is the Executive Director of Penang Institute. His recent books include The Eurasian Core and its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (ISEAS 2016).
We celebrate active ageing as aspiration and policy goal. But the term hints that growing old means becoming passive. In truth, to age actively is to reclaim initiative—to nurture the inner capacity to act, choose and give meaning.
If urban living means that I possess a little space to call home, feel safe in and control, then how much I feel at home in a city would depend very much on how much home-like access I have when out in public.
With the invention and re-invention of printing—first in China, and then in the West—universal literacy, though not achieved even today, became a long-term possibility.
Today the Greater Bay Area (GBA) is the world’s most dynamic economic district, and it has been recognised as the most innovative region in the world, ahead of the Greater Tokyo Area, and then US’ Silicon Valley.
Picnics are such optimistic events, come to think of it. A paradise for the multitasker, a dream for those in the family who love to keep connections alive, a time to touch base. Much can go wrong at picnics, no doubt, but they hold so much promise.
Narratives are, by their nature, a collective event and a social event; in sum, they are an exercise of power as well, a nexus where different wills and opinions wrestle each other to emerge with as much claim to being true as possible.
Time is ticking by. Flash by flash, wave by wave, breath by breath. Azan by azan, full moon by full moon, sunrise by sunrise. Repeating, reiterating, reciting. And yet, this is but half the story of the universe.