Welcome to the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea hosted by Jasmine H. Low. This episode features Sheena Yap Chan, The Wall Street Journal Bestselling author, keynote speaker, consultant and award-winning podcaster on leadership and self-confidence.
She is also the founder and host of the award-winning podcast called The Tao of Self-Confidence where she interviews Asian women about their inner journey to self-confidence. Her podcast has gotten over one million downloads to date and has interviewed over 800 women on the topic of confidence. She has interviewed celebrities, 8 figure CEO’s and more. Sheena has been featured on MindValley, FOX, ThriveGlobal, Manila Times and more. She is also the co-author of the international bestselling books called Asian Women Who BossUp and International Women of Color Who BossUp. Sheena’s debut book with Wiley, The Tao of Self-Confidence: A Guide to Moving Beyond Trauma and Awakening the Leader Within is also The Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestselling book.
Welcome to the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. I’m Jasmine Low and today, I will be joined by Che Puan Sarimah Ibrahim, a woman with many talents. I remember watching her present MTV music videos, emceeing events on television, she even had her own talk show. In her IMDb profile, she is an Actor, TV Host, Model, Voice Over, Emcee, Singer, Presenter, Mental Health Spokesperson, Fitness model and recently, loving wife and mother to a three-year-old (now four-year-old).
In preparing for this interview, Sarimah answers some of my queries in between rehearsals to emcee a black-tie event that was attended by Malaysian royalty, key members of the industry producers, directors and casts. It’s a huge evening, she tells me, and I can imagine the nerves building up in preparation for such an amazing night.
She is Muslim, Irish-Asian who is strong minded, resilient, she has a Western Asian vibe and holds tightly to her Islamic faith.
She has been to mosques, churches, the bottom of the ocean to the clouds! She has seen life through a grandmother who tapped rubber at 4am in Johor to make ends meet, an Irish orphaned grandmother who was raised in a monastery and raised 8 children.
Sarimah took a sabbatical from the entertainment industry having found her soulmate, getting married and starting a family.
I met Sarimah thanks to a LinkedIn recommendation by a mutual friend Dina Zaman, and we connected to discuss her work in mental health advocacy. Sarimah, welcome!
Connect with Sarimah Ibrahim on social media:
https://vimeo.com/sarimahibrahim
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You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, an AFT Podcasts production.
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.
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.
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 Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we’d love to hear from you…
AFT Podcasts present the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. Presenter Jasmine Low speaks with Amanda Nell Eu, a Malaysian film director and scriptwriter known for her recent body horror film Tiger Stripes – set in a Malaysian jungle in which a girl experiences a strange metamorphosis as she comes of age. The film won the Critics’ Week Grand Prize (Semaine de la Critique Cannes) when it was shown at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival in France in May 2023, and it was then selected as the Malaysian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. Amanda runs Ghost Grrl Pictures with a cofounder.
Amanda is known for an earlier film about two teenagers and a female vampire who solely attacks men, an urban legend tale in Malaysia and Indonesia – titled, “Lagi Senang Jaga Sekandang Lembu” or in English, “It’s Easier to Raise Cattle” was featured at the Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2018.
Watch Tiger Stripes:
Australia and New Zealand theatrical release Feb 3 – Mar 1, 2024 presented by Screenxcope. Visit GIGD.AU for more.
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.
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 Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we’d love to hear from you…
Enjoy & subscribe to the Listen by Heart Podcast on your favourite platform:
The Beauty of Death was written by Lebanese-American writer, Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931). It’s presented here in a three-part series, read by Jasmine Low for a friend who is leaving our realm.
Part One – The Calling
Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights; Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body; Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume, And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead. Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired; Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit; Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart. Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, for It’s magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests.
Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowers Raise their crowns to greet the dawn. Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light Between my bed and the infinite; Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle of Her white wings.
Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips. Let the children grasp my hands with soft and rosy fingers; Let the ages place their veined hands upon my head and bless me; Let the virgins come close and see the shadow of God in my eyes, And hear the echo of His will racing with my breath.
