Jasmine Low is fourth generation Malaysian Chinese, living in Sydney Australia. She is the co-founder of AsiaFitnessToday.com, an advocate for rhythm & movement as therapy, writer, producer and director. She is the creator and host of the Listen by Heart podcast. Visit www.jasminelow.com/now to see what she’s doing now.
Dancing to the gongs of the South China Sea (PDF) is an unfinished piece that’s a work-in-progress, a culmination of works explored in an 8-week creative writing class with Sharon Bakar’s Words on Fire to “Finding the Flow”. I’m immensely grateful and thankful for Sharon’s guidance and the sharing sessions from my fellow classmates. Enjoy this piece.
Spoilers – Please read this after you’ve read the piece, not before. Here’s a little backstory to how I came about to this tale. I was inspired by a series of uncannily unplanned events:
First, I started reading the Booker Prize winner, “Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” by Sri Lankan in Singapore, Shehan Karunatilaka.
I loved this picture of the two boys in Sarong and their bubu fishing traps, so selected this from Sharon’s Pinterest for a piece 2 weeks back.
I thought I’d try a genre I’ve hardly done – Sci-fi / mystery / romance / horror.
I was at a baby shower for my cousin’s daughter and her father-in-law Mr. Duong and his wife. They met and fell in love in Malaysia at a refugee camp. Duong told me how his boat of 25 people broke into pieces 3-hours after they left shore, and they floated on wooden boards to land in Terengganu. After many years of waiting, they were accepted to be resettled in Australia. Their resilience is unimaginable! I’m so in awe of them. After much research, I was enlightened about an island named Bidong in the East Coast of Terengganu, a.k.a. Hell Isle.
I love sotong sumbat!!!
I’m sharing this here because amongst other things that happen in life, writing fiction is one of the hardest things to do, and it has been a personal mission to attempt, to try and never give up at that.
This is a part of a bigger project that I’m working on, one that seeks to tell a tale about wars and peace, love and mythical beings with life in-between against a backdrop of the South China Sea. Wish me luck and thank you for your support.
Warning: To Aboriginal & Torres Straits Islander readers, the following article contains images and voices of people who have passed away.
🖤 On August 9th 2021, International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples themed ‘Leaving No One Behind’ left me thinking of our future, and of the concept of freedom.
💛 Motherland
It’s August 30th, Malaysia’s Merdeka Day. A quick dip into historical events would show the timeline from when the British East India Company made a deal in 1786 with the Sultanate of Kedah, a state bordering Malaya and Thailand, to form the first of what would be the Straits Settlement, comprising of Malacca and Singapore later on. And that is history, as told by text books.
Blindsided in school textbooks are stories about the indigenous peoples, like the Orang Aslis and Orang Asals, leaving generations of children growing up without much knowledge or understanding for the cultures of the first people. Where were they in history? What happened? Didn’t they also fight for peace during WWII? They make up 13.8% of Malaysia’s 32 million population so it’s a good question to raise and a strong reason to lobby for indigenous peoples and their stories to be told in schools, at the workplace and local community programs.
💙 Heartland
Coming from migrant stock, Australia is my heartland. It always has a place in my heart. I quickly learned that there were two events in the one same city; Sorry Day in La Perouse south of Sydney and Australia Day in the harbour front of Gadigal Land. How can one celebrate when another is somber? This juxtaposition of thought camps remains the crux of January 26th for me personally.
❤️ Homeland
A dedication to all Malaysians, especially Malaysia’s indigenous communities. As a Malaysian-born, I’ve been conscious of its long dumbed-down history of land rights among the aboriginal native orang asli and orang asal. I’ve seen friends tell through personal experiences, through documentaries they’d shoot, horrendous tales of blockades in the centre of the Earth as termed by the Temiars in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, blocking tree loggers from pulling roots out from their earth, their land, which was licensed out to commercial loggers. These brave individuals would set up blockades ala man versus tractor.
The song “From little things, big things grow” by Kev Carmody & Paul Kelly, remade by Ziggy Ramo and Electric Fields keeps the fire burning for the other people fighting land rights and there needs to be fires burning long through the nights for this fight to be fought.
On the eve of this 64th Merdeka Day in Malaysia, I’ve had this song translated into Bahasa Malaysia, and written this short piece to show respect to a culture if not protected, will be forever lost. It’s really baby steps forward but giant strides backwards if we allow our last remaining forests, ancestral land for the first peoples of Malaysia, what’s left of it, to be plummaged with no recourse. There is no turning back if we let it happen. We must not let it happen. Protect it at all costs just like how the tree huggers, Chipko activists in the 1970s in India did.
