As is well known, during the colonial period, various European scholars came to envision a process in the past where Southeast Asia came to be influenced by outside forces. In other words, scholars argued that people like the Vietnamese had historically been Sinicized and people in places like Cambodia had historically been Indianized.
Then with the establishment of centers of Southeast Asian studies in universities in North America, the UK and Australia in the post-World War II era, the pendulum swung to the other extreme, and scholars talked about “localization.” The idea here was not that Southeast Asian societies had been influenced from the outside, but that people in Southeast Asia had “selected” elements from foreign cultural traditions that they then “localized,” or adapted to local conditions.
One of the greatest proponents of this idea of localization was the late O. W. Wolters. Wolters argued, for instance, that when Vietnamese scholars in the past cited the “Chinese” classics, they “drained” those texts of their original meaning, and used them for local purposes.
I’ve always wondered what would have happened if Wolters could have gone back in time 200 years and explained to a scholar like Lê Quý Đôn that in texts like his Quần thư khảo biện or Thánh mô hiền phạm lục, in which he cites extensively from “Chinese” texts, that what he was doing was “draining” those texts of their original meaning and using them for local purposes. . .
I imagine that Lê Quý Đôn would have felt so insulted that he would have wanted to see Wolters punished for such “heterodox” ideas.
In some ways the ability of historians to interpret the past in ways that people who lived in the past could not is a good thing. People today, for instance, can write about something like slavery in ways that are probably more perceptive and critical than people could at the time when slavery was legal.
In other ways, however, viewing the past from the present can be problematic, such as when we wrongly determine what was important to people in the past by projecting our own preferences and values onto them. This is what I feel happened with the concept of localization.
The idea of “Sinicization” – that there was some wave of influence that flowed and changed the ways of people in its path – is obviously simplistic. However, the idea of “localization,” is equally problematic.
On the one hand, it problematically assumes that there is some kind of coherent “tradition” (i.e., the “Indian tradition” or the “Chinese tradition”) out there that is homogenous and complete, and that there are also people who are outside of that tradition who have the power and ability to “select” what they want from that tradition, and to “localize” those elements that they select.
Reality, however, is nowhere near this simple or clear-cut.
On the other hand, the concept of “localization” also misrepresents the ideas of local people. In many cases, local people engage with cultural images/ideas/practices not because they want to be local, but precisely because they want to be the same as what they see in those images/ideas/practices.
While he does not engage in this debate about the concept of localization, in his A Thousand Years of Caps and Robes (Ngàn năm áo mũ), Trần Quang Đức nonetheless provides a fantastic example that challenges the importance of the idea of localization that scholars like O. W. Wolters proposed.
Put simply, what Trần Quang Đức points out is that rulers in early Việt dynasties wore certain caps and robes that had supposedly been worn in “Chinese” antiquity. Then, however, in the nineteenth century when the scholar, Phan Huy Chú, examined the past, he claimed to not be able to find evidence of the usage of certain caps and robes in the past. And then after that, Emperor Minh Mạng instituted the usage of certain caps and robes which he claimed had not been used before in Việt history, but which Trần Quang Đức points out had in fact been used before.
Trần Quang Đức uses this information to argue that when new dynasties came to power (not only in Vietnam but in places like Korea and Japan as well), they needed to establish what their official robes and caps would be like. However, it was often the case that previous records had been destroyed. So they needed to find information about what the “proper” attire for a ruler and his officials was, and to do this they always sought out information from the same source – “Chinese” antiquity.
Did the way that the Koreans and Vietnamese ended up dressing always perfectly resemble the way rulers and officials supposedly dressed in “Chinese” antiquity? No, but it is not because Vietnamese and Koreans didn’t try, and it is not because they wanted to look differently.
They tried to look the same as people in antiquity rather than to localize. But of course nothing is ever perfectly replicated, so differences did emerge.
Trần Quang Đức therefore argues that in the end what happened is that you had “a lot of similarities and not many differences” (đại đồng tiểu dị) between the way that the people in royal courts dressed throughout East Asia throughout history.
This expression that Trần Quang Đức uses, đại đồng tiểu dị 大同小異, literally means “big same small different” and comes from classical Chinese. It is, I think, very helpful for visualizing the problem with the way that the concept of localization has been used.
People like O. W. Wolters promoted and celebrated signs of difference, because to him this represented the agency of people in Southeast Asia, something that colonial-era scholars had denied.
However, what this example of clothing demonstrates is that while the Việt ruling elite did indeed have agency, they acted not to be different, but to be the same. They wanted “same-ness” (đồng 同) not “difference” (dị 異) and because of their efforts (or their agency) the same-ness ended up being “big” (đại 大) rather than “small” (tiểu 小).
