Competing Representations of the Nation in 1970s Vietnam
In the 20th century, the governments of many countries produced glossy magazines in foreign languages which were used to promote the nation’s image overseas. Recently I was looking at two…
Dương Bá Trác on the Origins of the Vietnamese Race
Scientists have long noted that there is no biological basis for race. Races of human beings do not actually exist. They are social constructs. People create different categories of human…
Noraini and Choo are Smarter than You
I came across these advertisements for The Chartered Bank in a magazine called Malaysia from the early 1970s. I find the logic that these advertisements use to communicate with the…
An Examination of the Name Giao Chỉ/Jiaozhi
Chen Jinghe/Trần Kinh Hòa was an historian who was born in 1917 in the Japanese colony of Taiwan. However, he went to school, from elementary to university, in Japan. As…
Coercing the Natives in 1870s Sarawak
Kuching, Sarawak is a lovely place. Clean and with a relaxing atmosphere, it is difficult to imagine it as a place of suffering. However, for many of its early years…
The Emotional Appeal of Lương Kim Định
On 14 July there was apparently a seminar in Hanoi to honor the work of philosopher Lương Kim Định on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of his death. Born…
The “Truth” about the Mandala
Like any field, the field of Southeast Asian history maintains certain “truths” which the people in the field learn and teach others about. One such “truth” is the idea that…
Hoàng Cao Khải’s Social Darwinist Ideas
The Nguyễn Dynasty official, Hoàng Cao Khải, is usually regarded today as a traitor for having assisted the French in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in their conquest…
Bản Sắc Văn Hóa = Ideological Position
I wrote a piece earlier (here) about how the term “bản sắc” is often translated as “identity” but that the way the term is used by Vietnamese has the opposite…
Sovereignty, Maps, etc.
To understand the past we have to know the history of ideas. If we do not know when the ideas we have about the world emerged, then we can easily…
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