I find I can't stomach most fiction anymore, especially anything written since about 1990. But Vanessa Chan's "The Storm We Made" is a powerful exception. Minutely and lovingly observed and the emotional punches it delivers are all earned and deserved.
It's set in #Malaysia in the 1930s during the British colonial period (when it was still called "Malaya") and the #Japanese wartime occupation of the 1940s, and its principal characters are Malay and Japanese. So right away that sets it apart from anything I've ever read before.
What's more, most of the principal characters from whose points of view we see the story are women and girls.
It is so rare, in #English language fiction, to have a glimpse into the dynamics of #Colonization when it's not practiced by a Western state.
The #Audiobook is beautifully narrated by Samantha Tan, a woman of #Asian ancestry.
Would love to hear #TootSEA thoughts on this book.
Southeast Asian Muslims also retain the practice of cemetery caretaking without necessarily framing it as ancestor worship. As such, there are some customs we do for the dead that isn't always analogous elsewhere like doing the 40-day tahlil (sort of a wake 40 days after death) but since it's in keeping with the Islamic practice of respecting your elders and maintaining familial relations, there's historical and cultural continuity.
As such, while it doesn't have the force of religious law, Muslims here tend to visit family graves on Eid (usual al-Fitr but also al-Adha) to clean, and pray over the dead. But we don't have family plots so one fact about city Muslims these days is since the system is first-come-first-served, you likely have to visit multiple cemeteries to get to all of your family.
Indonesia’ s week-long Eid al-Fitr holiday officially begins. In the Middle East and other parts of the world, marking the end of Ramadan is the minor Eid but in Southeast Asia this is the major Eid, the other being the sacrificial Eid al-Adha.
Malaysia and Singapore only allocate 1-2 days of holiday but Indonesia’s customary homecoming practice means anything less than 5 days won’t ever be sufficient. It’s like our Thanksgiving but for 7-9 days depending on when it falls during the week.
Any effort to contact businesses during this time will be futile unless you’ve already had prior appointment and even then it might be canceled 😂😂😂.
Jakarta’s residents have slowly left the city for the holidays starting last Friday and the holiday exodus typically accelerates until the day before Eid until around half the city is left, leaving it pleasant for everyone else to drive, take buses, go to parks, malls, and other local destinations. Outbound traffic is downright terrible already.
This time next week the inbound traffic to major cities and population centres will be pretty severe as residents return. Often this also means a spike in city population with new people coming looking for work.
If I'm going to interpret this, the natives of Taiwan survived as the primary people in what we know today as the Philippine archipelago. From the Philippines, they spread everywhere.
In other words, they're all #Filipino! ᜑᜑᜑᜑ 😹 (Or, native Taiwanese to be exact.)
Thai royalists are waging war of judicial attrition against Move Forward Party
> They are waging a war of judicial attrition against the party and Pita to keep them mired in the court system, hoping MFP will eventually be dissolved.
> Japan formally handed over an air surveillance radar system to the #Philippines on Wednesday, the first export of a complete defense product since its long-held arms trade ban was eased in 2014.
"Deliberately grounded on a tiny reef in the #SouthChinaSea, part of an island chain claimed by the two Asian countries, the #BRPSierraMadre is now the unlikely base for a detachment of Filipino marines who stand guard over the atoll, scanning the turquoise waters for Chinese ships." #AyunginShoal#SecondThomasShoal#Philippines
#MANILA, #Philippines – Foreign ministers of Southeast Asia’s regional bloc Association of Southeast Asian Nations (#ASEAN) on Saturday, December 30, expressed their concern over growing tensions in the #SouthChinaSea which they said could threaten regional peace and urged for peaceful dialogue among parties. #SoutheastAsia#TootSEA
The two Southeast Asian countries have competing claims over some parts of the #SouthChinaSea, a conduit for $3 trillion of annual ship-borne trade that #China claims almost in its entirety. #SoutheastAsia#ASEAN#WestPHSea
Because of #Beijing’s massive defence build-up in the region, #SoutheastAsia air forces are ordering new equipment and eyeing more potent capabilities.