On (Not) Dealing with the Past in Southeast Asia
In 1965 there was a coup in Indonesia. Sukarno was overthrown, and the coup was blamed on Communists. A purge of suspected Communists then ensued, and some half a million…
A Letter from Lord of Thailand Tengku Abdullah Osman
On 21 October 1945, Lord of Thailand Tengku Abdullah Osman sent a letter to “Mr. D. Headley, Lieutnent (sic) Colonel & Chief Commander Civil Affairs, Trengganu Government.” Headley probably found…
Mapping Military Posts in French Indochina
Following on the post below, here is an attempt at making a map of military posts in French Indochina in World War II. On the map page you can switch…
Mapping the “Ban” in Colonial-Era Vietnam
A few days ago I wrote an entry about a secret report about Caodaism from 1944. I found that report in a text called the Gazetteer of Indochina. This gazetteer…
Theorizing Culture vs. Knowing Văn Hóa
I’ve written before about how the concept of “identity” is understood in radically different ways in Vietnam and in certain places outside of Vietnam. I’ve recently come to realize that…
The Evils of Quốc Ngữ #8
Any time I read something in English about the premodern history of the Red River Delta and find an author saying that a work from that region mentions “China,” I…
Chiang Kai-shek and Vietnam in 1945
Last year I wrote a post (here) in which I tried to refute the idea that Hò Chí Minh said in the late 1940s that “I prefer to sniff French…
Identifying War Criminals from WW II in Southeast Asia
When the Japanese occupied Southeast Asia during World War II, there were soldiers who committed war crimes. Convicting those people of crimes was an extremely complex process. There are a…
Forgotten Diplomats
Wars create refugees. In every war there are people who flee from the fighting, and people who flee from the victors. In the 1970s, the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia…
A 1944 Secret Report on Caodaism
I came across a “secret” report that the Indochina Section of the Far Eastern Bureau of the British Ministry of Information in New Delhi filed in 1944. It is an…