperial city.

During the Nguyen Dynasty in the 1800s, imperial maids used to row to Tinh Tam Lake to collect each dewdrop on the sen leaves to make tea. The maids served the tea to kings in a different special tea pot for each of the four seasons.

“Lotus tea has its own summer tea pot, for example,” says Nguyen Dac Xuan, 90, an historian specialising in the history and culture of the Nguyen Dynasty.

“Sen flowers grow in all of the country’s rural areas. But a sen tea connoisseur prefers tea scented by sen flowers grown in Tinh Tam Lake, where the lotus flowers are much more aromatic than lotus flowers from elsewhere,” Hue expert cook Ton Nu Thi Ha says.

Lotus flowers bloom from early May through June. This is the season when dried tea leaves are traditionally placed in newly opened lotus flowers which are then tied closed to perfume the tea.

“When the lotus flowers opened at midnight, the tea leaves were placed inside the flowers. At 5am these same flowers were then harvested to make tea,” Hoang Anh Suong, Xuan’s son, says.

Lotus flowers for fragrant tea should be picked before dawn. Cool air and fog help to preserve the light, pure fragrance of sen. After sunrise, sen loses its fragrance due to the heat.

In the past, lotus tea was only served to kings in Hue.

But sen tea was also well known in Ha Noi’s ancient villages around Ho Tay (West Lake). For example, Quang Ba, Tay Ho and Nghi Tam villages have long been renowned for making lotus-scented tea.

As a result, many Hanoians have known for generations how to enjoy lotus tea in the most sophisticated, precise and stylish way, lotus tea expert Truong Xuan says.

Ho Tay sen (West Lake lotus tea) is considered the most precious lotus tea because of its beauty and aroma.

These days there are new ways to scent tea. The most popular method utilises lotus anthers to perfume tea at home.

There are also many closely guarded secrets for making tasty lotus-scented tea.

One method involves layering dry tea and dry lotus anthers, then wrapping them in water-resistant paper for three days to preserve the delicate fragrance. This process must be repeated seven times for three weeks to make the most perfect sen tea, says Suong who learned this art from his father.

20th century writer Nguyen Tuan praised lotus tea for embodying the highest cultural values of the Trang An (an old name for Hanoi) native people, reflecting the precision, stylishness, elegance and connoisseurship of Hanoian culture.

“Sen tea is the most precious and popular perfumed tea. Sen fragrance embodies the most essential qualities of earth and heaven,” Tuan wrote.

“Lotus plants grow in black mud, but never smell bad. Therefore, lotus represents the most important qualities of sky and earth. This is why lotus roots, leaves and flowers are precious herbs,” said Vietnam’s most renowned herbalist, Hai Thuong Lan Ong (1720-1791).

Vo Thi Lua of Ha Noi’s Thanh Xuan District and her husband enjoy lotus tea for its aromatic fragrance, compared to other teas.

“Tra sen is a national heritage which should be preserved,” Lua says.

Mut sen tran

The Vietnamese consider Mut sen tran (Sugar-coated lotus seeds) one of Vietnam’s greatest gifts to the world.

Tue Tinh (1330-1400), a renowned herbalist of the Tran Dynasty, called the lotus seed a “son of the lotus plant” because it is a nutritious food which helps cool internal body heat, as well as a medicine to treat sleeplessness without harmful side effects.

These treasured seeds are essential for Tet and wedding parties for Hanoians.

Veteran artisan Nguyen Vy, 87, an owner of Ninh Huong which sells the best mut sen tran in Ha Noi, says the food originated in Nanh Village in Ha Noi’s Gia Lam District hundreds of years ago.

After a long history of working with herbs, the village now specialises in making traditional food.

Artisan food-making was interrupted by wars in the past and Vy sometimes had to do other jobs, such as tailoring, to earn a living.

“But we have tried to preserve our tradition of making mut sen tran because it is a noble food left to us by our ancestors,” Vy says.

Dam Hong Lam, 40, of HCM City always remembers to buy several kilograms of mut sen tran as gifts for his relatives and friends.

“My family members often enjoy mut sen tran with sen tea during the Tet holidays when we fully enjoy the essence and spirit of the food.”

“My father said drinking astringent tea together with sweet, nutty lotus seed during Tet creates harmony and a peaceful,warm quality,” Lam says.

In the box

Mut sen tran (Sugar-coated lotus seeds) can be found at:

Hanoi:

– Phuc Thanh.

