PEKAN NANAS: After spending three weeks in Pekan Nanas, Johor, 13 students from Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University shared their stories of the town with the local folks.

About 120 local residents attended the presentation held at SJKC Yu Ming 1 by the university students, where they had interviewed, took photographs and videos of local residents for three weeks.

Divided into different groups to work on Chinese new village, religion and welfare, the wet market, Pekan Nanas and Singapore, the students produced four documentaries to feature the lives of local residents who were willing to share their stories with them.

The documentaries covered stories of the wet market, church and local folks.

Apart from producing four documentaries on Pekan Nanas, the students also conducted a workshop teaching primary school pupils on photography.

For secondary school students, they attended training to acquire the skills to conduct field research.

The students were assisted by Cha Ming Cheng, a Pekan Nanas resident who has set up a page on Facebook Imagine Pekan Nanas to promote the small town since 2018.

“It’s actually a collaboration between the university students and the locals to produce the stories of Pekan Nanas” said Cha.

Last year, a different batch of university students produced seven documentaries.