The man who industrialised Penang
6 min read
Any penangite born less than 40 years ago will not have known a Penang that was not a hub for the world’s electronics industry. Before the 1970s, the stat...
Building the Penang Bridge
8 min read
LIAW YEW PENG could have been a doctor. His grades were good enough, and he enjoyed subjects like biology. Many of his peers had chosen to go into medicine. Car...
On vibrant port cities and anomalous nation states
6 min read
Ho Eng Seng returned to Penang in 1986 from Stanford University with degrees in Anthropology and Economics. The timing was bad, however. The country was in th...
Penang girl Judy heads UN Peacebuilders
8 min read
When UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Penang girl Judy Cheng-Hopkins as Assistant Secretary- General for Peacebuilding Support (PBSO) on April 17, 200...
Pluck, luck and a practical mind
7 min read
On his early days…"I grew up and was educated in Penang, I went to Chung Ling. I came from a poor family and was the youngest of five kids. I understand...
An Old Chung Ling Boy Who Thought Big
5 min read
Some of us grow up in small towns and dream of bigger and better things in cities far far far away, gleaming of glass and light. In the process, our...
All that Rozz-matazz
7 min read
WHO DID PEOPLE WATCH Before Rozz (BR)? Where did we go out at night? The answers are lost in a hazy mist; it’s hard to imagine a time when Penang had a ha...
Giving Guests More
7 min read
MARCO GIOVANNI BATTISTOTTI is a familiar face in the Penang hotel scene. A larger than life figure, figuratively and literally speaking, the half-German half-It...
A Pressman’s Progress
5 min read
THE STRAITS ECHO WAS Tan Thean Peng’s first employer. He joined as a reporter in 1978 after finishing his A-levels at St Xavier’s Institution only t...
Our Economist At The UN
7 min read
I first met Jomo KS in late 2004. This was also in Singapore, just after I had relocated back to the region from Europe. Having lived almost three decades on th...
Woo, The Lucky Economist
9 min read
Penang used to have exciting libraries which young boys and girls could visit to learn about the outside world. As we know, such institutions can be great cla...
Need Think Tanks For New Times
6 min read
This interview with YB Liew Chin Tong, outgoing executive director of Penang Institute and Member of Parliament for Bukit Bendera, discusses his understanding...