Bogotá, Colombia — On a brisk, rainy day in late March, eight determined protesters held a seemingly endless vigil outside Santa Ana Parish on Calle 33A. With all the solemnity of a requiem, they directed their prayers at an off-white building across the street. I approached them curiously, and one woman shuffled over to me. “They perform abortions over there,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
The Philippines spent “300 years in the convent, 50 years in Hollywood," Stanley Karnow observed in his book In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines, a turn of phrase now often recited across the archipelago, proof of its resonance in reflecting the Southeast Asian nation's unique colonial history. It is a past that has made the country …
Continue reading America’s imprint on the Philippines — the good and the ugly
A short drama that follows Burmese refugee Roi Roi's search for a real home in Malaysia, shedding light on the human rights abuse of refugees displaced in the country. Well-informed report about human trafficking across the Malaysian-Thai border Last month, a rare blessing crept into the lives of an overlooked group resigned to the plight …
Continue reading Malaysia: Asylum seekers protected from current fate of Burmese refugees
The simple answer: not many. Speaking for those living in the urban centers I've visited (yes, not including rural areas), Chinese young and old tend to ride off the pervasive red-ribboned mandates that decorate their alleyways and markets. I often amiably ask something along the lines of, "So what do you think about that sign?" …
Who would have thought that passing assertive laws that forced the majority of a population to bear no more than one child would have harmful effects on a society? Well, it’s starting to happen in China as the coevals of America's “baby boomers” (engendered by Mao’s well thought-out policy of “人多好办事,” or “more people gets …
Continue reading Is China Looking to Singapore for Lessons in Filial Piety?
Justin Calderón 