Many credited the band for reviving the Singapore local indie music scene. They’re proud of that, too. After all, it’s for the love of music they started this journey in 2003. It’s a blessing to bring together a group of people who share the same passion and this was what they got – So Much More Inside (2004), Hip City (2006) and their latest effort We Satellites in 2008. Always challenging and exploring new sounds with each new project, their rewards include 3 acclaimed albums, two no.1 hits and numerous top 20s -that showcase their evolution, and a whole lot of fans.

Props to the music channels for believing in and helping Electrico, also know as ECO spread their music beyond our shores and kudos to the band for working their asses off touring the Asian circuit, and flying the Singapore flag at the coveted South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Texas in 2007 while spreading some of their magic to Los Angeles at the same time.

Electrico became the first Singapore band to receive a nomination at the 2005 MTV Asia Awards and a second in 2008 which culminated in awards for the Top Local Pop Song (for Runaway) at the 13th annual COMPASS (Composers & Authors Society Of Singapore) awards – the 3rd time in as many years – which also saw Dave taking the honors for the Young Composer of the Year.

With recognition came responsibility, and the lads gave back- undertaking a community project for troubled teens in the same year. The online single Everybody’s Here – a child of the project.

Veterans in the local music scene, but definitely still learning. It helps that these self-confessed music and stage junkies, are friends before musicians. And perhaps that’s what keeps their sound evolving, adding new dimensions to their music and taking their fans along for the ride.

Electrico are – Dave Tan (vocal & guitar), Desmond Goh (bass guitar) and William Lim Jr (drums). (Taken from bands bio page)

Official Website | Facebook Page | Twitter | MySpace | Youtube | Last.fm

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Internship experience at the National University of Singapore Central Library

Friday, March 4th, 12:00 pm, Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
Presented by Erenst Anip, Masters Student in the Department of Library Information Services (LIS)

In July 2010, Erenst went to Southeast Asia to be the LIS program’s first intern at the National University of Singapore Central Library where he was introduced to the inner workings of a premier university library in Asia. There, he learned about a different library system and organization. In this second talk story session, he will share his experience in ‘finding a missing librarian’ and being a ‘junior operative’, the library’s outreach and social media initiatives, KPIs and PMS, and Singapore’s favorite past time of ‘makan’. Update from the first talk includes internship experience and relevancy with our own library system.

Mr. Erenst Anip is a 2nd year LIS student from Indonesia. As a future academic librarian, he focuses on digital technologies and social media features to enhance the library’s appeal to the users while keeping abreast of (Southeast) Asia area studies. He is also the project manager of Hawaii’s Digital Newspaper Project, part of Library of Congress’ National Digital Newspaper Project (NDNP).

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Mavis Hee (simplified Chinese: 许美静; traditional Chinese: 許美靜; pinyin: Xǔ Mĕi Jìng; born September 27, 1974) is a Singaporean singer. She was the second runner-up and also Miss Photogenic and Miss Amity for Singapore’s Miss Chinatown Pageant 1992.

Her first album Knowingly was released in August 1994. After the release, famed Taiwanese singer-composer Jonathan Lee 李宗盛 invited her to join his production company. However, Mavis rejected the offer so that she could continue working with her mentor, Chen Jia Ming 陈佳明. Mavis went on to release other chart topping albums. Her debut album in Taiwan, Regret, propelled her to regional stardom. She was labelled “Heavenly Queen Killer” (or 天后杀手) for having beaten Faye Wong and the 4 Heavenly Kings in sales charts. Her best-selling album to date, Living By Night 都是夜归人, chalked an impressive 300,000 copies in Taiwan. Following the success, Mavis broke into the competitive Cantonese market with the release of Listen Quietly 静听精彩13首. The album topped the Hong Kong IFPI sales chart for 3 consecutive weeks, beating other Hong Kong singer, Andy Lau, Leon Lai and Sammi Cheng. She became the first Singaporean to win the Most Popular Female Singer award in HK Metro Hit awards, beating Faye Wong.

Mavis was the singer for Singapore’s National Day Parade 2000 theme song, “Shine On Me”, together with fellow Singaporean Jai. She was also appointed a cultural ambassador for China in 2001. Mavis made a conscious decision to fade out from the music scene after 2001, when her record company, What’s Music, was absorbed into Universal Music Taiwan, and the company could not accommodate her artistic integrity within commercial considerations. Some of her last public appearances were for MediaCorp, a Singapore television and broadcast station, where she recorded the hit single Watch TV with fellow Singaporean singers Tanya Chua and Stefanie Sun, and as a guest presenter at the Star Awards 2002 (her last public appearance).
From 2003 to 2004, she traveled around Italy.

