The Present comes before the Past
2 min read
A friend once desperately and exasperatedly wished to know what he had been in earlier lives.“Why?“ I asked him with half a mind.“Well,&rd...
Labour stripped down to bare essentials
2 min read
A cover on migrant workers raises a lot more questions than we can hope to answer in a monthly magazine. But it is a worthy attempt nonetheless. We really nee...
All you hybrids, emerge from your closet
2 min read
Ethnocentrism is not the opposite of multiracialism. For some reason, we tend to suppose it to be so. The truth of the matter is, the contradistinction betwee...
A defensive psyche is colonialism’s legacy
2 min read
It has become more and more palpable to scholars that the geography of a place, with the attendant peculiarities of terrain, climate, water supply, transport,...
The age of cities is at hand
2 min read
Urbanisation is not a process that people in Penang think about.This is not strange, since British George Town came into being in 1786 for trading and strat...
Remember Penang
2 min read
You are holding the first issue of the revamped Penang Economic Monthly. For that reason alone, I would suggest that you seriously consider it a collector&rsquo...
The Future of Work Will Include Clubbing
3 min read
IN THE FIRST decade or two following Covid-19, which parts of our daily life will go back to the way they were, and which will not?It’s anyone’s g...
A Synergic Platform is Something Penang Almost Already Has to Build Back Better
4 min read
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has obliged us to rethink the personal, the present and the proximate.Shaken by the arresting of our ambitions, stirred by disruptions t...
Amused at Fort Cornwallis
2 min read
AT THE WATER’s edge, my soul sighs. This has something to do with the sound of waves. Things may seem serene, but I cannot forget the power the sea withho...
To Live and Let Live, You Need Sustainability Thinking
4 min read
THERE IS A persistent trend in the thinking of the people of Penang which is not easily named, but discerning it helps explain why civil society activism is so...
The SXI Spirit: Hard Work as Second Nature
5 min read
Editorial-cum-book review: Francis Loh Kok Wah, Cecilia Ng and Anthony Rogers: The Xaverian Journey: The Story of a Lasallian School in Penang, Malaysia 1787-20...
Can “The New Normal” be “The New Age”?
3 min read
AS EXAMPLES INCREASE of countries getting new spikes in Covid-19 cases, and as some sustained green zones in Malaysia, like Penang, start turning yellow, it is...