Culture & People

Singapore lawyer Teo Soh Lung has written this careful account of her experiences and feelings when detained in Whitley Detention Centre 21 from May 1987 to 6 September 1987, and from April 1988 to 1 June 1990. Accused of involvement in the alleged "Marxist Conspiracy", Soh Lung discusses many legal aspects of the case, including Singapore's banning of London QC Anthony Lester and her various Appeal attempts. She tells of the regime and her physical and emotional suffering, as well as the strategies and beliefs which enabled her to retain her integrity and balance in circumstances intended to subdue her. Relevant official documents are appended.

The three swans of the title are three sisters, daughters of the late Tan Sri Haji Mohamed Noah Omar of Muar, Johore. Two of the sisters became wives of Malaysian Prime Ministers and the third is the mother of another. Photographs and reminiscences from family members and others tell the story of a remarkable family and the part they played in the country's development during a crucial period. Many insights are also offered into the lives of leading citizens as well as the ideas and ways of life of an established and respected family which took a significant part in the life of pre- and post-independence Malaysia.

This book provides rich and provocative comparative studies of South and Southeast Asian domestic workers who migrate to other parts of Asia. These studies range from Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, to Yemen, Israel, Jordan, and the UAE. Conceptually and methodologically, this book challenges us to move beyond established regional divides and proposes new ways of mapping inter-Asian connections. The authors view migrant workers within a wider spatial context of intersecting groups and trajectories through time. Keenly attentive to the importance of migrants of diverse nationalities who have laboured in multiple regions, this book examines intimate connections and distant divides in the social lives and politics of migrant workers across time and space. Collectively, the authors propose new themes, new comparative frameworks, and new methodologies for considering vastly different degrees of social support structures and political activism, and the varied meanings of citizenship and state responsibility in sending and receiving countries. They highlight the importance of formal institutions that shape and promote migratory labour, advocacy for workers, or curtail workers rights, as well as the social identities and cultural practices and beliefs that may be linked to new inter-ethnic social and political affiliations that traverse and also transform inter-Asian spaces and pathways to mobility.

There were over 1000 entries for the National Library Board 2009 To My Grandpa/Grandma competition. These 40 selected letters from teenagers are very varied - they offer insights into human situations and recent history, as well as into the dynamics of Singapore family relationships.

The 40 letters in this volume are from Primary School pupils who entered the 2009 NLB To My Grandpa/Grandma competition. They also offer remarkable insights into cross-generation attitudes and the significance grandparents many have to their grandchildren.

This book presents a comprehensive, full-length analysis of the uses of media and communication technologies by different social actors in Malaysia. Unlike other studies of the media in Malaysia which concentrate on "political economy" or "freedom of the media" approaches, this book focuses on the ways in which different media forms have constituted cultural practices and power relations amongst particular audiences and publics. It also examines the ways in which technologies of varying scales and range have been appropriated for various subaltern purposes and counter-hegemonic agendas. Drawing upon recent case studies on the deployment of different media - including mainstream and independent films, television programming, black metal music, community rituals, political advertising, the internet, and artistic visual installations - it provides valuable insights into the complex, vibrant ways in which these different media forms have negotiated with the dominant cultural representations of Malaysian society.

The author, Chao Tzang Yawnghwe, was a son of the first President of the Union of Burma. In this 2010 reprint of a 1987 account, he tells of his youth and involvement in the Shan resistance movement. He gives his version of Shan history and explains the complexity of Shan politics covering the issues of autonomy, Shan-Burmese relations, opium, and other contraband trade. He discusses the personalities involved in the war that is now more than 20 years old. The final part of this book is a compendium of who's who in Shan history and politics. The author passed away in July 2004.

In the post-Maoist era, China adopted a strategy for investing in the "quality" of its people - through education and training opportunities - that created talented labour. In her significant ethnographic study, Patriotic Professionalism in Urban China, Lisa Hoffman explains why the development of "human capital" is seen as fundamental for economic growth and national progress. She examines these new urban employees, who were deemed vital to the success of the global city in China, and who hoped for social mobility, a satisfying career, and perhaps a family. Patriotic Professionalism in Urban China addresses the emergence of this urban professional subject in Dalian, a port city in China. Hoffman identifies who these new professionals are, what choices they have made, and how they have remained closely connected with the nation - although not necessarily the Communist party - leading to a new social form she calls "Patriotic Professionalism." Hoffman contributes to the understanding of changing urban life in China while providing an analysis of the country's "late-socialist neoliberalism." In the process, she asks pressing questions about how such shifts impact cities, how individuals and families negotiate these changes, and how "choice" itself is a part of the subject formation process for these young professionals.

A Singapore teacher reflects on her life-threatening suffering since having a stroke with complications in 2005. She shows how her Christian faith enables her to cope with acute and chronic disablement and offers often-dry comments on attitudes she has experienced.

Moses Tay's autobiography tells of his 1938 birth in Johore and his Christian education and upbringing which was not without hardship. Schooling in Malacca followed by medical training in Singapore led to a successful career in government service. Appointed Anglican Bishop of Singapore in 1982 and regional Archbishop in 1996, he discusses the ongoing divisions within the Anglican Church and reasons for his active and conservative stance both during and after his retirement in 2000. With family photographs and appended documents.

