This is The Allusionist in which I Helen Zaltzman break the glass to use the emergency language. Previously on The Allusionist, Bebe Gourung talked about growing up in Singapore, speaking Singlish with his family and his peers while teachers and the government of Singapore tried to suppress the language. There was so much to say about Singlish that we're returning to it this episode.
Just before we get into it, I wanted to remind you of the excellent times you can have if you become a member of The Allusionist, not only are you helping fund the making of this show, you get behind the scenes information about the making of this show, usually a glimpse
into me at my most berserk, plus regular, relaxing live streams with me and my dictionaries, plus you get the company of your fellows in The Allusionist Discord Community, where among other things, like sharing knitting advice and book recommendations and hard-cooked baguettes, we watch things together, like the current British and Canadian seasons of
Bake Off and Taskmaster featuring my brother Andy. And on the agenda, we've got the film, what we do in the shadows, we are deep into our merchandise and ivory season, with the Bostonians Howard's end and Mississippi Masala still to come, then mid-November, we are going to be watching the BBC mini series of Pride and Prejudice, yes, the one with a wet shirt scene that was deleted from the book, and then when the Winterfall season hits
will be watching the film Carol together. Join us, theillusionist.org-denate. And while you're there on the website, I usually mention this at the end of every episode, but it's worth noting at the start, too, at the shows for Rev. The Illusionist.org. Every episode has its own post, with links to the guests and more information about the topics, and there are transcripts of every episode, and there's always a photo of the
dictionary entry for the randomly selected word. So if you're ever wishing for a readable version of this podcast, you've got them on with the show. I have made so much pie crust listening to the illusionist. Incredible. Yeah, I've baked so many pies in my life listening to your voice, which is like very, very wild. Yeah. This is basically the proudest moment of my career. That's so nice to hear, because like truly all my friends laugh about it, because like, won't ever shut up about how much I
love your podcast. Like they're like, okay, it's just about language. Just. And I'm like, yes, but it's like so much more. And then I was like, oh, so there's like a word of the day that you like try and use during the day. And they're like, okay, states. My name is Stacy Mayan Fong. I am an author and a home baker, and my book's called 50 pies, 50 states. And immigrants love letter to the country she shows in Chicago. I made, I'm going to say probably at least 48 out of the 50 while listening
to the illusionist. Whoa, no way. Stacy's book is recipes for pies as well as a kind of journey through the United States of America in the form of a different pie for every state. Yes, I have a pie for every state in America and some bonus pies for all the places that I grew up like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. What did you put in the Singapore pie? The Singapore pie is a pandan custard pie with conguan custard biscuit crust. It's like a crushed cookie crust. Conguan is basically the
Nabisco of Singapore. And they used to make these like custard crackers that my grandpa would give me all the time. So I would shut up because I would just want to talk to my, he was my favorite person. And whenever we would visit Singapore, I would just talk his ear off. And one of my favorite kid photos is from my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. And I'm in the most beautiful like pink frilly dress with like a flower crown on my head.
But I'm sitting there with like fistfuls of biscuits that my grandpa had given me. So I would like not talk during like anything that was happening. This is like one of the cutest things I've ever heard. But yeah, it's it's an ode to them and like the book is dedicated to my grandparents too. Cause I wouldn't be here without them.
