Bonus Episode #3: Professor Tommy Koh on the Importance of Reading Literature
Summary Keywords
book, reading, fourth industrial revolution, understand, important, schools, world, works, literature, Singapore, non-fiction, technology, fiction, America, protocol, Jakarta, humanity, intelligence, port, cultural
00:03 Host, Loh Chin Ee
If you’ve been following the How We Read podcast series, you might have caught the last episode on the Future of Reading. I had the good fortune to interview Professor Tommy Koh about his views on books, reading literature and the future of learning for that last episode. This bonus episode with Prof. Tommy Koh reveals his insights on reading. I’m Loh Chin Ee. Welcome to the How We Read Podcast.
00:32 Host, Loh Chin Ee
The career resume of Professor Tommy Koh is long and distinguished. From his time as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations to his current role as Singapore's Ambassador-at-Large, the written word has been a key tenet of his life, first as a lawyer, then as a diplomat. A prolific author who aims to write three books a year, Prof. Koh is a voracious reader who extols the virtues of reading literature.
01:03 Professor Tommy Koh
I want to talk about the importance of books of reading and of literature. I want to also talk about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is upon us, and the future of humanities. I want to talk about why studying literature or reading books of fiction is important to all of us, even to professionals like me.
01:25 Host, Loh Chin Ee
In a conversation about reading, the first question, logically, would be to ask which books are currently on Prof. Koh’s reading list?
01:34 Professor Tommy Koh
So I'm reading Obama's autobiography, A Promised Land. My wife said I may go blind because it's really 700 pages long, but the font is rather small. For an older person, I mean, it's a bit of a struggle. Unfortunately, all the three books are non-fiction. So, second book, it’s a very charming book on the history of Jakarta. You know, I go often to Jakarta on business. But I really don't know the deep history of Jakarta and the historical legacy, what I can still find in modern Jakarta. The third book written by two ladies, it's very fascinating for anybody interested in history. It's about the ancient port cities of Southeast Asia. Some of those cities have lost their importance, some have even lost their status as a port. I don't know whether you’ve ever been to Bujang Valley in Kedah. Next time you're in Penang, take a side trip, which is an hour away by car, and you'd be surprised that in a site which is quite far from the sea, you’ll find Buddhist monument, Hindu monument, or testimony to the fact that once upon a time, this was an important entrepot port. So it was an eye opener for me, you know, to visit the site. And there is a museum on the site, but because it's not Islamic, it doesn't get much publicity in Malaysia. Recently. The Rakhine, Arakan very much in the news. And one of the port cities discussed is the book is a port city which is now called Pegu. But was once upon a time called Mrauk U and apparently was a great port city of the Rakhine, you know. And I've always been very puzzled by what we can find in Palembang today of the ancient Srivijaya Empire. This book tells you all these great ancient port cities. Port states, actually.
03:25 Host, Loh Chin Ee
As Singapore's pre-eminent diplomat, Prof. Koh maintains a global view of Singapore's progress as a nation. That progress is built upon how that nation nurtures its younger generations, and reading plays an important part.
03:41 Professor Tommy Koh
In Singapore, I think the government in general, MOE in particular, focuses on what the government calls STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, because they feel that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is basically driven by technology, science and engineering, and to prosper in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we should educate our young people with these skills, you know. But this is not the whole story. The whole story (is) that in order to succeed in this new world, we need technologists who understand humanity, and humanists who understand technology. So you basically need a more holistic education. And NUS is trying to do this by merging the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science, which Harvard College has done a long time ago. Harvard College recognized a very long time ago that it was wrong to separate these two domain knowledge, that every student of a college should be exposed both to the humanities and to the sciences. And you think of all the great men who have made disruptive changes to the world, none of them are educated in STEM. Steve Jobs never finished college. He was asked later on, “what was the most important course you took in college?” He said calligraphy. And why calligraphy? Because it enabled him to design a keyboard for Macintosh, which distinguishes itself from others. Mark Zuckerberg, what did he study at Harvard? Sociology! And he says Facebook is as much about sociology as it is about technology. Jeff Bezos, did he study STEM? No. So all these great men who have brought about disruptive change to the way the world works, the way we behave were not educated in STEM, but they were humanists who understand technology, and they were technologists who understand humanities. And Steve Jobs had a beautiful quote, to say, the reason Apple succeeds is that technology is married to the arts, married to humanity. I think it's important for us to educate our children in the sciences and technology, but they should also be exposed to the humanities.
05:56 Host, Loh Chin Ee
It is another way of saying that merely being book smart isn’t key to a successful life. Prof. Koh believes that we need three different kinds of intelligence.
06:07 Professor Tommy Koh
I believe that to succeed in life, you need some cognitive intelligence, measured by IQ. You also need what they call emotional quotient or emotional intelligence. Because you don't live alone, you don't operate alone, you will need to be able to get along with other people, to work in a team. And if you are lucky enough to be in a leadership position, you'll learn how to lead a team, how to, you know, inspire them. EQ is very important. But I would argue that since we live in a multicultural world, and we often undertake transactions across national boundaries, cultural boundaries, that cultural intelligence, also very important. And you will learn cultural intelligence, partly through travel, partly through working or interning or studying in another country, but also through reading. One of the great advantages of reading is that reading enables you to transcend your limited circumstances, however difficult. It transports you to another world, another culture, another civilization. It's a very liberating experience, you know. So I'm a great champion of books and reading.
