Originally released on Feb 2, 2024: AFT Podcasts present the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. Presenter Jasmine Low speaks with Amanda Nell Eu, a Malaysian film director and scriptwriter known for her recent body horror film Tiger Stripes - set in a Malaysian jungle in which a girl experiences a strange metamorphosis as she comes of age. The film won the Critics' Week Grand Prize (Semaine de la Critique Cannes) when it was shown at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival in France in May 2023, and it was then selected as the Malaysian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. Amanda runs Ghost Grrl Pictures with a cofounder. Amanda is known for an earlier film about two teenagers and a female vampire who solely attacks men, an urban legend tale in Malaysia and Indonesia - titled, “Lagi Senang Jaga Sekandang Lembu” or in English, “It's Easier to Raise Cattle" was featured at the Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2018. Connect and follow Amanda Nell Eu via Facebook, Instagram or IMDB. Read more on the official website of the Listen by Heart podcast in https://ListenbyHeart.Webprojx.com. Watch Tiger Stripes: * Australia and New Zealand theatrical release this Feb 3 - Mar 1, 2024 presented by Screenxcope. Visit https://www.gointernationalgroup.com/au/ to learn more. * Southeast Asia on Netflix this Feb 15, 2024. ---------------------------- CREDITS --------------------------------- You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, an AFT Podcasts production. Our purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them. Our Mission: Listen by Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace. Production Credits: An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com). An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production. Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com. Website by WebPROjx.com. #ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we'd love to hear from you. Enjoy & subscribe to the Listen by Heart Podcast on your favourite platform: Apple podcasts https://bit.ly/listenbyheartpodcast, Spotify spoti.fi/3yfxWNZ, Google podcasts bit.ly/3la7C46, Player FM https://bit.ly/listenbyheartplayerfm, YouTube.com/@AFT-tv etc.

The Beauty of Death was written by Lebanese-American writer, Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931). It's presented here in a three-part series, read for a friend who is leaving our realm. Read the full text here: https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com/2023/08/09/special-the-beauty-of-death/.

--- The Beauty of Death by Kahlil Gibran

Part One - The Calling

Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and
Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights;
Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and
Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body;
Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume,
And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead.

Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired;
Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit;
Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart.

Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, for
It's magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests.

Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowers
Raise their crowns to greet the dawn.
Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light
Between my bed and the infinite;
Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle of
Her white wings.

Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips.
Let the children grasp my hands with soft and rosy fingers;
Let the ages place their veined hands upon my head and bless me;
Let the virgins come close and see the shadow of God in my eyes,
And hear the echo of His will racing with my breath.

Part Two - The Ascending

I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the
Firmament of complete and unbound freedom;
I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are
Hiding the hills from my eyes.
The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the
Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses;
The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter
That looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight
And red as the twilight.

The songs of the waves and the humans of the streams
Are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence;
And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity
In exact harmony with the spirit's desires.
I am cloaked in full whiteness;
I am in comfort; I am in peace.

Read the full text here: https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com/2023/08/09/special-the-beauty-of-death/⁠.

Australian journalist Su-Lin Tan spent her youth cross country commuting from the southernmost city in Malaysia, Johor Bahru to Singapore for a better education, just like Crazy Rich Asians actor Ronnie Chieng. Su-Lin speaks about her early life in Malaysia and Singapore and recalls family life including her Ah Ma (Grandma) who gifted her with stories from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

She is a qualified accountant and worked in investment banking and funds management both in London and Sydney before becoming a journalist. A Chartered Accountant, she is conversant in Mandarin, Bahasa Malaysia and Hokkien. Su-Lin’s experience as a business journalist can be traced back to her first job at Ernst & Young in Melbourne. Soon after the turn of the millennium, Su-Lin joined then Fairfax Media as a journalist and there, started her burgeoning career as a thought-leader in writing critical and often poignant pieces that have aroused attention from different factions of Australian political commentators.

Her curriculum-vitae is clear cut. Her focus lies predominantly in business, economics and political reporting, also opinion pieces that offer a thorough insight into key issues that matter across the Asia Pacific region written from Australia to Hong Kong and now Singapore.

Read more: https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com/2023/05/24/s6-su-lin-tan-australian-journalist/

A short story by Jasmine H. Low, Dancing to the gongs of the South China Sea is an unfinished piece that’s a work-in-progress, a culmination of works explored in an 8-week creative writing class with Sharon Bakar’s Words on Fire to “Finding the Flow”. Jasmine describes this writing process as going with the flow, and she’s putting this out there even if it’s a draft and incomplete with some flaws. There’s a story that wants to be told and I’m only an inch deep. Thank you dear Sharon and classmates of WoF Finding the Flow class of March-May 2023 for helping me get unstuck. For spoilers to the backstory, visit the website: https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com/2023/05/22/a-fiction-special-dancing-to-the-gongs-of-the-south-china-sea/ to learn more. Thank you.

Welcome to Season Five of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. I’m Jasmine Low and today, I will be joined by Shivani Sivagurunathan, an author and educator. Head of School, Assistant Professor; Research Director; Director of Postgraduate Studies; Senior Tutor, Faculty of Arts at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia and has an interest in post-colonial literature and in particular literature surrounding the topics of Indian diaspora and contemplative pedagogy. Shivani has been writing and publishing fiction and poetry for twenty years, and teaching for twelve years. Her first book, Wildlife on Coal Island, was published by UPM Press in 2011 and republished by HarperCollins India in 2012. The Indian writer Tabish Khair described the book as ‘R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi, turned into an island, meets Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book in this highly readable collection of stories by a new and distinctive voice from Malaysia’. Her second book, Yalpanam, is her first novel and it was published by Penguin Southeast Asia in September 2021. Her short stories and poems have appeared in numerous international journals and magazines including Cha: An Asian Literary Magazine, Agenda, Construction Literary Magazine and many others. Her poetry collection, Being Born, and her book of fiction, “What Has Happened to Harry Pillai?: Two Novellas” are out now and will be discussed at the George Town Literary Festival on 25 November 2022. She currently teaches English Literature and creative writing at the University of Nottingham Malaysia and is working on her next novel. Visit www.shivanisivagurunathan.com for more.

You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, an AFT Podcasts production. Our purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them. Our Mission: Listen by Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.

Production Credits: An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com). An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production. Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com. Website by WebPROjx.com.

#ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com

Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we'd love to hear from you...

Recording includes ambient sounds of birds in trees located near an arterial road.

Enjoy & subscribe to the Listen by Heart Podcast on your favourite platform: Apple podcasts https://bit.ly/listenbyheartpodcast, Spotify spoti.fi/3yfxWNZ, Google podcasts bit.ly/3la7C46, Player FM https://bit.ly/listenbyheartplayerfm etc.