BLOGS

Dipika Mukherjee
Dec 15th, 2018

The George Town Literary Festival welcomes multiple voices. Dipika Mukherjee hears some of them, loud and clear, and late at night...

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Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
Jul 15th, 2017

Liu Xiaobo is dead. That’s a fact.

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Michael Vatikiotis
Oct 18th, 2016

I have followed with interest the lively debate on cultural appropriation triggered by

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Dino Mahoney
Dec 7th, 2015

The porter sitting at the entrance to New Lucky House didn’t even bother to look up as we trundled past, dragging our sturdy Samsonites over rain-sodden cardboard. And why should he?

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Melody Kemp
Oct 10th, 2015

A serious-looking Chinese man handed me a fat wad of thousand-baht notes to pass on to a snaggle-toothed character in front of me.

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Dino Mahoney
Apr 24th, 2015

Now updated, on the day that same-sex marriage was made legal in all fifty states of the USA. Scroll down for the aftermath!

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Michael Vatikiotis
Jan 19th, 2015

 

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Alvin Pang
Jan 12th, 2015

I enjoy a good spar from time to time, but I dislike direct confrontations. I find them wasteful. If I'd wanted the adrenaline boost I'd get a cup of coffee.

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Reid Mitchell
Jan 5th, 2015

Sometimes the People's Republic of China makes teaching an old play easier than it might be in the West.

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ko ko thett
Nov 27th, 2014

A postgraduate student of tourism at Mandalay University complains that her professor is ‘never there.’ Lest her thesis be under-evaluated by the absentee professor, she doesn’t dare write anything

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Sreedhevi Iyer
Oct 4th, 2014

They already know, and they are ready. They are obediently disobedient. They have ingested the manual in their smartphones and iPads. It says not to respond to provocation with hatred.

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Martin Alexander
Oct 3rd, 2014

The events of Sunday June 4 1989 brought several hundred thousand citizens onto the streets of Hong Kong the next day.

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Phillip Kim
Oct 3rd, 2014

There is a Grinch in Hong Kong and he’s been there for decades.

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Phillip Kim
Sep 13th, 2014

The young Chinese PLA soldier, dressed in camouflage uniform and spiky haircut, stepped out from the ramshackle shop into the harshly bright sunlight.

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Sreedhevi Iyer
Sep 13th, 2014

i.

I was brought up to always follow the rules. It’s the curse of the only child. Rules made the world clear.

 

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Reid Mitchell
Sep 11th, 2014

This summer I, along with my clothes, guitar, and books, moved from Beijing to Guangzhou.  Actually, my “stuff”, as George Carlin called it, went straight to Guang

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Jess Wong
Aug 10th, 2014

 

They go there to forget and remember. Tomorrow is far away. They have a few hours before turning off the light and waking up to frustrations again.

 

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Michael Vatikiotis
Aug 7th, 2014

If the world has a gulf that swallows travellers, it's probably close to Doha, according to Michael Vatikiotis

 

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Melody Kemp
Aug 5th, 2014

 

High above Jakarta, Melody Kemp watches a cricket match between Australian visitors and a team of passionate young Indonesians

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Andrea Berrini
Jul 18th, 2014

My few weeks back in Milan have been long enough to give me a rough idea of what is happening in my country (and the West, in general), after about two years absence in China and eastern Asia.

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Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
Jul 15th, 2014

Tammy Ho reveals all on the Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year - 'selfie'

 

 

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Michael Vatikiotis
Jun 17th, 2014

Indonesia elects a new President on 9 July. In Jogyakarta, the support of the Goddess of the Southern Seas is vital.

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Melody Kemp
Jun 13th, 2014

Asia risks extinction for the animals of Africa and Asia in exchange for ivory and the imaginary powers of penis and horn.

 

 

 

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Justin Hill
Jun 4th, 2014

1989 was a year of change: the Soviet army pulled out of Kabul; Solidarity was allowed to contest elections in Soviet Poland; Yugoslavia won the Eurovision Song Contest; and I turned eighteen.

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Michael Vatikiotis
May 24th, 2014

Michael Vatikiotis and Cod Satrusayang consider the implications of this week's coup in Thailand.

 

 

 

 

 

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Andrea Berrini
May 23rd, 2014

Which will dominate - Chinese or English? Or can they live together?

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Phillip Kim
May 1st, 2014

The dead receive two bows, whereas the living receive only one.

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ko ko thett
Apr 22nd, 2014

ko ko thett celebrates the life and mourns the death of U Win Tin, co-founder with Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma's National League for Democracy.

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Andrea Berrini
Apr 22nd, 2014

Recently I heard some bad news.

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Michael Vatikiotis
Apr 1st, 2014

Identity: renewal, preservation and decay

 

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Sreedhevi Iyer
Apr 1st, 2014

MH370 and what it says about Malaysia

‘Were we always like this?’ my friend asked. ‘Or have we just forgotten?’

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Rezvan Vatankhah
Mar 31st, 2014

Iranian New Year has just taken place and Iranians the world over are celebrating.

