Friday, September 10, 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. in the Hamilton Library, Room 301
Presented by Erenst Anip, LIS Graduate Student
In July 2010, Erenst went to Southeast Asia to be the LIS program’s first intern at the National University of Singapore Central Library where he was introduced to the inner workings of a premier university library in Asia. There, he learned about a different library system and organization. In this informal talk story session, he will share his experience in ‘finding a missing librarian’/being a junior operative, the library’s outreach and social media initiatives, KPIs and PMS, and Singapore’s favorite past time of ‘makan’.
SPEAKER BIO:
Erenst Anip is a 2nd year LIS student from Indonesia. As a future academic librarian, he focuses on digital technologies and social media features to enhance the library’s appeal to the users while keeping abreast of (Southeast) Asia area studies. He is also the project manager of Hawaii’s Digital Newspaper Project, part of Library of Congress’ National Digital Newspaper Project (NDNP). Also, he is currently the treasurer of SLA-ASIST SC.
In the Mandarin-speaking world, Stefanie Sun is more popularly known by her Mandarin name, Sun Yan Zi or Sun Yanzi (孙燕姿). She has sold over 10 million copies in Asia. With ten albums to her name, she is arguably the most successful singer from Singapore. She is also a fashion icon in Asia, being called the Kate Moss of Singapore. Stefanie Sun is also known to be best friends with fellow Pop Princess of Taiwan, Jolin Tsai. They are often performing guests in each other’s concert. Most of her songs are sung in Mandarin Chinese, with a few in English. Sun’s ability to speak various dialects is reflected in the songs she sings. In the song “Cloudy Day” (天黑黑), she sings in both Mandarin and Hokkien. It is an adaptation of a traditional Hokkien folk song that included Hokkien in the chorus.
The album Start contains 6 songs in English: covers of “Venus”, “That I Will Be Good”, “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough”, “Silent All These Years”, and “Hey Jude”; and the original song “Someone”. As a singer, Sun is not known for her voice, but her physical appeal and fan base. She does most of her recording, and conducts most of her publicity events, in Taiwan, which comprises her largest audience. She also visits mainland of China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore frequently for promotional rounds . Her first album was released in June 2000, the self-titled Yan Zi (孙燕姿), published by Warner Music. The Yan Zi album sold over 330 000 copies alone in Taiwan. This was followed in December of the same year as My Desired Happiness (我要的幸福), which has also sold over 380 000 copies in Taiwan alone. Both albums achieved commercial success by having each sold over 1 000 000 copies in China.
In 2002 and 2003 Sun sang the official theme songs for Singapore’s National Day Parade: “We Will Get There” (一起走到) and “One United People” (全心全意). The former was included on the album Leave.
In early 2003, she released her fourth album titled, To Be Continued… which was also met with commercial success. It managed to sell over 250 000 copies in Taiwan and over 1 000 000 in China. Few months later, she released her seventh album with six new songs mixed with fifteen of her old songs. By the end of 2003, Stefanie Sun had sold over 7 000 000 copies in Asia with just seven albums.
In late 2003, she decided to take a one-year hiatus from making music, believing that she needed to recover her lost sense of direction in her career. She returned in late 2004 with a new album titled Stefanie, intended to be a mirror of her debut album (self-titled as well, but in Chinese). This was to symbolise her return with a fresh attitude. This album was well received by the critics in the Chinese music industry. This album sold over 2 300 000 copies in Asia; making it the most successful album from her. She also started her own company, Make Music, during this sabbatical.
A Perfect Day was released on 2005, almost one year later. Reviews of this new album have been mixed, but Sun had mentioned before that her priority was to make quality music, instead of over-commercialized products that sell well but have a lower level of artistic quality. Though this album did not reach the best commercial success, it still managed to sell over 1 000 000 copies in Asia.
