Listen by Heart | Stories from Women of the South China Sea | Peacebuilding for Mental Health

Originally released on Feb 2, 2024: 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 Pr...

The Beauty of Death was written by Lebanese-American writer, Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931). It's presented here in a three-part series, read for a friend who is leaving our realm. Read the full text here: https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com/2023/08/09/special-the-beauty-of-death/.

--- The Beauty of Death by Kahlil Gibran  

Part One - The Calling  

  Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and  
  Let me rest, for my sp...

Australian journalist Su-Lin Tan spent her youth cross country commuting from the southernmost city in Malaysia, Johor Bahru to Singapore for a better education,  just like Crazy Rich Asians actor Ronnie Chieng. Su-Lin speaks about her early life in Malaysia and Singapore and recalls family life including her Ah Ma (Grandma) who gifted her with stories from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

She is a qualified accountant and worked in inv...

A short story by Jasmine H. Low, Dancing to the gongs of the South China Sea 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”. Jasmine describes this writing process as going with the flow, and she’s putting this out there even if it’s a draft and incomplete with some flaws. There’s a story that wants to be t...

Welcome to Season Five of 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 Shivani Sivagurunathan, 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 particul...

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...

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...

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

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Welcome to Season Two of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from the 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 Podc...

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, ...

Welcome to Season Two of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from the Women of the South China Seas. Podcast host Jasmine Low has a conversation with Dr. Ann Lee about BOH Cameronian award-winning play Tarap Man 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...

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 (C...