REAL STORY TOLD THROUGH THE LENSE OF ORDINARY PEOPLE

Karim Raslan is an acclaimed Southeast Asian commentator and columnist. His column, Ceritalah—which means “tell me a story” in Malay and Indonesian—is a multimedia, multiplatform effort to bring the stories of ordinary Southeast Asians to the world.

The column’s latest incarnation, Ceritalah ASEAN, takes a ground-up approach to storytelling. Karim believes that the real story of regional integration, of what’s going on in the individual states, can only best be understood through the lenses of ordinary people who are often at the peripheries of their society: youths, petty traders and peasants.