The launch of Sourced's new season on Trees had me thinking a lot about landscape, and the systems of landscape, and how us humans are part of that systems. I have a lot of feels, after so much reading I do, that doesn’t always allow for concise ‘academic’ or ‘journalistic’ writing - there is no argument to be made. When I think of landscapes, I often think of trees, of the jungle. And this thinking is always a visceral one, the feeling of a landscape on my skin, in my bones, and translation down generations. I’m interested in how colonialists saw these ‘new world’ landscapes; there were ‘Enlightened’ thinkers who deeply thought about the environment, but saw the environment as an influence on the people as opposed to a conversation - the landscape was a un-thing; oppressive even. The environment was a way to justify a hierarchy of race, and from there racial definitions became ways to legitimise slavery, exploitation… our beloved environment was a reason to subjugate. So my bl
‘The (Malay)Asian Friend’ I think this will be a series of essays, a disgruntled thread that may take a lifetime to untangle. The continued misunderstanding of a complex nation, where borders and boundaries come from flux, where the jungle makes lines in the earth an impossibility and yet politics, nationalism, colonial lens and the exotic touristic eye compete to limit and define a nation built on migration and the movement of people. (and I realise that this could refer to not just Malaysia!) My original gripe comes from the limitation of how Malaysia food, and therefore Malaysians, gets represented in London. I write in my book (out in a year’s time) that we are boiled down to a few dishes - “roti canai, beef rendang, nasi lemak, nasi goreng, maybe sambal, and now laksa.” The request for these dishes is like a checklist of if a restaurant is ‘authentically’ Malaysia, or someone is authentically Malaysian if they know/like/eat them. You don’t crave nasi lemak, are you really Malaysi