BiblioAsia Podcast

You hear Malay, Javanese, Tamil and Punjabi as you wander the streets with shops selling colourful textiles and carpets, spices and flowers. Here you find different curries and bread, nasi padang , sup tulang , mee siam , a Javanese kitchen, Hainanese coffeeshops. Bookstores sell literature and newspapers as far away as Cairo. In this episode, Khir tells us about the Kampong Gelam he grew up in. K...

Kueh pie tee is not a pie that goes with tea. So where did the name (and dish) come from? Award-winning cookbook author Christopher Tan combs through old newspapers and cookbooks, in search of the origins of the dish. PS: Dates back to 1570! Christopher Tan is an award-winning writer, cooking instructor and photographer. His articles, columns, recipes and photographs have appeared in many publicat...

Tan Teng Kee was the Mike Tyson of Singapore boxing in the 1920s. Known as Battling Key , the larger-than-life boxer attracted crowds wherever he went. Which makes his drastic downfall all the more tragic. Abhishek Mehrotra is a researcher and writer whose interests include media and society in colonial Singapore, urban toponymy and post-independence India. He is working on his first book (HarperC...

Nicknamed “Twinkle Toes” for his agility, Chia Boon Leong (1925–2022) is widely regarded as one of Singapore‘s most talented football players. Academic and sports historian Nick Aplin talks about the footballer’s sporting achievements, his character and their friendship. Dr Nick Aplin is Deputy Director (Sport Heritage) at Sport Singapore. He is the author of the Sport in Singapore series: The Col...

In the 1960s and ‘70s, lured by adventure and money, Singaporean musicians went to South Vietnam to perform for American troops during the war. They were met with cheers, bullets and assault. Boon Lai is an author, an illustrator and a filmmaker based in Singapore. Inspired by the true accounts of the rockers who toured the Vietnam War, he created the three-book graphic novel series, The Once &amp...

Thanks to restoration, classic films like The Teenage Textbook Movie (1998) can still be shown on a big screen 20 years after its cinema run. On a mission to preserve Singapore’s film heritage, film archivist Chew Tee Pao saves important movies and gives them a second life. Chew Tee Pao is an archivist with the Asian Film Archive. Since 2014, he has overseen the restoration of more than 30 films f...

In the mid-19th century, two ancient gold coins were uncovered near present-day Keppel Harbour. Unfortunately, the Acehnese coins vanished before they could be studied carefully. The Jawi inscriptions on the coins were recorded, though they didn’t make sense. More than 180 years later, Foo Shu Tieng tries to solve the case. Foo Shu Tieng is Associate Librarian with the National Library, Singapore,...

A young German girl met an untimely end on Pulau Ubin in 1914. A shrine set up in her honour becomes Internet-famous. Following a deep search into the historical records, writer and researcher William Gibson discovers some inconvenient truths behind one of Singapore’s best-known shrines. Dr William L. Gibson is a former Lee Kong Chian research fellow. Based in Southeast Asia since 2005, he is the...

Yip Yew Chong’s 60-metre-long work, “I Paint my Singapore”, drew huge crowds when it went on display at the Raffles City Convention Centre. Comprising 27 scenes of 1970s–1980s Singapore, the painting merges history, memory and nostalgia. In this episode of BiblioAsia+, Yew Chong explains how he created this work and reveals what he would love to paint but has not. Yip Yew Chong was an accountant t...

The Great Reclamation is a work of historical fiction set in Singapore that has received rave reviews from the New Yorker and the New York Times . A love story, it also took five years of serious research into a variety of topics, including land reclamation, the Japanese Occupation and postwar politics in Singapore. Listen to author Rachel Heng talk about her book and her fascinating research proc...

Writer and educator Ilya Katrinnada interviewed the Orang Seletar who resettled in Johor to learn about their lives, and their links to Singapore. Ilya Katrinnada is an educator and writer with a keen interest in the intersections of creativity, community and education. Having graduated with a major in anthropology, she currently works as a special education teacher. Transcript and Resources Read...