In June 2006, Mavis hit the headlines in Singapore when she was arrested after harassing two hotel guests at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. She was warded at Singapore’s Institute of Mental Health, and was diagnosed with clinical depression after a stay of four weeks. She was not charged by the police. In October 2006, she came out to explain her actions in a series of interviews with the Singapore media, explaining that she was on the road to recovery. She also thanked her fans for their immense support all these years. -taken from Wikipedia

Official Site | Facebook Fan Page | Last.fm | Article on Mental Breakdown

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Hawai’i’s strong connection with Southeast Asia is probably most easily felt through the influx of residents from the area. Many don’t realize that the University of Hawai’i is an extraordinary resource for Southeast Asian scholarship, the only university in the U.S. with Southeast Asianists in both art history and archaeology, a Center for Southeast Asian Studies plus related faculty in the history department. Noe Tanigawa found two specialists for this visit with “Four Thousand Years of Southeast Asian Art” at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. “Four Thousand Years of Southeast Asian Art,” works from Ban Chiang, Angkor and the Sukhothai Kingdom, continues at the Honolulu Academy of Arts through January 9th. Check www.honoluluacademy.org for details.

Link to podcast on Hawaii Public Radio

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The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) is pleased to announce the Next Generation Leadership in Asian Affairs Fellowship for 2011-12. This year-long program, based in Seattle, focuses on bridging the gap between scholarship and policymaking. Fellows support NBR research projects and collaborate with leading scholars to conduct independent research and share research findings with the policymaking community in Washington, D.C.

The fellowship is open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Individuals who have received their master’s degree diplomas up to twelve months prior to the application deadline may apply to the program. Applicants must have completed a master’s or equivalent professional degree (MA, MBA, LLM, JD, etc.) by the time the fellowship begins. Prospective fellows should apply only for the year that they expect to participate. No deferrals are permitted.

The Next Generation Leadership program, now entering its sixth year, is training young Asia specialists from a wide variety of fields to bridge the gap between scholarly research and the needs of U.S. policy toward a rapidly changing Asia.

The application deadline is January 15, 2011. Fellowships begin June 1, 2011, and conclude May 31, 2012. For further information and application materials, please visit the Next Generation Fellowship website: http://nbr.org/about/nextgenfellowship.aspx.

The print-friendly announcement posting is available at: http://nbr.org/downloads/pdfs/NBR/NextGen_announcement_2010.pdf

For more employment, funding, internships, and professional networking opportunities, please join the CSEAS Alumni & Community Linkedin Group!

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Hady Mirza (born January 28, 1980) (Jawi: حدي ميرزا) is a Singaporean singer of Bugis descent, with his grandparents hailing from Sulawesi. He is the winner of the second season of the reality TV show Singapore Idol. He was crowned the winner on 25 September 2006 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium after garnering 70% of about one million votes cast by television viewers.

He was also the winner of the world’s first Asian Idol competition held on 16 December 2007 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Asian Idol is a competition between six Idol winners from several different Asian countries, namely Singapore Idol, Malaysian Idol, Indonesian Idol, Indian Idol, Philippine Idol and Vietnam Idol.

Hady is most known for his smooth R&B voice and charming personality. He is the second male winner, following in the footsteps of his favourite idol, Taufik Batisah.

Hady started singing at the age of 18 and instantly fell in love with it because of the variety of genres he could get involved in. On the show, Hady was known for his diverse versatility, singing not only R&B hits, but Pop, Emo Rock and Heavy Metal.

Hady studied engineering at the Temasek Polytechnic. He was a pub performer but wanted to be a professional club entertainer when he was growing up. The song that would describe him best is “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen because of the conflicting themes present in the lyrics.

His favourite singers include Michael Jackson, Babyface, Boyz II Men and Jamie Cullum.

Hady’s debut album, self-titled Hady Mirza, was released in Singapore on 13 November 2006 and achieved Platinum status within 4 days of its release. The album is due to be re-released in 2008 with additional material.

In June 2007, Hady was awarded with two major awards in Anugerah Planet Muzik 2007, a yearly Malay music award show awarding the best musicians in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Hady was voted “Most Popular Artiste (Singapore)” and his self-penned Malay single Merpati was voted “Most Popular Song (Singapore)”.

Hady was also chosen to sing an exclusive song You and I for the Police Week 2007 which was held in conjunction with the Police Day Parade 2007. In October 2007, to coincide with the grand opening of the KPE Tunnel, a special compilation album Sounds of the Underground was recorded, and Hady was featured on the track Jangan Memandu di Pinggir Jalan (Don’t Drive on the Side of the Road).

One year after his Singapore Idol win, Hady won the world’s first-ever Asian Idol, featuring Idol winners from six countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and India. With his unique soulful voice and charming looks, Hady will now represent Asia to promote the diversified Asian music to the world. Hady’s two performance choices were: Berserah (Surrender), composed by Taufik Batisah, and Beautiful Day by U2.

