Drunk Russians and Loyal Natives in 1901 Singapore
I was looking at some documents from the Straits Settlements that are held in the Colonial Office in London and came across some letters and other documents related to the…
Staying Dreamflower-Fresh in 1954 Burma
I came across these images in some 1954 issues of The New Light of Burma newspaper. They are for Pond’s products, such as talcum powder, lipstick and “dreamflower powder.” Sprinkling…
The Views of Moderate Cochinchinese in 1946
On March 6, 1946, President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam Hồ Chí Minh and Special Envoy of France Jean Sainteny signed an agreement that declared Vietnam to be a…
Sinicization and Hán Hóa
I’ve been doing some reading on the concept of Sinicization. It’s interesting to see that while the term has been widely used, very little effort (until recently) has been done…
Representing a Perfect Society in Early-1960s North Vietnam
Having posted some pictures from the South Vietnamese magazine, Vietnam Fights and Builds, from the 1960s, here are some images from a similar magazine from the same time period from…
(South) Vietnam Fights and Builds
I came across a magazine from the 1960s the other day called Vietnam Fights and Builds. It was published in South Vietnam and was written in English. It is obviously…
Sargon and Hùng: Heroes of the Ancient World!!
I was amazed to find the other day on the French National Library’s web site that in 1892 a Frenchman by the name of Abel des Michels published a French…
Olov Janse, Buffalo Boys, Spirits and the Foundation of Archaeology in Indochina
A few years ago historian Hayden Cherry published a very nice article which among other things talked about the early years of archaeology in French Indochina. [“Digging up the Past:…
Willoughby Wallace Hooper’s Photographs from the time of the Third Anglo-Burmese War (1885-86)
I was looking through the British Library’s online gallery of images from its Asia, Pacific & Africa Collections when I came across some amazing pictures of Burma in the late…
De-Westernizing Vietnamese History
I’ve said many times before that the most important period for understanding all of Vietnamese history is the one period that has been studied the least – the early twentieth…