Dear reader,
Happy new year! We hope you had a restorative break. Today we have a contemplative piece on how we can each find greater fulfilment and balance by normalising rest. So even as we all rev up for the new year’s work rhythms, let’s think about how and when we want to rev down.
But first, some news. Sing Lit Station has announced its 2025 Jalan Besar Fellowship recipients. We’re happy that Corrie Tan, Jom’s arts editor, is one of them. As part of her project, Corrie will be conducting an arts writing workshop and an arts editing clinic. For writers and editors who’ve enjoyed Corrie’s criticism over the years, look out for those in March-April 2025. We’ll let you know when registrations open.
Print. Thanks to the hundreds of you who’ve bought our print magazine issue No. 2. Many of you have asked us if it’s a “best of” compendium of Jom’s digital offerings. No. It’s all new, original work, including one significant update of an older web piece. Buy it now.
“Singapore This Week”. In our weekly digest, we look at Parliament’s discussion of the NRIC unmasking debacle; the worrying inequalities in literary and other proficiencies in Singapore, according to the OECD; “kidults” and their toys; Singapore Art Week; a new chip farm in Woodlands; and more.
Essay: “Rest and resets as revolutionary in modern society”. Toh Ee Ming has today published her third essay for Jom. I love how her roving mind, pen and camera—she’s once again taken the photos—unearths stories in unlikely places. Her first piece looked at young Singaporeans choosing shared renting arrangements over home ownership, and her second at off-road motorbiking on state land in Singapore.
Today she takes us to Shaxi, a small town located between Yunnan’s more famous cities of Dali and Lijiang. Her 10-day immersion in rural life, where she learned how to make traditional dyes while surrounded by majestic mountains, forms the basis for a deep meditation on the very meaning of rest in modern society.
“What are the contradictions of trying to live free and easy in a hyper-competitive, hyper-urban state like Singapore? Often, ‘taking a break means having to pay back later’ in the form of a backlog of work, which obliterates the restorative effects of the break, explained [NUS sociologist Vincent] Chua.
…The Slow Movement advocates for balance, allowing people to control the pace of their own lives and decide when, how and how much they work. In today’s information economy, creative thinking often occurs outside rigid schedules. By promoting a better balance between work and life, we can live better if we consume, manufacture and work at a more reasonable pace.”
In the piece, we also follow Ee Ming on volunteer trips to Peru and Japan, and meet a wonderful cast of characters all engaged in this slow movement in their own way: Ting Wang, who left a stable job and marriage in Singapore for Yunnan; Cheah Wenqi, co-founder of media company Our Grandfather Story, grieving from a family loss and burnt out from the demands of entrepreneurship; and a baby foal named Eve, who lay with Ee Ming in the grass while the grown-ups ran across the field.
“When was the last time you were truly dazzled? The last time you lay beneath the sky, sauntered through woods and hills, or let yourself disconnect from a screen?”
What is life actually about? Thank you, Ee Ming, for helping us ponder this age-old question. Read her piece now. Or later. Or some time.
Jom rehat,
Sudhir Vadaketh
Editor-in-chief, Jom
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