Representing Minorities in Late-1970s Vietnam
I was looking at a pictorial magazine called "Vietnam." Has anyone studied these types of magazines before? I think people have studied magazines like "Life," but in the Socialist world there…
A Thai Beauty Queen and the Blood of Her Soldiers
I was looking at a Thai newspaper from the 1930s called the Siam Rashdra Daily News. The front page for April 24, 1935 had an image and a notice right…
News of Death in 1895 Sarawak
I was reading the Sarawak Gazette for May 1st, 1895. It contains a section on local news. This section consists mainly of single-sentence reports about the arrival and departure of…
Imperial Imaginings in Nineteenth Century Vietnam
Oh if only I had the time and the ability. . . I was just looking at a text called the Ngự đề Danh thắng đồ hội thi tập (御題名勝圖繪詩集).…
The Two Replies of Trần Hưng Đạo
Under its entry for the year 1300, the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư contains a good deal of information about the general, Trần Hưng Đạo, as that was the…
More Thai 7-11 Curiosities
So the other day as I was faithfully drinking a beer in Bangkok with a straw which the 7-11 cashier had provided me with, I started to read the information…
The Traumatic Origins of Modern Thai and Vietnamese Historical Writing
River Books in Bangkok has just published a new volume entitled, Southeast Asian Historiography, Unravelling the Myths: Essays in Honour of Barend Jan Terwiel. The first chapter is an essay…
The Thai 7-11 Straw Fetish
Every time I purchase something which comes in liquid form at a 7-11 in Bangkok, the cashier always gives me a straw. It does not matter what the liquid is,…
Tự Đức and the Translation of the Past
In the nineteenth century, the Nguyễn Dynasty commissioned the compilation of a new official history of the kingdom. Emperor Tự Đức read this history and commented on various episodes. His…
The Siamese Sore in Late Imperial Vietnam
I was reading a manuscript today called Random Accounts from a Mountain Residence (Sơn cư tạp thuật). It is supposed to date from the late 18th century, but I found…