 

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Melody Kemp
Mar 31st, 2014

 

Climate change devastates fishing fleets, forces fishermen to become people-traffickers, and disorientates the mango trees.

 

 

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Sreedhevi Iyer
Mar 25th, 2014

Sree Iyer takes us for a walk through Malaysia, Australia and Hong Kong.

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Fan Dai
Mar 18th, 2014

Fan Dai reflects on the changing face of Chinese New Year.

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Andrea Berrini
Mar 10th, 2014

For an Italian writer and publisher unable to speak Chinese, meeting writers in China is sometimes an interesting experience.

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Phillip Kim
Mar 7th, 2014

FROM SEOUL TO SHANGHAI AND SINGAPORE, these are nervous days for many an Asian household with student-aged children.

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Duncan Jepson
Mar 6th, 2014

THE BEAUTY OF LITERARY FESTIVALS is in the possibility of listening to people who will talk about themselves but aren't trying to sell you anything.

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Rezvan Vatankhah
Mar 1st, 2014

IN THE EVENING of a cold autumn day last year, I was picking the seeds out of a pomegranate and putting each one in a bowl for our house guest.

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Michael Vatikiotis
Feb 20th, 2014

In Mandalay, Michael Vatikiotis brings together Myanmar's royal past, its colonial rulers, the current regime and the woman who embodies, for many of its people, an ideal of leadership.

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Phillip Kim
Feb 6th, 2014

Forget Delhi-belly. Try Last Gastro in Paris as Phillip Kim eats his way around the world.

 

 

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Fan Dai
Feb 4th, 2014

Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has spoken of his nation pursuing the 'Chinese Dream.'  ALR Blogger Fan Dai reflects on dreams and whether they can come true.

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Michael Vatikiotis
Feb 4th, 2014

Why has Indonesia adopted Chinese New Year with such enthusiasm?

 

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Michael Vatikiotis
Jan 20th, 2014

Tomorrow brings another day of protest. A phalanx of colour-coded citizens wends its way along avenues named after Kings and congeals around a marble monument to democracy.

 

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Justin Hill
Jan 17th, 2014

Chinese smog is more than an eyesore - it's a deadly blight.

 

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Fan Dai
Jan 17th, 2014

“Mom, are you sure you know what you’re doing?” My son, who came from New York City to help me settle in Iowa City, asked as we drove out of the airport.

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Melody Kemp
Jan 17th, 2014

The white-haired man cruised along the emptying thoroughfare as the falling sun swam in red over the neighbouring nation.

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Shirley Lee
Jan 11th, 2014

Sensational and superficial reports on North Korea drown out far more important voices.

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Michael Vatikiotis
Jan 10th, 2014

Does the realism of literature become debatable in exotic settings? Do unfamiliar locales and characters notionally give writers license to invent and dissemble?

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Melody Kemp
Jan 6th, 2014

For several reasons, one involving a past Australian Prime Minister, I am very deaf. I organise my life around the ear that can hear, directing seating at the table as Fellini did his actors.

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Michael Vatikiotis
Dec 16th, 2013

When mobs take to the streets and violence looms, the world pays attention.

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Melody Kemp
Dec 13th, 2013

The Vientiane traffic clotted and crawled as it does in when there has been a crash.  I felt a creeping sense of dread as I sat sweating at the wheel of my own collision- and sun-scarred car. 

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Fan Dai
Dec 13th, 2013

As I boarded the small plane in Chicago in December 2012, I looked around suspecting that everyone was a writer. It was my second time to go to Iowa City.

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Reid Mitchell
Dec 13th, 2013

Last Friday I had to go to a “Western” restaurant and bar, part of a chain, across from campus to tell Miko good-bye.

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Robin Hemley
Dec 3rd, 2013

The news of Yolanda triggered in me a delayed reaction to Sandy, another super storm a year earlier, which hit Long Beach, Long Island directly and devastated the small barrier island where my gran

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Justin Hill
Nov 13th, 2013

A day, a night, a weekend: your life is turned upside-down, your routines scrambled.  School is closed by government order. 

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Tom Carter
Nov 4th, 2013

‘Unsavory Elements’ editor Tom Carter talks to aspiring novelist Susie Gordon in her debut public interview on Shanghai’s expatriate scene, writing fiction versus no

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Michael Vatikiotis
Nov 1st, 2013

The writer is something of a contortionist these days.

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Åke Edwardson
Nov 1st, 2013

I went to Asia the first time in 1973. I was 20 years old. I had wanted to go since I saw that photograph of my father getting a shave from a very dark man on deck in Bombay harbour.

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Justin Hill
Oct 31st, 2013

I live in an artificial community.  There is an artificial beach, an artificial promenade, and an infinite horizon swimming

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Martin Alexander
Oct 30th, 2013
With the new website now online and a bountiful new issue of the magazine about to be launched, the Asia Literary Review has been revitalised.
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ALR Admin
Oct 13th, 2013

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