07:13 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Prof. Koh’s diplomatic career has been focused on America. He sees reading literature, both fiction and non-fiction, as key to understanding this diverse superpower.
07:26 Professor Tommy Koh
I spent over 20 years of my life in America and I keep up to date with America because one of my lifelong quest is to understand America, which is not easy. It's a complicated country, one of the ways to understand America is through reading. So when my younger friends come to see me and said, “I'm being posted to America, can you share with me some insights?” I try to to share with them my understanding America, but I also give them two reading lists. First, a list of non-fiction books, which is obvious, but less obvious, is a list of fiction books. And I explained to them that the works of fiction are as important as the works of non-fiction. Works of non-fiction tend to be very dry, you know, there's no blood and spirit and soul in them. But when you read great works of fiction, you not only get the facts, but you understand the complexity of the human situation. And you begin to understand therefore, how Americans think because of their history, you know, how America look at the world, and what are the American values which is a result of centuries of heritage. You know, reading books of fiction is as important as reading works of non-fiction.
08:39 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Prof. Koh’s chronological list of fiction spans the breadth of American history.
08:45 Professor Tommy Koh
I have 11 books, and it's an open list. I will constantly update it. So the first is Herman Melville's book, Moby-Dick. 1851. The second is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, 1884. Third, Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, 1925. Fourth, William Faulkner's book, The Sound and The Fury, 1929. Fifth, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, 1839, during the period of Great Depression, you know. And six, Ernest Hemingway's book, For Whom the Bell Tolls. And seven, J. D. Salinger's book, The Catcher in the Rye. Eight, Harper Lee's book, To Kill a Mockingbird. Nine, Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Ten, James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time. And eleven, Toni Morrison's book, Beloved.
09:47 Professor Tommy Koh
These books spanned centuries of American history and life. And I picked the books because they represent a certain period of America and tell the great stories of that time.
10:00 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Reading literature is not only important for diplomats who need to understand other countries.
10:06 Professor Tommy Koh
It's important to everyone, not just the diplomats, and my regret is that our education system and our parents don't understand the importance of reading literature. So I use every occasion I have to try to explain why studying literature was one of the best investment I made in school. It helps us to write, to think and to speak clearly. It gives us a command of the language, which is very important in life. It makes us have a better understanding about human nature, about the complexities of the human condition, and to be less judgmental, you know, because we all tend to be judgmental. Reading literature makes you more empathetic and less hasting in judging other people. And as I say, if you're an international person as I am, reading has enabled me to have a better understanding of another country and other cultures and other people. It's helped me to avoid making bad cultural mistakes when I negotiate with other countries.
11:11 Host, Loh Chin Ee
With Hollywood frequently adapting literary works for the silver screen, there is a temptation in our now always-on instant gratification mentality, to want to consume these great works only in their cinematic versions.
11:26 Professor Tommy Koh
I’ve got nothing against film. In fact, when I was the chairman of NAC, I had to fight against the bureaucracy and insisted that we'll put film on our agenda, because I think movies are a very important part of the world's cultural scene, you know, in fact, it has tremendous power. So I've nothing against watching documentary, watching great movies. But there's a role for film and there's a role for book. Very often, reading a book gets you more benefit than watching a movie adapted from the book. But sometimes, the movie is so well adapted that you actually enjoy the movie more than a book. So it cuts both ways. To give you one example, I sometimes after reading a book, say, “how are you going to make a movie out of this book?” Like Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, you know. I enjoyed the book very much, and I would think that it'd be very hard to make a movie, and yet, they made a great movie. you know. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. So there's creative genius, you know, both in the literary world and in the film world.
12:30 Host, Loh Chin Ee
At the end of our interview, I asked Prof. Koh what is his one wish for our education system.
12:37 Professor Tommy Koh
I regret that our elite schools do not encourage our students to study literature. And I would say that even if studying literature no longer a compulsory subject, all our schools should encourage the student to read books. One of the achievements of the American school system, even though the quality is very uneven, you know, they have great schools and very poor schools, is that when a student enter each year, the teacher will give you a list of recommended reading. When my kids were in an American school, they will come home and say, “Mom, this is a list of books that my teacher would like (us) to read for the rest of the year.” And we will go to the library each week to borrow some books. I don’t know whether our schools do that. I don't see my grandchildren coming home with a list of recommended reading. We should do that. Our schools and our Ministry of Education (need) to understand that to survive in this new world, you not only need technologists, but you also need humanists. And most of all, you need technologists who understand humanity, and humanists who understand technology.
13:43 Host, Loh Chin Ee
While, technology, science and engineering are crucial to the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution. We need more than just these skills to prosper. The World Economic Forum states that the Fourth Industrial Revolution represents an opportunity to harness converging technologies to create an inclusive, human-centered future. To understand how we can take advantage of these advances and create value for humans, we should look beyond the technology. Thus, we need a holistic education and our students to read widely, so that we will have, as Prof. Koh puts it, technologists who understand the humanities and humanists who understand technology.
14:30 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Thank you for listening to the How We Read podcast bonus episode. Many thanks to Professor Tommy Koh for sharing with us about The Importance of Literature. Swipe on the cover art to see show notes with links and references. We are available on all major podcast apps. For more information, please visit lohchinee.com.