It all seems so simple now...
3 min read
INTO THE GREAT dining hall, the children came. The guards at the gates do their best to keep as many of them out as possible, but they are too few, and the chil...
Naming Modern Means of Mass Transport
3 min read
In the age of speedy technological innovations, thinking up names for totally new things that are not created by Mother Nature but by this innovative ape we c...
A Tsunami of Cultural Disruptions is on the Horizon
3 min read
The digital revolution that in recent years has been pigeonholed as Industry 4.0 in reality transforms modern life in more ways than merely through new products...
Words and Music—Two Sides of the Sense of Hearing
3 min read
MUSIC HAS ALWAYS been a phenomenon to savour for the great thinkers. One can sense how these master craftsmen of words relished being stumped when it came to an...
What Are We to Do With You Millennials?
3 min read
I HAVE TO admit something. Before returning to Penang to work in 2017, I had hardly ever used the word “millennial”. Looking back, I think that was because I wa...
The Educational Origins of Penang’s Skills Mismatch and Brain Drain
4 min read
EDUCATION IS REGARDED as a human right today. Therefore, most modern states, barring those who expressly consider public education to be a threat to their conti...
Physical Needs Set the Standard and Pace for Intercultural Relations
3 min read
THERE ARE CERTAIN aspects to human cultures which are more universal than others – largely by virtue of the fact that they deal with physical needs more than wi...
Penang: Once Cosmopolitan, Always Cosmopolitan
3 min read
URBAN CENTRES, by their very nature of having concentrated populations, tend also to place people from different backgrounds in close proximity to each other. T...
Of Urban Parochialism And Rural Cosmopolitanism
2 min read
The thing is, the line between urban and rural is no longer as clear as before, and therefore the association between urbanity and cosmopolitanism—a tie that has been shaky from the start in any case—becomes ever more tenuous.
A Good State is an Inclusive and Caring State
3 min read
DEAR CITIZEN, who cares for you?Or more succinctly, who should care for you?When we talk about the Care Industry (as we are doing in this month’s magazine), we...
Trusting Remains a Process that Takes Time in the Information Age
3 min read
ONCE UPON A time, information was generated slowly and carefully. The time and distance between thought, expression, dissemination and reception were substantia...
![What Do Straits Do—Separate or Connect? [Part One]](https://host.forward.edu.my/pm_storage/public/17013/editorial.jpg)
What Do Straits Do—Separate or Connect? [Part One]
3 min read
DOES THE PENANG Strait separate Seberang Perai from Penang Island or does it connect one to the other?This question is not as glib as it may sound at first read...