Imagining a Eurasian History of Southeast Asia
A few years ago someone I met in Kuching kindly gave me a cookbook that had just been published by the Sarawak Eurasian Association called Legacy Cookbook. This cookbook highlighted…
Crossing Boundaries in 1930s-1940s Sarawak and England
The digitization of archival materials, newspapers, etc., is fantastic for researchers, but I also find it a bit frightening as there is undoubtedly information that is now freely available that…
Pua Kumbu and Digital Knowledge Mobilization
On a recent trip to Malaysia I visited an exhibition on Textile Tales of Pua Kumbu at the University of Malaya Art Gallery that really impressed me. Pua kumbu are…
Making Traditional Music Cool in Sarawak
Lamenting the loss of tradition is something that you hear all around the world, but there are some places that succeed in keeping the traditional world alive. The way they…
Jemadar Guptha, Loyal to the Empire and Beaten by the Japanese in World War II Sarawak
It is well known that after the Japanese occupied Southeast Asia in World War II, Indian nationalists formed something known as the “Indian National Army,” a military force that had…
The Dayang Muda “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in WWII Bombay
In looking around in the materials digitized by the Australian National Archives I came across a file called “Landing Permits Dayang Muda of Sarawak.” Sarawak, on the island of Borneo,…
A British Haji in Sarawak and his England-Loving Malay Wife
A few months ago I wrote a post about an Irishman who became a Buddhist monk in Burma in the early twentieth century, and who was known as U Dhammaloka.…
Remixing the Past: Murdered Chinese in 1900 Sarawak
In reading issues of the Sarawak Gazette from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, I repeatedly come across references to Chinese either killing themselves or getting murdered. Life for Chinese laborers…
Remixing the Past: Of Pigs and Men in 1920s Sarawak
Partly because I’ve been spending a lot of time in a forest that is inhabited by wild boars, and partly because sometimes when I’m out there I think about some…
The Enchantment of 1948 Sarawak
In the early twentieth century, German sociologist Max Weber noted that one characteristic of modern societies was an increasing “disenchantment of the world.” By “disenchantment,” Weber meant that in modern…