I won’t pretend to understand everything that Hinduism stands for. When faced with such a foreign belief as this, I’m inclined to fold. That’s how attending Thaipusam made me feel at least: present, yet oddly unaware. Since moving to Malaysia about eight months ago, I had etched out in my mind a specific set of …
Continue reading Thaipusam, Batu Caves, Malaysia: A Burdensome Path
Over the past three months I've amassed a few cigarette boxes from my travels with large warning labels that -- when placed side by side -- string together a grotesque gauntlet of images ranging from gangrene-ridden feet to cancerous mouth sores (not all of which I've blessed your eyes with above). First implemented in Canada …
Continue reading Graphic cigarette warning labels in Southeast Asia and Taiwan: Are they effective?
Southeast Asia has long had a love affair with mega-malls. Often it has been a relationship borne out of convenience, for these vast air-conditioned commercial hives offer ideal respite from the perennial heat and Biblical downpours that are so much a part of life in the region. While I have never been a full-fledged fan …
Continue reading Chinese New Year Mall Madness in Kuala Lumpur
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
I passed the closing hours of Ramadan last week in Jakarta, where the indefatigable prayers of imams tolled out from loudspeakers mounted on minarets nonstop into the night at such a pitch that they continuously jarred me out of sleep. Back in Kuala Lumpur, the final prayers of the season rung out until 11 or …
Justin Calderón 