19 Hang Dieu Street. Phone: 0906160984

– Ninh Huong

22 Hang Dieu Street. Phone: (04) 3825 1148

– Phuong Soat

75 Hang Chieu Street. Phone: (04) 3828 1169

– O mai Hong Lam

11 Hang Duong Street. Phone: (04) 3928 1838

1A Pho Hue Street. Phone: (04) 6278 2511

151 Quang Trung Street. Phone: (04) 6325 0230

– O mai Tien Thinh

21 Hang Duong Street. Phone: (04) 3984 0323

25 Phan Dinh Phung Street. Phone: (04) 6270 0723

Ho Chi Minh City

– O mai Hong Lam

82-84 Ham Nghi Street. District 1. Phone: (08) 3914 0177

Tra sen (Lotus tea) is served at:

Hanoi:

– Tra sen

169 Nghi Tam Street. Phone: 0976 775 814251

Tran Cung Street. Phone: 0976 775 814

– Tam tra quan

51 Phan Chu Trinh Alley, Phan Chu Trinh Street. Phone: 093 649 95 69

– Vo uu tra quan

68E Tran Quang Dieu Street. Phone: 0902 362628

Hue:

– Tra Dinh Vu Di

Thien An Eco-Tourism, Cu Chanh village, Huong Thuy town. Phone: (054) 3865703

– Tra That Kim Long

110 Kim Long Street. Phone: (0511) 3692 963

Da Nang:

– Tra That Hoa Sen

156-158 Nguyen Tri Phuong Street, Son Tra District. Phone: (0511) 3725 304

Ho Chi Minh City:

– Khanhcasa Tea House

46 Dong Khoi Street, District 1. Phone: 01266666605 – 0838251757

66 Le Loi Street, District 1. Phone: 01266666605 – 0838251757

77 Ham Nghi Street, District 1. Phone: 01266666605 – 0838251757

214 De Tham Street, District 1. Phone: 01266666605 – 0838251757

In the last two years, they have tried to help Kai Kai and Jia Jia out a little through artificial insemination.

The pandas have been together for about four years but are still young and inexperienced when it comes to mating.

So when Jia Jia shows signs of becoming fertile, humans spring into action.

Though this year’s attempt was again unsuccessful, Cheng Wen-Haur, chief life sciences officer and deputy chief executive officer of Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), believes they now have a better handle on Jia Jia’s behavioural cues and the period she is fertile, which happens once a year.

“Both Kai Kai and Jia Jia have also shown improvements in their mating techniques since their first mating attempt last year,” said Dr Cheng.

While Kai Kai, nine, and Jia Jia, eight, are friendly to each other, the furry duo, on a 10-year loan from China, are still teenagers in panda years. Unsuccessful mating is therefore not uncommon for the young and inexperienced like them.

Experts in China report a 60 to 80 per cent success rate in getting pandas to mate successfully but, outside of China, it is pretty much “hit or miss”, said Cheng.

Part of it is to do with experience and part of it is the fact that the Chinese simply have more pandas to work with.

All that aside, breeding pandas in captivity is a headache in itself.

In the wild, a receptive female panda would have its pick of the most virile bear — an experienced male in its prime.

“Cut back to us, we have got a boy and a girl — no experience whatsoever, and we expect them to go on and do it,” said Cheng.

Trying to anticipate when the female giant panda is most fertile is also a tricky business. It has only one reproductive cycle per year and is receptive to mating for one or two days. It is fertile for just 24 hours.

This means the vets have a one-day window period or less to ensure the best chance of success. Artificial insemination has to be carried out as soon as the oestrogen level drops, after it peaks.

“By the time it has dropped too much, we would have missed the window period,” said Cheng.

And even if the vets score a hit with the insemination, various other factors could stand in the way of a successful pregnancy taking.

“Female pandas have pseudopregnancy, a state in which pregnancy symptoms are shown but the panda is not pregnant. This makes it challenging to detect a genuine pregnancy,” he explained.

Despite the challenges, vets at the River Safari believe they are getting closer to helping the young pandas become proud parents.

For instance, they were better this year at reading Jia Jia’s signs, and so the procedure was carried out closer to when she was fertile, said Serena Oh, assistant director of veterinary services at WRS.

“This year we did it the very day her oestrogen level dropped. Last year, we did it the day after,” said Oh. Vets and keepers will continue to perfect their timing of Jia Jia’s fertile period.

As giant pandas are seasonal breeders, with females coming into heat in the spring, zookeepers will continue to vary daylight hours and the temperature in their space to simulate the passage of the seasons as they would occur in the pandas’ homeland in Sichuan, China.