So by identifying the “small differences” and glorifying them as signs of “localization,” we misrepresent what it is that people in the past valued and tried to accomplish.
I think you’ve nailed it with this idea – “local people engage with cultural images/ideas/practices not because they want to be local, but precisely because they want to be the same as what they see in those images/ideas/practices.” I think that makes this difficult and fascinating to understand is to try to come to grips with what the local people thought they were copying and how that differs from the values and understanding of the copied people. Something new is always created even if the difference between the copy and the original may be very subtle.
In recent years, Vietnamese popular music has had a very uneasy relationship between originality and copying. They use the term đạo when someone has used another’s melody, most often the melody of another, outside culture and only written new lyrics. This is especially the case if the copier does not give attribution to the source. I guess it’s thought to be a shifty way to ride on somebody else’s success, but sometimes the copied result has subtle inflections that reveal some creation as well.
But of course, the main reason for copying something is because you think it’s really great and want to be a part of it yourself. The sincerest form of flattery.
Thanks for your comments. You always offer excellent examples and insights.
I think the reason why I dislike the localization concept so much is because it has become a “badge” that is used to demonstrate that one is a member of a certain academic community (i.e., someone who studies about Southeast Asia). If you go listen to academics speak, they often say things that are meant to demonstrate that they “know the field,” and when people in the audience hear the speaker mention points that are “emblems” of the field, they nod their heads in agreement.
The problem is that some of these concepts that were used to originally define or demarcate a field can lose their explanatory value over time, and yet academics continue to mention them. . . I think because they feel some kind of need or compulsion to demonstrate their “membership” in the field to other “members.” And the other members have to hear a speaker declare her/his “loyalty” to the field to be able to fully follow and accept what the person is saying. (Has Pierre Bourdieu already theorized this? Probably. . .)
So, for example, if someone in the US was giving a talk on Vietnamese popular music at a Center for Southeast Asian studies somewhere and was talking about how a lot of songs are đạo (“pirated”) from Korean songs, even if the main point of the talk was to indicate how important Korean culture has become in some young Vietnamese people’s eyes, that person would still say something like “of course the songs are not exact copies of the Korean songs because the Vietnamese localize them and add some of their own inflections to the melodies,” and the fellow “Southeast Asianists” in the audience would then all nod their heads in agreement. And they would relax knowing that the speaker is “one of us.” (If someone’s explicit purpose is to examine precisely those inflections, then that is one thing, but what I object to is how people still refer to localization even when that is not what they are talking about, that is, when it is mentioned simply to “reconfirm” a concept that a field is supposedly based on.)
But why even say that? As you say here, “Something new is always created even if the difference between the copy and the original may be very subtle.” Why do we have to keep mentioning localization? I don’t think we do, but people keep doing it because of, I think, this social aspect of academia.
As a loner who does not like to belong to any group, hearing people “reconfirm” their “loyalty” to the localization concept, when as far as I can tell, all it does is to simply explain the obvious, always rubs me the wrong way.
Wow, it’s only 8 AM and I’m already ranting. . . It’s going to be a good day today! 😉
Great post!
It’s funny, I commented awhile ago on your blog about the lack of resources on Vietnamese clothing, and was just going to comment to you now about that new book “Ngan nam ao mu”, but it seems you’ve already read it! 🙂
Did I respond? (I always try to) Somehow I think I might vaguely remember saying to someone “no, there is nothing about the history of Vietnamese clothing.” But yes, there definitely is now. I don’t know where you are, but I heard that it’s going to be made available through Amazon in the US later this summer.
Yep, you did. In fact you even asked a colleague of yours (who specializes in that field?) to comment on some pictures I had linked.
There have been several books released in previous years but they almost always had widely negative reviews, while this one apparently has been well received by the academic community?
Actually, I asked the author of this book.
Is this book being well received? Actually I was told recently that I’m the only person talking about it at the moment. . . The fact of the matter is that this guy is on a totally different level from everyone else. People are not talking about it because there is basically no one out there who is anywhere close to this guy in terms of his ability to read classical Chinese and his mastery of the sources on this topic (and that definitely includes me). All I’m doing is being honest and trying to figure out what this author is doing, and from what I can figure out, he’s doing a damn good job.
I do not think those who imitate images/practices of others do not have agency: they choose to do probably based on their own belief and for their own sake.
Furthermore, I think the topic of looking the past from the present perspective is inescabple. It is better to train historians that there is no oringal history: there is never a description of the past that is truly the version of that past. National historiographies are all interpretations of the past in accordance to present needs and political, professional and economic benefits of historians themselves.