Stacy was born in Singapore and raised in a Singaporean family. I'm speaking with her because while she was baking a pie with a person and filling, she was listening to the previous episode about Singlish. And it made her very emotional hearing about this language she had grown up speaking. Before he used to be a thing that was like very triggering and like frowned upon for me. And now it's like with growth and like understanding
its context and everything has become a huge comfort of mine. When I do meet someone that speaks English or is from Singapore, it's like a nice gentle reminder of where I'm from and how wonderful it is to be from a place that's so small but has such an impact and their own special language. When you say that it was triggering what kinds of feelings were you feeling? I guess like embarrassment that someone in my family sounded that way like it wasn't the proper
way for them to speak. And what would happen if you weren't proper? Mostly it would just be sitting in a corner in silence. Yeah, I know. We were very well behaved girls. Could you just talk about where you use Singlish and with whom and what kind of role it had in your life growing up? Yeah, I feel like I fall back into it when I'm with my extended family. And I feel it was like only ever in like casual conversation that was like just the family. If we were at a restaurant
or something it wouldn't happen. But it was a very much like a when you take your jacket off at the end of the day kind of situation like you no longer have to be like a proper upstanding person in society. You can just talk freely. That's when it would come up. Yeah. Like it's, Singlish is so casual to me. Yeah, it always felt like not proper to use. I always remember my grandmother being like speak properly. Speak in proper English. And it would be like oh okay,
sorry, you know. Well, how did you feel when she would say things like that? You know, it felt really weird because like I am a very casual person. But it's also with my grandmother. She was a really like stern lady and me and my sisters were the last set of grandkids. So by then she kind of had it. But it really just added to the shame, you know, of speaking that
way or like sounding that way. It was like okay, like this is not the proper way to speak. I have to speak like in a full sentence in a nice way in the same way that they do and like the movies are on TV because we never ever heard anybody speak Singlish on TV or in any movies. So it was like this is not the right way you're supposed to speak. You need to speak properly. And then when you're older, you're like what is proper really? Exactly. Like what does that mean at all to anybody?
And like what's the standard of being proper? And the standard was like British English, those manners, obedient, trying to be obedient is the like right word. I think that was like the bar that was set. And then we had to like uphold ourselves to that bar. Someone who has been working to demonstrate that Singlish is not improper English, but its own language and one with literary worth is Guili Sui. Hi, I'm Guili Sui. I am a Singaporean poet, but also a translator of many
Singlish books and I write in and on Singlish and I love it a lot. Have you always loved it? Unconsciously or unconsciously. You see it's one of those things that I've grown up with. I've used it casually at home with friends and all that. But I never thought that I love it until I am forced to account. But I think when I realized that there's such a huge sector of such such a big group of Singaporeans who are misunderstanding this thing that is so much a part of me, I think I can
let it go on. I mean, I cannot let the ignorance and the falsely stirred up feelings be the thing that deny what I understand as a truth about Singaporean life. Gui has published more than 20 books including poetry, graphic novels and Singlish translations of English language fiction. And he has also written books about Singlish. In 2017, Gui released a book called Spirking Singlish, a companion to how Singaporeans communicate. It's not just a few words here and there.
It has its own grammar, yes, its own syntax. And those are I think mostly not talked about. So I wrote a Singlish book explaining Singlish. There had been books about Singlish before. The first were by the humorist Sylvia Tog Piaq Choo. Egun Du in 1982 was followed by Lagi Guand Du in 1986. These books compiled some Singlish terminology and were the first to put this spoken language into print. And more books have followed, like 2002's Coxford Singlish Dictionary by Colin
Goe and Yen Yen Wu that emerged from their humor website, TalkingCock.com. Yes, Coxford is Port Mantuan Cock and Oxford. Talking Cock is a Singlish term for bantering. All these books use English to talk about Singlish. But in Gui's Spirking Singlish, he is writing about Singlish in Singlish. Which people say, you know, isn't it defeat this because anyone consulting your book
would be wanting to learn Singlish, but you write it in Singlish. My response is, if you look at English dictionaries and English and psychopedias, they too are written in English, explaining English words. If we can't go to that level, then we are not really developing the language. One of the things that really caught my eye reading the book was the table showing how the meaning of a short phrase could be changed significantly by different particles being on
the end. Yes, I think it's here. And listen, they kind of win viral. There are 10 examples in the table, including I done have a layer which translates to, for some reason, I don't have it. Whereas I done have law means, I wish I had it, but sadly I don't. And I done have law means don't look at me. I don't have it. They come from different languages, interestingly. Interestingly, ever since I came up with this, I found some more of these end particles.
