Mixed identity is a fraught one, with varying levels of fetishisation, oppression and narratives of privilege
As a mixed-race person, I struggled a lot with my identity. Not because I had problems with it, not because I doubted myself. It was everyone else around me. I am Mongolian in heart and soul, as well as European and American. I am from Colorado with a Transylvanian heritage, and I speak fluent Hungarian. The reason why I said “European” as my identity, it is because Europe is relatively small, and we have a common, intertwined cultural history, that I love, live and breathe. In a lot of ways, I am Scandinavian- as it is my chosen home, while…
The Reality Behind The Polarisation Of Society
The world seems to become increasingly divided. Everybody seems to be at each other’s throats at any given moment, and outrage media reigns supreme.
The Left against the Right, Boomers against Millenials, local markets against globalism, you name it. But who are these groups of people who don’t seem to find common ground on any given issue? What do they have in common? What do liberals and conservatives have in common, or GenZ and Millenials? What do countries and corporations have in common? I’ll go further. What do religions have in common? Nations and money?
Let me explain. Let’s take…
Here is what you can do instead
I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell you that the world's plastic problem is at a critical level today. From the Stone Age to the Iron Age to the Steel Age, we delineate society’s epochs by their primary material for fabrication. Ours will most likely be called the Plastic Age.
Microplastics and the plastic waste in our oceans, food-chain and even air are harmful to humans and wildlife. In one study, 100% of the mussels tested contained microplastics. …
A treasure hunt in Hawaii
A cinematic adventure movie with humour, breathtaking landscapes, and a mysterious journal leading to a 200-year-old treasure? If you ask me anytime! I love a cute young adult mystery adventure, but Finding ‘Ohana is so much more under the lighthearted facade.
The article contains spoilers.
The story starts in New York City, with Pili, the badass teenage protagonist every modern girl can identify with. We find ourselves in one of her geocaching adventures in medias res; setting the scene for a real adventure hunt. Pili’s family is from Hawaii, and after learning about her grandfather’s illness, her brother “E” and…
We might have just changed for the better.
As 2020 ended, we all congratulated each other and ourselves for making it in one piece. The year was undoubtedly full of tragedies, with almost 2 million deaths worldwide from the coronavirus. Not to mention climate change-induced tragedies, such as the Australian wildfires, California fires, etc. We had to adapt in our daily lives in ways we could not have imagined as we entered 2020; pledging to make it our year, the year we struggle for the last time.
But amidst all the craziness it seems like a trying year like 2020 brought out our more humane side. We stopped…
A scientific explanation as to why your sense of time is distorted and how to correct it.
It’s a Friday afternoon, or so I thought. I sit in my living room, ordering Black Friday offers from a clothing brand. “Wasn’t Black Friday two weeks ago?” I think to myself as someone calls me. It is a supplier for my company. At the end of the call, I tell her to have a lovely weekend. “Weekend?” she chuckles. I make a noncommittal grunt. “It’s Monday today,” she replies.
Don’t look at your phone! What day is it?
The whole world seems to have a case of dyschronometria, — without the cerebral damage, of course. Dyschronometria is a condition…
A radical guide to appreciating your inherent worth
I have spent the past seven years, travelling almost full-time. A new country, a new city brought new adventures with it. I became so malleable that I didn’t even know what my preferences in anything were anymore after a while.
In those years I was learning about other people’s cultures, renting blank, hotel-like spaces, or other people’s homes, so I never knew what it felt like to have a home of my own. I spent my life adapting to any given place or people. I didn’t know what I would do without the myriad of external influences on my behaviours…
Remember, Trump’s presidency was not the cause, but the symptom of bigotry
I have to confess; the American elections and the second lockdowns rolling out worldwide gave me a severe writer’s block. It was a general block: I was blanked out for weeks. On the one hand, I was immensely relieved that we voted out a surreal, fear-mongering regime. On the other; stunned by the fact that 71 million Americans chose to vote for racism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, a complete disregard of facts, and xenophobic fearmongering.
Sadly, a widely publicised presidency like that has a rippling effect of emboldening people with a similar ideology. They saw an affirmation, the return of…
The way I see it; wasteful status symbols were never less attractive than now
When I started university, all my friends wanted investment banking jobs, and a lot of them got them. From Harvard and other top universities to McKinsey and burnout was another common theme in my friends’ lives. Today, most of them crave independence and not careers, but a lifestyle. A sort of post-consumer, value-based life.
Times change, and so do we. As the state of the world shifts, our perception and values change as well. Every challenge we face as a society brings a different Zeitgeist. With a different Zeitgeist comes a set of different values.
Pursuing material wealth, marriages, set…
It was a rainy Saturday afternoon when I found myself shaking with rage in my entire body as I walked into my coffee shop. I was standing there, barely able to stop my angry, frustrated tears from bursting. Just five minutes earlier, I was waiting for my friend outside. A loud group sat there, about six people. They seemed quite out of place as if you placed a bunch of drunken people from a far-away pub into the wrong scene.
I look Asian, so they, like so many others, did before; they assumed I could not understand them. It led…
Ono Mergen
Environmental scientist& entrepreneur. Moving countries yearly to explore the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. 🌍 Top writer 📬ono@onoceans.com
