Debating Industrial Civilization in 1930s Burma
One topic which I would love to read a book about is Southeast Asian intellectual history. Such a book, however, has never been written. In fact, it hasn’t even really…
The Rhythm of Ships and Suffering Chinese in Colonial Sarawak
I was reading the Sarawak Gazette from the 1890s, when Sarawak was under the control of the Brooke family, and I was looking at how the news from Kuching, the…
The Early History of the Eastern Part of the Southeast Asian Mainland
I recently received a copy of a new book entitled Ancient Vietnam: History, Art and Archaeology by Anne-Valérie Schweyer, a French scholar whose specialty is Cham epigraphy. It was published…
In the Darkness of a Colonial Singaporean Prison Cell
In the nineteenth century, colonial officials in Singapore were proud of their prison system, and particularly proud of their “convict prison.” This was a place for criminals who had been…
The Differing Customs of the Qing People
I was reading the Khâm Định Việt Sử Thông Giám Cương Mục and found some interesting entries in the year 1663. In the seventh lunar month of that year the…
Tự Đức’s Dismissal of Sĩ Nhiếp
One of the stereotypes which the Nguyễn Dynasty has suffered from is that it was “overly Sinitic/Confucian,” and that this made them impractical to the extent that they could not…
Looking Good in Tents and Paper in 1960s Malaysia
I just came across these articles in the Malay Mail about certain hip fashions in 1963. The first was for "the tent" which apparently girls were "falling for." Girls were…
Localizing the Nation in Early Twentieth Century Vietnam
The concept of the nation, or a nationality, as consisting of a single people living within a defined territory speaking a single language and sharing a common culture is a…
The Problem of Continuity in Early “Vietnamese” Archaeology
Archaeological Highlights, a Vietnamese blog on archaeology, history, methodology, and other issues, has an interesting recent post which questions how the archaeological materials that have been unearthed in Vietnam can…
The Entry of Daoism into Vietnam
So I was reading Wikipedia (“Bad historian!”) and came across the following line in an entry on “Vietnamese Daoism”: “Vietnamese Daoism is Daoism which became localized when it entered Vietnam…