In 2006, Sun was in the midst of a regional concert tour. She has staged four full-house concerts at the renowned Hong Kong Coliseum. The performances received positive reviews from the media as well as overwhelming support from fans. Sun also returned to Singapore in a much-anticipated homecoming concert. Yet, not all was smooth-sailing for her. At the Golden Melody Award 2006 in Taiwan, whilst performing renditions of other male singers’ songs, she went off-key and was heavily lambasted in the Chinese pop media, which reported that she has shattered her image of a pop diva with great singing skills. She attributed it to factors like not enough rest, jet lag, inadequate time for sufficient practice etc.
Sun’s first album under the Capitol brand is entitled Against The Light (逆光) and has been released on 22 March 2007. Her decision to leave Warner after 9 albums was partly due to music executive Sam Chen, who now works at EMI. He had collaborated with Sun on 8 of her 9 albums. On 26 February 2007, Stefanie Sun returned from Cairo where she and her team were extorted by suspected local gangsters. Sun was in Egypt to shoot a music video for her new album when two men disguised as government officials followed her and the crew and asked for money—at one point even showing a handgun. The crew tried calling the police, only for the two crooks to dismiss them with just a few words. The crew had to hand over a total of over 200,000 yuan in order to continue shooting. The extortion went on for four days. Finally, Sun and her team were able to leave the country with the help of the Singapore embassy. Upon returning home, the pop diva said nothing except that she was tired and needed some rest.
Stefanie Sun’s 10th album, Against The Light, has been a major success in Asia. In Taiwan, it sold over 60,000 copies in the first 3 days it was released. In addition, over 500,000 copies were sold within a week in Mainland China. So far, Sun has been the number one spot in Taiwanese music charts for six weeks. In 2007, Stefanie Sun sang the official theme song for ASEAN’s 40th anniversary celebrations: Rise Again. And, in May 2009, Stefanie Sun started her new world tour “The Answer is…” with her first stop being Taiwan. In this world tour, she worked with William Chang, her concert image consultant. She also sang her new song “愚人的國度”. She is hopefully going to release a new album by the end of 2010. taken from wikipedia.org
Christian Razukas (MA, Asian Studies) finished an exchange semester at the National University of Singapore and now works as an editor at the Jakarta Post. Christian and fellow journalist Teguh Santosa (MA, Political Science) welcomed Professor Emeritus Alice Dewey (Anthropology) to Jakarta for a seminar in March 2010 to discuss Anne Dunham-Soetoro’s (Ph.D., Anthropology) dissertation on micro-financing in Indonesia. Dewey spoke on a panel with Teguh, Jakarta Post columnist Julia Suryakusuma, the Minister of Marine and Fisheries Fadel Muhammad, Jakarta’s Deputy Governor Aurora Tambunan, and the Vice President of the Indonesian Senate.
Congratulations to Christian and our best wishes on his future endeavors!
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3 June to 22 August 2010 at the Singapore Art Museum
The year was 1960 – a year of optimism and promise after Singapore achieved self-government.
And the spirit of that year will be revived in an exhibition assembled by two young curators.
There was this grand piano belonging to Zubir Said – the man who gave Singapore its National Anthem ‘Majulah Singapura’.
He used it to compose the familiar tune in 1959.
And there was a portrait done in 1992 showing Mr Lee Kuan Yew taking the oath of office as Singapore’s first prime minister in 1959.
These are some of about 300 displays of the new exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore – ‘Singapore 1960′.
It looks at the history of Singapore in that one significant year.
The two curators behind the exhibition want to capture the sense of promise and potential of a young society.
Ms Priscilla Chua, Assistant Curator of National Museum of Singapore, said: “It’s been very interesting what we find out from our research. 1960 was a very vibrant and dynamic year where there was this real sense of hope and optimism, I mean, people really believed there was this destiny they all shared and they were working towards it – towards their future.”
The curators found the experience personally rewarding.
