Who wouldn’t cry when they realize that they are dead?
The capital beyond twilight is full of nocturnal birds squealing annoyingly on electricity poles. Who would have known that they were messengers of death who perform music to send souls to the underworld?
Stella is a ghost boy in a skirt who lives in an abandoned tower in the middle of the capital. He calls himself the Eleventh Floor Theater Administrator. Every evening he wakes up to repeat the same routine, caring for lost children, watching a spectacular parade of the Defeated Gamblers. The boy wonders why the Reaper whom he lived with had not yet sent his soul away.
What secrets are the Reaper keeping from him? And what is he being protected from?
Maya Joseph is a Penang girl who dreams of becoming a writer despite her father’s objections.
Chong Mei Li is a stylish fashionista who wants to make her mark in the fashion world, although her parents want her to preserve their legacy by taking over the family business in Sabah.
Rohan Das, born and raised in Delhi, needs to work hard and secure a good job to support his middle class family. As the first born son, there’s a lot of pressure for him to excel and little room for him to explore his own interests.
As luck would have it, their paths cross at Maestro University and this unlikely trio soon become good friends. They each have their own dreams and aspirations, but struggle with the burden of family expectations, difficult lecturers and self-doubt. But no matter what happens, they’re always there for each other.
This story of love, loss and self-discovery reminds us that university life, often bittersweet, carves us into the people we are today. And many of the lessons we gain are learned outside the classroom with our dearest friends.
Creative conflict is the world’s most powerful ideation technique. It’s an essential requirement for breakthrough-thinking and the secret behind every invention and innovation ever made.
Are you overwhelmed by problems that need solving? Stuck looking for ideas? Pressured by deadlines and worried you don’t have a creative bone in your body? Then this is the book for you!
Collide demystifies the process of how to come up with effective, problem-solving ideas.
This book will help you discover how to unlock the transformative power of creative conflict. You will become an expert at sparking creativity. By the time you get to the end of this book, you will have all the tools to brainstorm like a champion.
But be warned. Smashing ideas together is messy. Things will be broken. There are dangers ahead and I can’t protect you from all of them. It’s time to put your safety goggles on. The ride’s about to begin.
In the hustle-and-bustle of our world today, convenience and efficiency have become hallmark appeals, even essential factors, in many people’s lives. New applications are churned out every day to respond to this demand. But nothing says ‘hassle-free’ more than Super Apps; apps that allow users to access several services from one single application.
With Super Apps like Grab and WeChat gaining popularity, and tech giants and FinTechs looking to stake their claim in this digital revolution, many might be wondering: What exactly are Super Apps? What is their significance in our world today?Are they the future for all things digital?
In One Stop, award winning FinTech lawyer, former diplomat, and dedicated social entrepreneur Neha Mehta answers these questions by tracing the history of Super Apps and analyzing cultural differences in their adoption and popularity (or lack thereof) in the East and West. Through stories of well-known Super Apps and in-depth interviews with central banks, entrepreneurs, and FinTech industry experts, this book illustrates the Super App revolution—the way it disrupts, innovates and creates opportunity.
With the COVID-19 pandemic as a background highlighting the need to move to digital platforms, One Stop also examines how Super Apps can potentially create an inclusive and sustainable world for all, in a future that looks increasingly digital.
Once you enter Mount Hantu, you may never leave …
When Robin’s school organizes a glamping trip at Mount Hantu, not everyone is thrilled. But the campers are soon dazzled by the luxurious tents, cozy beds and even a giant flatscreen TV at the campsite!
Before long, terrifying things begin to unravel. From a brush with death to the disappearance of a fellow camper, Mount Hantu seems more forbidding than ever.
Robin soon discovers that they’re not alone—something. . . or someone . . . is watching them from the shadows. Robin must unravel the dark secret of Mount Hantu before it’s too late.
Eighteen-year-old Nathaniel Carpio has been having chicken inasal with his best friend Elena Dizon at their favourite sidewalk grillery for four years now, and he likes that things are always the same. But then, on a particularly bad day, Lena whips out a silly six-peso coin to comfort him, and-with the moment holding nothing and everything at the same time-Nat realizes that he’s fallen in love with her.
It only makes sense that when Tala Tales Games-local developer of their favourite real-time strategy game Mitolohiya-offers college scholarships to a select few, the two of them should go for it, right? Nat certainly thinks so-there’s nothing better than spending the rest of his life with Lena doing something they both love.
But just when Nat’s game plan is coming along nicely, in pops a new challenger-Rafael Antonio, the world-renowned Filipino voice actor for the hero Apolaki in Mitolohiya. Now, star-struck Lena spends all her time bonding with her online idol, and Nat starts to feel more and more like a boring Non-Playable Character with zero chance against the Big Final Boss.
With the scholarship program underway and his future hanging in the balance, Nat embarks on an epic quest to compete with the celebrity in a real-world PvP match he’s not ready for. But in the midst of life’s frustrating glitches, epic wipeouts, and disastrous rage-quitting, is winning over his best friend the right strategy after all before it’s Game Over?
Bryce and Nora fall in love in their last year of high school. They worry about their relationship surviving after graduation but are separated sooner when Bryce’s father is transferred and Bryce has to leave.
Bryce promises to write but not in a conventional way. He promises to leave messages behind pictures in hotels where his father works. He tells Nora if she finds his messages, they are meant to be together.
Years pass and Bryce leaves messages for Nora as promised, but wonders if it may be more of a habit than anything else.
Bryce and Nora have moved on to other partners over the years and while Bryce still leaves messages for Nora, she has mostly forgotten his promise until she finds an old photo of Bryce. She begins to search for his messages and succeeds in finding one.
This action is enough for fate to trigger a series of serendipitous events that will bring Bryce and Nora together again but at what cost and who will pay the price?
‘You shouldn’t be with a Chinese girl…that should be my girl,’ a man in Singapore allegedly said this to a Chinese-Indian couple as he spat towards them. In a world brimming with such prejudice and cultural tensions, a remarkable phenomenon emerges: nearly one in five marriages in the USA and Singapore are now interracial. “Rebels, Traitors, Peacemakers,” explores this phenomenon through real stories of Indian-Chinese relationships, delving into the love and turmoil in such lives, where cultural boundaries are shattered and hearts are forged against all odds.
Spanning across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, these heartfelt accounts transcend borders, age, and sexual orientation to illuminate the unfiltered reality of cross-cultural unions. Families disown their own flesh and blood, individuals get locked and beaten up, and online trolls attack relentlessly. Married life offers no respite – cultural expectations breed misunderstandings, life seems hopeless in front of the unfamiliar letters on the washing machine, and differing parenting styles fuel frequent arguments over raising kids. The couples often ask themselves – why did I make my life so complicated?
And yet, the featured stories reveal the couple’s deep admiration for each other and a steely commitment to sustain their syncretic relationship. The Chinese father-in-law now dances Indian style. Strict vegetarians start cooking meat. While their love first appeared as treacherous rebellion, its endurance transforms lives and communities, forging a path towards unity in our fragmented world.
Journey alongside these bold protagonists, who through their triumphs and struggles, illuminate the intricacies of human nature and our universal yearning for connection.
Room 216 is about four strong female characters and their complex experiences. It tells the story of university roommates, each with a unique motivation and struggle. After graduation, Sandy, Tintin, Serene, and Issa embark on separate journeys that take each to different parts of the world. Following several relocations, Tintin now lives in America, ten thousand miles away from her ancestral home in the Philippines, but one that she keeps revisiting because it houses all her memories and has been the only permanent home she’s known. But her mother and sister now want to put the property for sale. Sandy, now based in Singapore, is an achiever who wants both career and family, but soon faces a marital crisis that may also threaten her most important role: being a mother. Serene is a doctor in Manila who realizes how life, in its real essence, is truly short. This awareness emboldens her to follow her heart, even if it means shunning her traditional Chinese family. Issa is simply stunning. She loves every inch of her beautiful body for the strength it gives her and for making her capable. But she is diagnosed with a disease that requires surgery and she must now come to terms with the attendant scar and the sense of incompleteness.
Over time and across continents, the roommates chase their respective destinies—some pursuits end in triumph, while others in unbearable loss.
A history of the Malay Peninsula and the islands of the Archipelago
In a collector’s edition, The Genealogy of Kings (Malay: Sulalat al-Salatin or Sejarah Melayu), is a literary
work that gives a traditional interpretation of the origin, evolution and demise of the great Malay maritime empire, the Malacca Sultanate. The work which was composed sometime between the 15th and 16th centuries, is considered one of the finest literary and historical works in the Malay language.
In 2001, The Genealogy of Kings was listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme International Register. The work covers the founding of Melaka and its rise to power; its relationship with neighbouring kingdoms and distant countries; the advent of Islam and its spread in Melaka and the region as a whole; the history of the royalty in the region including battles won or lost, marriage ties and diplomatic relationships; the administrative hierarchy that ruled Melaka; the greatness of its rulers and administrators, including the
Bendahara Tun Perak and Laksamana Hang Tuah.
