When I lived in Singapore I stayed in Bukit Timah, on the west of the island near a large nature reserve and beneath the city-state’s tallest peak, which is not the grandest mountain at just over 530 ft. Bukit Timah is just south of the bridge that crosses into the Malaysian border town of Johor […]
Posts with the asia pacific arts tag
not usually a fan
I’m in Los Angeles, but I’m not a big Grammys watcher. This year, I might just let CBS run in the background. I first listened to the music of M.I.A. in 2005, when Asia Pacific Arts took an early bet that she would become big news for the music industry. This year, her second album, […]
more than politics
This week I’m revisiting one of my favorite books, the famous fictionalized account of the last months in the life of South American liberator Simon Bolivar by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I cannot recall the first time I read The General in His Labyrinth except that it was early in my college career and it opened […]
emerging in California
After just over a week in semi-hiding, I am proud to say that I’m back in California. It’s been one year and one week of traveling and teaching and writing (and eating) in Asia and it feels good to back where the avocados are cheap and the toilet paper is two-ply, even in public restrooms. […]
queuing for movies
They all said the Pusan International Film Festival is the premiere festival in Asia. I’m no Asia film scholar, but it certainly is a big deal here. I’ve never seen teenagers wake up so early to get movie tickets before. On the third day of the festival, we also woke up early to get tickets […]