I mean, you just keep growing so many particles that one of the pocket size follow-ups to speaking Singlish is all about particles. And just that last word alone will change the entire meaning. Or how to treat that statement, whether you should see as spoken out of spite or spoken out of just a sense of fun, is entirely dependent on that part of the word end. People often talk about just what a good language Singlish is for being funny in. You've got
a lot of word play, a lot of puns. But there's more that you want people to know about it, right? Like other qualities as well. Yeah. Yes, you're right. I mean, I think basically people tend to just laugh with Singlish because it sounds so, I guess, cute, quirky. He has an interesting rhythm. And we mostly often use Singlish and Singapore to cajole to mock others as well. And so, in that sense, it tends to be attached to humor. Also, it's tied to the history of performance
of Singlish on the media and in theatre and all. It's often tied to humor. I also partly wonder whether the reason why Singlish has an affinity on the popular circuit with humor is because it did not want to get on the wrong side of politics. You know, it didn't want to make itself out to be a totally dangerous divisive thing. So it treated itself as something you can afford not to be
attention to and just laugh off. And because of that, we tend to forget that aspect of Singlish that is about common life where we use it to express ourselves feelings of frustration, feelings of boredom, conversation that you try to have. We people on the street and all that. We use that in non-humorous context as well. So, this is one thing I taught my translations are able to do better to show that it is not just about humor. Gwee's first full-length Singlish translation was
published in 2019 and it was the first time a literary classic appeared in Singlish. It was the Lita Tungku, the little prince. If you're just reading this book for the humor, it's not going to last very long because the philosophical content or the book would just
take you in and then you, I guess, experience a story on the different level. It's still funny I guess in a way, but you also feel a bit sorrowful in relation to what is going on in the story and also started to realize that Singlish can be used for making a point, for arguing, for understanding parables and all that symbolic meanings. Singlish is able to do these other things that I feel is not properly explored and I think we should. Gwee has also published translations of selected Grims
Fairy Tales, the Tale of Peter Rabbit and Winnie the Pooh. I got a book just out today. Oh my god. I mean, I could grab it. It just arrived, you know, it takes a long time for books to move from Germany to Singapore and finally it's here. So, it's here in Singlish. It's Gwee's translation of George Orwell's Animal Farm. In Singlish, the title is Kakafarm. Kakafarm. As the way we say it's a kind of kid language. I mean, when we were young, you know,
anything that bites, you say, oh, that's a Kakafarm. It just becomes, for me, I think, a easy way to talk about in relation to animals. It's interesting that you've had to do so many talking animal books. We are hoping to move away, but I thought I'm still trying to build bridges. So we are slowly moving into a different terrain, more adulty books, but still I think animal farm has enough of that fabled elements to make it feel like a child canjo. I came to animal farm as a kid. I remember
watching the movie version in the 70s and I have no idea what it was. I know it was a terrifying show. I mean, on the same level as the watership down on those two ships. You know, why they're showing kids this show? But I remember growing up watching this. And it kind of traumatized me, but it stayed with me that movie animal farm. And so I thought, hey, it's a good story to bring to the consciousness of not just children, but also adults. I think. And of course,
the whole story is really based on the Russian revolution. That history is more or less, I not remember by the current generation of people. They don't know about the USSR. I know that. But I mean, I grew up on that, but there's still so much about all else ideas that I find still relevant with the story aspects like revisionist system, the use of it for political reasons, propaganda, all this is staying with us. Animal Farm just gets those ideas through. And I hope that
people read these books. They are able to see this in a very localized sense as well. And it's not just to say, ah, this is a book about the past or all this is a book about England, but also this is a book about, yeah. Even though most of Gweez translations so far have been of children's books, he wants adults to know that reading Singlish is for them too, not just for children.
