An 1830 Vietnamese Voyage to Calcutta
In 1830, Emperor Minh Mạng of the Nguyễn dynasty sent two ships on a voyage to Bengal. The purpose of the voyage was not to engage in trade, but instead,…
Chen Ching-ho’s “On the ‘Official Missions to Hạ châu’ (下洲公務) in the Early Nguyễn Period”
In 1990, Taiwanese historian Chen Ching-ho (Chen Jinghe 陳荊和) published an article in Japanese entitled “On the ‘Hạ-châu Missions’ (下洲公務) conducted during the early Period of the Nguyen Dynasty.”This was…
A Translation of George Cœdès’s 1918 Srivijaya Article
In writing about George Cœdès’s 1918 article, “Le royaume de Çrīvijaya,” it dawned on me that it would be difficult for many people to understand what I am talking about…
Three 18th-Century Siam-Related Chinese Maps
In 2012, the National Palace Museum in Taiwan held an exhibition of historical maps in its collection and published a catalog of that exhibition entitled “Mapping the Imperial Realm, an…
Southeast Asia in the Shunfeng Xiangsong
The Shunfeng xiangsong 順風相送 [Voyage with a Tailwind] is an early Chinese nautical navigation manual. It’s not clear when this text was created, however, one manuscript version of this text…
A Translation of the 1304 Dade Nanhai zhi
The Gazetteer of the Southern Seas during the Dade Era (Dade Nanhai zhi 大德南海志), also known simply as the Gazetteer of the Southern Seas (Nanhai zhi 南海志) is a Yuan-dynasty…
Southeast Asia in the Zhufan zhi
The Treatise on the Various Barbarians (Zhufan zhi 諸蕃志), completed in 1225 by Zhao Rukuo 趙汝适 (1170—1231), is a very important work for the study of early Southeast Asian history.An…
Southeast Asia in the “Miscellaneous Records of the Island Barbarians”
The “Miscellaneous Records of the Island Barbarians” (Dao Yi zazhi 島夷雜誌) is the name of a section within a kind of encyclopedia called the Expansive Record of the Forest of…
Zhenla in the Tang and Song
I recently learned/realized that during the Tang dynasty period, there was an overland trade route that went from what is now central Vietnam over to Cambodia and then south to…
Chinese Tributary Names as Geographic Containers
There is something that I have come to realize as I’ve worked with Chinese sources on early Southeast Asian history, and it is that the scholars who have written on…