Announcing the Mynah Podcast
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Dear readers and soon-to-be listeners,
Mynah is launching a podcast! We’ve been a print-only magazine since 2016 and are now intimately familiar with the medium. As my colleague Karen mentioned in an earlier newsletter, print allows us to sell a physical product, generate revenue, and—crucially—pass that money on to our network of contributors. We have absolutely no plans to abandon print or longform. (The next issue is being planned for a Q3 2025 launch!) When Karen, Isabelle, and I started talking about Mynah in 2015, we did so as lovers of the essay. At the time, there weren’t many places to read longform essays about Singapore. We hoped Mynah could remedy that.
However, the years of talking to people to hear their untold Singapore stories have surfaced some of our initial plan’s limitations. I’ve heard so many great stories from people who have no time or inclination to write for the magazine. I totally get it. We publish essays that are 4,000 words long on average. An essay of that length, whether good or not, takes ages to produce. We don’t publish bad work (😇) so our essays take even longer. The essay is still a key priority for our publication. I’ve also come to realise that the amazing network we’ve built connects us to a wealth of expertise about Singapore society and culture. Rather than viewing this network as a tool for us to produce a better magazine, I feel a duty to make some of this knowledge available to a wider audience.
The Mynah Podcast is one way for us to do this. Each episode features someone from whom we’d love for you to hear. Our guests range from Mynah contributors, friends of the magazine, and people we’re personally fans of. You’ll hear from us every first Monday of the month. We’ll announce the debut episode in next week’s newsletter.
To be honest, when I pitched the podcast to the team, I said it would be an easier and less time-consuming process than the print magazine. This is still true but it has turned out to be much more work that I initially anticipated. A big reason for this is our move to a new medium. When we work in print, we rely heavily on our designer Cleo for the magazine’s high production value. Cleo is a graphic designer and publisher in her own right and the entire reason the magazine looks and feels professional.
Audio is entirely different from text. We’re very grateful to our friend Daniel Seah for showing us the ropes. Dan composed our theme music and gave us a late night crash course on mixing and mastering audio. If the podcast sounds good, it’s all him. If you hear any errors, it’s probably one of us.
Mynah Trivia League Season 1 Round 5 Answers
Thank you again to Lucas Ho for writing this round!
The director stationed in Singapore was Yasujirō Ozu who made Tokyo Story and Good Morning (an adorable film). He was apparently drafted to make propaganda but he just hung out at the Cathay and watched a lot of American movies. Speaking of American movies, did you know that A Clockwork Orange was banned in Singapore for over 30 years? That ban has since been lifted. The Projector just screened it this past August!
Mynah Trivia League Season 1
We’ve come to the end of the first season of Mynah trivia! After five weeks and countless DMs telling me my questions are too difficult, how does everyone feel? I love collecting and dispensing little facts, I hope you have enjoyed receiving them too.
We have a tie for first place: KUMARWOOD and Bonus Round!
The rest of the leaderboard can be found here.
Looking at it now, the top score being a whopping 6 out of 15 points might be an indication that I should write an easier quiz.
Please let us know what you think! We’ll take a break from the quiz next week so you’ll have plenty of time to make your opinions heard before Season 2 begins. See you in December for our PODCAST DEBUT!!!!!!!