Opinion

Love is a universal language. But, what does it sound like across the globe? Whilst love is in the air, here are three terms of endearment across three different languages and cultures.

Nguyen Bao Han Tran: In Vietnamese, love comes with caution.

In Vietnamese, love is rarely loud.

There is no casual “ I love you,” no easy phrase tossed at the end of phone calls. Instead, we have thương, a word that sits between care, devotion, and quiet responsibility. It doesn’t sparkle. It doesn’t flirt. It stays.

Growing up, I rarely heard the word yêu–the direct translation for love. My mother never said it. Instead, she said, Mẹ thương con. At the time, I didn’t recognize it as affection. Only later did I realize that thương carried something heavier than romance: commitment without performance.

Valentine’s Day is often framed as a universal celebration of love. Each year, it arrives with familiar imagery: pink storefronts, romantic promotions, and social media posts that suggest love is something easily shared and widely accepted. Yet this version of Valentine’s Day tells only part of the story. A problem with the holiday is that it promotes a narrow idea of what love should look like, heterosexual, monogamous, public, and socially approved, while quietly excluding those who do not fit that mold.

For a long time, I thought wanting reassurance was a flaw.Not something dramatic, just a quiet insecurity I tried to keep to myself. The kind that shows up when you reread texts before sending them, or when you hesitate before asking a simple question because you don’t want to sound “too much.”So instead of saying what I mean, I soften it.I add a “lol.”I downplay how I felt.I tell myself it isn’t that deep.Somewhere along the way, many of us learn that wanting reassurance makes us seem weak. Tha...

The world loves the language of justice until justice becomes disruptive. We praise resistance once it is safely in the past, while refusing to recognize it in the present. Once its leaders can be quoted without discomfort and its demands no longer interrupt power, liberation becomes something to celebrate rather than confront. But when Black resistance insists on action in the present, when it disrupts comfort, challenges authority, or refuses politeness, it is quickly reframed as excessive, di...

Grocery shopping is a mundane, everyday activity. But, the choices—the products you consume, the shops you choose, the rituals you commit to—of shoppers reveals much more than you’d think. Here are two grocery shopping experiences to follow!


Nguyen Bao Han Tran: Plans lost in translation.


I go grocery shopping with a list and a plan every time. I tell myself this is the trip where I’ll stay disciplined and save money.


That plan usually collapses the moment I walk through the door.


Be...

Emotional labour, mental load, and male incompetence have become common struggles in heterosexual relationships. When women speak about these issues online, they are often blamed instead of supported, turning accountability into shame and leaving women responsible for problems they did not create.

Growing up in a traditional Vietnamese household, I was taught that a woman’s virginity is tied to her worth. Losing it meant losing something important about myself. That belief followed me through childhood and into adulthood, lingering even when I no longer resonated with it.In my family, sex was never a topic of discussion. The word itself felt forbidden. There were no conversations about consent, no explanations of safe sex, no room for curiosity. Asking questions was met with criticism: go...

Moving out for university feels exciting, until the homesickness and quiet nights hit. Here’s what living alone taught me about true independence. 


The Fantasy of Freedom 


It all sounds thrilling at first: the idea of moving away, starting fresh, and finally being independent. Maybe it’s because of all the movies we watched, showing people finding themselves in big cities? Or maybe it’s the dream of proving to yourself that you can make it on your own? 


But, when I actually moved away f...