Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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).

310 posts

Capitalism is the Exercise of the Power of Excess

3 min read

This morning (June 20, 2016), my 12-year-old daughter asked me “what is Capitalism?”Since the Cold War is over, this is actually a harder question...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The Point of Competitive Sports is to Cultivate Sportsmanship

2 min read

Being a late-bloomer, I seldom took part in sports when I was in school. They felt too physical, too competitive and too regimenting. That did not stop me thoug...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The Future is in Our Own Hands

2 min read

Let’s be upfront about it. Anyone concerned about the survival of the planet has to struggle with the deduction that the greatest threat to the environm...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The Family Reunion – An Annual Pilgrimage

3 min read

So it’s that time of year again. The Lunar New Year arrives, and we witness the happy congregation of dispersed Chinese at the home of their family elders...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

New Modes of Learning for a New Century

3 min read

The essence of a nation-building or statebuilding model is best perceived through its education policies. This is after all the key area within which the gove...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The Hills ‘r’ Us

3 min read

Natural resources are always good to have. If rightly used, they are the basis not only for an economy’s path of growth, but also for its international...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Literary festivals – More momentous than you may imagine

3 min read

Now when Penang is holding its George Town Literary Festival again – and I have no doubt that it will be an even greater success than before – let...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Penang as entry point for visitors to Malaysia

3 min read

Tourism has been vital to Penang for decades, but a competent history of it has yet to be written to give due credit to the key actors involved, to describe t...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Speaking of Pulau Tikus...

3 min read

Pulau Tikus. The name always sounded exotic to the ears of a boy growing up in the general area of Ayer Itam (yes, not Air Itam), Reservoir Gardens and Rifle...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The UAE passes an anti-discriminatory law worth importing

3 min read

I was in Abu Dhabi recently for the first time. The UAE is a strange land; its citizens make up only 15% of the whole population. The rest are foreigners of o...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

An intercontinental trip a year keeps the psychiatrist away

3 min read

 We take global communication as a matter of course today. Not long ago, messages had to be written on physical media to arrive only after being carr...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Noses don’t grow back

3 min read

It is very sad that the state of Penang is being ignored in the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020). None of the infrastructure projects the Penang government pres...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng