Chew Wee Kai

Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai notes that names carry everything from culture to history, values and identity — and even the trend of the time. So, what’s in a name? Plenty.

Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai gives his thoughts on school songs of Chinese-medium schools, and the ideologies and values they embody.

Post World War II, in the 1950s and 60s, some Chinese returned to China full of hope for new beginnings. When people are young, they are full of dreams, but all too often not all plans and aspirations can be fulfilled in real life, muses Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai. The important thing is to keep moving forward from the struggles of those times, even if it means to erase them from memory.

Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai gives his take on nonsense songs, from children’s rhymes to the latest viral hit in China — Luocha Haishi by Dao Lang. At first glance, these ditties seem to indulge one’s imaginations, but on closer inspection, they offer commentaries on the world.

Unless one is of a certain age today, one would probably not have etched wax paper or made printings from them. Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai recalls the days of painstakingly preparing sheets of wax paper full of the memories of youth.

An evening musing over an old wooden box of books prompted Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai to embark on a personal journey of discovery into the history and legacy of the book box.

Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai thinks fondly of old newspapers and the purpose they served in the past and still serve in the present. From spreading the news of the day to being used as decorations and even polishing glass, their role is humble no doubt, but always useful.

Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai ruminates on ageing and what goes on inside and out as one inevitably moves into the twilight of life, not least the obvious signs of failing eyesight. Where once it was a joy to read The Water Margin and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, now the spirit is willing but the eyes are weak.

Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai thinks back to the first time he attended a university graduation — in a tent. However, the solemnity of the event still shone through, in a fitting tribute to the effort of the graduates, as well as the travails of that storied university called Nanyang University (Nantah), and all that it came to represent.