Yes. And we're slowly moving there, especially with animal farm. One of the things that has developed in relation to Singlish is that it has with the internet becomes something that is written as well, previously is primarily spoken. And so we have actually much excitement about how to write certain words and also debate on let's say words in Malay are always spelled a certain way, but people who don't know Malay would have tended to spell it according to how they pronounce it. So there are
debates on that level as well. That's very exciting because we are kind of like coming to some agreement on how to write it. I'm still being taught by Singlish. I'm still being taught by Singlish speakers. So with each book my spelling can change, my choice of words can change. Me making errors and all
is not as important as there being historical documents. Something you've talked about with your translations is that you aim to have a mix of different languages in a sentence, which seems like it's adding an extra level of difficulty on top of everything that is already complicated about being a translator. Yes, I realized by changing the mix for each character, I can actually define the character's quality. So with for example, we need a pool. We need
Singlish is a bit different from a piglet's Singlish. You know, if I can do this, I can use the the the mix to define the character. And I thought, well, that's one for this something I can do with Singlish. I can do this uniquely with Singlish precisely because there's this mix of different
languages. That is magnificent. That is such a good idea. This is something only I realized when I was starting to do the grims because I realized if I want to give the characters or the different stories, different setting, different background, you know, some are set in the in castles, sand or set on the beach. I mean, considering that I need to give a sense of a universe,
I can with each story give a different quality of Singlish. And at some point if I realize that it's too difficult, it requires people to know too many words from different sources, then I will play it down a bit. But the point is to get a right balance. And the point is also not to avoid having multiplicity of languages because that is central to Singlish. What I find interesting is people getting back to me and say, why do you use this word and not that word? Feedback, I get all
the time too. I mean, of course, with any language, even in English, right, you have a choice of words when you ask to find a substitute for a particular word. And that happens to Singlish, you know, and so if I choose one word, someone will say, why don't you do this? Or the complaints I had originally would be like, oh, there are too many Malay words in your little tongue. Meanwhile, the other side will say there are too many,
fucking words and too many Mandarin words, Chinese words, you know. And then there's Obyan Malassite that, oh, there's so few English words. We need more English words. Wow, I said, look, yeah, why don't you guys do the translation yourself and see the notes I have to face, right? You know, it cannot be this is my community's way of speaking Singlish and the rest of you, you find your own book. I'm not doing that kind of Singlish translation, you know. I'm trying to
find a kind of Singlish that respects everyone's version of Singlish. And it provides that window in which they can hear themselves, but they can also hear other people's Singlish. You have different communities having their own Singlish, you know. And I hope my translations help to bring them together again, help them to listen to others and not just their own. And I think we are losing the multi-lingual aspect of Singlish, which I think is powerful and ought to be kept because it
is about people from different communities trying to connect. How do you feel it is kind of shifted in your lifetime? It's a dynamic language in a way. My parents' Singlish would have a lot more Malay words. Passam Malayu, street Malay was the kind of dominant lingua fangkara spoken on the streets before independence. So a lot of this actually went into Singlish initially. The Malay phrases are picked up less from our parents than from being in the army for the men. And that's where
a lot of the Malay phrases come in. And also a lot of the Hawken phrases. For some reason, Hawken is a preferred Chinese dialect if you want to swear or say something really vulgar. Interesting. They all have their role in Singlish. Also part relating to the history of language, policies and Singapore. Because I guess in the 80s when they started to have this speak good Mandarin campaign, trying to encourage all the different Chinese dialect groups,
speakers to kind of like all speak Mandarin. What happened was that a lot of these dialect speakers, I mean like my parents, my grandparents, I guess. I mean they do feel increasingly unable to connect with the newer generation that grew up speaking Mandarin in taught to them in school. And so the created this kind of generation gap between the generations. And as a result of that, Singlish played this very interesting role. It's where all the dialects are skipping to. And so
people speak Singlish as a way to connect between generations. I think my generation, the younger generations this stage, the Singlish is become very skilled to be dominantly English. And also because of the internet, they have picked up a lot of these phrases from elsewhere and kind of like weave them into their Singlish as well. Yeah, it seems like so many new terms have been coined all the time.
You know this as a linguist, there are words that will go out of fashion and then come back in again. After a few years, for some reason, something that triggered the relevance of that word of phrases and it come back in again. For example, there's one like Stylomylo that was used during my father's generation. As a way to describe something that's been very stylish and it's all in Stylomylo. The Milo in Stylomylo refers to the chocolate malt drink powder. I mean, Singlish loves rhymes.
