Monthly Archives: June 2016

Read more about the article Microhistory in Phan Quang’s Re/Cover

Microhistory in Phan Quang’s Re/Cover

There is an art exhibition being held at BLANC Art Space in Saigon at the moment which displays a series of photographs taken by artist Phan Quang, and which is called “Re/Cover.”

The curator of the exhibition, Nguyễn Như Huy, kindly sent me a copy of the catalog for the exhibition. In the catalog, Nguyễn Như Huy has an essay entitled “Re/Cover: A Microhistorical Approach by Phan Quang” in which he explains how Phan Quang’s art can be understood as a form of microhistory.

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Read more about the article Công Binh as Microhistory

Công Binh as Microhistory

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of seeing the film Công Binh: La longue nuit Indochinoise. Created by French director Lam Lê (Lê Lâm), this is a documentary film about the 20,000 Vietnamese laborers who were sent to France to work in weapons factories during World War II.

The film is based on interviews with 20 of these former laborers; ten in France and 10 in Vietnam. Through their stories viewers are exposed to the complexities of a turbulent period of history.

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Read more about the article The Real (Lý) Ông Trọng

The Real (Lý) Ông Trọng

In making the video of Trần Trọng Dương’s discussion of Lý Ông Trọng, I was reminded of something I wrote about Lý Ông Trọng years ago and which I thought I had made public, but I now see that I never did.

The gist of the story is that there was an official in the Red River region at the end of the period of Han Dynasty rule whose name was Yao Jun and whose “courtesy name” (字) was “Wenzhong/Ông Trọng.” Yao Jun abandoned his post and went off into the mountains to become a Daoist.

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