western love, and everything it’s missing (wong kar-wai frames)
on being seen slowly, shyness, and the kind of intimacy that feels out of reach — noticing what lingers
Still from Fallen Angels (1995), dir. Wong Kar-wai
I’ve left four clips here for you. Take a moment with each.
Watch them slowly, the way you would something you don’t want to miss. Then come back here. I’ll move through them with you, noting each clip in brackets along the way.
I haven’t seen Fallen Angels or First Love: Litter on the Breeze.
Not fully, not properly.
Most of what I know lives in fragments. Clips on TikTok. Scenes pulled out of context. Moments that shouldn’t be enough to understand a film, and yet feel like enough to understand something much bigger.
And maybe that’s the point of this series I’m starting.
Some pieces will come from films I’ve watched all the way through. Others, like these, will come from moments that found me before I ever went looking for them.
This next scene did that.
· · ·
In it, a girl is crying (Attentive, Shoulder, and Because).
I don’t know the full story, but it feels simple. Something painfully common. She wanted to see her ex-boyfriend, and he didn’t show up.
She’s emotional in that way where your whole body feels it. Not composed. Not filtered. Just… open.
And the man she’s with listens.
That’s it.
He listens. Fully. Intently. He looks at her when he speaks. He doesn’t rush her, doesn’t fix her, doesn’t turn away. Even the music moves slowly, like it understands the moment shouldn’t be interrupted.
At some point, she leans into him.
And he lets her.
No hesitation. No discomfort. No distance. Just presence.
I think about that kind of presence a lot.
Because I don’t see it around me.
In Toronto, in the kind of dating culture I’ve experienced, emotional support feels negotiated. Conditional. Sometimes even resented.
I’ve met men who needed me deeply. Who leaned on me for comfort, for reassurance, for stability they didn’t have anywhere else.
But when I needed the same back, it became something else.
“You need a therapist.”
That sentence shows up a lot here.
And I understand where it comes from. Therapy matters. Boundaries matter. “Trauma dumping” is real.
But something has shifted too far.
Now, sharing anything real can get labeled as too much. As inappropriate. As something to outsource to a professional instead of offering to the people in your life.
And it doesn’t just show up in dating.
It’s in friendships too.
People are afraid to hold each other.
Afraid to listen too long.
Afraid to care in a way that costs them something.
So they retreat into language that sounds healthy, but feels like distance.
And it changes what community even is.
Because if we can’t lean on each other, even a little, then what are we actually building together?
· · ·
Last year, during one of the hardest periods of my life, I kept returning to clips like this.
Not because I was obsessed with the film.
But because I was desperate for what it showed.
A kind of quiet, patient care.
A kind of emotional availability that didn’t feel like a burden.
I wanted that from someone. Anyone.
A partner. A friend.
Just someone who would sit with me and not make me feel like I was asking for too much.
And I think that’s why these scenes feel tied, in my mind, to Hong Kong.
Because the way I’ve experienced connection there is different.
In Asia, emotional support isn’t something you debate the value of. It’s the point.
Friendship is built on it.
You talk. You share. You show up for each other.
And the environment allows for something else too.
Movement. Spontaneity. Life.
In Hong Kong, you can wander endlessly. Street food, late nights, small moments everywhere. Elders doing tai chi in the morning. Mahjong echoing through restaurants. A sense that life is happening around you, not just scheduled into expensive outings.
It creates space for connection to grow.
In Toronto, friendship often gets reduced to dinner reservations.
You meet. You eat. You leave.
Everything costs money. Everything requires planning. There’s less room for wandering into something meaningful.
And over time, that shapes how close people even get.
· · ·
Love looks different, too.
When I was younger in Hong Kong, I hated the PDA.
It was everywhere. At stoplights, on sidewalks, in between crowds. As a kid, it made me uncomfortable. I didn’t understand why people couldn’t just wait.
Now I do.
Space is limited. Privacy is rare. People live with their families longer. So intimacy spills into public spaces.
It’s not just about showing off. It’s about having somewhere to exist together.
And beyond that, there’s a softness to relationships that I don’t see as much here.
Romance feels gentle.
Playful.
There’s an openness to being a little shy, a little giggly, a little childlike with each other.
Gifts aren’t always about status. They’re stuffed animals, stationery, small things that feel like they belong to the inner child version of yourself.
There’s less pressure to perform maturity, and more permission to feel.
I saw that difference clearly at Parkside Student Residence in Toronto.
There were a lot of international students from China and Hong Kong. And when they were with their partners, you could feel it immediately.
They were soft with each other. Warm. Present.
And I watched how some of the local Canadian or Western-raised Asian students looked at them.
There was judgment.
Like what they were seeing was embarrassing. A little too much.
But all I could think was:
you simply don’t understand what you’re looking at.
This kind of love isn’t cringe the way people think it is.
It’s simply a different form of loving.
· · ·
There’s another scene I keep thinking about (Gaze).
A girl stands slightly turned away. Shy.
The man asks her, softly, if she wants to go to Kowloon.
She gives the smallest nod, almost lost in the movement of her hair. It barely registers. Her face half-hidden, her gaze turned away.