“If we want it to get brighter earlier, we just turn on the lights early. If we want it to get darker, we just turn it off and we have dark curtains to make it all black,” said Dr Oh.

Latest estimates have put the population of adult giant pandas at 1,864, moving the status of the cuddly, charismatic species from “endangered” to “vulnerable”.

Fertility specialist Liow Swee Lian said artificial insemination is the cheapest and safest procedure for animal breeding in livestock and wildlife conservation.

Other methods of conservation, including animal cloning and in-vitro fertilisation, are costlier.

“Most importantly, we should do our part to conserve the natural habitats for all animals threatened with extinction. It will be a very sad day for us when we can find these animals only in the zoo,” said Dr Liow.

But while conserving natural habitats is important, breeding animals under human care is a good backup.

Dr Cheng said: “Captive breeding is an important component in the conservation of giant pandas. We need to have an assurance colony in case something disastrous happens in nature.”

More than 60 colourful paintings and prints are on display, including watercolours on silk, as well as acrylic pieces depicting aspects of Lao culture, nature and the modernisation of the lifestyle of various ethnic groups.

The paintings and prints are the work of Sivilay Saypaserth, Phouthone Vithainorath and Oudomxay Thammavongsa, all talented local artists.

The three artists are also teachers at the National Institute of Fine Arts who, after graduating from fine arts schools, went on to work as teachers and resident artists and have produced many pieces for exhibition.

However this is the first time they have exhibited their work together as a trio, choosing this time to collaborate in staging the exhibition.

Sivilay is displaying his watercolours on silk and paintings, Phouthone his acrylic paintings, and Oudomxay his mix of coloured paintings and prints.

The exhibition will run until October 12. Art lovers and interested people can visit La Maison de la Culture, to which entrance is free, and support the artists by purchasing one of their pieces.

The opening ceremony took place on Monday evening and was attended by a large number of art lovers.

At the opening ceremony, Mr Sivilay represented the artists to welcome the audience, offered his impressions of the displayed artwork, explained the background and purpose of the event, and urged the audience to enjoy the items on display.

Phouthone told Vientiane Times he was very happy to take part in the exhibition and called on members of the public to visit and witness the beauty of the artists’ work.

“I am very happy to take part by displaying my artwork here. I have exhibited my pieces many times in Laos and other countries. But this time is special because I am displaying my work with two other Lao artists and we want to present the output of Lao artists to both local and foreign art lovers. We want people to know that Lao artists can do what artists in other countries can do and that our work is as beautiful as theirs,” he said.

Oudomxay said he too was very happy to display his work alongside that of his colleagues and explained the importance of his creations and asked members of the public to support the artists.

“I love creating art, especially painting and printmaking. Art is very important because it helps to make people feel relaxed while the pieces on display here reflect Lao style and our culture and traditions.”

“Creating art is not easy because it takes time and you need special techniques and skills. I would like to invite all art lovers to visit the exhibition, learn about our work and support us,” he added.

The benefits of keeping a graphic diary were discussed during Ideafest 2016’s first day session in Jakarta, featuring Bandung-based comic artist Tita Larasati as speaker.

Tita, who is also the general secretary of Bandung Creative City Forum (BCCF), explained that graphic diaries have a positive impact on the senses. “When we create one, we directly observe our surroundings, such as where the door is located,” she said, adding that her graphic diary helps her reflect on the reality of her perceptions. It also helps her to narrate stories concisely without boring her readers, and it improves her empathy.

In her first graphic comics, Tita illustrated how she had to cook Indonesian food for 11 people, went to IKEA, built her own bike, cleaned up her apartment, and do other daily activities. “It was actually just fragments of highlights of the day,” she said. Her books include the paperback version of her 2008 graphic diary, Curhat Tita (Tita Tells Her Stories), Curhat Tita: Back in Bandung ( 2008 ), Kid Stuff ( 2010 ), and Transition, which is published under her own publishing company Curhat Anak Bangsa. She also collaborated with other artists in various books.

Tita has loved drawing since she was little and went to Germany in 1995 for an internship program in a product design company. Her boss at that time urged her to keep in touch with her family by writing a letter every week. “I was too lazy to write, so I faxed my family a comic in a piece of paper,” she said. The comics were then copied by her mother and distributed to her family and friends.

Tita is one of 150 speakers who participated in Ideafest’s first-day session alongside film director Nia Dinata, screenwriter Salman Aristo and blogger Astrid Satwika.

