The biggest misconception [about storytelling] is that you read from a book, that you don’t need an audience or funding, because you do this in a library, a school and at home.

We tell stories to adults, we tell stories with sex, love, unrequited love, broken hearts, incest, stories with no endings, stories that are raw and have not been manipulated by society over time. They’ve not been Disneyfied.

I will tell the story as it is. I’ll also talk about the versions that are wrong.

Foreign storytellers come and tell Indians sanitized stories of [14th century Indian courtier] Birbal and [16th century emperor] Tenaliraman. Akbhar and Birbal and Tenaliraman also have a lot of violence because they were teaching tales. But if you take the violence out, then how is it a teaching tale?

I don’t supply the images in storytelling. The free reign of the imagination is very liberating in today’s world. Most of the time, you press this, and the image is given. You go to the cinema, see Transformers, the image is given. You cannot imagine. Branding, labeling, advertising, everything has been given to you.

When you listen, your heartbeat slows down, the way your blood is circulating is controlled, your breathing is modulated. You may fall asleep. It can be very healing.

My grandfather gave me the Panchatantra, the Jataka, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, out of which the Ramayana is what I have retold numerous times. The Mahabharata, not so much.

I am Malaysian. I grew up in all the ulu kampung places. I had all the Malay cikgus to tell me these stories. I built upon them by researching. So, yes, I know the story of the mouse deer and the crocodile, but are there variations? Is it a colonial variation? Is it the peninsula variation? Is it the Borneo variation? Oh dear, there’s one from Java. How interesting!

The old journals, anthologies, books in universities that nobody really looks at, I go and dig through all that. I do a lot of going and sitting with people and talking with them. I sit with the community, the elders.

I went to live with the Orang Asli in the Peninsula for 10 days. We had to cross a huge lake by a small boat. The sun above you, water beneath you; you cannot see right, left, front, back. The only sound is the motor. And then you feel this ah-hah moment. Beneath the water could be a serpent princess, a naga king, an entire kingdom that I’ve heard myths and legends about. What about all the things above us that are looking down on this boat? There’s something else there. That was the ah-hah moment, about why we told stories. To make sense of this universe we are in.

Because I have children, the daily magic creation or suspension of disbelief happens in my parenting with them. Even when they are 35 or 45, I will still speak to them in story code, and they will understand the nuances.

In any other place in ASEAN, they know their roots. They know why they eat with their hands. They’re very comfortable about their Thainess, their Indianness or Cambodianness. Here, people have grown up not speaking the dialects, watching very Western things on TV, dressing without the sari and the bindi. They don’t have enough examples on the street. When you talk about identity and roots, my students have no reference point.

This was Temasek, whether we like it or not. And before Sang Nila Utama arrived, he fought with the naga king who tested him to the point where he threw everything from his ship and he threw his gold crown—his ego—and then the seas calmed down. You can’t ignore that this land has its very Malay story.

The best [artist] is the one who turns up on time, who will stay late, read their emails. They know how to write an invoice, they know how to send a quotation and a proposal. They may not be the best talent.

In a small country like this, I have to be very real with [students]. I direct them towards things like video, backstage work. It pays a lot, by the hour, and we need people like that. But they come in thinking, “I want to be the one winning the Idol.”

I love to prove naysayers wrong. There were heaps of people who ridiculed [the expedition] and said it would never happen.

Mountaineering is about the experience as much as the achievement—two distinct and sometimes mutually exclusive components. Sometimes for the sake of bragging rights, people sacrifice the quality of the experience.

One of the most perfect climbs I had was the Ojos de Salado. It started out with two of us planning. Then my friend got a knee injury. I’d done a solo climb, but never on a big peak. There’s no one to ask for a second opinion. If anything happens to you, it’s self-rescue.

When you’re alone in the desert, you imagine things. I was standing behind a rock in howling wind. I took out my energy bar to eat it. I passed it to my friend—and oops, no partner.

