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Shaun Tan
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The Grand Strategy of Sang Kancil
15 Mar 2013 by admin / No Comments
by Shaun Tan
One animal and only one is known as the trickster of the Malaysian jungle. Scarcely a foot tall, the small brown oval of his body supported by pencil-thin legs, Sang Kancil The Mousedeer seems jittery and pathetic. But underestimate him at your own risk, for behind his doe-like face and black-bead eyes lurks a matchless intelligence. He is the animal of twists and turns, the deer of many devices, he is wily and cunning and none can resist his silver tongue.
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Binding Ourselves Together
09 Mar 2013 by admin / No Comments
by Shaun Tan
This speech was delivered at the Perak Bar Council in the beautiful city of Ipoh on 1 February 2013.
You know, when I was asked whether I might like to speak to you today, I have to admit, I felt a little intimidated. Since I’m kind of an arrogant person, that doesn’t happen very often, so that was somewhat significant.
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Asia’s New Elite
14 Jul 2012 by admin / No Comments
by Shaun Tan
Note: The following was written as the final paper for a class at Yale.
“Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two; one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.” - Plato, The Republic
It can be said that the walls around gated communities mark the borders of a foreign country. Of course, not all exclusive neighborhoods are surrounded by walls – many are not – but the effect is largely the same. Within these neighborhoods live many of the countries’ elite, ensconced within their own bubbles with their own sets of rules.
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Truth is arrogant
10 May 2012 by admin / No Comments
By Shaun Tan
The most worrisome thing about Yale-NUS College is the effect it has had on our administrators. In their desire to bolster support for the project and please their Singaporean counterparts, they’ve subordinated the truth to an eerie political correctness.
Lately, very smart people have said very ridiculous things. Last week, President Richard Levin opposed a clause in a faculty resolution expressing concern about Singapore’s “lack of respect for civil and political rights” because he claimed it “carried a sense of moral superiority.”
His sentiments were echoed by Economics Department Chair Benjamin Polak, who worried that the resolution’s language would be considered arrogant or offensive. The administration has grown reluctant to make any kind of value judgment on Singapore.
This stifling political correctness has produced absurdity.
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The Whitehouse Apartments
17 Apr 2012 by admin / No Comments
By Shaun Tan
London lies before me with her legs wide open, this exquisite whore who costs so much to love. I am standing at the rooftop garden of my apartment looking at the city at night. Nearby is the London Eye, a big wheel of light, colors ever changing, now red, now blue, now emerald green, its great spokes gently turning. I can see its pods filled with the silhouettes of tourists, like bubbles suspended in the air, a brief flash from a camera occasionally visible. Next to it the Golden Jubilee Bridge stretches across the Thames, and on the opposite side lie Westminster Palace and the Big Ben, their gothic spires illuminated in the distance.
The city is beautiful.
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The rise of negation
08 Feb 2012 by admin / No Comments
By Shaun Tan
When I was speaking to Chris Patten, the ex-governor of Hong Kong, in 2008, I asked about Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis: did he foresee an ideological clash between China and the West?
Lord Patten replied that China posed no ideological threat to the West because (given the waning fervor for Chinese communism) there’s no such thing as a Chinese ideology. Western commentators generally agree: although Asia competes with the West economically, the only ideological threat to Western freedom and democracy comes from Islam.
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To the West and back
27 Jan 2012 by admin / No Comments
By Shaun Tan
Examine East Asian perceptions of elite schools and the word that springs to mind is schizophrenic. The ruling elite in Malaysia denounce the West as decadent imperialists, while shipping their offspring to Western schools. Singapore, smug in its assurance of Asian superiority, continues to send its best minds to Britain and the U.S. Likewise China, another critic of Western imperialism, sends countless scholars to the Ivy League (the liberal bastion of America) and Oxbridge (the old heart of imperialism).
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