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"Digital Storytelling"
WOW what a surprise! Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong quoted me in his National Day Rally Speech on 14 August 2011.
.
He said:
Recently, I attended the launch of Singapore HeritageFest and I made a speech about these human stories and emphasised how important they were. It prompted a response in the TODAY newspaper by a lady, Angeline Koh, who is working on digital storytelling and I think I should read a little bit of what she said because it resonated with her.
She said, “What are memories and shared experiences but stories. And storytelling is what Singapore as a nation needs. There are unsung heroes in our midst, there are people we meet each day in our homes and in our schools, at work and in play. Our children need to realise they are heroes in the making. They have the power to become heroes by the brave and sacrificial choices they make to live well and for the good of others”.
Here’s what happened
I was slouching in the seat of my living room listening to the PM deliver his speech. I was tired, half dosing off actually. But I really wanted to know what the CEO of Singapore had to say and where he was taking us as a nation.
Toward the last quarter of his speech, he began talking about home, memories, stories. That woke me up of course. Anything “story” does.
There in my living room, I (complete with animation) began “talking back” to the PM, “Digital Storytelling, Digital Storytelling.” I said repeatedly to mum who was watching his speech with me. “Mummy, Singapore should do digital storytelling.Singapore needs digital storytelling.”
Then suddenly he said my name, and he said, “digital storytelling.”
I began jumping in my seat. “YES! YES! YES!” I began screaming. It was like Singapore had scored a goal at the Malaysia cup.
The past year has been challenging. I left the comfort zone of my last job after 22 year with little clue of how to run a business or how to make digital storytelling fly. I only knew that we need storytelling in Singapore. I wanted to tell stories and help others tell stories. I must have knocked at some 20-30 doors… individuals as well as organisations, communities, corporations, SMEs, and government departments.
People like storytelling. But we are a pragmatic people — and storytelling is seen as a luxury item. I can almost hear it, “What is it for?” How do you tell busy people come sit down and listen to my story. Or tell me your story.
Last month, PM Lee spoke at the launch of the HeritageFest. I read his speech and listened to the snippet of the launch on the news. I said to myself, “I have to engage him. I have to tell him how digital storytelling can help address some of the issues that he is concerned about.” The recent May 2011 General Elections surfaced many expressing strong sentiments about this party or that party. This is not about parties but about my heart for my country. I wanted him to know how I want to play a part in building up Singapore my home.
I worked almost non-stop for 24-hours crafting and creating a 1.5 minute video clip for him and sent it to him together with a very short note. I could think of nothing except that the CEO of Singapore has to hear me.
He replied. Well, at least I think his PA did. It was a short,
Dear Angeline,
Thanks for your email, and for your video. I enjoyed watching it, and am glad that what I said about the meaning of home struck a chord with you.
With best wishes,
Lee Hsien Loong
“No!” I said. “I want to engage you! That’s not the reply I want to hear from you.” (I didn’t actually say this to him of course. I was just saying it aloud to myself as I read his reply.)
The thought wouldn’t leave me. I couldn’t let HeritageFest come and go without sowing the idea that digital storytelling can play a part in nation building. And I want to be part of it.
Then the thought came to me to write to the Today Papers since it was there that I had read about the HeritageFest and PM’s speech. I took another 24 hours to craft my blog post and sent that to VOICES (Today Papers). I was thrilled when I got an email from the editor saying he would publish it if I cut my article down to 500 words.
I painfully cut down my article and sent it to him.
And then something awful happened. For whatever strange reason, there was a bug in my email that made the mail keep looping itself. It just kept relentlessly resending the article to them again and again and again. Finally I got an email from the press asking me to stop spamming their mail box.
I thought, “No! This is not happening!” There was nothing I could do to stop it. I called the technical hotline but still it just kept looping. I wrote to Voices to explain. I got no reply. I phoned them a couple of times. I couldn’t get the editors.
Then each day I checked the newspaper — no article. I thought, “That’s it. They must be thinking I’m some mad woman trying to tell the press what to do.”
On the early morning of 10 August, the day after National Day, I was skimming through the Today papers. The title, “Telling the Singapore Story” caught my attention. I started reading it… It was MY article! And so well timed!
I thought, OK, the PM didn’t respond to me. But something good came out of this. If he had responded to me, I would not have written this article and then nobody would have got to hear about digital storytelling.
That same day, a Sin Chew Jit Poh (Chinese newspaper) journalist called to do a telephone interview with me.
