Marco Ferrarese

is a musician, author and travel writer. He blogs at www.monkeyrockworld.com. He also curates the Penang Insider at www.penang-insider.com. His latest book, The Travels of Marco Yolo, is available in bookstores. Follow him on X @monkeyrockworld.

42 posts

The Renewal of Butterworth Continues

6 min read

Art Festival Urban Xchange brings a motley cast of local and international artists back into town. The goal? Promote awareness through art, and present Seberang Perai with the gift of a giant LED star.

by Marco Ferrarese & Chan Kit Yeng

An Art Exchange on Penang’s Walls and Streets

6 min read

Urban Xchange, Penang’s first international street art festival, divided the state’s art sphere between purists and those who dare to be different.

by Marco Ferrarese

The New Wave of Malaysian Fixi-on

6 min read

Petaling Jaya-based independent publisher Fixi conquered Malaysia's bestsellers charts with a new wave of pulp fiction that dares to defy Islamic conservatism and the country’s alleged low-reading rates.

by Marco Ferrarese

Road Tripping with Long-Distance Parents

5 min read

When you have been living far apart from your parents for a long time, you acquire your own habits. And when they come to visit, playing host to and going on a road trip together with them can be a meaningful, albeit exhausting experience.

by Marco Ferrarese

Foreign Students Learning the Hard Way

6 min read

Increasingly restrictive policies related to the issuance of student visas have transformed Malaysia from a rising education hub to a foreign student’s worst nightmare.

by Marco Ferrarese

Malaysian Skinheads Against Racism

6 min read

Why would a bunch of KL kids who listen to Western Neo-Nazi bands such as Angry Aryan, but clearly aren’t Aryan themselves, adopt a worldview that specifically discriminates against their own race?

by Marco Ferrarese

Resisting the Closing of the Malaysian Mind

6 min read

Eccentric professor Latif Kamaluddin writes powerful, mean verses that challenge Malaysians to think about where their modernity really comes from.

by Marco Ferrarese

Penang’s frontline survivor

6 min read

One can glean that Kim Gooi has lived an amazing life just by looking at him: donning a slanting beret, his whole persona exudes the sense that he’s flirt...

by Marco Ferrarese

The punk artists of Mount Kinabalu

6 min read

About 100km away from Kota Kinabalu, I find myself standing inside a sunscorched country house, looking at a line of A3-sized posters hanging on the walls.About...

by Marco Ferrarese

Bukit Mertajam Offers Some Rare Authenticity

6 min read

Bukit Mertajam might be well off the tourist map, but it has much more to offer than what its reputation as George Town’s satellite suggests. We take a walk to the town’s centre and meet its protagonists.

by Marco Ferrarese & Chan Kit Yeng

Stories from some young Malay minds

4 min read

They say don’t judge a book by its cover, and in the case of Young and Malay: Growing up in Multicultural Malaysia, I couldn’t agree more. The spunk...

by Marco Ferrarese

Making Words Perform Art

5 min read

At the George Town Literary Festival 2015, meet this group of people who create imagery and music with words.

by Marco Ferrarese