Mr Jason Toh, Curator of National Museum of Singapore, said: “The issue that keeps cropping up is the issue of multi-culturalism. In school, I used to think why sing such cheesy songs about being one nation and that sort of thing. After working on this exhibition, I can understand why this was such a big issue at that time.”
For Jason, the collection of ’sarong kebayas’ stands out – as it says something about the quest for a common identity.
Mr Jason Toh added: “In 1960, there were articles calling for a national dress whether or not sarong kebaya can be representative of that national dress, regardless of your race you can be wearing the sarong kebaya and look good in it.”
To reassess the complex interconnections between Brecht’s work and various Asian cultures at the beginning of the 21st century, the International Brecht Society (IBS) and the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa invite scholars and artists in theater, performance, and other cultural fields to Honolulu for the 13th IBS Symposium on “Brecht in/and Asia” from May 19-23, 2010.
Brecht was not the only Western modernist to turn to Asian theater and thought for inspiration, but he was an especially astute observer of the cultural encounter with this “other,” which had such a significant impact on his work. Conversely, Brecht’s own theater and thought returned to inspire new forms of political and aesthetic experiments in many parts of Asia. With the dynamic, ongoing echoes of this mutual relationship as point of departure, the symposium will provide a forum to explore its multiple dimensions.
Below are the Southeast Asian focused panels:
Fritz Bennewitz’s Caucasian Chalk Circle in the Philippines Thursday, May 20 at 3:45 pm in Webster Hall 103 Presented by David G. John, University of Waterloo, Ontario
Linking with the previous presentations by Rolf Rohmer and Joerg Esleben, this paper will first outline former GDR director Fritz Bennewitz’s long association with Philippine theatre through his interactions with indigenous theatre practitioners there, and especially his collaboration with the Philippine Education Theatre Association (PETA) in producing many plays. It will then focus on his 1977 production, with local actors and collaborators, of Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle, in Tagalog (Ang Hatol na Bilog na Guhit), staged in Manila with thematic and stylistic connections to the southern Philippine region of Mindanao and its Muslim culture. Bennewitz asserted frequently that this play was an ideal vehicle for mutual intercultural exploration and understanding. Although judged by Philippine critics to be the country’s best production of the year, questions need to be asked as to whether or not it was indeed a successful intercultural venture from points of view then and now.
SPEAKER BIO:
Since 1974 David John has been Professor of German Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His major book publications focus on eighteenth-century German theatre, Goethe and Schiller, and he has just completed a book on Fritz Bennewitz’s seven productions of Faust in various countries. He is currently involved in an international collaborative project on Bennewitz in India.
In Contestation over Hegemonic Narrative: Kamron’s Brechtian Theatre and Beyond Thursday, May 20 at 11:00 am in Webster Hall 103 Presented by Parichat Jungwiwattanaporn, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
During seventy-eight years of parliamentary democracy (1932 – 2010), Thai democratization has gone through a number of significant challenges including coup d’états and the recent call by neo-nationalist royalists for a semi-absolute monarchy. The hegemony of the national ideology of the “Three Pillars” (i.e., nation, religion/Buddhism, and the King) has been so deeply imbedded in the Thai consciousness that any attempt to question the meta-narratives of Thai history can be construed as an act against national security. Since open discussions and criticism about these meta-narratives have been legally, socially, and culturally repressed, live theatre has become an important tool for contemporary artists in Thailand to express their dissent and to create a space in which they can interact live with an audience. For the past three decades, the Crescent Moon Theatre Group (CMTG), led by Kamron Gunatilaka, has been known to use both Thai and Western theatre techniques, especially the Brechtian theatre, to articulate dissent. In countering different meta-narratives, his productions take great risk at criticizing the hegemonic social memory, history, and collective psyche of Thailand. This paper will be a case study of Kamron’s most important production, The Revolutionist, which has been the most frequently performed contemporary theatre production in Thailand since 1987. Thai theatre critics consider it one of the most important Thai plays of the 20th century. The Revolutionist, inspired by Brechtian theatre, depicts a story of the leader of the Thai revolution in 1932, Pridi Banomyong, a progressive intellectual who fell victim to political intrigues. The play also provides historical details that provide a counter-metanarrative to the well-known metanarratives of recent Thai history. Through Lyotard’s postmodern lens, this paper intends to analyze the influences of Brechtian elements in Kamron’s dramaturgy as well as the creative outcomes that resulted from using this approach.
