Tag: Fiction

Categories
Jasmine H. Low

A Fiction Special: Dancing to the gongs of the South China Sea (written & narrated by Jasmine H. Low)

Release date: 22 May 2023

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.
  • Then for some reason, AI or what not, Netflix suggested a Japanese series for me to watch, “Why didn’t I tell you a million times?”
  • 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.

Much love,
Jasmine

Categories
Dr. Chuah Guat Eng

S3E4 Dr. Chuah Guat Eng on equal opportunity, and how there’s no such thing as being another’s equal

Dr. Chuah Guat Eng

May the fourth conversation with Dr. Chuah Guat Eng guide you. A teacher, Mr. V. K. Arumugam was one such man who opened the windows of her mind. Guat shares her experience about being a woman in a man’s world, and her opinion on gender equality. She believes that everyone deserves equal opportunities yet we should never strive to be equal because we are not born equal. Not letting fate be the decider, Guat’s proposition is that we are given equal opportunities, make use of those opportunities and become what we are supposed to be, and how we are supposed to be is dictated by our genes, our education, background, language we speak and so on.

The invention of robots will make us more human, she says. She also discusses tall poppy syndrome amongst people and even countries like the United States and China. Even twins are not equal, how can we all strive for equality?

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.

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

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

Dr. Chuah Guat Eng

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.