So it's just not enough to say stylish, like with Stylomylo and Milo. And so that was big during that time. I remember hearing that quite a lot. And somehow sometimes in the 80s, 90s, it kind of disappeared. I mean, nobody used Stylomylo because it's not Stylomylo to use Stylomylo. You know, it kind of went out of fashion. But I don't know. That's just a retro thing. And like the last few years, it's come back in fashion again. I guess it's like each generation revives the clothing styles
of just before they were born. Yeah, yeah. I guess. I mean, there were words that will always be around like Shok, Lai and all that. Those are standard Singlish. But also, I guess all the Singlish speakers being able to feel, I mean, somehow, whether words are relevant to their current reality and current experiences. How are people learning Singlish? Are there any four more classes anywhere? Or is it all from their peers and their families? Good, good, good question. I think the
best way to learn Singlish is to live amongst Singaporeans. If you watch YouTube, if you watch Instagram and social media, they will have these clips that will promote Singlish. Those are not not necessarily correct. They tend to simplify Singlish for laugh. And I guess to get clicks and off. There is certain meaning, of course, in what they're doing. But they are also not entirely
accurate. Another way people acquire or expand their Singlish is while doing national service in Singapore's military, because it crosses the different linguistic backgrounds of all these young men who have been brought together. There's no formal classes for very good reasons, because I think the state hasn't really come to a position of accepting Singlish officially yet. There are years in which Singlish has gone into really the bad books. But then I think in recent years, it seems like
they have used Singlish to promote their own programs, their own websites. For example, the government of Singapore advised citizens to get the COVID vaccine via a comedy song in Singlish. Get your shot, steady-pompp. Sorry for the zero worm. The song is performed by Germit Singh as his very popular sitcom character, Pachukong. Steadie Pompompp was one of his catchphrases, means something wrong with the lines of being
calm in a crisis. We talked about him last episode, because the government targeted that character, as a Singlish speaking example of spreading bad English. But here they are two decades later, taking advantage not only of his popularity, but of Singlish as a way of communicating with the populace. They themselves have gone into using Singlish understanding that that's the best way to reach Singaporeans. And so it's unclear to me right now until they say something official,
where the position is on Singlish. And I'm not going to go make the mistake, like I did when I wrote that New York Times article that got me into trouble. Oh, writing a New York Times article got way into trouble. We'll hear all about that after these messages from our sponsors. The Illusionist is sponsored by Home Chef. Meal Kits with pre-portioned ingredients,
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Is the government's war on Singlish finally over? Are wacky, sings on Creole may seem like the poor cousin to the island's four official languages, but years of state efforts to quash it have only made it flourish. Now even politicians and officials are using it. Greeley's article included some Singlish terms and a brief account of language policies in Singapore, along with the status of
Singlish. He said, finally grasping that this language is irrepressible, our leaders have begun to use it publicly in recent years, often in strategic attempts to connect with the masses. 10 days later, the New York Times published a letter from Lelian Chang, who was then press secretary to the prime minister of Singapore. She refuted Greeley's article and said, standard English is vital for Singaporeans to earn a living and be understood not just by other
Singaporeans, but also English speakers everywhere. But English is not the mother tongue of most Singaporeans. For them, mastering the language requires extra effort. Using Singlish will make it harder for Singaporeans to learn and use standard English. It was unexpected because I don't think anything I said in that article was untrue. Also, with a formal argument that I thought was
passé, which is to recreate Singlish with bad English. It was inherited argument. It is a way of thinking that they had always stuck with, even though things have changed and a large portion of society has understood that Singlish is really a strong part of identity. And to come down hard on it is to come down hard on the part of ourselves. And when that happened, what is more immediately traumatic for me was that there were people who felt like this was a time
to stick their voice out and speak out against Singlish. For about one or two months, it was a discussion in a press. People were writing in, complaining about Singlish. And I do get even hate meals. People would write to say that because of you, my kid can't speak English properly. Because of people like you, they're creating all this social divide and all that. I get blamed for all sorts of things. Yeah, everything's your fault.