Here is the story of American Paul Means (1894-1980) and his wife Nathalie (1901-1999) who worked as literacy teachers, linguists and missionaries in Indonesia, India, Singapore and Malaysia from 1927 until the 1980s. Much of their work was with the Sengoi people of West Malaysia. Many sidelights are shed on the languages, needs, and lives of the Sengoi and other indigenous people the Means worked with in Sumatra, India and elsewhere. Index.

Verner Bickley (b. 1926) writes of his life and career as a teacher of English largely with the Colonial Education Service and the British Council. Born in Northwest England, he tells of his education, service in the British Navy mainly in Ceylon. Much light is shed on local situations and personalities as he tells of work as a teacher at Raffles Institution in Singapore 1951-59, in Rangoon with the British Council 1959-61, in Jakarta 1961-65, and in Tokyo 1966-78. With index and black-and-white photographs.

The English-born Singaporean leadership trainer and promoter of Positive Psychology cross-cultural training set out in 2008 to find Singapore's happiest people. An account is given of the search in which 250 people participated, and of the first 2008 Asian New Science of Happiness and Well-Being Conference. The principles of Positive Psychology are set out and details given of the 2010 Search which is for Singapore's Most Resilient Person.

Emphasising the global nature of Indian and Chinese films, television and digital media, this book provides a diverse mix of alternative perspectives that collectively shift the discussion of media globalisation away from Hollywood and New York. Fourteen individually referenced essays cover topics such as the influence of Bollywood productions, the rise of made-in-China blockbusters, the development of pan-Asian cinema, and migrants' use of the Internet to maintain connections with their homelands. Indexed.

Wanted Cultured Ladies Only! maps out the early culture of cinema stardom in India from its emergence in the silent era to the decade after Indian independence in the mid-20th century. Neepa Majumdar combines readings of specific films and stars with an analysis of the historical and cultural configurations that gave rise to distinctly Indian notions of celebrity. Majumdar argues that discussions of early cinematic stardom in India must be placed in the context of the general legitimising discourse of colonial "improvement" that marked other civic and cultural spheres as well, and that "vernacular modernist" anxieties over the New Woman had limited resonance here. Rather, it was through emphatically nationalist discourses that Indian cinema found its model for modern female identities.) Beginning with a history of the idea of stardom in India, Majumdar considers questions of spectatorship, gossip, and popularity as they pertain to two popular stars, Sulochana and Fearless Nadia, who occupied the highbrow and lowbrow ends of the spectrum of stardom in the 1930s. With the breakdown of the studio system in the mid-1940s, new configurations of stardom arose from the establishment of a star-based production system. To examine this "stardom racket," Majumdar analyses the impact of star monopoly on textual and performance conventions through the half-century-long vocal dominance of playback singer Lata Mangeshkar as well as the 1950s actress Nargis.

Songs for the Spirits is the first in-depth study of the Vietnamese practice of communing with music and performance. During rituals dedicated to spirits, a band of musicians perform an elaborate sequence of songs for possessed mediums who carry out ritual actions, distribute blessed gifts to disciples and dance to the music's infectious rhythms. An accompanying DVD contains numerous video and music extracts. With bibliography and index.

These 12 papers are selected from those given at the 2008 Manila AMIC conference. They explore the roles and potentials of media in the ongoing progression towards the United Nations' Millennium Goals. Issues explored include: challenges and opportunities in the Asia Pacific Region for journalists and the internet; transnational education programmes; radio in India; censorship with reference to spin and Australian control of media; communication education in Bangladesh; the environmentally-conscious newspaper Bandillo of the Philippines; media of the Pacific Islands' diaspora communities; HIV-related reporting; media activities of young Filipino professionals in Singapore; empowering athletes with disabilities; and the development of journalism ethics.

Historical anthropology and contemporary ethnography blend in this study of medicine in Cambodia. Recent field work and archival material have been brought together to enable understanding of today's intertwining of indigenous Khmer beliefs and practices and the continuing medical and health framework introduced by the French colonial governments. Among the many subjects explored and assessed are: the "Socialist Health" activity during the Khmer Rouge regime; policies, practices and beliefs associated with leprosy; the medicalization of and traditional approaches to motherhood; contemporary usages and expectations of private and state medical services and also pharmaceuticals; the disconnected ways of foreign NGOs; and contemporary healthcare resources. With source list, bibliography, black-and-white photographs and index.

President Barack Obama's mother, S. Ann Dunham, was an economic anthropologist and rural development consultant who worked in several countries, including Indonesia. She died in 1995, at the age of 52, before having the opportunity to revise her dissertation for publication, as she had planned. Her dissertation has now been revised at the request of Dunham's daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and the result is Surviving Against All Odds, a book based on Dunham's research into non-agricultural activities in rural Indonesia, namely blacksmithing and other small metalwork industries, over a period of fourteen years among the rural metalworkers of Java. It provides detailed insights into economic anthropology, blacksmithing, and local life and labour in a Javanese village. With bibliography and index.

These 26 alphabetically arranged breezy and informal essays are a perhaps surprising publication by the Indonesian Heritage Society. They discuss or introduce aspects of everyday life in Indonesia, which guidebooks for newcomers usually ignore. The topics covered or mentioned range from recipes and ghosts to mouthwashes and identity registration. Illustrated, with glossary and bibliography.