BiblioAsia Podcast

Cookbook author and former restaurateur Dhershini Winodan tells us how she has adapted jackfruit payasam, a common Malayalee dessert, by using local elements like gula melaka. She also talks about growing up in the Telecoms quarters in Yio Chu Kang and how the Malayalee community in Singapore has changed over time.

Dhershini Govin Winodan is a former restaurateur who started Chat Masala along Upper East Coast Road. Her latest book, My Long Table: Recipes & Memories (2023), contains over 130 recipes from Indian classics to popular international dishes, and the stories behind them. She has written articles for magazines like...

Award-winning writer Christopher Tan talks how the Indian samosa led to the curry puffs we know today, as well as the different types of curry puffs – baked, spiralled, made with mutton fat and fillings like otak-otak and taro.

Christopher Tan is a food writer, culinary instructor and photographer. His articles, columns, recipes and photographs have appeared in many publications, including Singapore’s Sunday Times and Straits Times, The Peak magazine, and America’s Saveur magazine. He has authored and co-authored many cookbooks, most recently Nerdbaker 2: Tales from the Yeast Indies (2024).

What Christopher Talked About

When chef, filmmaker and writer Sarah Huang Benjamin wanted to make Hakka abacus seeds for Chinese New Year, her relatives were of little help. The exact recipe was something the older generation had not passed on. Armed with her childhood memories of helping to make the dish, Sarah spent hours doing research and conducting countless experiments before she came up with something she was happy with.

Sarah Huang Benjamin is a chef, content creator, filmmaker and writer. She won the inaugural Asian Food Channel’s “Food Hero” competition in 2014, and later hosted, wrote and produced multiple shows on the...

For decades, the conventional wisdom was that Singapore was “kicked out” of Malaysia. However, newly released documents in Dr Goh Keng Swee's Albatross file reveal a more complex history. In this episode, Janadas Devan, the coordinator for the Albatross File project, tells us more about the secret negotiations by Singapore’s leaders to separate from Malaysia, even as many of them still hoped to preserve a looser federation.

Janadas Devan is Senior Advisor (Government Communications) of Ministry of Digital Development and Information and the Prime Minister’s Office, and Director of the Institute of Policy Studies. A former j...

A film studio and theme park in Jurong opened to grand fanfare in 1992. Named Tang Dynasty City, it was modelled after the ancient city of Chang’an. Despite its underground terracotta warriors and other attractions, it struggled to draw visitors, as Senior Librarian Lim Tin Seng tells us.

Lim Tin Seng is a senior librarian with the National Library Singapore. He is the co-editor of of Roots: Tracing Family Histories (2013), Harmony and Development: ASEAN-China Relations (2009) and China’s New Social Policy (2010). He writes regularly for BiblioAsia.

What Tin Seng Talked About

Giovanni Gaggino came to Singapore around 1874 and lived here for more than 40 years. During that time, he set up a successful business providing supplies to vessels passing through Singapore, he wrote an Italian-Malay dictionary and once owned the Pulau Bukom. Writer Alex Foo tells us about the life of Gaggino and his legacy.

Formerly a literary arts librarian at the National Library Board, Alex Foo has written for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Orientations and ArtsEquator. Singapore history.

What Alex Talked About

Singapore's time zone has been changed at least seven times since 1905, including during the Japanese Occupation when it was synchronised to Tokyo time. Arts librarian Kenneth Tay explains the historical context for the time zone changes, the origins of the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) system, and ways to measure time, including a rare atomic clock in a local laboratory.

Kenneth Tay is a librarian with the Arts and General Reference team at the National Library Singapore. He is interested in the histories of global systems such as the internet, logistics and time zones, and where Singapore figures...

Hedwig Anuar was the first Malayan to head the National Library, a position she held for 23 years until 1988. She was also involved in the setting up the Singapore Book Council, National Archives of Singapore and Association of Women for Action and Research. Her daughter, Shirin Aroozoo, tells us about Anuar as a mother and a person, and about how her convictions about books, children's education and women empowerment were shaped by her upbringing and life events.

Shirin Aroozoo is the daughter of Hedwig Anuar, who was the director of the National Library from 1965 to 1988.

