What does it really mean to move a nation “forward”? This video explores the challenge of translating Majulah Singapura — a phrase that looks simple on the surface, yet carries layers of history, dignity, and collective aspiration. National mottos are not merely statements. They are emotional compasses. They must be short, memorable, and unifying — a kind of poetry that lives in the mouths and hearts of a people. By comparing mottos like “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” and “E Pluribus Unum,” we examine why translating these phrases is never just about accuracy. It’s about rhythm, symbolism, and national identity. In multilingual Singapore, Majulah reveals something rare: a motto that many can sing by heart even if they don’t speak the language it’s written in. It is both familiar and foreign, intimate and translated — a reminder that meaning can be shared even when words are not. This episode invites us to rethink translation as an act of evocation, not duplication. Because some ideas aren’t just carried by language — they are carried by people. Word & World — where we explore how language shapes our understanding of culture, identity, and belonging.

What if the stories we tell about magic are really stories about faith? From enchanted swords and sacred quests to talking animals and pilgrimages across strange worlds, the heart of fantasy is filled with symbols that trace back to the world’s great religious traditions. These are not just imaginative details — they are echoes of humanity’s oldest attempts to understand meaning, transcendence, and the divine. In this opening episode, we set the stage for the Faith & Fantasy series by exploring how religion and imagination have always shaped each other. Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism each offer a deep reservoir of archetypes — the Grail, the Monkey King, the Golem, the sacred flame — which fantasy borrows, reshapes, and reimagines. Through a literary process known as defamiliarization, these ancient symbols take on new life, allowing us to see them with fresh eyes and feel their power anew. This is what faith gives to fantasy: mystery, depth, and a vocabulary of wonder. And this is what fantasy gives back to faith: a new language — one that invites us to believe again, or at least to imagine what belief might feel like. The journey ahead will carry us across traditions and stories, from Narnia’s lion and Arthur’s Grail to the Monkey King’s comic wisdom, Scheherazade’s storytelling survival, Hindu epics of dharma and destiny, and Jewish tales of memory and endurance. Each episode uncovers how faith breathes life into fantasy — and how, in turn, fantasy becomes one of faith’s last, most powerful languages.

What does Christianity give to the world of fantasy? More than symbols of sacrifice and resurrection — it offers the very narrative grammar that underpins so many of the stories we love. This episode explores how Christian faith shaped the foundational myths of Western fantasy, from the allegorical power of The Chronicles of Narnia to the sacred quest for the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. We examine how C.S. Lewis reimagined the story of redemption through the eyes of children stepping into another world, and how medieval writers transformed kingship and holiness into the heart of heroic storytelling. We also trace how these ancient patterns continue to echo in modern works — from the “chosen one” archetype in Star Wars to countless tales where destiny is bestowed, not seized. At its core, this episode shows how Christianity lends fantasy a profound moral weight: sacrifice, grace, and the paradox of leadership — the idea that the strongest vessels are often the ones cracked enough for light to shine through. Whether or not we share its creed, entering these stories means entering a Christian imagination — one that still shapes how we dream, how we tell stories, and how we wrestle with the deepest questions of meaning.

What happens when you mix discipline with mischief — when sacred pilgrimage meets comic adventure? You get Journey to the West, one of the most beloved and enduring works of Chinese literature. At its heart is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King: rebellious, cunning, impatient — and yet also a seeker. He steals peaches of immortality, battles celestial armies, and rails against the heavens, only to find himself bound to a mission far larger than himself: protecting a monk on a perilous journey to India to retrieve sacred scriptures. On the surface, this is an epic adventure — monsters to defeat, magical battles to win, dangers to overcome. But beneath the action lies a spiritual map. Every obstacle is a metaphor for inner struggle, every demon a temptation to be mastered. The pilgrimage is not just a journey across continents; it is the soul’s long path toward enlightenment. The story’s depth comes from the fusion of two great traditions: Buddhism, with its emphasis on karma, discipline, and liberation; and Daoism, with its cosmic balance, magical arts, and playful understanding of nature’s rhythms. Together, they turn spiritual striving into a tale that is humorous, chaotic, and profound all at once. Sun Wukong himself is a mirror of the human condition — clever and ambitious, but restless and flawed. His transformation shows that true wisdom requires both rebellion and restraint, both power and humility. What Buddhism and Daoism give to fantasy is a paradox: enlightenment wrapped in laughter, sacred truth disguised as play. And what fantasy gives back is a way to rediscover those truths — to see that joy can be a teacher, chaos can be a path, and even a monkey with a wayward heart can become a Buddha.