I’m very curious about what I’m capable of and what I’m incapable of doing. That’s been a lifelong journey, made more interesting after I became disabled. What can this body do? I can’t stand on my toes, for example.

The past 15 years, I’ve done all my climbs wearing this [leg brace]. I have to choose my climbs rather carefully.

Alpine style is the purest form of climbing [with no support teams or reconnoitering]. Very few people in this part of the world subscribe to it because the risk of failure is too high, and you know Singaporeans. They just hate failing or losing.

I like the mountains. You get to sleep more than ever. After six o’clock it gets dark, so you can sleep nine hours a day.

I was totally bummed [when I didn’t summit Everest]. But I did what we call a masterful reframe.

I asked myself, “David, what do you want now?” I said, “I want the team to succeed.” Then I became totally motivated once more. Halfway up the mountain, you don’t have the luxury of moping.

I’m fascinated by what makes teams tick, what makes people bounce back from setbacks, and in all the research that’s been done—guess what? We were already doing so much of it in the mountains in the 90s.

Getting to the top is only half the job done.

One of the problems in Singapore is that people become fixated with checkbox ticking. Instead of looking at outcomes, they’re very task-focused. The job is only done when you get the outcome that you want.

We hate losing something more than we like gaining something. That’s the reason people hold on to stocks that have plummeted, hoping one day they will recover. They should cut their losses and move on.

When it comes to travel equipment, buy the best you can possibly afford. I’ve got [a cabin bag] that’s 14 years old. It’s got a solid aluminum tubular welded frame— that’s bomb proof.

There’s a saying in my line of work: “You don’t have to make them laugh…unless you want to get paid.”

The hardest audience is about 15 senior CXOs, who are very hard-boiled. They’ve been to every single business program, and they might be a touch cynical. And you’ve got to engage them in a very Socratic style and make them leave feeling it was worthwhile.

The storytelling tradition has been around since the spoken word. When you have a chance to hear a live storyteller who has wisdom, that’s fascinating. It will never go out of fashion.

One of my childhood heroes is a guy named Nando Parrado from the [flight that] crashed high in the Andes in 1972. I’m fascinated to meet like-minded people who had some way to manage the emotional states through a horrific time and emerged stronger and better for it.

Everything that I do is something I enjoy doing. I have one life. I don’t compartmentalize it.

It’s very sobering when you get your ass kicked. Mountains have kicked my ass. Kebaya-clad ladies have kicked my ass. Early after I recovered, I was hiking up Bukit Timah. Normally it’s 15 minutes to hike up there. It took me 45 minutes. At one stage, this old granny in flip flops looked at me and began to walk faster. Pretty soon she was a tiny speck in the distance.

One should try very hard to have a very light ego. You can take what you do very seriously but you don’t take yourself very seriously.

Describe Manila in ten words or less.

Manila is a Rorschach test and a state of mind. 

Your favorite place in Manila that isn’t on your tour?

The San Sebastian Church. An eccentric all metal gothic church located in the Quiapo district. It's awe inspiring and it's in the middle of nowhere. 

Your favorite local dish?

Sinuglaw. Philippine ceviche made with fresh fish, vinegar, chillies, and topped with grilled pork. It is taken best with a freezing San Miguel Beer. 

The question you get asked most frequently on your walking tours?

Where is there a good place to see the sunset?

And the answer?

Harbour View Restaurant at the Quirino Grandstand. [The] second most asked [is] why is Manila such a mess. My answer: We never got over the destruction of the entire city at the end of World War 2. 

How would you describe the fashion sense of Manila’s thirty-somethings?

Practical. 

How has the city changed in the past ten years?

It's become more hospitable. Believe it or not, smoke-belching levels from automobiles have gone down and traffic is not as much of a nightmare as it was. The creative scene has also exploded and hotels have improved. But we still have a long way to go. There's always room for more improvement. 

The one thing you wish tourists would stop doing?

Stop skipping Manila.