One first-time visitor, Mega Kharismawati, said the event was full to the brim with knowledge from the professional speakers. “It offers many categories and topics that we can choose from depending on our preference,” she told The Jakarta Post. “There are so many sessions that I wanted to attend, but I think [some] good topics are being held at the same time, so people may find it difficult [to choose].”

In addition to new sessions, the second day of the event will also feature a conference and Indovidfest. Prominent figures scheduled to speak at the conference include President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, presenter and journalist Andy F. Noya, Grab co-founder Hooi Ling Tan and Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil. Meanwhile, Indovidfest is a collaboration between Ideafest and Indovidgram that is said to be the biggest creative video festival in the country.

In a two-story building at Jl. Ring Road Utara 18 in Sleman, Upside Down World Jogja features 12 different themed rooms with real furniture sets, as the name suggests, placed upside down or stuck onto the roof and walls, including beds, sofas, dining tables and toilets.

The result provides a fun photo opportunity as it makes visitors appear to be flying or defying gravity like in a 3D art museum; the difference is that all things featured in the rooms are authentic items you usually find in houses.

“This place was inspired by the animated movie Upside Down,” said the attraction’s supervisor Femil Wahyu Hardono, as quoted by Tribun Jogja. “The general concept is showcasing rooms in a regular house. But we added a new theme called warung burjo [mung bean porridge stall], which can be found across the city and has become one of the popular characteristics.”

Established on July 4, the attraction also has attendants who can assist visitors in finding good angles for selfies. “They will also help visitors take photos for free,” said Femil.

Open daily between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., entry costs Rp 80,000 (US$6) for adults and Rp 40,000 for children, including insurance. The attraction reportedly sees at least 100 visitors per day. A similar site is also available in Bali.

Such is the refreshing morning landscape and atmosphere when one lives amidst hectares of plantation land, away from busy rush hour traffic noise and city pollution.

Zulinawati, 38, is the wife of Sime Darby Plantation’s Bukit Paloh Estate manager Nor Yazid Kanapi, who has been in the role since January 2013.

Together with their four boys, aged five to 15, they currently live in the estate manager’s bungalow, which was built way back in the 1930s.

Bukit Paloh Estate is a 2,700-hectare oil palm plantation located in the Kluang district in Johor, about 25km from Yong Peng, Batu Pahat.

According to the book The Planter’s Bungalow: A Journey Down the Malay Peninsula by Peter & Waveney Jenkins (EDM Books, 2007), the Bukit Paloh Estate was formerly part of the Straits Rubber Co Ltd and later Kempas Sime Darby, before becoming part of the Sime Darby Plantation. The first occupant of the bungalow was manager John Hedley.

Located on a small hill, the two-storey masonry building bears hints of Scottish baronial architecture — a style that spread well beyond its Scottish borders and into the British colonies (victorianweb.org) — in the two small angle-walled turrets at the back of the house. Behind these angled walls are spacious living room and kitchen areas.

A porte cochère (porch) that shelters estate and guest cars forms part of the bungalow’s design in front, with a sturdy balcony resting above it.

Near the porch are windows with rounded tops that complement the building’s design. Some of the original paned windows on the upper floor have since been replaced with louvered glass and aluminium panel windows.

Walking inside the house, one of the first things we notice is the staircase with a wooden balustrade that penetrates the exposed beam ceiling to lead up to the second floor.

The wooden-floored upper level consists of four spacious bedrooms, bathrooms, and a small landing area that leads out to the balcony above the porte cochere.

“Back in those days, when general managers visited the plantation, they would stay at the manager’s bungalow, where a room would have been set aside as the guest room,” says Yazid, 47.

“But sometimes, with the manager’s family living in the house, it may not be conducive, especially when there are kids running around. Coupled with the availability of modern hotels, this practice has stopped.”

The master bedroom is connected to the children’s room, reflecting the Western practice of having kids sleep in an adjoining room.

Today, most of the furniture in the house has been largely replaced with modern pieces.

Yazid and his family also keep many pets —1a Boer goat, a mynah and seven cats that include a Persian and two Bengals. Some minor extension work has been done to the back of the house between the turrets to accommodate the cats.

Surrounding the property are fruit trees such as durian, pulasan, mango, mangosteen and kuinin, while (a currently unused) swimming pool is located at the back of the house.

