Exploits in Southeast Asia
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
In the days before and after my recent trip to Singapore, a good deal of my downtime was spent poring over Joe Studwell's Asian Godfathers, a book that dutifully takes up the onerous task of explaining the rise of Southeast Asia (looking strictly at Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines) and Hong Kong's ethnic …
Let's serve up a hypothetical situation: While out grocery shopping, you see a sizable person trying to shuffle his/her way down a cramped frozen food aisle. There after, you take a second look at the gallon of double dutch ice cream (with extra marshmallows) in your hand, and then a cursory look at the calories …
Continue reading Green vs. a spendthrift shade: analyzing the eco-resort trend
Poorly pasted together and full of pixelated photographs, my Myanmar Lonely Planet has been following me forlornly ever since I picked it up some four years ago from a child book hawker in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Besides my China LP (covered in brown paper to hide its entry from Chinese customs), it stood alone on …
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
Justin Calderón 