The Sound of the Past. . .
So writing about telegrams got me thinking about what it must have sounded like to have a telegram arrive. I found this site called Morse Resource where I was able…
Murder, Rebels, Refugees and Telegrams in Late-19th-Century Southeast Asia
A few days ago I wrote about the technology of “wireless telegraphy” and its use in areas of Southeast Asia under colonial rule in the early twentieth century. Today I…
The “Buddhist” Cats & Dogs of Burma
I am a visionary! Last night before going to bed I saw an email that made reference to an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune (here) about supposed Vietnamese eating…
Connecting Southeast Asia through Wireless Telegraphy
Today I read a letter that Lester Maynard, the US consul-general in Sandakan, British North Borneo, wrote to the Secretary of the Philippine Commission (an American colonial official) in Manila…
Typewriters and Colonial Security in Southeast Asia
I’m reading Alfred McCoy’s Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009). It is an impressive piece…
Humanity, Scholarship and Beer
Just by chance I came across this picture of the Thai historian, Charnvit Kasetsiri, on facebook today. The text at the top says (and I translate it loosely here in…
Death from a “Complicated Derangement” in 1906 Sandakan
Lester Maynard was appointed US consul at Sandakan in British North Borneo on 26 June 1906. In October of that year he learned that a German-born naturalized American citizen by…
Two Lives, Two Ways of Knowing the World
Two emails came in this morning announcing the passing of two important men. Phạm Duy, one of the most important figures (some would say “the” most important figure) in twentieth-century…
Dangerous Books
I came across this image from Sài Gòn giải phóng (1 June 1975). The kid says, “Mom, those books are really beautiful!!” And the mother responds, “Truly beautiful, but those…
What “Folk” Created the Lĩnh Nam Chích Quái?
The study of “folk literature” (văn học dân gian) first began in Vietnam in the North in the 1950s. The approach that Vietnamese scholars at that time employed in studying…
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