Can We Be Playful About Sport?
3 min read
ALL SOCIALLY-INCLINED animals start life by crying for food. Beyond that, they seek safety and comfort. After that, the need to train their bodies for the futur...
The Creative Economy Appears Devised for Penang
3 min read
THE TERM “Creative Economy” sometimes sounds like an oxymoron in that human creativity is more often than not associated with the arts, executed more for passio...
Creating a City of Culture Costs – But We Should Happily Pay
2 min read
Artists – be they painters or sculptors, musicians or even authors – need sponsors. They need patrons. In our commercial age, there is of course t...
Enough With Penang Food Already! What About the Drinks?
3 min read
Yes, Penang has amazing food, be it fusion or hybrid, street or mall, traditional or accidental. And yes, it has amazing desserts too, like the Penang Road te...
Penang Should Make the Most of Transiting Cruise Tourists
3 min read
I assume anyone reading this has some time or other been one of those strange global creatures, disliked by some for their transient but disruptive presence a...
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...