Part Two – The Ascending
I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the Firmament of complete and unbound freedom; I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are Hiding the hills from my eyes.
The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses; The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter That looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight And red as the twilight.
The songs of the waves and the humans of the streams Are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence; And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity In exact harmony with the spirit’s desires. I am cloaked in full whiteness; I am in comfort; I am in peace.
Part Three – The Remains
Unwrap me from this white linen shroud and clothe me With leaves of jasmine and lilies; Take my body from the ivory casket and let it rest Upon pillows of orange blossoms. Lament me not, but sing songs of youth and joy; Shed not tears upon me, but sing of harvest and the winepress; Utter no sigh of agony, but draw upon my face with your Finger the symbol of Love and Joy. Disturb not the air’s tranquility with chanting and requiems, But let your hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life; Mourn me not with apparel of black, But dress in color and rejoice with me; Talk not of my departure with sighs in your hearts; close Your eyes and you will see me with you forevermore. Place me upon clusters of leaves and Carry my upon your friendly shoulders and Walk slowly to the deserted forest. Take me not to the crowded burying ground lest my slumber Be disrupted by the rattling of bones and skulls. Carry me to the cypress woods and dig my grave where violets And poppies grow not in the other’s shadow; Let my grave be deep so that the flood will not Carry my bones to the open valley; Let my grace be wide, so that the twilight shadows Will come and sit by me.
Take from me all earthly raiment and place me deep in my Mother Earth; and place me with care upon my mother’s breast. Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed With seeds of jasmine, lilies and myrtle; and when they Grow above me, and thrive on my body’s element they will Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space; And reveal even to the sun the secret of my peace; And sail with the breeze and comfort the wayfarer. Leave me then, friends – leave me and depart on mute feet, As the silence walks in the deserted valley; Leave me to God and disperse yourselves slowly, as the almond And apple blossoms disperse under the vibration of Nissan’s breeze. Go back to the joy of your dwellings and you will find there That which Death cannot remove from you and me. Leave with place, for what you see here is far away in meaning From the earthly world. Leave me.
One tropical afternoon in Penang, Malaysia, I dialed in and connected with journalist and former financial analyst Su-Lin Tan who happened to be 688KM south on the Singaporean equator. We bantered and chatted about life, work and her youth cross country commuting just like Crazy Rich Asians actor Ronnie Chieng from Johor Bahru (southernmost tip of Malaysia) to Singapore for a better education. I met Su-Lin at an Australian Malaysian Singapore Association talk in Sydney’s Chinatown, accompanied by Malaysian curry chicken and mee goreng. It was refreshing to meet an Australian reporter with a distinct Southeast Asian heritage. You can pick it up from her editorial.
Family life
In our conversation, Su-Lin discussed her dad and shared fond memories of her mum who raised four children and was an amazing family cook. Su-Lin remembers her mum’s delicious giant Bao and how she also tailored all of the clothes for her and her siblings. Her Ah Ma (Grandma) gifted Su-Lin with stories from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s including tragic tales of the Japanese occupation. Her neighbours, the local sundry shop owner and baker in Malaysia were her ‘Aunties’ and ‘Uncles’. In Malaysia and Singapore, it’s common to call neighbours aunties and uncles as a form of respect, even though they are not relations.
“The first lessons my Chinese father taught me were the art of saving and the importance of making enough to take care of yourself, your family and your future…
Like many Asian parents, my father wanted me to choose one of four careers – accountancy, medicine, engineering or law – because they are the best way to achieve his first lessons. (I complied with his wishes and became an accountant before I found my second calling.)…”
She is a qualified accountant and worked in financial services both in London and Sydney before becoming a journalist. A Chartered Accountant, she is conversant in Mandarin, Bahasa Malaysia and Hokkien. Su-Lin’s experience as a business journalist can be traced back to her first job as an auditor at Ernst & Young in Melbourne. Her career progression led her to various fund managers in London and Sydney. Soon after the turn of the millennium, Su-Lin joined then Fairfax Media as a journalist and there started her burgeoning career as a thought-leader in writing critical and often poignant pieces that have aroused attention from different factions of Australian political commentators.