SPEAKER BIO:
Parichat Jungwiwattanaporn is a PhD candidate in Asian Theatre at the Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Since 1999, as a researcher and writer on theatre history and criticism in Thailand, she has participated in a national research project, “Criticism as an Intellectual Power in Contemporary Thai Society.” Her publications include three co-authored books and two books on Thai Contemporary Theatre and Criticism, as well as a number of articles for such journals as ATJ and SPAFA and various newspapers.
Looking for a place to listen to radio from across southeast asia? The CSEAS staff recently discovered radiotime, a free streaming radio program online called radiotime! All the major southeast asian countries are listed, in addition to other countries across the globe. Some countries are even further categorized by locality! Check out the site and be sure to let us know what you think!
Until today, the Muslim Societies in Asia & the Pacific program (MSAP) only had a facebook presence online, so we are very excited to announce their new website: http://www.msiahawaii.com! We hope our readers enjoy the site as much as we do!
The Center for Southeast Asian Studies would like to recognize the incredible efforts of graduate assistants, Nezia and Effendy, who were instrumental in the building of the Muslim Societies in Asia program. The quality and success of the current MSIAP is a testament to their hard work and the CSEAS wishes them the best of luck on their future endeavors.
Kit Chan (simplified Chinese: 陈洁仪; traditional Chinese: 陳潔儀; pinyin: Chén Jiéyí) (born September 15, 1972) was the pioneer generation of Singaporean singers to successfully break into the international market, marked in particular by her breakthrough into the competitive and highly critical Taiwanese market with her hit Mandarin album Heartache (心痛) in 1994. She had released an EP “Don’t Spoil the Peace” the previous year. She is also the ambassador to the Christian relief organization, “World Vision”. Fluent in Cantonese besides Mandarin, she is the first Singaporean singer to break into the Hong Kong Cantopop market and the Taiwanese Mandopop markets. She is a revered star in Singapore, with a quiet but solid fan base.
Unarguably one of the most established local singers, Kit Chan is often dubbed as Singapore’s “national treasure” for good reasons. Since her debut in 1993, she has proven herself in many diversified areas – singing, theatre, television drama, poetry, song writing, community work, etc.
In 1994, a time when Singaporean singers were still relatively unknown and not as highly regarded in the Mandarin music scene, Kit hit the Taiwanese market with the album “Heartache”. Through hard work, determination and perseverance, she went on to cement her position in Taiwan as a steady and smooth singer; and this has put her among the ranks of pioneers who paved the way for other local recording artistes’ debut in Taiwan.
In 1997, Kit got her big break in Hong Kong when she starred opposite well-known Hong Kong singer Jacky Cheung in his musical Snow.Wolf.Lake. This musical ran for 41 nights in Hong Kong and also played in Singapore for seven nights. In addition, Kit also played the late songbird Teresa Teng in yet another musical “The Legend” in 1998, and acted in TVB drama series “Healing Hands II” (妙手仁心 2) – the sequel to the hugely popular “Healing Hands” starring established actors such as Bowie Lam (林保怡) and Ng Kai Wah (吴启华) in 2000. All these have helped Kit gain a steady foothold in Hong Kong as well as show her versatility as a performer.
Following this, Kit ventured into her second drama, the ATV-Channel U drama “Cash is King” (胜券在握) where she plays a sprightly and quirky television research writer who falls in love with a much older man. The stellar regional cast included Qin Han 秦汉 (Taiwan), Michelle Yin 米雪, Marco Lo 盧慶輝, Wallis Pang 彭子晴 (Hong Kong), Darren Lim 林明伦, Bryan Wong 王淥江 and Ix Shen 沈清剡.
