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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!
There’s enough love to go around— issue #71
They say love can overcome any differences, but recent media trends may say otherwise. What does this mean for our society as a whole?
How a bad Valentine’s Day turned into a Bollywood data project
The team behind our latest story on Bollywood shares how they researched the films’ dataset, used large language models to classify genres, and crafted the visual design for this bespoke longform story.
Dataviz in Asia (April 24')
Spring is finally here! As my colleagues Zafirah, Munirah, Michael, and I brainstormed the theme for this issue, we found ourselves drawn to the transient essence of the season in April. It's a time marked by various new beginnings, with festivals such as Ponggal and Songkran happening, and
What’s in an Asian year? Deconstructing how we think about time
Working on a story about different Asian new years made our Editorial Lead Nabilah reconsider her ideas about time. In this article, she shares how her research made her question our reliance on the Gregorian calendar and what we can learn from the various Asian calendar systems
Bringing Lapis to life: How we built a storytelling platform from scratch
After more than two years of hard work, our data storytelling platform Lapis is finally out in the wild! Building our platform as a small team has been a largely iterative process, one that underscores the value of collaboration in our craft and requires us to learn (and unlearn!) as
The colours of girlhood — issue #53
Back in primary school, girls in my class used to circulate a dog-eared paperback copy of Judy Blume’s “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret”, giggling excitedly to the next person in line. I have fond memories of reading about 12-year-old Margaret’s adolescent adventures: getting her period
How media workers can be more gender-sensitive
In October 2023, I had the opportunity to participate in a gender-sensitive reporting workshop with some amazing journalists, media workers, and NGO representatives from five Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines). It was organised by Public Media Alliance (PMA), a global association of public service media
Dataviz in Asia (March 24')
For this month’s Dataviz in Asia, we’re highlighting works by two of our favourite female data viz practitioners. Shirley Wu and Gurman Bhatia both use data to amplify the contributions of women in the arts and entertainment industries. We’re self-professed patrons of the arts here at Kontinentalist
Applying visual metaphors: How we visualised period poverty in Asia
This microstory came about when Singaporean period care company Blood launched its “Period-Positive Workplaces” movement in 2022. A communications agency had sent over a press release of the initiative, which included survey findings on period shaming at work. Having never experienced bullying or pressure of any kind related to my
Love, interrupted — issue #52
February means many things to us. For some, it’s a month of love which centres on that special day on the 14th. For others, it’s just another 29 days, each one not any more special than the other. For those of us who celebrate Chinese New Year, it’
How we talked about sex (ed), baby
We share our process of creating a microstory about the evolution of sex education policy in Singapore over the past two decades, shedding light on its pivotal role in shaping the nation's attitude towards sexuality—and vice versa. We delve into how we collated and analysed over 200
Dataviz in Asia (Feb 24')
Love is in the air this month, and data’s capturing every moment of it. For this issue of Dataviz in Asia, let’s look at all the creative ways that people are telling their stories of love through data visualisations. First, let's explore the epic love triangle
Love in Singapore: When the third-party is the state
There is a longstanding quirk associated with getting married in Singapore. Instead of proposing to their partner, a Singaporean might ask, “Wanna get BTO?” This entails applying for a public Built-To-Order (BTO) flat under the government’s Fiancè/Fiancèe scheme. It’s a balloting process, as BTOs are highly subsidised
Popping our bubble of convenience — issue #51
Last April, I met a Ukrainian journalist at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy. I thought my near-20 hours of commute to Rome was long, but she had travelled 24 hours to be there despite hailing from the same continent. What struck me was her steadfastness. Despite how disrupted