She holds a Masters in Arts (Journalism) from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Her curriculum-vitae is clear cut. Her focus lies predominantly in business, economics and political reporting, also opinion pieces that offer a thorough insight into key issues that matter across the Asia Pacific region written from Australia to Hong Kong and now Singapore.
Career milestones
Senior Correspondent, Asia and Economy, South China Morning Post (Feb 2020 – present)
Journalist (Property/China/Asian business) / AFR BOSS columnist Australian Financial Review (Mar 2014 – Dec 2019)
The Future
Su-Lin and podcast host Jasmine marvel at the vastness of the South China Sea seen through Google Maps and discuss ways to move forward for China and Australia. They also chat about possible career changes for Su-Lin, her retirement plans on an island and what the future may hold for this brilliant journalist.
The show wraps with Su-Lin reading an excerpt from an article she wrote about life growing up crossing borders between Malaysia and Singapore, a journey that would sometimes take up to seven hours of daily commute, all for the sake of a prized education and a better life.
Su-Lin currently resides in Singapore but calls Sydney home.
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.
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 Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we’d love to hear from you…
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.
Welcome to Episode Two of Season Five of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. Shivani Sivagurunathan is an author and educator, Head of School, Assistant Professor; Research Director; Director of Postgraduate Studies; Senior Tutor, Faculty of Arts at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia and has an interest in post-colonial literature and in particular literature surrounding the topics of Indian diaspora and contemplative pedagogy.
Shivani has been writing and publishing fiction and poetry for twenty years, and teaching for twelve years. Her first book, Wildlife on Coal Island, was published by UPM Press in 2011 and republished by HarperCollins India in 2012. The Indian writer Tabish Khair, described the book as ‘R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi, turned into an island, meets Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book in this highly readable collection of stories by a new and distinctive voice from Malaysia’.
In the podcast, Shivani gives some insight to growing up as a Sri Lankan Malaysian in a coastal town, Port Dickson.
Book Launch of Yalpanam (YouTube credit: University of Nottingham (Malaysia Campus)
Her second book, Yalpanam, is her first novel and it was published by Penguin Southeast Asia in September 2021.
Her short stories and poems have appeared in numerous international journals and magazines including Cha: An Asian Literary Magazine, Agenda, Construction Literary Magazine and many others.
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.
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 Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we’d love to hear from you…
Welcome to Season Five of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. Shivani Sivagurunathan is an author and educator, Head of School, Assistant Professor; Research Director; Director of Postgraduate Studies; Senior Tutor, Faculty of Arts at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia and has an interest in post-colonial literature and in particular literature surrounding the topics of Indian diaspora and contemplative pedagogy.
Shivani has been writing and publishing fiction and poetry for twenty years, and teaching for twelve years. Her first book, Wildlife on Coal Island, was published by UPM Press in 2011 and republished by HarperCollins India in 2012. The Indian writer Tabish Khair, described the book as ‘R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi, turned into an island, meets Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book in this highly readable collection of stories by a new and distinctive voice from Malaysia’.
Her second book, Yalpanam, is her first novel and it was published by Penguin Southeast Asia in September 2021.
Her short stories and poems have appeared in numerous international journals and magazines including Cha: An Asian Literary Magazine, Agenda, Construction Literary Magazine and many others.
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.
bListen 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 Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we’d love to hear from you…
Author, Hotelier and the 2022 Epigram Book’s Fiction Prize Recipient
Release date: 31 August 2022
Welcome to Season Four of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. Podcast host, Jasmine Low welcomes Karina Robles Bahrin, a Malaysian author and hotelier who has been selected as the 2022 Epigram Book’s Fiction Prize recipient. We offer our congratulations to Karina for winning the prize for her first novel – written in lockdown!
