emib250825_Gianni Program Introduction Cultural Christians, Communion, and the necessity of belonging: Fr. Gianni Criveller Out of curiosity on religious life in mainland, I seek enlightenment from Fr. Gianni Criveller, who has researched on the topic at length for an extended period of time. He is a Father from the P.I.M.E (Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions) missionary institute from Milan, who came to service Hong Kong in China over decades ago. He went onto head a theology institution back in Italy just before the breakout of the pandemic. I share in this and the next episode of “Message in a Bottler” his two-parts narrative documented years ago in the beautiful Clear Water Bay mountain habitat of the P.I.M.E headquarter in Hong Kong’s New Territories. I’ve produced for Fr. Gianni and his resilient colleague Fr. Franco Mella, who’s song “Amor Eternal” was featured in the beginning of this episode, a documentary on the educational endeavor of Don Milani, an...

EMIB280725_Ifran Program Introduction The musical galaxies of Ifran Ifran Muhamma came to Taiwan to pursuit his dream of music and culture. According to his memories, his musical enlightenment came from a cassette of songs by UB40 when he was in kindergarten. He went on to wax with the musics of the world from his Muslim upbringing in Indonesia. Becoming a journalist after university, he wrote a book about Indonesian Indie pop music and with that work won his scholarship to come to study in Taiwan. With the hope of not returning to Indonesia for as long as he could, he is a die-hard Indie popster with a Beatles hair-cut and a punk spirit in his heart. He shares his story with Lenny at RTI where he also moonlights on the Indonesian channel.

EMIB210725_nawrockis Program Introduction The Nawrockis: Fighting Cultural Genocide with melodies The Nawrockis are Norman and Vician nawrocki, the sister and brother duo from Canada with a Polish and Ukrainian lineage. With musician and passionate parents, they grew up listening to the sounds of their old time ancestors back in Europe. Embedded with this cultural wealth and faced with a domination of the eroding Russian power, they felt more the urgency to stand up to the erasure of their history and culture. Since deciding to band together as a duo a few years back, they’ve been playing their traditional influenced music in a new improvised and modern sounding palette. Their new album ‘Thrunkit!” has just been released a couple of weeks ago to fab reviews. I caught up with Norman in Montreal and Vivian in Vancouver and did a 3-way interview with them. They shared memories of their childhood, and how music became a means to fight social and cultural onslaught. Their m...

EMIB070725_joe kidd Program Introduction Colonization is not just about politics: Malaysian musician Joe Kidd remembers Malaysian cultural activist and musician Joe Kidd recently came to Taipei City for an exhibition and gave his dissertation about the Malaysian underground. An iconic figure in this domain of youth culture in his motherland, Joe recollects how colonization also embodies acculturation. How John Peels radio show on BBC world service, and British music paper New Musical Express educated and manured their young Malay minds and sensibilities. Sweet memories indeed. But reality has it that today Joe would face a harsh decision to move out of the capital, and relocate to a small remote town, in order to realize his dream of founding his personal archive of Malaysian rock n’ roll. Money still dominates more than politics, afterall.