Yeah, everything's my fault. And it's like nothing to do with the kids that your kid go out with, the programs your kid watch, nothing to do with whether your kid actually studies hard, whether schools are teaching English correctly, all these are central to whether your kid learns his English or not. Singlish is a separate method altogether. Even if a person speaks zero English, there is no guarantee the person can speak good English. At some level, I felt it's
not really about English really. I mean, it's for certain people having feeling that they need to show their support for government policies or opposite people who feel like they need to say something against official ideas and all that. And so they take this as a way to have a kind of hostile discussion with each other. And I mean, I was like, okay, I'm going to do my own thing. I'm just going to write my English books and and you see for yourself, I mean, we can have
all this discussion. But until you see a textual version of Singlish, you will not start to see that there is grammar, that is his own grammar. There is a certain integrity to the way we speak in Singlish. And then, you know, we are dealing with a young language. We are dealing with something that we ought to be protecting and not attacking because we have not yet known what is capable of. Singlish is one of those things, the potential of which we're yet to tap in properly. There can be
so many things you can do with it. And with the translations that I'm doing now, that is to highlight that, you know, this is this were things that we could have been doing for decades and we did not. I mean, the younger generation, I think, are more forward looking and they're more enlightened on this issue, which is great. A lot of the young people actually feel that it's not a conflict between speaking good English and Singlish. You mentioned that there had been this negative response to your
New York Times piece. Did you get anything like that when you published speaking Singlish or any of the translated novels? Spiriting Singlish. Because of the humorous content, I think people are, even if they don't agree with my thoughts on Singlish or don't like Singlish, they are willing to just close one eye. I've just felt like, you know, I don't want to have to talk about the debate or the issues about the debate. I just want to show them what it is. You know,
showing is better than talking around the whole issue. So I did it and any people enjoyed it. They laughed about it. That was fun. I think the real transgression happened when I was doing the translation because it felt to them wrong. Wrong that I am instead of elevating Singlish and making a mockery of this classics. I cannot be doing it right. That's the thing that I hope will go away with time. Once they realise the amount of thought and sensitivity are put into
the translation, with time, I think that will go away. But I do have people reacting quite badly to it, saying things like burn the books and all that. I do have people falling to be burnt. I mean, it doesn't work if the books are electronic. So they're going to have to rethink that. Yeah, not yet. I said for speaking Singlish, the translations are not yet in electronic form.
It might be at some stage. My hope is that they are saying this only because they have not actually opened the books and not actually realising if they were to give the book time, they were experiencing something that never felt. Maybe that's what they're scared of.
Maybe. But with the translations, once you see that Singlish can approach high literary language, once you realise that it is not something to be ashamed of and that it is something that can even elevate literary text or make it relevant to your own experiences in a powerful way, then we can take Singlish to the next level. I mean, we constantly in Singapore always want to think about things that we can bring to the world, bring something productive, positive to the world.
And yet here we have something that we are constantly trying to hold back, control, make less of when it could have been so much more. Singlish among other things is a connecting language. It is highly exorbitant. I think the reason why Singlish is so popular among tourists and also among people in different parts of the world is that they can find an entry point to Singlish. Whether you're in Pakistan, China, you know, Southeast Asia, you can always find an entry point
to Singlish. When you go into Singlish, you go into a very heavily nuanced language that has connections directly to what is happening in social, political world here. And in that sense, every word really calls something that happens in the past of the country. And it also shows a very creatively trying to make sense of the existence. When the dialects got into trouble, when they were not allowed to be spoken publicly, officially, they escaped into Singlish. Singlish becomes the refuge.
There are so many things that Singlish does in the history of Singapore that, you know, I think one day when we estimate it, we will learn properly to love it. Stacy Mayan Fong learned to love it after she moved to the USA for college. I think the move to the US was such a big pivotal point in my life because that was the first move that I did completely on my own. Like it wasn't dictated by
like my dad's job or like anything like that. Like I made the choice to move here on my own. And you know, when you come from like a Chinese family, you never really think of yourself as a one. You think of yourself as a part of a bigger whole. All of your actions also dictate how the rest of your family is going to be seen or like what you're going to do. And like for me, I was a pretty rebellious kid. And so I was always made to feel like shame that I wasn't like going to be a doctor
or like going to do as well as like the rest of my siblings or my cousins. So like when I moved to America, I felt such freedom. And in that freedom, it allowed me to like acknowledge and explore parts of my childhood like being from Singapore in a fresh set of eyes and like really own like who I was as a person. I am my own version of like what a Singaporean person or a Chinese person is. And that doesn't make me less than or more than anyone else. You know, it just makes me myself.