Reflection of a Rich Heritage

About 20km away is the Yong Peng Estate, which spreads over 2,600 hectares. The first manager recorded at the estate office was R.H.V. Reed, who served from 1948 to 1950. In the years since then, there were 21 other managers before current manager Syed Akhmal Syed Isa took over in June 2015.

The manager’s bungalow is also located on a steep hill and was built in 1935. Also featuring a porte cochère and a balcony above, this handsome house features rounded and square pillars on its left side, forming part of the verandas on both the lower and upper floors.

Patterned concrete balustrades are seen all around the bungalow, as are grey wooden window panes with frosted glass and louvered wooden window panels.

Inside, 90cm-high dividers made of wood and concrete functionally separate the living room space, which features sand-coloured marble.

Arched entrance ways are seen around the white walled interiors, which still houses dark, solid wood furniture and an old Singer sewing machine, a gentle throwback to the old days.

The upper floor is designed with wooden flooring and has four bedrooms, each with a bathroom and a veranda. The main balcony offers a sprawling view of the plantation. All around the house are sapota, mango and coconut trees as well as a swimming pool (currently not in use).

Sime Darby Plantation special projects manager Ezzaruddin Abdul Rapar explains how these old estate bungalows are managed: “Most of the heritage buildings within Sime Darby Plantation’s operations are maintained by the respective home estates except for those on Carey Island (which come under Sime Darby Plantation HQ). The (preservation of the) roof structure is the common issue for all heritage buildings.

“Most of the heritage bungalows are of great significance and we value the rich history of these buildings that reflect the rich heritage of the company itself,” he says.

Bacani’s story has been extensively covered by the international media. She was among the BBC’s 100 Women in 2015 and also featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia 2016 list. After all, it’s not every day that a young woman from the rural outback of the Philippines arriving to work as a foreign domestic worker (FDW) in Hong Kong ends up being a globe-trotting photographer. What’s more, Bacani has become a crusader for the community of FDWs, drawing attention to the abuse and discrimination suffered by some of them through her work.

Taking up photography brought about a 180-degree turnaround in her life when the San Francisco-based Filipino photographer Rick Rocamora spotted Bacani’s work on Facebook and helped promote them. In a recent interview to China Daily (see sidebar) Bacani acknowledged that she owed the dream life she was living now entirely to her art. She travels a lot these days, zipping across half the globe, from Makati to Abu Dhabi to the backstreets of New Jersey, on photographic assignments, loving every moment of this newfound freedom.

Could the practice of art make a real difference to people’s lives even if they weren’t as obviously talented and aided by a stroke of luck as Bacani was?

At Para Site’s Quarry Bay art gallery on Aug 28, there was some evidence that art could indeed cross a few hurdles and add meaning to an otherwise often humdrum, and sometimes rather sordid, existence. On that afternoon, Para Site, Hong Kong’s leading institution for promotion of arts, hosted a pop-up exhibition to showcase the images shot by FDWs as part of a series of photography workshops conducted by Lensational Academy. Participating FDWs shared the stories of their daily struggles to find a space to pursue creative interests in the middle of hectic 18-hour work days, watched closely, sometimes, by unsympathetic employers.

The writer Jason Ng came away from the sharing session teary-eyed. Ng has written extensively about the plight of FDWs at the mercy of abusive employers. He also sits on the judging panel of a support group that invites FDWs to design sustainable rehabilitation options once they retire from working in Hong Kong. Still, it came as a pleasant surprise to him to see the far-reaching impact of art and its efficacy in helping Hong Kong’s maids cope with the hardships in their lives.

“I felt the courage and the resolve to push themselves because they finally believed in themselves,” said Ng. “These artists didn’t just take pictures. They were pushing themselves to be spokespeople for themselves and their community.”

Avenues of creativity

Arista Devi, one of the FDWs making a presentation that afternoon, is, in fact, a published writer. She might touch her nose with her index finger, “making a funny face” when she’s posing for a photo, but there is nothing childlike about her resolve to shape up into a fine writer. She has published several stories in her native Bahasa Indonesia and will soon have a book to her name. Her short fiction about a maid who throws herself from the balcony of a high-rise to escape the asphyxiating, soul-killing environment in her employer’s home appears in the Para Site publication Afterwork Readings. The book is a quadrilingual (Chinese, Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia and English) anthology of writings exploring the ideas of migration and domestic work where contributions by FDWs appear alongside those by reputed writers such as the English poet Edmund Blunden and the Indonesian feminist-novelist NH Dini.

Devi sees the book as a tangible proof of FDWs in Hong Kong having a life beyond minding the employer’s dog and picking up the weekly groceries.

