Visiting Democratic Kampuchea in November 1977
Someone told me recently that the archival materials that Chinese have on the Khmer Rouge will remain classified for 50 years. So we still have a couple of decades or…
Equal Rights to Makeup in 1930s Vietnam
I came across this nice image in an early issue of the journal Phong Hóa. A wife is surprised to see her husbands powdering his face, and he responds that…
August 1966
I was looking at an August 1966 issue of the magazine China Reconstructs. The first two articles in that issue dealt with Vietnam, and were entitled as follows: “China’s aid…
The Superficiality of Scholarship on Premodern Southeast Asian History
I got really depressed this weekend listening to a “senior scholar” in the field of premodern Southeast Asian history give a talk. The speaker is very well published, and has…