Michelle Jana Chan

Nov 27, 2024 | smh.com.au | Michelle Jana Chan

By Michelle Jana Chan November 28, 2024 — 5.00am, register or subscribe to save articles for later. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Last year in Singapore, I celebrated the 101st birthday of one of my uncles, who lived in the country for most of his life. Until a year ago, he played golf several times a week. He still plays a mean game of ping-pong. He’s had COVID four times, which gives some indication of how sociable he is – and how tough.

Nov 15, 2024 | thetimes.com | Richard Mellor |Michelle Jana Chan

One might say that the island of Komodo, one of Indonesia’s 17,000-plus, has an outsized reputation. Fair play, given it is home to dragons. They might not fly or breathe fire, but they grow up to 3m long, and can run, swim and climb trees. Walking along a boardwalk on the north side of neighbouring Rinca island, I spied two flopped on the mud flats, and another moving ominously beneath the raised wooden planks.

Jun 27, 2024 | cntraveller.com | Michelle Jana Chan

Throughout my childhood, Guyana was, at times, romanticised; at other times it was remembered grimly for British colonial rule, race riots, political assassinations and corruption. I knew this far-off land mostly through the cooking of my grandmother, who somehow sourced cassareep in west London to conjure up pepperpot, a braised beef stew heavy with spice and fiery wiri wiri; chicken curry, which I mopped up with roti; and cook-up rice with black-eyed peas.

Dec 9, 2023 | telegraph.co.uk | Michelle Jana Chan

Timor-Leste, formerly East Timor, is one of the world’s great ocean destinations Looking out from Wata Bo’o beach, I saw a calm blue sea, the water unruffled, disrupted only intermittently by the splash of a leaping silvery fish. This serene tropical outpost, a thousand miles east of Bali, felt like it might have always been like this.

Dec 9, 2023 | sports.yahoo.com | Michelle Jana Chan

Looking out from Wata Bo’o beach, I saw a calm blue sea, the water unruffled, disrupted only intermittently by the splash of a leaping silvery fish. This serene tropical outpost, a thousand miles east of Bali, felt like it might have always been like this. Except the beach has had a troubled history. The Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and most recently, the Indonesians, battled over it.