Yes, looking at the past from the present perspective is inescapable, BUT we can greatly reduce the influence of the present. No one needs to write from a nationalist perspective anymore. Other people can clearly see the way that the present influences such historical writing. So if we are aware of it, then we don’t have to let the present influence us in that way.
What is much more difficult to change are things that we are not really aware of. But people in the future might notice something that we do now that we don’t see ourselves, and then they can try to avoid doing that.
So that is what I think writing history is all about. We have to try to identify the ways that we and those before us have distorted the past, and try to gain a clearer view of the past.
As for “original,” you really don’t like that word, do you? 🙂
I think there is an “original history,” but we can’t capture it in its entirety. Sometimes we can only capture a fragment of it. However, that is the same as the present. We are living in the present, but we can’t comprehend the present in its entirety either. We only see parts of it, and build our understanding of reality based on the parts that we see.
And I agree with you that people who “imitate/copy” have agency and that “they choose to do so probably based on their own belief and for their own sake.” The hard part is trying to figure out what those beliefs are/were.
Good comments!! Thanks!
Is it misguided to assume that Vietnamese of the time simply viewed Chinese culture in a similar way that we view “western culture” today? We don’t really even think of it as “western”, we just think of it as “modern”. Because it has permeated every society. (Everything from jeans to skyscrapers or western architecture in general, modern technology, etc.)
Yea, this is one way to look at it. I think it was a little different though because there was more “(religious) power” in the past than there is in our more secular world today. I think it more like a religion. They viewed “Chinese culture” more like the way that people in Europe in the past viewed Christianity.
When we call it “Chinese culture,” that implies that there was some alternative. Before the 20th century, there was no alternative.
In Europe a couple centuries or so ago there was really no alternative to Christianity. I think it was the same for the educated elite in Vietnam. There was no alternative to (whatever we want to call it). It was #1.
When Westerners then arrived and starting messing everything up, then the universal-ness of it started to go away, and at that time it became “Chinese culture” as opposed to “Western culture” etc. And Vietnamese started to view it differently.
There were times when “scholars” would have said that “one must not forget that “the Annamite” is nothing but a copy of a Chinese, and a bad one indeed.” If an academic engaged in SEAS said such a thing that blatantly today he would have few friends, unless he was teacher at a Chinese university.
Today all those independent countries in SEA have to have a national language, national history, national dress, national cuisine – all of their own invention if possible, or at least with a great deal of local genius in the adaptation process of foreign influences. And who among the (western) academics wouldn´t like to support that claim and join the ranks of the insiders? To support (in the usual paternalistic way) the small and weak against the perceived great hegemon? After all, the existence of e.g. Vietnamese studies is somewhat at stake, if it is not defined as something very distinct. Otherwise the position might be axed at the earliest possible occasion and the work transferred to somebody else responsible for “minority cultures and other curiosities from the empire´s fringe” at any Chinese Studies department.
I just wonder why in the discussion on the garments the sign “invented tradition” hasn´t appeared yet… That would have earned some nods for sure too…
Good point!! I don’t think I would use “invented tradition” to talk about the clothing, but your mentioning that term is good because now I have to think about why I wouldn’t use it.
In the 15th century, some stories were compiled in “Vietnam” about antiquity – the Hung kings, the kingdom of Van Lang, etc. – and those stories basically stayed the same from that point onward. I would definitely label that an “invented tradition.”
As for the clothing, however, I don’t get the sense that they were trying to create a “tradition” or a “story” or to say that the clothing had “roots” or anything like that. They were simply looking for the clothing that was the most “powerful” and that could assist them, particularly in the performance of rituals. And they kept making changes.
Yes, there was a “model” for the caps and robes in (“Chinese”) antiquity, but the information about that model was not super clear, and as a result there was always room to try to get more exact or precise in interpreting what that model must have been like.
The Vietnamese and Chinese both did this. At the same time, the Vietnamese also kept an eye on what the Song, Ming, and Qing did (so the Vietnamese looked in two directions – back towards antiquity and north towards whatever court was in power) – but everyone was trying to do the same thing (to get their clothing “just right”) and everyone ultimately believed that the “best answer” was in antiquity.
I guess I haven’t seen the concept of “invented tradition” used for something that was of such immediate and constant importance like the clothing was for the ruling elite. I think they felt that their dynasty’s success depended in part on having their garments “work.” If they didn’t “work,” then the rituals would not produce the desired effect, and that could prove fatal for the dynasty.
As for the “invented tradition” about the Hung kings and Van Lang, yes it was nice, but I don’t think people paid much attention to it. It didn’t play any role in rituals (until the 20th century), for instance. Clothing, however, was of critical and immediate importance.
I’m not sure what we would call this.