User:Ivygohnair/Ivy Goh Nair

Ivy Goh Nair (born Ivy Goh Pek Kien in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1946) is a journalist, writer and former senior civil servant in Singapore. She published a book Singapore Accent in 1981. Nair was married to Chandran Nair, a Singaporean poet, artist, and retired Director and Mediator of UNESCO in Paris, where they now live. She has three grown-up daughters.

Education

Nair studied at the Methodist Girl's School in Kuala Lumpur and graduated in History from the University of Malaya in 1969. From 1964 to 1965 she was an AFS (American Field Service) exchange student to Wisconsin, United States, where she graduated from Greenfield High School. She later studied at La Sorbonne University of Paris where she graduated in French language and literature in 1987.

Career

She was a tutor in the History Department of the University of Malaya from 1970 to 1972, the year she left Malaysia to join the Administrative Service of the Singapore Civil Service where she remained for nine years, holding various posts in several Ministries ranging from Assistant-Director of the People's Association, Collector of Land Revenue, Assistant Director of Trade to Assistant Director of Environment.

She was one of the Singapore foreign correspondents for Asiaweek (Hong Kong) in 1981 before leaving Singapore to join her UN Civil Servant husband in Karachi, Pakistan. She also free-lanced as a journalist in various newspapers including, the Straits Times, the New Nation and the Business Times (where she wrote a weekly column under the pen-name, B J WU in 1980). In Karachi, she was a columnist for the Star, and contributed many articles to various Pakistani newspapers, including the Dawn newspaper and the Daily Jang.

In 1981, her columns written for the Business Times were compiled into a book "Singapore Accent", Times Distributors Sdn Bhd, 1981. Favourably reviewed by both the local and international press at the time (by S T (Shashi Tharoor) in the Singapore New Nation Aug 1981; and by Ian Gill in the Asian Wall Street Journal, 29 Aug 1981), the book became a local bestseller and enjoyed a bit of notoriety.

Reviews

"Is the Singapore Press 'discovering its bite?' Are we witnessing the evolution of the 'Ugly Singaporean'? Should we emulate Japan? Do the Chinese have a sense of humour? Should husbands share the housework? These are some of the provoking questions posed-and answered in Singapore Accent, a new collection of essays by B J Wu which has just hit the book stalls. Most of the essays appeared in the Business Times during the past two years. . ." writes S T (Shashi Tharoor) in The New Nation:("Book on Singapore, Bubbles With Ideas")Aug 1981, who also adds "The Author is Mrs Ivy Goh Nair who has spent the past nine years in the administrative service."

Ian Gill, the Singaporean correspondant for the Asian Wall Street Journal, reviewed the book in the 29 Aug 1981 issue of the newspaper and said:

"Journalists in the Third World have a harder job than newspapermen in Western or Communist countries. This assertion is made by Tommy Koh, Singapore's well-respected permanent respresentative to the United Nations, in a forward to a book recently published here Singapore Accent. The reason Mr Koh gives for his view is that journalists in both Western and Communist countries work within clearly defined, although different, frameworks of values and norms. . . In contrast, he notes that 'journalists of the third world often find themselves working without knowing what are the operating norms and values'. . ."

Mr Gill continues: "Singapore isn't noted for its press freedom. . . . Some media observers in Singapore ,however, recently have seen an increase in the number of critical articles in the local media . . ."Singapore Accent could well serve as an example of this. This slim volume is a collection of newspaper columns penned under the pseudonym of B.J.Wu. . .The columnist is in fact Ivy Goh Nair, a senior civil servant. . ."

Works

Book: non-fiction

• Singapore Accent (1981)