Tor.com–The Ao Dai and I: A Personal Essay on Cultural Identity and Steampunk

Note: I wrote a bit here about Vietnamese steampunk, but when Tor.com asked me to write for their Steampunk Fortnight, I offered a more personal take on how my life has influenced my steampunk, and vice versa.

“You wear this so well! I can’t believe this fits you,” my mother exclaims. “I must’ve been really skinny.”

I’m ten years old and I don’t think to wonder whether she meant I was a fat kid (because all of her children have grown up “so big and tall” in America) or question why my mom was that thin when she married. I’m just admiring my outfit in the mirror. It didn’t fit as perfectly as she said; the dress panels of the ao dai nearly touched the floor, and the sleeves ran a bit past my wrists. But it was still the prettiest thing I had ever worn in my young life.

Read on Tor.com: A story in which the clothes make the steampunk as much as the steampunk makes the clothes.