Here’s a conversation recorded one afternoon as I chat with Shirl while she eats — her favourite thing to do! We speak in English, Malay and Hokkien. This is an experimental concept, where podcast host/producer Jasmine H. Low records periods during her day as a carer for mum… The first few seconds are sounds recorded while Jasmine escapes for a coffee break at the beach while Shirl sleeps. These in-between moments give room for much thought, reflection and creativity. A step forward usually means a push off of faith, gaining momentum and power for a larger stride. It also requires trust to move ahead in search for another door to open. It’s that unknown lull, that time at sea travelling from one place place to an unknown land, eager in anticipation. I think of the women before me, my mother’s mother, my mother and in this recording, I asked about her comfort foods from her mother’s time. It seems the making of, the eating and convening over food provided much comfort for the women from my family. I hope you have enjoyed listening to this first Season, where I feature my own personal poetry, stories and conversations with mum.
Over the course of the next few seasons, I shall be introducing a long list of amazing women with heritage from countries surrounding the South China Seas.
You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea.
Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred platform and if you’d like to encourage us on, find out how you can support the production. Thank you.
Our purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them.
Our Mission: Listen By Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.
Production Credits
An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com). An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production. Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com. Website by WebPROjx.com.
Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Seas? We’d love to hear from you…
Girl Gungho: Identity is a quirky teaser, fiction laced with some real-life experiences about growing up in Kuala Lumpur in the 80s, the yearn to find balance and gender equality and the big move from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney as a student.
You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea.
Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred platform and if you’d like to encourage us on, find out how you can support the production. Thank you.
Our purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them.
Our Mission: Listen By Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.
Production Credits
An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com). An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production. Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com. Website by WebPROjx.com.
Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Seas? We’d love to hear from you…
Sounds recorded by Jasmine H. Low + an afternoon chat with Shirl. An experimental concept, where the producer Jasmine H. Low records periods during her day, unspoken quiet moments while Shirl sleeps, the in-between moments. A step forward usually means a push off of faith, gaining momentum and power for a larger stride. It also requires trust to move ahead in search for another door to open. It’s that unknown lull, that time at sea travelling from one place place to an unknown land, eager in anticipation. I think of the women before me, my mother’s mother, my mother and in this recording, I asked about her career choice.
You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea.
Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred platform and if you’d like to encourage us on, find out how you can support the production. Thank you.
Our purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them.
Our Mission: Listen By Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.
Production Credits
An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com). An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production. Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com. Website by WebPROjx.com.
Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Seas? We’d love to hear from you…
At the doorstep of BIMP-EAGA nations, China, US & Australian ships have been ‘patrolling’ the South China Sea since Easter.
“The South China Sea holds an estimated 190 trillion 👀 cubic feet of natural gas and 11 billion barrels of oil in proved and probable reserves, with much more potentially undiscovered”
— source AMTI
I’ve often wondered about the Nanyang women who had to brave the seas, in search for a better land, a husband, a new life. I often wondered how they must have felt, their mothers, thinking they may never see their daughters again. My focus is on the women, because many of them never had their name documented. This Mother’s Day, I’d like to remember them.
— don’t go so busy —
Written and narrated by Jasmine H. Low
don’t go so busy with your phones looking to the West when Western ideals are already insipidly you,
I mean what are YOUR values today huh? Hah? Or does BTS speak to you more than your Tea’s gone Cold?
.
don’t go so busy with your serial whatsapp groups posting what you ate yesterday in the Western suburbs when so many troops are already in our open waters,
and 53 died when their old sub broke under 500-metres,
.
don’t go so busy choosing your cereal, your toothpaste while listening to that joe rogan on your airpods, washing your brains with #hashtags not even relevant to you, oh, wait, it’s now #stopasianhate
.
don’t go so busy run run running a million miles, yes miles we once were before the metre, cos you’re just feeding the big brother watching your every movement, even your fittest of bits
.
don’t go so clever posting pics of your every meal, your lunch, your dinner, your piece of keto liver, your every calorie saved, your fitness pal my fitness pal who cares
.
don’t go so crazy do research, research here, research there, wondering which vaccine won’t give you clots, when your blood is already thickened by sucralose, sorbitol and every sweetener the world has ever seen, see, those dots? Ya it’s keratosis pilaris as that tiktok md says, but why is it a new normal, doc?!
.
haiya, don’t go la, just sit back, relax, drink your teh tarik and make it kurang manis, eat your Roti dipped in dahl and sambal, but so much carbs liao ditch the koay teow, turn on the news at the mamak but WAIT cannot be…
Is that Ann Lee* on TV?!
Are we back in 1993?!
— a woke prose as there are those who are wagging dog’s tails, donno what it means ah? google la, wag the dog’s tail is mean make you so busy you look look look your teevee until you don’t see where you walk then BOOM fall into longkang lah!
