Categories
Dr. Chuah Guat Eng

S3E3 Dr. Chuah Guat Eng on her PhD Thesis, From Conflict to Insight: A Zen-based Approach to Reading Fiction

In this third episode, Dr. Chuah Guat Eng details her PhD Thesis: A Zen Approach to Reading Fiction is a reading procedure originally proposed as her Masters thesis proposal submitted to the National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia). She cites an example of how many literary critics have approached the works by Joseph Conrad. In multi-ethnic Malaysia, Guat wanted to explore the use of a Buddhist inspired, Zen-based method to approach works by fiction authors, without imposing one’s own culture or values on the text. She poses the question on how one is able to gain deeper insights into an author’s text when the approach is Zen-based.

Background

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.

To purchase a digital PDF copy of Guat Eng’s books directly from the author, contact us.

Official website: https://chuahguateng.weebly.com/


About the Listen by Heart Podcast

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).

An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production.

Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com.

Website made by WebPROjx Community.

Official website: https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com.

#ListenbyHeart

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.

Categories
Dr. Chuah Guat Eng

S3E2 Dr. Chuah Guat Eng on finding her cultural identity

In this second episode, Chuah Guat Eng shares about competitiveness, her mother Wee Siew Lan and how one can tell from surnames of the Nanyang Chinese, if they are from Singapore or the northern states of Perlis, Kedah or Penang in Malaysia, the naming of Guat Eng and her sisters, finding her cultural identity inspired by an old school teacher, Mr. V. K. Arumugam, who passed her a copy of Lin YuTang’s “The Importance of Living”. An awakening had Guat realising what it meant to be Chinese, and that it wasn’t just about Pearl S. Buck. Guat also speaks about her time studying in Germany.

Background

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.

To purchase a digital PDF copy of Guat Eng’s books directly from the author, contact us.

Official website: https://chuahguateng.weebly.com/


About the Listen by Heart Podcast

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).

An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production.

Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com.

Website made by WebPROjx Community.

Official website: https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com.

#ListenbyHeart

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.

Categories
Dr. Chuah Guat Eng

S3E1 [INTRO] Dr. Chuah Guat Eng, Malaysian Novelist

Release date: 26 Feb 2022

Welcome to Season Three of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. Podcast host Jasmine Low is joined by Dr. Chuah Guat Eng, a Malaysian novelist and professional writer. Her experience spans three fields of writing; commercial and corporate, academic and literary. She read English Literature at University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur, German Literature at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. In 2008, she received a PhD from the National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) for her thesis, ‘From Conflict to Insight – A Zen-based Reading Procedure for the Analysis of Fiction’. From January 2011 to March 2013, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at University Putra Malaysia, focusing on Malaysian novels in English. Most of her professional life was spent in the corporate world as writer and as a creative communication consultant. She specialised in the development of strategies for advertising and promotion campaigns, corporate brand building programs and the synergising of corporate business aims.

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.

To purchase a digital PDF copy of Guat Eng’s books directly from the author, contact us.

In this episode

Born in 1943 in Rembau, Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia, Guat Eng grew up in Port Klang, formerly known as Port Swettenham. This episodes delves into Guat Eng’s early childhood, her growing up years, her father who was a train station master, being Peranakan and English-educated, the Anglo-Siam Treaty, British Malaya, cancel culture, her time studying in Germany, her advertising career and more. This is a part of a five-part episodic series.

Chuah Guat Eng’s official website: https://chuahguateng.weebly.com/

You may also visit her blog, or contact us for further information, or order copies of her books.


About the Listen by Heart Podcast

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).

An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production.

Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com.

Website made by WebPROjx Community.
#ListenbyHeart

Official website: https://listenbyheart.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… SEND VOICE MESSAGE — Send in a voice message requires you to set up an account with Anchor.FM, a company affiliated with Spotify.

Categories
Jasmine H. Low

A Merdeka Special: from little things big things grow (written & narrated by Jasmine H. Low)

Welcome to a special edition of Listen by Heart, A Merdeka Story: from little things big things grow.

Streaming via SpotifyApple Podcast | Google Podcast | iHeartRadio | RSS

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. 

Read the full article here: https://www.jasminelow.com/merdeka-from-little-things-big-things-grow/

Written, produced and narrated by Jasmine H. Low, with Bahasa Malaysia translation of “From little things, big things grow” by Syuhada Adam.
Categories
Dr. Ann Lee

S2E6: Dr. Ann Lee | Su & her natural love for swiming

Season Two, Episode Six: 6th August, 2021.

Summary:

Welcome to the final episode of Season Two of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. Written and narrated by Dr. Ann Lee, this story was published amongst 16 others in Malaysian Folk Tales: Retold & Remixed, edited by Daphne Lee, published by ZI Publications (2011). Su and her natural love for swimming is based on the folktale about a girl who was kidnapped by an orangutan. The irony is that her abductor reveals its bubbly and very loving character.

About the Listen by Heart Podcast

You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Season Two of Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea with Dr. Ann Lee. 

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.

#ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.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…

— Send in a voice message requires you to set up an account with Anchor.FM, a company affiliated with Spotify.

Categories
Dr. Ann Lee

S2E5: Dr. Ann Lee | Gender & Sexuality

Season Two, Episode Five: 5th August, 2021.