More recently, Kit has been more active than ever on the musical scene, having played leading roles in productions including the Dutch-Hong Kong collaboration “East Meets West”, the well-received Mandarin musical“What’s Love About?!” and of course, the critically-acclaimed “The Forbidden City – Portrait of an Empress” where she brings Empress Dowager Cixi to life on the stage.
In 2004, she announced an indefinite break from the Chinese pop scene, to pursue her own interests.
In 2006, Kit returns to release her book “Cathy & Jodie: The Princess and the Flea” and also to reprise her role in the 3rd run of Forbidden City: The Portrait of an Empress. -taken from the unofficial Kit Chan website
The First International Conference on HUMAN RIGHTS in SOUTHEAST ASIA
Organized by the Southeast Asian Human Rights Studies Network and the Center for Human Rights Studies and Social Development (CHRSD), Mahidol University, Thailand.
Human rights in Southeast Asia are at a critical juncture. There are a number of positive developments in the promotion and protection of human rights, such as, the institutionalization of the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), formation of national human rights commissions or institutions and the development of a dynamic human rights discourse within the region. These occur, however, alongside a significant amount of human rights violations in a wide variety of areas. There is still much work to do in the promotion and protection of human rights of ASEAN peoples.
The First International Conference on Human Rights in Southeast Asia intends to bring together academics, researchers, graduate and post-graduate students, civil society organizations and government agency representatives who work on the research and greater understanding of human rights in Southeast Asia . It seeks to explore the ways researchers and civil society have begun to make more critical contributions to deepening the understanding of human rights-based framework and actual issues through in-depth engagement with localized sites within the Southeast Asian region. Likewise, as human rights is an emerging area of study at universities and academic institutes in Southeast Asia , the conference also aims to provide a venue for the increasing body of research work being done by academics and graduate students on Southeast Asian human rights.
Possible Panel Themes will include:
1. Universality and particularity of human rights
2. Individual and collective rights
3. Gender, sexuality and women’s rights
4. Rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups
5. Peace, conflict, security and human rights
6. Challenges to human rights in Southeast Asia
7. Media, advocacy and popularization of human rights
Paper Submission Details
Those who wish to present a paper at the conference are invited to submit an abstract of 300-350 words and a short biographical paragraph of 150 words in English by 30 June 2010 to Ms. Saksinee Emasiri at seahrcon@gmail.com. Please indicate to which proposed panel you think your paper would best fall under. The full paper should be about 5,000-6,000 words.
Successful applicants will be notified by 15 July 2010. Full papers are due on 30 September 2010.
Photo taken from flickr user j l t under creative commons license
The Institute for Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) offers special publication packages for only USD$50 on topics like Ageing, Environment and Gender. For more information or to place your order, please fax to 65 67756259 or pubsunit@iseas.edu.sg. Each book in these themed publication packages ranges from $30 to $40 individually so this special offer provides an excellent bargain on key titles in Southeast Asian scholarship today.
Kit Chan (simplified Chinese: 陈洁仪; traditional Chinese: 陳潔儀; pinyin: Chén Jiéyí) (born September 15, 1972) was the pioneer generation of Singaporean singers to successfully break into the international market, marked in particular by her breakthrough into the competitive and highly critical Taiwanese market with her hit Mandarin album Heartache (心痛) in 1994. She had released an EP “Don’t Spoil the Peace” the previous year. She is also the ambassador to the Christian relief organization, “World Vision”. Fluent in Cantonese besides Mandarin, she is the first Singaporean singer to break into the Hong Kong Cantopop market and the Taiwanese Mandopop markets. She is a revered star in Singapore, with a quiet but solid fan base.
Photo taken from flickr user 
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