What...

Lee Ek Tieng (1933–2025) was the civil servant who headed the clean-up of the Singapore River, had the foresight to modernise the sanitation system, and ensured water self-sufficiency for Singapore. Writer Samantha Boh tells us how he did it with his colleagues and earned their respect.

Samantha Boh is a journalist and an author who covers the environment and science. She has written extensively on scientific breakthroughs in biomedical science, robotics, water resources, recycling, and food wastage over more than a decade. She is a co-author of The Last Fools, The Price of Being Fair and Lee Ek Ti...

Before air conditioning was introduced in Singapore in the 1920s, temperature control was a matter of architectural design. Environmental historian Fiona Williamson tells us how people kept themselves cool before air conditioning arrived, why weather science was important to the colonial enterprise, and what environmental history can tell us about a city’s development.

Fiona Williamson is an environmental historian with a particular interest in the history of the climate, meteorology and extreme weather in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. She is professor of environmental history at the Singapore Management University.

What Fiona Talked About

Jan Beránek sets out to find out what happened to his granduncle, Silvestr Němec, who left his Czech village for Singapore in 1938 and died as a volunteer during WWII. He finds Silvestr’s story woven with that of the Bata Shoe Company, the Czechoslovak community and volunteer forces in Singapore.

Jan Beránek is a Czech environmentalist and an energy expert. He was born and raised in the Czech city of Brno, where he studied physics and sociology. Jan has worked for several environmental organisations and was also the chairman of the Czech Green Party. He cu...

Former Straits Times editor-in-chief Cheong Yip Seng tells us how he negotiated OB markers with the government during his tenure (1987–2006), how he balanced the interests of the paper’s stakeholders, and which news story he nearly went to jail for.

Cheong Yip Seng is a veteran journalist. He was editor-in-chief of the Straits Times from 1987 to 2006 and editorial adviser to the South China Morning Post from 2012 to 2020. He has written OB Markers: My Straits Times Story and Ink and Influence: An OB Markers Sequel.

What Cheong Talked About

The Hawkins Road camp in Sembawang was home to thousands of Vietnamese refugees until it closed in 1996. Researcher Rebecca Tan talks about how the refugees spent their days in the camp and their lives after Singapore.

Rebecca Tan is Digital Preservation Archivist at the National Archives of Singapore. She was previously Children and Teens Librarian at Toa Payoh Public Library, and Digital Heritage Librarian at the National Library.

What Rebecca Talked About

The national anthem that we know today wasn't the original version composed by Zubir Said. His first version was longer and was set at a higher key. Emeritus Professor Bernard Tan talks about how "Majulah Singapura" came about and how it changed over the decades, and illustrates how these versions differ on his piano.

Emeritus Professor Bernard T. G. Tan is a retired professor of physics from the National University of Singapore who also dabbles in music. Some of his compositions have been performed by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. He is a former chairman of the Sing...

Tay Seow Huah, then Permanent Secretary for the Home Affairs Ministry, helmed Singapore’s response to the 1974 Laju hijacking incident. This was when four terrorists tried (but failed) to destroy Shell’s oil infrastructure on Pulau Bukom Besar and subsequently took five hostages. Little is known about the enigmatic spy chief, who was the founding Director of the Security and Intelligence Division. Simon Tay, lawyer, academic and winner of the 2010 Singapore Literature Prize, tells us how his Penang-born father – who lived through WWII, the Malayan Emergency and the political tumult of the 1960s – came to play a giant role serving...

Hawkers traditionally sell their food on streets. Uniquely in Singapore though, they ply their trade in fixed stalls in hawker centres. Ryan Kueh, author of the bestselling From Streets to Stalls, tells us how the hawker culture has evolved in Singapore since the colonial period and what hawker centres have come to represent.

Ryan Kueh holds a master’s degree from Tsinghua University under the Schwarzman Scholars programme and completed his bachelor’s at Yale–NUS College, where he read philosophy, politics, economics and history. His key research focus is consumption culture and history, with a secondary intere...

