I’m experimenting with a slightly different format for these Monday briefings, because I’m finding that over the course of a week, I come across just as much interesting short-form content (reels, shorts, videos, tweets) as long-form (articles, essays, posts). I’ll chunk Monday Briefings into these sections: News Roundup, Watch/Scroll, Read and Ponder.
News Roundup
You’d think Iran did a literal shots-fired-first over the weekend, the way most news outlets reported it, but if you’ve been paying attention over the past 12 days, it was probably an escalate to de-escalate move after Israel’s attack on Iran’s embassy in Syria. Everyone’s wetting their knickers and nobody’s terribly sanguine, but so far, markets haven’t been rocked… yet.
In the meantime, Chinese social media paid a fair amount of attention to Yellen’s culinary choices during her visit last week, and from what I can tell, she’s a reasonably adventurous eater, which does impress us Chinese. As Robert Wu deftly puts it, the way to win Chinese people over is through our tongues and stomachs. Not for nothing do we greet each other with “have you eaten yet?” more than a “you good?”
My country’s PM has announced that he will step aside a month from now, on the 15th May, to make way for his deputy Lawrence Wong to lead party and country until the next general election (certainly by this September, I predict). Watchers of bloodless transitions of power, take note, and here’s a handy reminder on how Singapore got so rich so fast.
Watch/Scroll
Cooking even 1kg of rice well is impressive. How much more 350kg batches of plov in Uzbekistan?
Videogame-to-TV bloat continues. The Last of Us is still going strong, and Fallout joins its ranks. I’ve never actually played the latter, so I can’t speak as a fan, only as a detached observer. If dark post-apocalyptic humour is your jam, this new series might be worth bingeing on.
Read
What is a garden club, and what did it have to do with the social emancipation of Chinese women in Singapore?
Remember last week’s spotlight on naughty Trader Joe’s private labelling? Trung Phan breaks down the anti-grocer’s strategies for success.
Ponder
Much of the world lives with the legacies of 19th-century imperialism, ranging from tolerable to terrible. Zuhaib Ahmed Pirzada writes about how British dam-engineering in the 19th and 20th centuries created food scarcity and submerged lives in Sindh, Pakistan, and how the future looks far more bleak in the face of climate change.
P. S. The person who edited this (aka me) will soon be redundant, according to The Spectator. If that’s the case, it’s been nice knowing you all. 😉