What if stories could save your life? In this episode, we explore the world of The Arabian Nights — a collection of tales where storytelling is not just entertainment, but survival. Scheherazade, facing execution at dawn, uses her only weapon — narrative — to keep herself alive night after night. Her stories of flying carpets, magical lamps, and reality-bending djinn are more than marvels of imagination; beneath the wonder lies a profound moral universe shaped by Islamic ideas of justice, mercy, and divine will. We also look beyond the medieval text to see how this storytelling legacy continues in modern literature. Writers like Salman Rushdie draw on the same sense of the miraculous, transforming it into political allegory and postcolonial critique. The act of storytelling — whether in a royal court or a modern novel — remains a way to wrestle with power, history, identity, and faith. What Islam gives to fantasy is a vision of story as testimony — a living act of trust and endurance. And what fantasy gives back is a reminder that faith itself is a kind of narrative, a way of living as if the world is full of meaning even when the ending remains unseen. Step into The Arabian Nights, and you step into a tradition where words can hold back violence, miracles point to the divine, and stories burn like small flames through the darkness — long enough to see the dawn.

In Hindu storytelling, the boundary between myth and history is fluid. Gods walk among humans, kings are judged by cosmic law, and every choice sends ripples through the cycles of karma and rebirth. Fantasy doesn’t have to be invented here — it emerges naturally from a worldview where the miraculous is already woven into daily life. This episode explores how that worldview has shaped some of the most powerful works of modern storytelling. In the pages of Amar Chitra Katha, generations of readers encountered the great epics — Mahabharata, Ramayana, and others — retold in vivid, accessible form. These stories weren’t just entertainment. They were a way to pass on dharma — the moral order of the universe — and to teach that true heroism lies not in strength alone, but in actions aligned with cosmic truth. Cinema continued this tradition on a grand scale. The Baahubali films brought mythic storytelling to life with divine warriors, colossal battles, and moral choices that echo across time. Their central question — “What is the rightful path of duty?” — runs through every betrayal, sacrifice, and act of devotion, revealing a universe where destiny is shaped not by chance, but by the alignment of human action with eternal order. The result is a very different vision of destiny from the “chosen one” narratives shaped by Christianity. Here, fate is not a single calling bestowed once and for all — it is a cycle, one that tests heroes again and again until they find harmony with the cosmic design. What Hinduism gives to fantasy is a vast sense of scale: stories that stretch across lifetimes, that are reborn in new forms, and that serve as living engines of cultural memory. And what fantasy gives back is accessibility — a bridge that allows each generation to enter this cycle anew and see themselves as part of an unbroken chain of seekers and storytellers.

In Jewish storytelling, words are not just symbols — they are power. They create, they destroy, they protect, and they preserve. This episode explores how that belief shapes some of fantasy’s most profound narratives, from the legendary Golem of Prague to the reimagined voices of The Red Tent. The Golem story embodies the idea that language itself can animate the world. Rabbi Loew’s clay protector, brought to life by the sacred name of God, defends a vulnerable community — yet its power remains fragile, dependent entirely on the words that sustain it. Centuries later, Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent turns to storytelling as another form of survival. By giving voice to Dinah — a woman nearly erased from scripture — the novel reclaims memory and restores what silence tried to erase. Together, these works reveal a central Jewish insight: that survival often depends on interpretation. Words are not luxuries — they are tools of endurance, holding memory, identity, and hope against the pressures of time and persecution. Judaism gives fantasy a unique weight: the conviction that storytelling itself is a sacred act, one that sustains a people through exile, struggle, and change. And fantasy, in return, expands that idea — showing us that words can be more than metaphor. They can be shield and shelter, fragile yet enduring, as long as we continue to tell the stories that make us who we are.

Is fantasy really an escape — or is it a way back? In this final episode, we explore the idea that fantasy is not a flight from reality but a pathway into it, a means of returning to truths too immense, too complex, or too familiar to notice in the rush of daily life. Through the literary concept of defamiliarization — making the familiar strange so we can see it anew — faith’s deepest symbols find fresh life in stories of magic and myth. The Grail becomes a quest. Karma becomes an adventure. The Golem becomes a fragile protector. Fantasy reimagines sacred ideas and sends them back into our imaginations disguised as story — not to dull our senses, but to awaken them. Even Marx’s critique of religion as “the opiate of the people” takes on new meaning here: when we view faith through narrative, it becomes less a narcotic and more a medicine — something that soothes, sharpens, strengthens, and sustains. Fantasy, in this sense, may be the last language of faith — a language that still speaks to modern minds, carrying ancient wisdom into new worlds. And if we listen closely, these stories remind us how to live, how to believe, and how to hope.