Hey! 👋
Welcome to Kawan—our vibrant community of data heads and storytellers. We’re all about improving data literacy and sharing nuanced stories about Asia. Come hang!
Have you eaten yet? That is to say, how are you? — issue #59
Have you eaten yet? That is to say, how are you? In Thailand, you may hear people greet each other with “กินอะไรหรือยัง? (kin khao reu yang?)”, meaning “Have you eaten rice yet?” It demonstrates how essential rice is to life in Thai culture, where it is equated
Unlearning what we know — issue #58
“I have learned the names of all the bushes, but I have yet to learn their songs.” These past months, the Kontinentalist team has been deep in learning and reflection. We started our “Decolonial Reading Club”: bi-monthly sessions breaking down coloniality, knowledge, and being. This quote from Braiding Sweetgrass, recounting
How has your community helped you in 2022? — issue #39
As we enter December, it’s a good time to reflect on the past year. Kontinentalist has grown a lot in 2022, and our progress was highlighted by a busy November—winning two awards, receiving invitations to DataFest Tbilisi and other summits, and hosting workshops at major events such as
Meet the Community! Julia Janicki, data visualisation designer/ developer and data journalist
Julia Janicki is an award-winning data visualisation developer and data journalist currently based in Paris, where she works at the Agence…
How do we learn? When will we learn? — issue #38
Recently, I travelled to Christmas Island to learn more about the Malay community there. I spoke to islanders whose ancestors hailed from all over the Malay archipelago—people whose culture, language, and traditions are an amalgamation of their diverse roots. I left feeling more informed, my insights both supplementing and
Humans of Kontinentalist: Nabilah Said
Nabilah joined Kontinentalist in June 2022 as our new Editorial Lead. Over the past few months, she’s written a micro-story on Mystical…
What are the spaces where you feel safest? — issue #37
In school, I was always considered the smart kid who could do no wrong. While this sounds like a cliché, the cardinal rule at my all-girls Catholic high school was to never stray from this label assigned to me. “Stick to the status quo”, as dictated by one of the
The silent crises in our hands —issue #36
To me, it is a country whose brilliance sometimes casts a shadow on its untold stories. We may be attractive and glamorous from the outside à la Crazy Rich Asians, but what’s less talked about is how our society and its systems can often, intentionally or not, overlook the
Meet the Community! Daisy Chung, visual communicator and illustrator
Daisy Chung is an award-winning science visual communicator and illustrator based in California and originally from Taiwan.
The stories we tell of ourselves — issue #35
Writing stories as a child, I was always tempted to inhabit the bodies and worlds of others. My characters ate treacle pudding and scones with clotted cream, bursting through attics and chimneys, generally being up to no good in locales vastly different from my own. No surprise, as the books
Humans of Kontinentalist: Qijin Tay
Qijin first joined as a web development intern before becoming a full-time member of Kontinentalist. We interviewed her twice, once in each…
Meet the Community! Wendy Wang Shijia, data viz designer, Tableau Public Ambassador and Visionary
Wendy Wang Shijia is a Shanghai-based data visualization designer, Tableau Public Ambassador and Tableau Visionary. Drawing on her decade…
Of things that flow and connect— issue #34
How does our built infrastructure affect our lives and our identities? What do these indelible marks on our landscapes mean? These are some of the questions asked at a new exhibition opened by the Singapore Art Museum, titled Lonely Vectors, where a map of ours is on display. While I’
Humans of Kontinentalist: Angel Martinez
Angel interned with us in our editorial and marketing departments for six months. Ever bright and helpful, she’s contributed to many…