Summary:

Welcome to Season Two of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. In episode five, podcast host Jasmine Low speaks to Dr. Ann Lee about gender and sexuality and if her grandmother may have known anyone who was queer. Ann talks about her university days in London, attending a writer’s workshop with Hanif Kureishi and being around “people like us”.

About the Listen by Heart Podcast

You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Season Two of Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea with Dr. Ann Lee. 

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.

#ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.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…

— Send in a voice message requires you to set up an account with Anchor.FM, a company affiliated with Spotify.

Categories
Dr. Ann Lee

S2E4: Dr. Ann Lee | My grandmothers, their resilience and growing up in Sabah

Season Two, Episode Four: 4th August, 2021.

Summary:

Welcome to Season Two of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from the Women of the South China Sea. It’s episode four and podcast host Jasmine Low speaks to Dr. Ann Lee about her family.

Born of mixed parentage, Dr. Ann recalls stories of her family: her maternal side in North Borneo and Sabah, Malaysia, as well as her paternal side from Salford, Manchester in England. For example, her maternal great-grandmother, a Hakka Chinese known as Madam Voo Hock Liam, was born in 1882 and became renowned as a fierce and determined character. She later married Chan Yau Lam, originally a stonemason in Papar, North Borneo. He became a respected leader (kapitan cina), and set up an English language school at a time when this was unpopular. (There is a photo of him shaking hands with England’s Duchess of Kent on her visit to ‘British North Borneo’.) On the other hand, little is known of her paternal great-grandmother but her paternal great-grandfather did not believe in education for girls. Ann’s paternal grandmother did not continue school beyond her early teens, though she went on to qualify as a swimmer for the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. 

About the Listen by Heart Podcast

You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Season Two of Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea with Dr. Ann Lee. 

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.

#ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.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…

— Send in a voice message requires you to set up an account with Anchor.FM, a company affiliated with Spotify.

Categories
Dr. Ann Lee

S2E3: Dr. Ann Lee | BOH Cameronian award-winning play Tarap Man, plays & their mobility

Season Two, Episode Three: 3rd August, 2021.

Summary:

Welcome to Season Two of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from the Women of the South China Seas. In this episode, Dr. Ann Lee talks about BOH Cameronian award-winning play Tarap Man as featured in Southeast Asian Plays (Aurora Metro), plays and their mobility.

Keyword mentions: Tarap Man, Kadazan, Telegu, Hakka, Hang Li Poh, Mahi Ramakrishnan (filmmaker), Dr. Grace Chin (Universiti Sains Malaysia), New York International Fringe Festival, Leow Puay Tin, Huzir Sulaiman, Jit Murad, Shahimah Idris, Apartheid, Critique, Translations of Plays, Booker Prize, South Pacific, Upin & Ipin

Producer’s note:

Dear listeners, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical, South Pacific, as mentioned in this podcast was based on Tales of the South Pacific, a Pulitzer Prize-winner by James A. Michener who was a US Navy officer stationed at the New Hebrides Islands (now known as Vanuatu). The story was adapted and produced into the popular 1958 movie and filmed on Kauai. Not the South China Seas nor Marshall Islands as intimated. Thank you.

About the Listen by Heart Podcast

You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Season Two of Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea with Dr. Ann Lee. 

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.

#ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.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…

— Send in a voice message requires you to set up an account with Anchor.FM, a company affiliated with Spotify.

Categories
Dr. Ann Lee

S2E2: Dr. Ann Lee | Award-winning playwright & co-founder of Kuali Works Malaysia’s pioneer all-women production house

Season Two, Episode Two: 2nd August, 2021.

Summary:

Welcome to Season Two of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from the Women of the South China Seas. In this episode, podcast host Jasmine Low has a conversation with Dr. Ann Lee, and we establish that it was in September 1994 when Kuali Works, an all-women arts company specialising in theatre, TV and publications in Malaysia was founded. Ann Lee, Karen Quah, Goh Soon Siew, Anita Zafina Mat Fadzil, and Shahimah (Charmaine W) Idris took the name of ‘Kuali Works’ from a household product that can be found in most, if not all Malaysian households, irrespective of colour or creed: the kuali or wok. We liked the tastiness of ‘creating food for thought’, reads a paragraph in Sex, Stage & State: Kuali Works plays and this is what we explore in this episode – what went on behind the creation of food for thought.

About the Listen by Heart Podcast

You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Season Two of Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea with Dr. Ann Lee. 

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.

#ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.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…

— Send in a voice message requires you to set up an account with Anchor.FM, a company affiliated with Spotify.

Categories
Dr. Ann Lee

S2E1: Dr. Ann Lee | A career including national newsreader to PR & advertising consultant working on a Voter Education Campaign for Nelson Mandela

Season Two, Episode One: 1st August, 2021.

Summary:

Welcome to Season Two of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from the Women of the South China Sea. Podcast host Jasmine Low introduces Dr. Ann Lee in this first episode.

Ann speaks about her career including national newsreader to an MC of the Closing Ceremony of the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games. She has also had a career in advertising and public relations, the pinnacle of which was working as Associate Creative Director in a team that developed a voter education campaign for the African National Congress (ANC), helping to ensure that Nelson Mandela won the first modern democratic elections in South Africa with a landslide win (despite years of Apartheid disallowing education for the majority population).

About the Listen by Heart Podcast

You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Season Two of Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea with Dr. Ann Lee. 

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.

#ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.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…

— Send in a voice message requires you to set up an account with Anchor.FM, a company affiliated with Spotify.