INTRO Welcome and thank you for joining me on the Listen by Heart Podcast. I’m your host, Jasmine Low. It began as Listen to your Heart – a project that began as a TEDx Talk in 2016 albeit a botched recording and my nervous energy that translated into giggles. It was unplanned and it was one of those strings of serendipitous events that started when my mum was diagnosed with a non-malignant brain tumour that needed to be removed. A fixer sort, that sent me on a tumble of a search for answers. Why did the tumour grow, what would she need to recover, does our body heal on its own, how do dietary nutrition or the lack of affect cell growth and the marvel of vibrational frequencies within us and surrounding us – as ethereal as this may sound! That has translated into this, Listen by Heart Podcast.
I’d like to share with you, a FAMOUS SPEECH that NELSON MANDELA NEVER GAVE… it’s titled Our Deepest Fear and for the records, my research shows that this passage was often attributed to Nelson Mandela but it was in fact a quote in a New York Times bestselling book titled ‘A Return To Love’by Marianne Williamson published in 1992. Marianne is an American author, lecturer and co-founder of a volunteer food delivery program in Los Angeles and a Peace Alliance.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Thanks to the author Marianne Williamson, for this quote that has made its way into the hearts of so many people.
Introducing to you Karina Robles Bahrin Wong (she drops the Wong in the public eye only for brevity). And in 1992, the same year that Marianne Williamson published, ‘A Return to Love’, Karina Robles Bahrin graduates from Stanford.
PJ to the Bay Area
Bachelors in International Relations, Class of 1992, Stanford University, California, USA
Recipient of Public Services Department of Malaysia scholarship
Stanford-In-Oxford Summer Programme, 1991
Assunta Secondary School, Class of 1986, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Life in the fast lane
Public Relations
Karina built a career for over twenty years in the field of public relations. Some of her career highlights include:
Media relations liaison for Asia tours of notable corporate figures including: Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and Bill Gates
Head of Communications for Bursa Malaysia from 2004–2008, inclusive of the company’s IPO debut.
Media relations lead for the Force of Nature Concert 2005 in aid of tsunami victims. Star-studded line-up included Backstreet Boys, Black-Eyed Peas, Eric Benet, Jackie Chan, Ruth Sahanaya, Sheila Majid & Wyclef Jean
Lead media relations consultant for the inaugural Malaysian Idol competition
Boardrooms to bedrooms
Entrepreneurship
Co-owner and founder of La Pari-Pari, one of Langkawi’s best-known independent small hotels since 2012, which has won multiple awards from TripAdvisor, Agoda and Booking.com
Co-owner of fatCUPID, one of Langkawi’s top 2021 restaurants as ranked by Prestige Malaysia
Co-owner of Kebun Republik, Langkawi’s first indoor cold-room pesticide-free farm supplying temperate climate vegetables to local businesses on the island
Involvement in the Arts
Founder of the Suatukalacommunity initiative (2015 to present) that has impacted over 1,000 workshop participants and audience.
Past programmes include workshops by David Lok (Studio DL), Ruby Subramaniam (visual artist), KL Shakespeare Players, Elaine Foster & Sheena Baharudin (spoken word poets) and Lina Tan (Red Comms)
Public arts performance & exhibition showcases: Suatukala Showcase (2015) and Suatukala In The Park (2017)
Recipient of ArtsFAS/Yayasan Hasanah grant to produce a musical theatre production—Pulau Sri— which was staged on November 27, 2021 in Langkawi to an audience of over 100. The show was later screened on a Facebook live session with the show’s co-creators and producer.
2021/2022 recipient of the CENDANA PRISMA grant for a Langkawi-wide story creation and theatre production competition to be launched in March 2022
Participant of Aunt Lute x POC United Prepping to Publish workshop with Sonora Jha, Professor of Journalist at Seattle University and author of How To Raise A Feminist Son (2021)
Winner of the Epigram Fiction Prize 2022 (the novel, The Accidental Malay published by Epigram is available at book stores in Malaysia from August 2022).