The Kranji War Cemetery and the Singapore Memorial commemorate those who died while fighting the Japanese during World War II. Librarian Janice Loo looks at the lives of the people who paid the ultimate price in the defence of Singapore. Janice Loo is a librarian with the National Library, Singapore. Her responsibilities include collection management and content development as well as research and...

Singapore used to be a major recording centre in Southeast Asia, with over 10,000 local recordings made before 1960. Hear the story from sound archivist Ross Laird, author of From Keroncong to Xinyao . Ross was formerly a sound archivist with the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia. He was awarded NLB’s Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship in 2010. Transcript and Resources Read the transc...

Writer and researcher William L. Gibson undertakes a pilgrimage into the archives to uncover the history of the keramat on Kusu Island, south of the main island of Singapore. Dr William L. Gibson is an author and a researcher based in Southeast Asia since 2005. His research topic for the Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship, awarded by the National Library Board in 2021, was an in-depth study of ker...

Librarian Lim Tin Seng rediscovers Singapore’s first island resort getaway and solves various mysteries surrounding it, including where Sarong Island is now. Lim Tin Seng is a senior librarian with the National Library, Singapore. He is the co-editor of Roots: Tracing Family Histories (2013), Harmony and Development: ASEAN-China Relations (2009) and China’s New Soci al Policy (2010). He writes reg...

There's more to firewalking than the public display of religious devotion. Independent curator Nalina Gopal tells us the stories behind the three-month rituals that precede the firewalking at Singapore's Sri Mariamman Temple. Nalina Gopal is an independent curator and researcher focused on South Asia and its diaspora. She is the co-editor of Sojourners to Settlers: Tamils in Southeast Asia and Sin...

Stone tools have been found in and around Singapore since the late 19th century, but much about them remains a mystery, according to librarian and archaeologist Foo Shu Tieng. Foo Shu Tieng is an associate librarian with the National Library, Singapore, and works with the Singapore and Southeast Asia collections. Her responsibilities include collection management, content development as well as pr...

Writer Abhishek Mehrotra serves up a history of Malaya’s prewar tennis scene, focusing on two tennis greats: Khoo Hooi Hye and Lim Bong Soo, who won 9 Malaya Cups and 12 Singapore Championships between them. Abhishek is a researcher and writer whose interests include media and society in colonial Singapore, urban toponymy and post-independence India. He is working on his first book – a biography o...

A food that has been called rank and disgusting is a beloved condiment in Southeast Asia. Librarian Toffa Abdul Wahed talks about the long history of belacan (fermented shrimp) in Southeast Asia and Singapore. Toffa is an associate librarian with the National Library, Singapore, and works with the Singapore and Southeast Asia Collection. Transcript and Resources Read the transcript: https://biblio...

Three large murals used to grace the walls of Paya Lebar Airport, depicting scenes from Singapore and Malaysia. Librarian Dahlia Shamsuddin, the daughter of one of the artists involved, recounts her efforts to uncover the fate of her father’s mural. Dahlia is a senior librarian at the Singapore's National Library Board, where she catalogues legal deposit, gift and donor materials. Transcript and R...

Maiden Lin, Maiden Lei and Maiden Huang are local goddesses whose legends begin in Singapore. Award-winning writer Ng Yi-Sheng dives into their origins and looks at their worship today. Yi-Sheng is a poet, fictionist, playwright and researcher. His books include the debut poetry collection last boy , A Book of Hims and Loud Poems for a Very Obliging Audience , and the short story collection Lion C...

During World War II, forced civilian labourers known as rōmusha were used by the Imperial Japanese Army to build the infamous Thai-Burma Railway. Shirlene Noordin pieces together what happened to her grandfather in the three years he worked on the Death Railway. Shirlene is the founder of Phish Communications, a communications consultancy specialising in arts and culture. Transcript and Resources...