What is the TPPA?
5 min read
2017-08-092017-08-09The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is a free trade agreement (FTA) which involves a variety of socioeconomic policy issues. Curr...
September 2026
The September Issue Is Out Now! Penang Monthly’s September issue explores the vibrant world of Penang’s pasar malam, highlighting their food, culture, community, traditions, and evolving role in island life.
Loving Paris in the Winter
6 min read
Winter is hardly the season of discontent as oft perceived – barren and calcified of major art-tivities because of the “wrathful nipping cold”...
Filming the Intangible
3 min read
Film can be a very reflective and evocative medium that captures the uniqueness of a place and its communities. And that is exactly what the Kaki Lima Short Film Competition aims to highlight.
Literature is Not About Winning Prizes
5 min read
A Malaysian writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature by 2057, the 100th anniversary of the country’s independence – that’s the challenge t...
The Bead Goes On
4 min read
It was like entering a treasure cave when Litad Mulok finally let me into the small building located across from her house.Arranged on long tables were thousa...
A Dreamy Tribute in 35mm
5 min read
With an eagle etched over his throat, 30-year-old Samuel Carter looks more like a tattoo-parlour apprentice than a self-made vintage photographer. “Photog...
A Hike Worth Getting Lost For!
5 min read
The fishing village of Gertak Sanggul seems to belong to a bygone era. Chinese farmhouses face the sea and fishermen’s huts line the quiet, sandy beach of...
Bringing Books to the Public
8 min read
It was 1806 and C. Smith Esquire had a problem in Penang. Someone had borrowed the second part of the second volume of his Encyclopædia Britannica’s...
No Child Goes Hungry in New Taipei City
4 min read
In metropolitan areas, franchise convenience stores such as 7-Eleven and FamilyMart can be found practically everywhere. No longer content with selling instant...
Insidious Selfies: Should Leaders Act like the Rest of Us?
7 min read
Last year in May, President Barack Obama came to Malaysia for the first time. When he was here, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak couldn’t resist...
The Future is Now
8 min read
Exponential TimesWe now live in unprecedented times where the pace of evolution is no longer linear but exponential. In the 20th century alone, the population...
TPPA – The Winners and the Losers
14 min read
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) that involves 12 Pacific Rim countries: Singapore, Brunei, New Zeal...
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