Published short stories:
“A Woman In Five Pieces”– Urban Odysseys: KL Stories (MPH Publishing) & KL Noir: Blue (Fixi Books)
“A Subtle Degree of Restraint”– title story (MPH Publishing)
“A Little Warm Death” & “The Proper Care of Princesses”–Malaysian Tales Retold & Remixed (ZI Publishing)
The Interview
My Identity, Who I am
From one big island to one of 99 in Langkawi, Kedah, we chat with Karina about where home is, her 10 years on the big island of Langkawi, her childhood and growing up in a mixed culture family.
Karina’s mother’s family with grandma in the middle.Karina’s paternal grandma (extreme left) with her son, daughter and mother.Karina’s paternal grandparents on their 50th wedding anniversary circa 1980. One big happy family! Robles, Bahrin and Wong.The author asserts her rights to the images provided above.
The Women Who Came Before Me
We uncover Karina’s paternal and maternal history and learned about: – Her mother and her mother’s mother; the Philippine side of the family. – Her father’s mother; the Malay, Negeri Sembilan and Chinese side of the family. – Their education and hers.
Leaving a Legacy
In the interview, we discuss her early career, memorable highlights of her corporate life and at 40, how she uprooted and moved to Langkawi to become a hotelier.
‘The Accidental Malay’, 11 years in its making, is her first fiction novel and it was written when the world and Langkawi was very much in lockdown.
How to take care of Princesses
Karina reads an 8-minute excerpt from her delightful short story, “How to take care of Princesses”, first published in Daphne Lee’s Malaysian Tales Retold & Remixed collection of short stories (ZI Publications).
I hope you’ll enjoy this podcast as much as we did producing it!
Help us spread the word!
Promo for sms/socials:
AFT Podcasts podcast host Jasmine Low brings you on an audio journey with Karina Robles Bahrin – Malaysian Author, Hotelier and 2022 Winner of the Epigram Book’s Fiction Prize. Listen and subscribe to the Listen by Heart Podcast on your favourite platform: Apple podcasts https://bit.ly/listenbyheartpodcast, Spotify spoti.fi/3yfxWNZ, Google podcasts bit.ly/3la7C46, Player FM https://bit.ly/listenbyheartplayerfm or via YouTube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SZoO5Io5J1g. Thank you!
You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, an AFT Podcastproduction.
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, and our mental health in check.
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…
And here we are, the fifth and final episode. “It’s not about me,” reminds the author, Guat. Writing Echoes of Silence, she wanted to explore that emotion of how she, like many others felt lost at one time, as the children of colonialism, an establishment that left behind their orphaned children as Malaya gained its independence. The author indulges listeners in a very personal manner, where she narrates excerpts from her second Malaysian novel about the blossoming of a love affair that was inter-ethnic and inter-geographical between Ai Lian, and her Michael Templeton.
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Dr. Chuah Guat Eng is a Malaysian novelist and professional writer who read English Literature at University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur, German Literature at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, and she has a PhD from the National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia). Guat Eng has two novels – Echoes of Silence published in 1994 in English, and translated recently into Italian and German. Her other novel, Days of Change came out in 2010. She also has three collections of short stories. They are Tales from the Baram River (2001), The Old House and Other Stories (2008), and Dream Stuff (2014). Some of her short stories have been translated into other languages, including Malay, Chinese, Slovene, and Spanish. She’s currently working on her third novel, and occasionally teaches subjects related to literature and creative writing at a local university.
Echoes of Silence is also available in Italian and German.
Guat Eng has two novels – Echoes of Silence published in 1994 in English, and translated recently into Italian and German. Her other novel, Days of Change came out in 2010. She also has three collections of short stories. They are Tales from the Baram River (2001), The Old Houseand Other Stories (2008), and Dream Stuff (2014). Some of her short stories have been translated into other languages, including Malay, Chinese, Slovene, and Spanish. She’s currently working on her third novel, and occasionally teaches subjects related to literature and creative writing at a local university.
To purchase a digital PDF copy of Guat Eng’s books directly from the author, contact us.
You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Season Three of Listen by Heart: Voices of Women of the South China Sea with Dr. Chuah Guat Eng.
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).
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… SEND VOICE MESSAGE — Send in a voice message requires you to set up an account with Anchor.FM, a company affiliated with Spotify.