Three days later, on 14 August, PM Lee read the excerpt of my article on the nation-wide broadcast.
In that same speech, the Prime Minister also said,
“MICA is launching a Singapore Memory Project to capture, preserve and showcase these memories. They hope to collect five million memories by 2015 because that is our 50th anniversary. The stories can come from anybody, any person, any community, any organisation or institution which has experienced Singapore. Together all these individual stories will weave the tapestry of our nation. They started in July, so far they have collected 30,000 plus stories…”
FIVE MILLION!
More than twenty years ago, I had made a “joke” with God. I didn’t even dare to call it a prayer. I said, “God I want to touch a million lives.” I want to make a difference. I wanted to ask him for something so big and so audacious that if it happened, I would know it is not an Angeline Koh thing but a God-thing.
By the 16 August, I got emails. The people I had talked to remembered me. And now they are opening the doors to let me in.
God took my joke seriously.
A week ago, I met a young and accomplished composer artiste who saw immediately where I want to go with Digital Storytelling. He not only inspired me but also worked closely with me to put together a self-explaining video for Digital Storytelling Asia. It is not just Hagen Troy Tan‘s skills, creativity, and accolades but who he is and his belief in people, in me, that makes him amazing.
The young man has been in the music industry for 13 years and for the past three consecutive years has been Sony BMG (Asia)’s top music composer. Hagen’s creative efforts have led him to be noticed by some of the biggest names in the music industry for various collaborations (Ocean Ou, Harlem Yu, Wilbur Pan, Jocie Guo, Joi Chua, to name but a few). Hagen’s song, “A Wonder in Madrid” (“Ma De Li Bu Si Yi”), written for Taiwan pop queen Jolin Tsai, led her to be “Best Female Artiste of the Year” and was also nominated for “Best Song”.
Here are two more of his videos.
The songwriter, music producer, artiste, rock star was recently appointed Health Promotion Board’s Breathe Icon/Ambassador.
Hey Hagen Troy Tan — how do I say thanks without saying thanks? You’re cool bro.
A condensed version of this article appeared in the TODAY papers on 10 August 2011, a day after Singapore celebrated her 46th birthday. Click to download the PDF Telling The Singapore Story.
Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong’s opening message at the HeritageFest launch resonated with me.
“Home means you must have some memories, you must have shared experiences and you must have some sense of where we came from, why we are here what it means to us… we will tell the stories about it to the younger ones and the next generation…we will connect to one another, connect to our parents and past, and to our children and future.”
For a struggling start-up social entrepreneur with a passion to “Create Storytelling Movements. Empower Ordinary people to tell their stories,” PM Lee’s statement is a beacon of hope, an affirmation that Digital Storytelling Asia (DSA) is on the right track. Storytelling is what Singapore as a nation needs.
When I speak of storytelling I do not mean the “once-upon-a-time” fairy tales that we think belong only to the domain of children. Stories are the stuff that life and memories are made of — the stories of our lives shape us. History is story. There are national stories and there are personal stories. We all have histories even the quietest of us.
Stories are shared memories. They can be painful ones like seeing a loved one through cancer or happy ones like remembering the old kampung house we grew up in, or the silly ones that make us laugh at ourselves. We have personal, family, community, and national stories. Stories engage not just our minds but our emotions and glue us together. Stories are the heritage that we leave with our children and our children’s children.
In the 9 September 2010, TODAY papers, Yeo Lay Hwee wrote, “The Singapore Story – A new narrative, a new story that can engage the younger generation, is needed.” Commenting about the immigrant issues, she said:
“I also have a nagging feeling that the unhappiness about the large influx of foreigners is only a symptom of some larger issues and questions. It is not about us and them, but it is a question of who we are, what kind of society we want to build and what kind of Singapore we want to have.”
Have we come closer to finding our Singapore Story? Our “romantic narratives” of fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, of unlikely knights turned heroes on a quest? There are unsung heroes in our midst — they are our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, people we meet each day in our homes, schools, work, and play. There are heroes in the making. The young people in our midst who shape tomorrow.
Our children need to realise that their lives are stories that they are writing by the choices they make each day. They have the power to become heroes by the brave and sacrificial choices they make — to not live indulgent lives but to live well and to live for the good of others.
To quote Yeo again,
…We now have to think of a narrative that will take us from First World to XXX — the unknown? We need a new narrative, a new story that can engage. And this story can no longer be written by the Government alone…
The story that can engage our imagination must begin with a “WE”. It has to be a story that as many people who want to participate in the writing must be given the opportunity to do so.