Many people know of the story of Badang the strongman, an aboriginal slave who gains supernatural strength after eating the vomit of a spirit. He throws a stone, which might or might not be the Singapore Stone, and his miracle-working grave is believed to be on Pulau Buru in the Riau Archipelago. However, independent scholar William Gibson tells us the tale of Badang (and the location of his grave) is much more complicated than is generally known.

Dr William L. Gibson is an author and researcher based in Southeast Asia since 2005. A former Lee Kong Chian Research...

When Peng Tsu Ying came to Singapore from Shanghai in the late 1940s, he could not find a deaf person like him. Determined to improve the situation for the deaf community, he founded Singapore's first school for the deaf in 1954. Librarian Nathaniel Chew tells us about Peng's advocacy, his own journey learning the Singapore Sign Language and the different ways it has evolved.

Nathaniel Chew is a librarian with the National Library Singapore. He works with the Singapore and Southeast Asia Collection, and his research interests lie at the intersection of language and society.

What...

In 1952, four Singapore artists – Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi, Cheong Soo Pieng and Liu Kang – travelled to Java and Bali in search of artistic inspiration. The following year, they put up an exhibition showcasing art they had produced from the trip, an exhibition often hailed by art historians as a milestone in Singapore art history. Yet much of the trip has been shrouded in mystery, until Gretchen Liu, the daughter-in-law of Liu Kang, discovered Liu Kang's archives and photographs from the trip. She tells us how the trip came together, what the artists did in Java and Bali, and...

Zubir Said (1907–87) gave Singapore its national anthem, “Majulah Singapura”, and its official Children’s Day song, “Semoga Bahagia”. Working with theatre company Wild Rice, music director Julian Wong put together a critically acclaimed production on the life of Pak Zubir that mixed history, music and memory in a moving show, Don't Call Him Mr. Mari Kita. Performances were sold out in 2022 and 2024. In this episode, Julian tells us the challenges of putting up the show, including the research and transcription, and reveals if he’s a Swiftie.

Julian Wong is a composer, arranger, music director, educator and performer. He...

Sharing the literary landscape with contemporaries like D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) travelled to Singapore in 1921. Though he was already well-known as a writer then, it was his stay in Singapore that inspired some of his most celebrated short stories. Crime fiction writer Tracey Morton tells us how Singapore inspired his works, why they remain relevant, and whether the Menendez brothers deserve their sentence.

Tracey A. Morton is a Singapore-based Irish/Australian writer and a Cambridge graduate. She is co-host of the podcast, The Asian Bookshelf, and author of the upcoming novel, The Co...

Singaporeans love animals, but only selectively. Otters, Ah Meng the orangutan, and Inuka the polar bear are among the beloved. Less favoured are monkeys in the Botanic Gardens, many of which were culled before WWII, and pesky Aedes mosquitoes. Environmental historian Timothy Barnard tells us how some of these migrant animals came to be here, how they’ve been treated, and what makes them Singaporean.

Timothy P. Barnard is an associate professor in the Department of History at the National University of Singapore, where he specialises in the environmental and cultural history of island Southeast Asia. He is...

To write a book about 60 Asian port cities, ex–ACM director Kennie Ting travelled as far as the Middle East and Africa. He tells us how port cities can tell a different history of Asia, and what his "eat, pray, love" cities and his favourite ACM artefacts are.

A writer and museum professional fascinated by the history, heritage and culture of Asian port cities, Kennie Ting is the former director of the Asian Civilisations Museum and Peranakan Museum in Singapore. He has written The Romance of the Grand Tour: 100 Years of Travel in South East Asia (2015) and Si...

A journalist turned politician turned diplomat, S. Rajaratnam (1915–2006) wore many hats in the service of Singapore. His contribution to Singapore is so great that to cover his life adequately required 20 years of research and over 1,200 pages of writing. Irene Ng, his authorised biographer, tells us little-known facets of the man, his legacy as Singapore’s founding foreign and culture minister, and his relationship with Lee Kuan Yew.

Irene Ng is the authorised biographer of S. Rajaratnam and writer-in-residence at the Institute of ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. She was formerly an award-winning senior political correspondent and a Member of Par...

