Multilingual Movies in 1963 Phnom Penh
Having come across the picture of the Hawaii Cinema in Phnom Penh (see the post below), I decided to try to see if I could find any advertisements for it.…
Hawaii in Southeast Asia
In the first half of the 1960s, American singer Elvis Presley made three movies in Hawaii: Blue Hawaii, Girls! Girls! Girls! and Paradise, Hawaiian Style. In at least one of…
Visualizing Nationalists in 1945 Vietnam
I came across a report from October 1945 that was created by the US State Department. It contains biographies of nationalists in Indochina. In the fall of 1945, Ho Chi…
Korea, Vietnam and Area Studies
[A few days ago I posted this piece, but then I deleted it because I thought people might see it as too negative. My intent in writing this piece, however,…
Watching (a Curveless Version of) 42nd Street at the Sala Chalermkrung in 1933
In 1933, Warner Brothers released a musical film called 42nd Street. The film has been called a “backstage musical” as it focuses on a group of dancers and actors who…
A Chinese College in Late-19th-Century Singapore
The internationalization of higher education is a major trend around the globe at the moment. One of the manifestations of this phenomenon is that Western universities are setting up programs…
King Mindon’s 1856 Letter to the US President
The US National Archives has digitized a letter that was sent by Burmese king, Mindon Min, to the US president in 1856. In that year, Franklin Pierce was the president,…
Music and Power in Mainland Southeast Asia
Recently I’ve been reading and listening to a new book with accompanying CDs called Longing for the Past: The 78 rpm Era in Southeast Asia. In the early 20th century,…
Humor at the Biên Hòa Insane Asylum in 1934
I was looking at an issue of Phụ nữ tân văn (Women’s News) from 1934 and came across an article written by a certain Nguyễn Thị Manh Manh about a…
Prince Maung Maung Gyi, Emperor Bảo Đại, and the Women They Loved
I came across a wonderful picture on Facebook today. This is Prince Maung Maung Gyi, a member of the (deposed) royal family of Burma. Not knowing anything about this man,…