*Dr Ann Lee was a former newscaster on RTM2, Malaysia and is an award-winning playwright, presenter and researcher. She’s featured in Season Two of this podcast.
You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea.
Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred platform and if you’d like to encourage us on, find out how you can support the production. Thank you.
Our purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them.
Our Mission: Listen By Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.
Production Credits
An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com). An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production. Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com. Website by WebPROjx.com.
Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Seas? We’d love to hear from you…
The Magpies is one of the most well-known poems, depicting the everlasting and unchanging Magpie call (nature) as life happens (passage of time). It was written in only six stanzas by New Zealand poet, printer, publisher, satirist, sailor and boxer Denis Glover (1912-1980). And here’s the most famous, benign line that seems so simple and yet time withstanding: — “And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle/The magpies said,” —
The Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) is a black and white chesty bird native to Australia and New Guinea. Famous for their vocalisations that mimic the environment, Jasmine was targeted three consecutive times and was ‘swooped’ on her head while walking past a street in Zetland, NSW. When she recorded this from her mother’s balcony in Sydney, there was surely a commotion, magpies were congregating from one tree then to another. What a loud and busy affair it was!
The Magpies is read by Jasmine Low as a tribute to the nation, Australia, one of the luckiest countries in the world, her second home. She is neither native to the other land she calls home, Malaysia, but that is still her Motherland. The land where her mother and her mother’s mother were born, bred and lived. They were the Nanyang Chinese who immigrated at the turn of the 20th century in search of a new home. As a fourth generation Malaysian Chinese now living in Australia, IDENTITY has been a lifelong quest. No land welcomes her home except in the quiet of her heart. Even there, appears a conflict of duality where an all-serving filial piety native meets a braver Mulan-like idealistic artist. Who wins? Not her but the Magpie will keep its calling true.
You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea.
Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred platform and if you’d like to encourage us on, find out how you can support the production. Thank you.
Our purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them.
Our Mission: Listen By Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.
Production Credits
An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com). An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production. Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com. Website by WebPROjx.com.
Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Seas? We’d love to hear from you…
You have been listening to an Audio Journey experience by Jasmine Low. Subscribe to the podcast on your favourite platform and if you’d like to encourage us on, you can support the production.
Purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them.
Mission: Listen By Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.
Production Credits
An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com).
Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we’d love to hear from you…
This piece was originally written in 12 Jan 2009 and rewritten in March 2021 following an in-depth critique by Malaysian playwright & researcher Dr. Ann Lee who appears in Season Two. The author writes about a duality in her identity, in her love for her native country, torn by a new love for her adopted place of abode. A new country. Like two lovers courting and dancing, these two countries beckon her like a lover promising more than they can deliver. Will she go with her head or her heart?
You have been listening to an Audio Journey experience by Jasmine Low. Subscribe to the podcast on your favourite platform and if you’d like to encourage us on, you can support the production.
Purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them.
Mission: Listen By Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.
Production Credits
An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com).
Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we’d love to hear from you…
From 2003-2012, I was actively writing, performing spoken word poetry and organising poetry & music gigs in the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia circuit. Together with Jerome Kugan, Sabahan singer songwriter and then editor of a lifestyle magazine KLUE, we formed Wayang Kata in collaboration with the British Council Malaysia and Apples & Snakes UK to showcase performance poetry. Those were great days of unraveling stories from so many interesting layers of society and cultures.
Jasmine reading at an open mic organised by Sharon Bakar (blog)
I had an idea back in 2006-2007 to collect and curate stories in the form of poetry, song and short stories for an audio book titled ROOMS. I recorded two original performance poetry pieces I wrote – one was performed at The Actors’ Studio Bangsar and the other was a gig. I collected at a few recordings from women writers and poets, but never published it. That idea never left me, it was always there, just waiting for the right time and I think this year may be the right time to bring it alive.
In conjunction with International Women’s Day and their tagline #ChoosetoChallenge for spoken word poets, this one’s for all of you ladies! Read more about IWD 2021… Who has inspired all of this? A young lady by the name of Amanda Gorman at the inauguration of Joe Biden as President & Kamala Harris as Vice President of the United States of America.
This is an open call to women of Southeast Asian heritage, no matter where you’re living now. I’d love to hear your stories and if you’d like to be featured on this podcast, drop me a voice message and I’ll get back to you.
It began as a TEDx talk in 2015 and at the time, it was called Listen to Your Heart. I presented an idea about sound frequencies and how that research led me to realise what played importance in my own life.
I hope you’ll enjoy these recordings and readings as much as I have in writing, recording and producing them. I kick off the project with readings of some of my original unpublished works and recorded conversations with my mother Shirl.
Thank you and enjoy the audio journey!
Sincerely, Jasmine Low #ListenbyHeart 30 March 2021 in Sydney, Australia
Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we’d love to hear from you…
