Culture & People

Steps to Paradise and Beyond is the second volume of Verner Bickley's autobiography. He describes the events and issues that were important to him during a period of his life spent in Hawaii and Saudi Arabia. In Hawaii from 1971 to 1981, he served as the Director of the Culture Learning Institute at the East-West Center, established by the U.S. Congress. For nine years, Verner led a small team of anthropologists, cross-cultural psychologists and linguists, focusing on the different ways in which individuals and whole societies cope in bicultural and multicultural contexts and how they address problems presented by different cultural norms.

A Shimmering Sea ells of a quest for home, told through a vivid and lyrical sequence of narratives. Sophronia Liu chronicles first her beginnings in 1950s Hong Kong, and about her family. Some 20 years later, when Liu was a student in the American Midwest, memories of these people and places flooded back to haunt her. Responding to their call, Sophronia eventually returned to Hong Kong in 2006, to live near her native village and continue to write. She died on 14 January 2013, one day after her 60th birthday.

The Lower Ngau Tau Kok Estate was constructed in the 1960s as one of Hong Kong's earliest public housing developments. Just prior to its scheduled demolition four decades later, John Choy was commissioned to photograph the soon-to-be deserted estate. To his surprise, Choy found himself deeply affected by the crumbling housing blocks and their residents. He became determined to create an in-depth record of not just the estate, but a unique way of life. Created over a period of a year, Lower Ngau Tau Kok Estate gives a sense of how the human spirit transcends the narrow physical confines of the man-made environment. By keeping the spotlight firmly and intimately on the estate's residents, Choy's photographs build an unusually full impression of individual subjects and the bonds between them.

This multimedia publication brings together, for the first time, song texts, audio recordings, and a documentary video on muk'yu and the singer Uncle Ng. The song texts have been transcribed into Chinese and translated into English. Two essays provide background material on the singer and the songs; the third reminisces on the hardships faced by early Chinese American immigrants.

King Chung is, as his colleagues have described him, "probably the best" architectural model maker in Hong Kong. But this is not simply a book about how models are made, but rather his personal story of a lifetime's work, which has closely tracked Hong Kong's rapid development and changes in livelihood, trade, society, finance, urban planning, housing, transportation and culture.

This is a compilation of photographs and press clippings on Singapore's Hokkien opera performances, both on stage and on television. There is also a list of important performances and write-ups on important events. In Chinese. This is the collector's edition, with colour photos.

This is a compilation of photographs and press clippings on Singapore's Hokkien opera performances, both on stage and on television. There is also a list of important performances and write-ups on important events. In Chinese.

In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham--the brilliant Cambridge scientist, freethinking intellectual, and practicing nudist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, once the world's most technologically advanced country.

Through the analysis of Bazi charts, this book explores the key considerations in analysing marriage, so that you can predict the likely periods of marriage for yourself, the personality characteristics of your significant other, amongst other things. You can also tap on the information from your Bazi to glimpse into the future-whether your marriage will be blissful, as well as the necessary "precautions" which you can take to enhance the success of your marriage, keeping the love alive long after marriage.

On March 13, 2013, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, longtime Archbishop of Buenos Aires, now Pope Francis, was elected to succeed Pope Benedict. In spontaneous, intimate terms, Archbishop Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, covers topics as wide-ranging as his childhood, family life, and the importance of his first job to discovering his calling and his early days in the seminary.

This is an emotional life account of growing up in Afghanistan, by a writer who still lives in Kabul. Qais Akbar Omar's young life coincided with one of the most convulsive decades in Afghan history: civil war, the rise of the Taliban, and the arrival of international troops in 2001. This is an extraordinary book about a beautiful and civilized country ravaged by war, and about the power of stories to embolden, console, and bind a family together, in the face of almost unimaginable odds.

Cheating is reaching epidemic heights. Dan Ariely explores why we just can't stop cheating. He examines the forces we usually think drive us to dishonest behaviour but actually don't, and how the irrational forces that we think don't matter often make a big difference in how ethical our actions are. Together these findings shed light on what spurs us to cheat as well as what keeps us honest.

Many archival photographs are included in this insider's account of Malaya's music scene 1900-1965, a period of close Malaya/Singapore interchange. The first section overviews the history of Malay music, traditional songs and the early 20th century's Bangsawan opera, and gramophone and radio music. This music scene and Japanese policy 1942-45 and the 1045-65 developments in Radio Singapura, in cinema and entertainment hubs and at functions are then described. Inset photographs and biographical summaries are given for some 90 artistes and performers, and the role of musical groups noted. With bibliography, online database and index. Bilingual in Malay.

