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Proficient Multilingualism is the Future
By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for Penang Monthly, November 2014 Let’s get serious about global communication. In the Age of Nationalism, which is what we continue to live in, we tend to forget that...
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Education is Not Only for Building a Common Identity
By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for Penang Monthly, December 2014 Education is a key issue in nation building; and in no other country has that been more evident than in Malaysia where so much contestation...
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Penang is Blessed – If You Want It
By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for Penang Monthly, January 2015 No one can doubt that Penang is going through a very dynamic period today. It is evident in how the cityscape and the street life are...
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The More Individual Stories We Acknowledge, the More Authentic Our National...
PENANG MONTHLY, Feature Story February 2015 by Ooi Kee Beng Cultures are defined by their literature. In fact, in Chinese – classical or modern – the same term is used for both. What this tells us is...
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To Excel is to Stay Curious
By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for Penang Monthly, February 2015 Have you ever thought about apparently different things, only to find out as you go along that they are totally linked trains of thought?...
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The Unity Fetish
Cover Story for Penang Monthly, February 2015 By OOI KEE BENG fe•tish noun \ˈfe-tish also ˈfē-\ : a strong and unusual need or desire for something : a need or desire for an object, body part or...
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Towards Substantive Democracy
By OOI KEE BENG Penang Monthly Editor’s Column — March 5, 2015 Democracy is a big word, and like all big words it is given to controversy and misuse. Since the magazine’s cover story this month and in...
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Let’s be cosmopolitan and leave multi-ethnicity behind
Editorial for Penang Monthly, April 2015 By OOI KEE BENG It is fascinating how seemingly innocuous words actually are not. Especially those that sound neutral, even ethically positive. That is why the...
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Penang Monthly goes free in June
Editorial of Penang Monthly, May 2015 By OOI KEE BENG Spread the good news! Penang Monthly will be a free magazine from June 2015 onwards. Next month, you will be able to pick up a copy at selected...
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Noses don’t grow back
Editorial, Penang Monthly June 2015 By OOI KEE BENG It is very sad that the state of Penang is being ignored in the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020). None of the infrastructure projects the Penang...
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The UAE passes an anti-discriminatory law worth importing
Editorial for Penang Monthly, August 2015. I WAS IN Abu Dhabi recently for the first time. The United Arab Emirates is a strange land. Its citizens make up only 15% of the whole population. The rest...
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One Country’s Merdeka is Another’s Damage Control
By Ooi Kee Beng For Penang Monthly, October 2015. [Also published in Digital Edge Weekly, 31 August 2015 as “Merdeka – Unfinished Liberation”] It takes two hands to clap; there is no shore unless there...
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Penang as entry point for visitors to Malaysia
Editorial for Penang Monthly October 2015 Tourism has been vital to Penang for decades, but a competent history of it has yet to be written to give due credit to the key actors involved, to describe...
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Literary Festivals – More Momentous than You May Imagine
Editorial for Penang Monthly November 2015 Now when Penang is holding its George Town Literary Festival again—and I have no doubt that it will be an even greater success than before—let me ponder over...
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The Hills ‘R’ Us
By Ooi Kee Beng, editorial for Penang Monthly, December 2015. Natural resources are always good to have. If rightly used, they are the basis not only for an economy’s path of growth, but also for its...
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The Family Reunion – An Annual Pilgrimage
By Ooi Kee Beng Editorial, Penang Monthly, January 2016 So it’s that time of year again. The Lunar New Year arrives, and we witness the happy congregation of dispersed Chinese at the home of their...
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The Future is in Our Own Hands
By Ooi Kee Beng Editorial, Penang Monthly February 2016. They call it Paradise I don’t know why You call some place Paradise Kiss it goodbye “The Last Resort” The Eagles, 1976. Let’s be upfront about...
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We All Need Overexposure
By Ooi Kee Beng Editorial, Penang Monthly March 2016. Since our cover story for the month is about the future of education in Malaysia, I would like to take up the issue of exposure as a necessary...
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Cities are Many Different Creatures
By Ooi Kee Beng Editorial in Penang Monthly, April 2016. Thinking about the liveability of cities makes me wonder in what ways cities are similar enough to each other for us to compare them to each...
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The Point of Competitive Sports is to Cultivate Sportsmanship
By Ooi Kee Beng Editorial, Penang Monthly May 2016. Being a late-bloomer, I seldom took part in sports when I was in school. They felt too physical, too competitive and too regimenting. That did not...
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