Staff Picks
One of the great things about putting together the magazine is that the team gets to read, edit and design all the stories first – and choose their favourites.
I didn’t get how massive loom bands were until my wife – trying to make a simple rainbow bracelet with our young son – hopped onto YouTube and found a tutorial by a 12-year-old girl with over six million views. Love ’em or hate ’em, you have to admire the success story. And I got genuine chills when inventor Cheong Choon Ng said (see page 100), “the business was earning more every month than my entire year’s salary at Nissan. I told [my boss] I wasn’t coming back.” Now that is a dream come true.
GREG BARTON, humour editor Sadly, 2014 has been dubbed the darkest year in Asian business flight history. AirAsia QZ8501 crashed into the sea off Indonesia in December. Australian journalist Simon Bouda was among the first media on the scene (“Retrieval Mission”, page 56). I was touched not only by the humanitarianism of the writer while reporting, but also because we experienced a similar plane crash in Taipei city earlier this year. Likewise, we’re still recovering from the shock and sorrow.
RAYCINE CHANG, editor RD Taiwan
The hero, or should I say heroine, of Germaine Greer’s “Give the Earth a Chance” (page 52) is Mother Nature – and how everybody can help renew the Earth on a small scale. While our garden is not 60 hectares like her revegetation project, over the years we have re-introduced indigenous plants and trees. We wanted to create a friendly habitat for birds, insects and small mammals. Perhaps too friendly, I shrieked at my husband after I recently found an eastern brown snake sunning itself on the back step.
MELANIE EGAN, deputy chief subeditor A few weeks ago my husband read me the riot act. You see, I’d secretly been surfing the web in search of a rabbit hutch for my daughter – who had been nagging me for a floppy-eared companion. “Don’t get any ideas about getting a rabbit,” he said sternly. As I hadn’t yet raised the subject with him I asked where he’d got that idea from. He then smugly called me over to the computer and showed me the rabbit hutch advertisements that appeared on nearly every page he opened. I had been caught out – seems the internet is making it harder to keep a secret. Turn to Drew Turney’s “Every Move You Make” (page 86) to find out why.
LOUISE WATERSON, managing editor “Bathed In Kindness” (page 80) is my favourite story this issue – a wonderful story told by a kind-hearted man. I do believe in karma and in order to achieve good karma it is important to live life according to dharma – what is right. For me, it is the personality of a human being – what we think or do, something with its positive and negative actions – that causes karma. Leon Logothetis’s journey encouraged a circle of generosity.
BALAJI PARTHSARATHY, production manager Although I’ve never been lucky enough to own a horse, I did spend much of my childhood at the local stables wishing I had one of my own. I was really inspired by Jo Anne Normille’s story “My Fight For 150,000 Horses a Year” (Subscriber Bonus). She is proof that one person can save thousands of lives.
SALLY MCMULLEN, editorial coordinator