“Some of my Chinese friends who read my story have told me, ‘I’m so proud of you’,” she says. “They promised to care more about human rights issues in the future.”

Devi also played a key role in making a reading group for Indonesian FDWs, started by the KUNCI Cultural Studies Center, Yogyakarta, in Victoria Park, gather momentum. Its success seems to have inspired a spin-off reading group of FDWs in Taipei.

More such cheerful stories of FDWs reaching out, trying to leverage the fruits of personal achievement and public recognition into making a difference to others’ lives, were shared by Bonnie Chiu and Sunny Chiu — the young duo running Lensational, a platform to empower women in developing countries through photography. Jem Guanzon, who was in the first batch of students they workshopped, moved to Russia and is now leading her own edition of the program among the FDW community there, with support from the Philippine Embassy in Moscow. Arumy Marzudhy from Indonesia wrote a book, Second Home, after completing eight years as an FDW in Hong Kong. Lensational curated an exhibition in London featuring works by FDWs in Hong Kong last year, called Transit in Doubt, which was a sellout.

FDWs in Hong Kong are not legally allowed to have a second source of income. “The only way we can give them income is by budgeting for a training program they might like to attend, or upgrade their equipment,” informs Bonnie Chiu. Refreshingly enough, most of them want the money they have made from selling a photo to be donated back in their home country, “towards helping even more disadvantaged people than themselves, like those who are unable to afford education”.Deep-seated prejudices

Evidently there is more to the lives of the women who sit out in Hong Kong’s parks and pedestrian walkways on Sunday afternoons, doing each other’s hair and karaoke-ing to recorded music than meets the eye. One or two of them, like Bacani and Guanzon, have gone places since they arrived in Hong Kong. Some are just happy discovering unknown facets of themselves. But is Hong Kong aware of this happy transition?

Freya Chou, one of the prime movers behind Para Site’s project with FDWs, says stereotypical images of Hong Kong maids, perpetuated through soap operas and TV commercials, are too entrenched in people’s minds to disappear in a day. Chou mentions how even after Bacani had appeared in The New York Times she noticed people would slow down while talking to her in English, as they had preconceived notions about her proficiency in the language.

On the flip side of that story is one told by Sunny Chiu about the Indonesian domestic helper Anik Davanika who invited her employer to her exhibition at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. “It takes huge courage to be able to invite a boss,” says Chiu. “She was so moved to see that the boss actually turned up. Such recognition was more valuable than monetary reward.”

Arista Devi says greater sensitivity on the part of the media could go a long way in removing the prejudices held against FDWs since the colonial times. “A lot of media in Hong Kong cover only the bad news about domestic workers and don’t write enough about the positive developments. If the media could strike a balance between putting out the good with the bad, that will help us immensely.”‘Photography saved me’

China Daily catches up with Xyza Bacani, who went from being a foreign domestic worker in Hong Kong to a globe-trotting photographer.

On Para Site’s role in nurturing her talent and giving her a platform …

I’m really proud to be part of Para Site’s show last summer. They connected me with galleries and gave me a home to stay in for two weeks when I was doing a project in Hong Kong.

On being a self-taught photographer and current inspirations…

I feel like I’m still in my formative years. I learn from people who have been in the industry longer than me, from the people I photograph, the places I go to. My inspirations include Susan Maisales, Ed Kashi, Fred Ritchin, Rick Rocamora, Jonathan van Smit, Sim Chi Yin.

On how photography changed her life …

I think photography saved me. It gave me a chance to change my life situation, to explore the world, to learn and be free.

On her role in helping fellow FDWs…

My exhibition in Hong Kong last November, called Behind the Concrete Wall, was about raising awareness about migrant domestic workers’ issues. Then I did a similar show called Modern Slavery. I try to help raise funds for Bethune House Migrant Women’s Refuge through selling my photos.

On life after appearing in The New York Times…

Getting international recognition did make me more sociable but I still shoot alone. I’m more connected to communities now but I still need my me time. I enjoy my solitude.

On whether practicing art can make a real difference to the lives of FDWs…

It can, provided the artist is using it with social responsibility and consciousness. Art gave a lot of invisible people like me a platform where they might be heard.

On whether Hong Kong media are doing the right thing by FDWs…

I think Hong Kong press are trying to do their best. There are sites or publications that run stories about migrant workers in a sustained way. There are some who are just looking for content to fill their pages for the time being and do not really care what happens afterwards, but that happens elsewhere as well.