A Singapore debate stirs New York University

i6huge239w A New York University alumni friend of mine told me about a controversy brewing at his alma mater. It stems from a larger controversy, far away on the small island nation of Singapore. Dr. Thio Li-Ann, law professor at the National University of Singapore, has been appointed as a visiting scholar on human rights to NYU’s law school beginning this fall. But Thio’s track-record on human rights is in question.

my online journalism life

I started reading the introduction to The Elements of Journalism, published in June, 2006. I stopped at this paragraph: When the flow of news is obstructed, “a darkness falls,” and anxiety grows. The world, in effect, becomes too quiet. We feel alone. John McCain, the U.S. senator from Arizona, writes that in his five and a […]

eight-hour layover

I’m pretty well acquainted with the airports of transportation hub city-states. The airports of Hong Kong and Singapore are well-designed places where travelers can keep living or working or holidaying, instead of just waiting. While I was living in Singapore, the proud little red dot unveiled its brand-new Changi Airport terminal, the enviable T3, where environmentally […]

random updates: writing about Singapore, teaching in Cambodia and watching movies in Korea

I had a little bit of an epiphany about my writing life in Singapore a while ago. And I promised I would write more about the country where I live. So, a few months later, I am true to my word and am posting for Global Voices. Will work my way up to longer, reported […]

Orientalism or chinoiserie?

Marketing material for the 1926 Milan premeire of Turandot on the left, and for the 2008 Singapore staging on the right.Like most people, I don’t know where I first heard the famous aria Nessun Dorma of Puccini’s Turandot. But my interest in the opera has certainly been revived several times recently. Maybe it was Pavarotti’s […]