And like before like when I would go home and visit my extended family, like hearing English felt really triggering. Wow. Because I was just like, oh god, like I'm like not like these people like I moved away. I'm not going to sound like these people or talk like this at all. Because it's like not the correct way to talk. And then now when I hear it or like I hear it by meeting people in the city or people I've met like on book tour and stuff, like I find it so comforting.
It's like this weird shift I've had like as an adult where like I'm no longer like bearish by the fact that I'm not white. Which is such a sad thing to think about. But I'm like so comfortable with like my identity now who I am. How growing up in all those different places like brought me to where I am now. Singlish now is very comforting to me.
Today we heard from Stacey Mayan Phong and Gwili Sui. Stacey Mayan Phong is the author of the delectable cookbook, 50 pies, 50 states, an immigrant's love letter to the United States through pie. Gwili Sui is a poet, editor, academic and translator of books including the little prince the leader, tunggu and kaka faan. He also wrote Spirking Singlish, a companion to house Singaporeans communicate. Oh hello there. What's that you're asking for? An antidote to all the despair you see in the world.
Here's one, the podcast Constantwanda from BYU Radio. Every episode gets into what makes us think and feel via people talking about nature. For instance in the new season there's an Arctic Explorer explaining what to do when you encounter a bear or a beluga. And I particularly enjoyed listening to National Geographic's Alistair Humphries who, having rode across an ocean and biked around the world, applied his adventurer instincts to his London neighborhood.
When I lived in London I loved to do that too. It really is nature to behold everywhere, even somewhere as built up as London. My old neighborhood was rich in parakeets, ancient oak trees and foxes eating fried chicken bones out of people's bins. I once even saw a sparrow hawk carrying off a pigeon. Constantwanda helps our eyes and ears open to the environment that we're in. And to the interests and the details and yes the wonder that is all around us.
Listen to Constantwanda, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks ever so much to Squarespace for supporting the illusionist and for being our one-stop shop
for building and running our online BYUWICs. Underrated word that, BYUWIC. I've never had occasion to say it before even, but it felt appropriate for how my Squarespace feels to me because it's a realm where I have jurisdiction and it's my realm of expertise, it's not my expertise, I'm the conduit of other people's expertise, but what I mean is having all of Squarespace's features at my litter or fingertips makes my shows forever home feel so expansive.
Because I can have the option of a fairly straightforward website where you can just listen to the podcast easily. But I also want you to be able to find the transcripts. The lexicon with all the words listed and links to the episodes that discuss them, the events page. Maybe later I'll add some new pages as a treat to myself because the podcast is more than what you listen to and Squarespace is more than a Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com slash illusionist for a free trial.
And when you're ready to launch, save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code illusionist. You're randomly selected word from the dictionary today is Jobbery. Now, the practice of using a public office or position of trust for one's own gain or advantage. Try using jobbery in an email today, but don't do it. Please. This episode was produced by me, Helen Zoltzman, on the unseeded ancestral and traditional territory
of the Musqueam Squamish and Slow With Tooth Nations. Many thanks to Wylene Ong. Martin Auswick provided editorial assistance and also the music. Listen to it with lyrics via palebirdmusic.com. Our ad partner is multitude to sponsor this show. Perhaps you thought products you want to sell for the winter bull season. Get in touch at multitude.production slash ads. And you can hear or read every episode of the illusionist. Get more information about the topics and the guests who talk about
them. The natives support the show and become a member of the illusionist with all the delightful perks that entails. And see the full dictionary entries for the randomly selected words. And keep track of events that are coming up like the 10th birthday live show. All at the shows forever home. Theillusiness.org