Southeast Asians Studying Abroad
The Australian National Archives has a lot of pictures from the 1950s-1970s of students from Southeast Asia. This was a time when the Australian government provided a lot of scholarships…
Nguyễn Cao Kỳ on North Vietnam and China in 1967
On 19 January 1967, Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ held a press conference at the Canberra Hotel during an official visit to Australia. He was asked a couple of questions…
Duplicity in Chinese Scholarship?
Yesterday the New York Times had an article on a new scholarship that is being created that will enable non-Chinese to study in China. “The private-equity tycoon Stephen A. Schwarzman,…
Mixing Politics, Ethnicity and Culture in Southeast Asia
This past week I read a book that came out a few years ago, Jamie S. Davidson’s From Rebellion to Riots: Collective Violence on Indonesian Borneo (Madison: University of Wisconsin…
Southeast Asian Hand Art
I wrote a short post a while ago called “The Art in Southeast Asian Archives” where I made the point that when you do research you often come across things…
The Gar Girls’ 1917 Trip to the Philippines
In 1901 the Parliament of Australia passed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901. This law basically gave immigration officials a lot of power to deny entry into Australia of people…
Japanese War Criminals in Labuan
So much has been written about World War II. People know all about the battles and the dropping of the atomic bombs, etc. However, to me the most fascinating period…
Trafficking Japanese Women in Colonial Southeast Asia
On 27 February 1912, Captain Tucker Wardrop, the chief police officer at the Central Police Station in Beaufort, British North Borneo, wrote a letter to the chief police officer at…
The Divided Fight Against Colonial Rule in Southeast Asia
One of the main myths that nationalist historiography creates is that the people of the nation all unite together for a common cause. During the period of decolonization, the common…
Equestrian Diplomacy in Thailand
I wrote a blog entry a while ago on “Bovine Diplomacy in South Vietnam” in which I talked about how the Australians sent cows to South Vietnam in the late…