Down-and-Out Americans in 1902 Batavia
I came across a letter that the American consul in Batavia (now Jakarta) sent to the US secretary of state in 1902 to seek approval for spending $16.06 to pay…
I came across a letter that the American consul in Batavia (now Jakarta) sent to the US secretary of state in 1902 to seek approval for spending $16.06 to pay…
I recently wrote about a spirit in Phù Đổng village known as Saint Gióng (Thánh Gióng) or the Soaring-to-Heaven King (冲天神王) or Heavenly King of Phù Đổng (扶董天王). This is…
Several years ago I spent a few years studying Khmer. I eventually started to do some research in Khmer, but then I got distracted by other things. A few years…
I need to learn more about how telegraph systems worked. I came across a couple of telegrams that were sent from Zamboanga in the Philippines to Sandakan on Borneo in…
Beaufort is a nice provincial town on the western side Borneo in what is now Sabah, Malaysia. In 1912 it was part of British North Borneo, and in that year…
I’ve been engaged in a long discussion on Facebook about, among other things, the story of a Vietnamese spirit in Phù Đổng village known in as Saint Gióng (Thánh Gióng)…
I’ve been having a long (and very productive) discussion with someone about an early Vietnamese text – the 15th-century – Lĩnh Nam chích quái liệt truyện (the Arrayed Tales of…
A friend recently pointed out to me that there is an article that North Vietnamese historian Trần Huy Liệu wrote in 1956 that more or less set the guidelines by…
I’m reading a book on the emergence of “early states” (nhà nước sơ khai) in the Red River Delta. This book claims to be based on archaeological evidence, but what…
Several decades ago in North America it was common for archaeologists to use historical texts to interpret and explain their findings. Then archaeologists started to realize that many historical texts…