People of

Ami was born in a ger in the middle of July in western Mongolia. Her mother had no experience with childbirth. The ambulance did not arrive in time. She came into the world much as her ancestors had.

She believes this shaped everything about her.

Eight years later her parents sold their herd and moved to Ulaanbaatar so their children could go to better school. Later in her 20’s, a painting by Egon Schiele pulled her to Europe. She studied in Budapest, worked at the Venice Art Biennale, and explored parts of Europe, and returned home.

"Somehow, I always feel that it calls me back," she says of Mongolia.

Dearis Doll has been doing drag for sixteen years. He did not plan it. He was covering for a sick colleague one night, had never worn heels before, and when the curtain opened the audience screamed before he said a single word.

That was the beginning. Before that was six years in Cologne, a mother dying in Bangkok, two weeks of singing lessons, and twenty seconds on Thai television that his boyfriend missed because he went to the toilet.

This is his story.

Zeena grew up between Dhaka and Bangkok, cooking her mother's Bengali recipes from memory in a city that did not always have the right ingredients. What started as cooking for friends became Mustard and Memories, a dinner series that has quietly become one of Bangkok's most intimate food experiences. We sat down with her to talk about food, community, and what it means to cook from a place you carry inside you.