Curating the City: Public Spaces and the Framing of Urban Architecture
By OOI KEE BENG, Penang Monthly, Editorial July 2024 The key difference that I observe when visiting a thriving city and a striving one is in the manifest gap in ambition and maintenance between...
View ArticleDiagnosing Countries: Education in Malaysia Shows Signs of Arrhythmia
By Ooi Kee Beng, Editorial in Penang Monthly, August 2024 WE LIVE IN the Era of Nation-States. At the moment, there are 193 members in the United Nations (UN). Inevitably, we have to compare them to...
View ArticleEndorsing Wanderlust: Travel to Live, Travel to Learn
By OOI KEE BENG, Cover story for Penang Monthly September 2024 A baby should cry at birth. It must be traumatic being born. The compressing comfort of the womb is gone, the noises and lights once...
View ArticleThe Art of Getting Creative and Staying Creative
By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for Penang Monthly September 2024 I have an iPhone 15 Plus Max. It’s equipped with the best phone camera in the world and I use it quite often to capture events and people I...
View ArticleAfter 15 Rousing Years, the Penang Renaissance Still Resonates Clearly
By OOI KEE BENG, Penang Monthly 15th Anniversary bumper Issue, October 2024 WE ARE AT one of those self-appraising points in time when we—not only Penang Monthly, but also Penang Institute as a...
View ArticleBetween The Microcosmic and The Macrocosmic: We Are All Giants Now
By OOI KEE BENG, Penang Monthly editorial for January 2025 YOU WOULD HAVE seen them. Mobile drone shots of cities, done with the camera pointed straight down to capture the topographical grid of...
View ArticleHistory: Mankind’s Pursuit of Self-understanding and Self-acceptance
By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for February 2025, Penang Monthly IT IS OFTEN SAID—way too often—that “History belongs to the Victor”. There is of course a lot of truth in the dictum. But it faults for...
View ArticleSimple Tools for Taming Your Prejudices
By OOI KEE BENG, Penang Monthly March 2025 Editorial I AM STRONGLY convinced that as long as children continue to be brought up to learn behaviours and imbibe ideas that certain groups of humans are...
View ArticleAs the Sun Warms the Valley…
By OOI KEE BENG, April 2025 editorial in Penang Monthly. I AM IN THE foothills of the peninsula’s main mountain range, off Gopeng. It is early morning, 7am. From the balcony of my room, I throw pellets...
View ArticleDefining Penang Exceptionalism through its Geography, its Biology and its...
By OOI KEE BENG, June 2025 Editorial in Penang Monthly. “Does Penang Exceptionalism still exist?” That question was put to me recently by a learned and slightly agitated visitor. I assume the query...
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