It has to be a story that we all believe in.
Our individual stories are like little streams that converge into a river and into the ocean. The Singapore Story is the sum total of the stories of her people.
So where do we start?
Moving HeritageFest to the heartlands and creating events like these are steps in the right direction. PM Lee hit the nail on the head when he said, “These trails should be developed by the community, as a ‘grassroots, bottom-up’ effort.”
BBC Wales and BBC England initiated storytelling projects. ‘Capture Wales” project ran successfullyfrom 2001 until 2008. Nearly 600 stories were produced and it won some awards including a BAFTA Cymru. ”Telling Lives” (England’s parallel to the Wales project) ran from 2002 to 2005.
“Everyone has a story to tell” the sites say. All over the UK, “people made Digital Stories about real-life experiences and each story is as individual as the person who made it. Each Digital Story is made by the storyteller themself, using his or her own photos, words and voice.”
The series which were screened on BBC and showcased on their websites with the aim to “Connecting communities is a key aspect of the BBC’s contribution to social value. Many of our programmes, our physical presence and our grass-roots activities serve to encourage participation and a sense of belonging.”
In my keynote address at the International Digital Storytelling Festival organised by the Aberystwyth University, the Arts Council of Wales, the National Council of Wales, and the BBC held in Wales on 17 June 2011, I said that my dream is to create storytelling movements and to empower ordinary people to tell their stories.
John Hartley and Kelly McWilliams in the book “Story Circle” (2009),wrote:
“…Digital storytelling… is less developed in Asia, Africa, and South America. Most of the workshops held on those continents have been run or led by Western organizations or Western workshop facilitators and, by large, have not resulted in ongoing local programs…”
Digital Storytelling Asia is a Singaporean initiative. As far as I know, an early mover (if not the first mover) of digital storytelling in Asia. DSA which collaborates with the National Book Development Council of Singapore is a bottom-up initiative that seeks to fill that gap by creating storytelling movements and empowering ordinary people to share their stories.
The late Dana Atchley, also known as the father of Digital Storytelling said:
“The stories and anecdotes we share with one another
are the ways we let each other know
who we are,
where we come from,
where we are going,
and most importantly,
what we care about.”
We need to keep telling and listening to our stories. We need to help others find and tell their stories.
The challenges I am facing as a start-up is daunting. It’s fine when you get hit by one set back, but when they come in a slew, that’s another matter. My presumptions are being tested in the world as it is and not as what I think it is. This is not reality TV. This is REAL life.
The biggest challenge is cash flow. How do I make digital storytelling (DS) sustainable for the long haul. I want to use DS for social good. I know it can. I see DS becoming a great tree from which many will find shade, shelter, a place to nest, and food to eat.
I can allow obstacles to paralyse me or I can rise up to the challenge. We are made of greater stuff than we often realise. Attitude is what makes the difference.
What do I do when the road ahead has never been trodden? There are no manuals no crystal balls to tell me what to do. I was a missionary from 1988-2010. I did not have a salary like working people do. I have stories — the kind you read in story books but cannot imagine will happen to you — stories of how he provided for me. God has never failed to look after me and those I love.
Isaiah the prophet said:
Listen and hear my voice;
pay attention and hear what I say.
When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually?
Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil?
When he has leveled the surface,
does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin?
Does he not plant wheat in its place,
barley in its plot,
and spelt in its field?
His God instructs him
and teaches him the right way.
Caraway is not threshed with a sledge,
nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin;
caraway is beaten out with a rod,
and cumin with a stick.
grain must be ground to make bread;
so one does not go on threshing it forever.
The wheels of a threshing cart may be rolled over it,
but one does not use horses to grind grain.
All this also comes from the LORD Almighty,
whose plan is wonderful,
whose wisdom is magnificent.
God knows my need. He also knows what it takes to make a harvest. He gave the farmer understanding of each type of seed. He taught the farmer timing, technology, and treatment.
He will teach me how to make digital storytelling thrive.
* Isaiah 28:23-27
I’m happy to say I recorded my first podcast early this morning. I’ve been thinking and talking about it for the longest time.
I have been listening and reading up podcast tutorials, watching training videos (it’s amazing the resources you can find out there), thinking about the topics I will address. I’m still studying the technical aspects of geting it available online and on iTune.
I wonder if I can sustain the series. It’s a long haul commitment – not easy when I have competing demands. Never mind, I got started. That’s what counts right now.
I hope to launch the series soon! I know I should put a launch date to it… I will, I will…
