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).
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.
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…
Trailer out now with episodes 1-6 streaming from 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, and they chat about Ann’s short story that was published in Malaysian Folk Tales: Retold & Remixed, edited by Daphne Lee and 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, and will be narrated in a later episode.
Subscribe to this podcast for prompts when a new episode is released.
Biography
Born in Tawau, Malaysia, Ann Lee is a playwright, researcher and lecturer. Her plays are published in Sex, Stage & State: Kuali Works plays (Parama Adhi Perkasa, 2011) and Southeast Asian Plays (Aurora Metro, 2016). She was Artistic Director of Kuali Works, an all-women theatre group for over a decade and is immediate past Protem Chair of the Women Writers Committee, PEN Malaysia (chapter of PEN international). She is also a committee member of ReformARTsi, an independent coalition of over 100 Malaysian arts organisations and individuals, advocating reform in arts education, arts funding, and freedom of expression.
Dr. Ann Lee, award-winning playwright & researcher
Ann completed a doctorate in Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, and is writing a book on political humour in Indonesia and Malaysia. She also holds a MSc in History of Science, Medicine and Technology (Oxon). Ann is a past Fellow of the Asia Leadership Fellow Program (Japan Foundation and International House of Japan).
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).
Early days in theatre
Ann began writing for theatre as a member of the Royal Court Young Activists theatre group, London, where she joined a writers’ workshop with then writer-in-residence Hanif Kureishi.
An Asia Leadership Fellow (ALFP, 2001), she spent time in Tokyo with colleagues from China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand, and presented her research on ‘the ghosts of Asian values’.
Asia Leadership Fellow (2001)
Kuali Works produced her first plays, including the critically acclaimed, Kuala Lumpur Knock-Out, about a young factory worker who dreams of boxing Mike Tyson (which received a Director’s Exchange Award from the Australian High Commission, Kuala Lumpur); Hang Li Poh – Melakan Princess, a re-telling of the myth of the Emperor of China’s daughter who married the Sultan of Malacca; and From Table Mountain to Teluk Intan by Shahimah Charmaine Idris (with Lee, Sue Ingleton and Jo Kukathas), based on the true story of a Cape Malay child in South Africa who leaves apartheid but ends up on the ‘right side’ of the tracks to face her most difficult trial. The last play Lee directed was Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, which was banned in Malaysia in 2002. Her last full-length play, Tarap Man, won a ‘Best Original Script’ award at the 2007 Boh Cameronian Arts Awards, Malaysia. She is working on a new full-length play, provisionally titled Not Far Now. Lee’s work for the stage has been performed/read at the Asian Monodrama Festival, Commonwealth Games Theatre Festival, Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Sydney Writers Festival, and the New York International Fringe Festival.
In our conversation while preparing for this podcast, Dr. Ann Lee shares more about the concepts behind her work. Her doctorate thesis is grounded in humour studies, epidemiological studies and Southeast Asian studies. Entitled ‘Outbreaks of satire: a political epidemiology of dissent in theatre, television, and social media memes (Malaysia and Indonesia, 1989 – 2018)’, she identifies rhetoric about health and well-being, and how this is used to support and denigrate the satirical.
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 onto qualify as a swimmer for the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.
Before and since her doctorate, Ann has also been working on a new play. Titled Not Far Now, the play is inspired by the real-life story of a medical student from the East Indies, fighting for independence from the Dutch who later became a political prisoner – and also an orderly – in Germany’s Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen WW2 concentration camps.
***
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.
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…
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…