From the crumbling backstreets of Chow Kit to the gleaming highrises of Sultan Ismail Road, ladies of all ages and ethnicities patrol the dark alleys, fancy clubs and dingy massage parlours of Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur, cruising for customers and surviving on their wits, born in some cases out of true desperation but in other cases out of lifestyle choice. Veteran writer and author Ewe Paik Leong uncovers a hidden world of KTV lounges within hair salons, massage parlours that offer services beyond the therapeutic and food courts that transform at night into whirlpools of vice, drawing both young and old, the curious and the regulars. In a series of fascinating encounters and interviews with high-end nightclub hostesses and their mamasans, freelance escorts, surreptitious streetwalkers, urut batin 'therapists' and more, the author confronts head-on important issues of trafficking, poverty, heart-wrenching misery, wayward morals and even black magic.

This is a gastronomic memoir, not a recipe book. The author, the creator of a high-end Malay restaurant in Singapore, delights in sharing her early experiences of the food dimensions she enjoyed in her parents' home in Radin Mas in 1950s Singapore. The reader can share some of the aromas of memory - and also perhaps pick up a few hints for their own kitchen.

Set in Singapore in the 1910s, A Nyonya Mosaic is the story of young girl growing up in a slowly changing world. William Gwee Thian Hock relates the childhood impressions of his Nyonya mother through her own eyes - the scenes of happiness, birthdays and weddings; and the inevitable disease and death; the childish passions and fears woven through the mosaic of a strict and sometimes unrelenting culture; as intricate and as colourful in its every detail. Much in the foreground is the family, her matriarchal grandmother, her dogmatic father and her siblings, all with their own stories, but always bonded by their love, their beliefs and superstitions. Illustrated with photographs from the family archive, A Nyonya Mosaic is not merely a chronicle of a passing culture. These are the precious memories of one who loves it.

This is a heartwarming recollection of life in the little village of Potong Pasir in Singapore during the years 1955 to 1965. Peranakan author Josephine China brings us into the world of her childhood in a kampong. Though deprived of modern comforts like electricity or running water, her multi-racial neighbours lived harmoniously with each other in their attap homes, and had a wonderful zest for life and a strong sense of community. This vibrant kampong spirit, or gotong royong, was a significant aspect of living in a kampong. The period 1955 to 1965 was also a dramatic era for Singapore. As the country struggled towards nationhood, the social and political events of this time and their effects are seen through the eyes of the common folk. This collection of delightful, real life short stories will take you through Singapore's history and heritage at a human level. For some it will be a journey of discovery and for others a time for reminiscing.

Surabaya, 1945-2010 presents the recent history of one of Indonesia's great port cities as viewed from a crowded low-income neighbourhood (kampung) called Dinoyo. By following the lives of Dinoyo residents over three generations, it provides a new perspective on landmark moments in the country's modern history, including the war for independence, the destruction of the Communist Party, the petrus anti-crime campaign, neighbourhood improvement projects, the fall of the New Order and the rise of democracy, as well as more recent government campaigns to fight terrorism and promote urban renewal.) During several long periods of residence in the kampung, Robbie Peters gathered richly detailed information about the responses of its residents to the tumultuous process of political reform and economic growth. He shows how their informal economy adapted to the forces of urban change, and how their neighbourhood-based social institutions promoted a 'participative' citizenship that resisted state attempts to shape a more exclusive citizenship that restricted the rights of newcomers to the city. Residents of urban neighbourhoods such as Kampung Dinoyo make up a substantial proportion of Indonesia's urban population and their kampungs a significant proportion of urban land, yet they rarely appear in historical accounts of the Indonesian city. Peters' account of urban life as experienced by one group of kampung residents is a unique contribution to the literature on one of Asia's largest and most complex countries.

A Singaporean geomancer and fengshui practitioner (and banker) has written this account of the fengshui significance of some of Singapore's major old and new landmarks. After setting out the basic concepts of fengshui, some 15 sites, buildings or tombs are highlighted and their history and fengshui significance discussed. With black-and-white photo-insets and graphics.

Hong Kong Unveiled is an Access All Areas pass into Chinese culture and customs. Though written with a Hong Kong slant, it applies to any Chinese community worldwide. Invited to a Chinese wedding or business function and don't know the correct form? This book will lead you through the minefield where an innocent mistake could see you lose your friend or your business connection. Want to change a run of bad luck? Or are your jokes falling flat with your Chinese friends? Find out how and why in this far-ranging book - which also explains how many seemingly strange customs came about.