Stella Kon is known for creating the beloved Emily of Emerald Hill – possibly the most frequently staged play in Singapore. She is also a novelist and musical theatre writer, and she has adapted her landmark play into a musical after falling in love with the genre. In this episode, Stella talks about the difference between writing plays and musicals, her favourite actor who played Emily, and her writing process.

What Stella Talked About

MasterChef Singapore judge Damian D’Silva grew up by the sea and spent many happy hours foraging for horseshoe crabs, shellfish and sea snails that would end up in the cooking pot. In this episode, he talks about how his childhood and grandfather influenced his cooking philosophy, when he found his calling in the kitchen (later than you'd expect), and what's left for him after winning the prestigious culinary award La Liste.

Chef Damian D’Silva is a judge on MasterChef Singapore and the first Singaporean to be awarded the prestigious culinary prize Artisan & Authenticity Award 2024 from La L...

Growing up as a Chetti Melaka (Peranakan Indian), Tanya realised her family was different when she was seven or eight years old. Her family spoke Malay at home, ate sambal belacan, and had huge parties with a lot of unusual food. In this episode, Tanya talks with pride about the rituals of the ancestor worship known parachu and the cookbook containing traditional recipes of the Chetti Melaka community.

A Peranakan Indian, Tanya Pillay-Nair is the coordinator of the cookbook Heritage Food of the Peranakan Indians in a Chitty Melaka Kitchen (Peranakan Indian Association of Singapore, 2023). The book...

Set up by five Buddhist women in 1946, Loke Woh Yuen was the first Chinese vegetarian restaurant in Singapore. It employed an all-female staff, was known for its popular shark’s fin made from maize, and was sometimes so packed that it had to set up dining tents that stretched to the main road. Its efforts to spread vegetarianism were complemented by other Buddhist women and nuns who wrote cookbooks and fundraised for charity.

Kelvin Tan graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in history from the National University of Singapore. He was a research assistant for the project “Mapp...

A tireless steward of Malay culture, Hajah Asfiah worked all her life to preserve and pass on Malay crafts. When she was just 10, she began teaching embroidery and flower arrangement in school. Later in life, she was a mak andam (wedding attendant) for more than 20 years and worked with more than 1,000 brides. At age 65, she got her cookbook Hidangan Warisan Kita (Our Heritage Dishes; 1986) published by Times Books International; it was the publisher’s first cookbook, written in Malay by a Malay person. The book had recipes for dishes that have since become extinct. Sadly, she died a year la...

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.

Khir Johari was born and raised in historic Kampong Gelam, Singapore. He studied mathematics at Santa Clara University in California, and completed a masters in education at Stanford University. Since returning to Singapore...

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 publications, including Singapore's Sunday Times and Straits Times, The Peak magazine, and America's Saveur magazine. He has authored and co-authored many cookbooks, most recently Nerdbaker 2: Tales from the Yeast Indies (Epigram Books, 2024...

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 (HarperCollins, 2025) – a biography of T.N. Seshan, one of India’s most prominent bureaucrats. Abhishek is a former Lee Kong Chian Research Fellow (2021–22).

What Abhishek Talked About

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 Colonial Legacy (2019), The Rocky Road to Kallang Park (2023) and Visions for Change (2023).

What Nick Talked About

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 & Marvellous DKD.

What Boon Lai Talked About

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 from the archive’s collection. He has written about film restoration in BiblioAsia.

What Tee Pao Talked About

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, and works with the Singapore and Southeast Asia collections. She has written about stone age in Singapore and Ancient Gold in Southeast Asia in BiblioAsia.

What Shu Talked About

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 author of Keramat, Sacred Relics and Forbidden Idols in Singapore (Routledge, September 2024) and Alfred Raquez and the French Experience of the Far East, 1898–1906 (Routledge, 2021). His articles have appeared in Signal to Noise, PopM...

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 till he became a full-time artist in 2018. His practice includes different visual mediums: murals, canvas, sketches, installations, videography and photography. His public murals may be seen in the streets of Singapor...

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 process.

Rachel Heng is the author of the novels The Great Reclamation and Suicide Club, which was a national bestseller in Singapore and has been translated into 10 languages.

Transcript...

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

This episode of BiblioAsia+ was hosted by...