Official Website | Singapore Idol Profile | Facebook Fan Page | Twitter Feed

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View Secretary Clinton’s speech at the Kahala Hotel in Honolulu Waikiki on October 28, 2010 entitled, “America’s Engagement in the Asia-Pacific” below:

US Dept. of State | Official Speech Transcript | Facebook Page | Twitter Feed

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General Information
Embassy of Singapore
Statistics Singapore (gov)
World Press
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
US-ASEAN Business Council
Doing Business (Singapore)
Lonely Planet World Guide
Outreach World
University of Hawaii Press

Newspapers
MediaCorp
Straits Times
Business Times
Tamil Murasu
Berita Harian
Lian He Zao Bao

Forums
Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Travel Forum

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Wednesday, 22 September
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium

Singapore, 2008 (75 min)
Tamil with English Subtitles
Director: Eric Khoo
Cast: Francis Bosco, Jathisweran, Grace Kalaiselvi

SYNOPSIS
Francis (Bosco Francis) is a man at the end of his tether. The former magician often takes solace in the bottle and barely ekes a living as a cleaner in a nightclub. He has a 10-year-old son he desperately loves, but sorrow, guilt and constant inebriation have made him an ineffectual father. The son (Jathishweran) is a stoic old soul who has learned to bury his affection for his old man and to cope with his chaotic life.

A broken spirit and a single parent, Francis hopes to redeem himself and win his son’s love and respect. He makes a painful – and bizarre – return to magic. An unexpected incident one night sets father and son on the road. In a dilapidated building, these two wounded souls come to terms with their love which is as deep and acute as their grief.

THE BACKGROUND
ERIC Khoo’s new movie My Magic addresses issues of love, life, family ties, redemption and magic. The filmmaker describes it as his most personal piece of work to date.

“I’m a dad myself and for the longest time, I’ve wanted to do a movie about a father and son, the obstacles in their relationship, and how they get together despite the difficulties,” says Khoo whose four boys are aged between 8 and 14.

It is also inspired by lead actor Bosco Francis, a real-life magician whom he has known for more than a decade.

The director says: “This guy is larger than life. I wanted to do something with him, and for him.” He roped in journalist Wong Kim Hoh to work with him on the script. The two old friends have collaborated on Khoo’s last two projects: Be With Me, a moving omnibus feature which opened the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005; and No Day Off, a short film about the trials and tribulations of a maid, which has been shown to critical acclaim in various festivals.

“Kim Hoh and I have been talking about the project for some time but we were sidetracked by other ideas.” However, in late 2007, Khoo started reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a Pulitzer prize-winning novel about the adventures of a man and his son in a post-apocalyptic world. “The book inspired me to nail the project down,” Khoo says. He did, within two short weeks. “It is my fastest shoot to date. Kim Hoh was in India for work but I’d send him ideas and he would flesh them out. We finished the script in a couple of days,” he adds.

In the meantime, he had already assembled a crew including Adrian Tan, the cinematographer who also lensed Be With Me. Workshops were also arranged for Bosco and Jathis, the young actor playing his ten-year old son. “The workshops were crucial because I wanted them to establish a rapport and to be comfortable with each other. They were fantastic. Jathis was a god-send, he was so natural.” says the director.

Bosco, meanwhile, was Khoo’s “Rock of Gibraltar”. “Many of the stunts he performed in the movie are real. Bosco wouldn’t have it any other way. We had to shoot most of them in one take, because I couldn’t afford to have him too hurt and injured.” Although a 12-day shoot was planned, My Magic was shot in just nine days. “The cast and crew were just so good. They ran with me.” From the outset, he wanted My Magic to be a “small, sensitive project.” “I didn’t want to go big and be extravagant with the execution. I wanted it to be intimate, personal and subtle.”

Shooting it, however, was not without its challenges. A major one was language. The movie is shot mostly in Tamil, a language alien to him and Kim Hoh who wrote the script in English. “Since both Bosco and Jathis are Indian, I wanted them to speak in their mother tongue because it is more authentic,” says the director whose previous movies were mostly shot in a mixture of English and Chinese dialects. Fortunately he has a “saving grace”, supporting actress Grace Kalaiselvi, who became the film’s resident translator. The hardest part of the shoot, however, was the ending. “I wanted My Magic to be layered, and to spring surprises. The ending is the most important. It is what will take the film to another level so we spent a lot of time conceptualising it, and getting it right.”

He adds: “Many of us are judgmental. If there is one lesson I hope viewers will take with them after watching this movie, it is that things and people are sometimes not what they seem.’ -taken from zhaowei.com

IMDB | A Nutshell Review | Download Poster

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Friday, September 10, 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. in the Hamilton Library, Room 301

Presented by Erenst Anip, LIS Graduate Student

In July 2010, Erenst went to Southeast Asia to be the LIS program’s first intern at the National University of Singapore Central Library where he was introduced to the inner workings of a premier university library in Asia. There, he learned about a different library system and organization. In this informal talk story session, he will share his experience in ‘finding a missing librarian’/being a junior operative, the library’s outreach and social media initiatives, KPIs and PMS, and Singapore’s favorite past time of ‘makan’.

Erenst Anip is a 2nd year LIS student from Indonesia. As a future academic librarian, he focuses on digital technologies and social media features to enhance the library’s appeal to the users while keeping abreast of (Southeast) Asia area studies. He is also the project manager of Hawaii’s Digital Newspaper Project, part of Library of Congress’ National Digital Newspaper Project (NDNP). Also, he is currently the treasurer of SLA-ASIST SC.

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