He doesn’t brush past it.
He leans in.
Not to interrupt, but to meet her where she is.
And in another moment, he shifts slightly, moving his whole body until her face comes into view.
As if it matters.
As if she might be missed otherwise.
· · ·
Her eyes are closed.
And he’s just… looking at her.
Not in a consuming way. Not in a rushed way.
Just looking.
Present.
Attentive.
Almost careful with her.
And I don’t think people understand how vulnerable that is.
To have someone really look at your face. Your eyes.
Not to take something from you.
Not to move things forward.
Not to rush into the next step.
But just to be there.
To witness you.
That kind of gaze holds so much.
The kind of intimacy I’m thinking of lives in a glance that lingers just a second too long…
and in the instinct to look away, not because you’re uninterested—
but because you feel naked under their gaze,
almost more naked than you would feel without any clothes on.
There’s emotion in it. There’s patience. There’s restraint.
It’s intimate in a way that doesn’t even need touch.
And that kind of intimacy feels rare to me here.
In Canadian dating, everything feels so different.
It’s very sex-oriented.
But not even in a way that feels passionate or meaningful.
It’s rushed. Detached. Almost mechanical.
People are just… doing it.
There’s no build. No tension. No emotional presence behind it.
No fire.
No softness.
No real intimacy.
· · ·
One of the only times I’ve experienced something close to that kind of attentiveness was in Hong Kong.
I think I was in grade 8 or 9.
I was in drama class, paired with a boy for an activity. He was taller than me, and it was my turn to speak. I’ve always had a soft voice. To me, I sound loud enough, but it just doesn’t carry.
And instead of asking me to speak up, he bent down.
Just slightly.
Enough to hear me.
He didn’t make me adjust myself to be understood.
He adjusted himself to understand me.
I remember how that felt.
So small, and yet so rare.
The only other time was in Canada.
At a poetry slam.
A guy hugged me, and when he did, he bent down, almost kneeling, so I could actually reach him properly.
So the hug could feel… complete.
And I felt so seen in that moment.
Not because it was grand.
But because it was attentive.
Because he noticed.
Because he adjusted without making it a thing.
· · ·
There have also been so many moments, especially while dating, where I’ve been unable to say what I’m actually thinking out loud.
So I’ve written it instead.
On paper.
On my phone.
And passed it to the person sitting across from me.
I think that’s why I write at all.
Because there is so much I am too shy to say.
And when I watch her shyness in that scene, I don’t feel confused by her.
I feel understood.
I don’t think this is just about Hong Kong.
I think this is something broader. Something that exists across Asia.
The way women are socialized.
The media we grow up watching. The kinds of interactions we see modelled around us. The softness, the shyness, the way emotion is held and expressed.
I’ve seen this in Pakistani culture too.
It feels like something that gets lost, or even erased, in Western society.
In so many of the Indian and Pakistani dramas I grew up watching,
a man looks at a woman for just a little too long.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
And suddenly, she turns away.
Or she runs.
Or she lifts her dupatta, drawing it gently across her face.
Not fully hiding.
Just softening the moment.
Those scenes understand something that feels lost elsewhere.
Being looked at like that is not small.
It’s not casual.
It’s exposing.
And the instinct isn’t to perform, or lean in immediately.
It’s to retreat slightly.
Because it’s intense.
Because it’s real.
Western cinema doesn’t really make space for that kind of moment.
Western dating doesn’t either.
There’s no pause.
No quiet build.
Everything moves too fast.
Too direct. Too physical.
And somewhere in that speed, something disappears.
· · ·
There’s something else I don’t think I’ve ever said out loud.
I don’t like Canadian hugging culture.
The hugs feel automatic. Half-finished. Like something people do because they’re supposed to.
In Hong Kong, people hug less.
But when they do, it feels intentional.
I’m short.
And most people don’t really take that into account.
But the hugs that have stayed with me are the ones where someone adjusts.
Where they bend down.
Or lift me slightly.
Just enough to meet me properly.
I know not everyone likes that.
But for me, it feels like being understood without having to explain myself.
Like someone has noticed how I exist, and responded to it.
And I’m not even talking about romance.
I mean friendships.
Those quiet moments where someone pays attention without needing to announce it.
That’s what connects all of this.
Not the scenes.
Not the hugs.
But attentiveness.
And maybe that’s why these scenes stay with me.
They remind me that intimacy doesn’t have to begin with touch.
It can begin with attention.
With noticing.
With the quiet, almost unbearable vulnerability of being seen…
and not turned away from.
This month, I’m laying the foundation of my diasporic journey, slowly, piece by piece.
Next piece arrives tomorrow.
Wishing you a gentle evening.
Really enjoyed reading this. Since I was younger most of my close friends have been from China and the Philippines. Later on I realized that culturally they didn't perceive my shyness in a negative light like ppl in the States tend to and I remember realizing this made me feel very seen.
It definitely is a different kind of relationship. There is definitely no space for that in certain cultures. It's perceived as a threat, like you're hiding something, or emotional immaturity, no in between. It was nice being reminded of these friendships and getting to see the larger context.
this is beautifully written—thank you so much for writing it