Southeast Asia Collection Blog

Back issues of the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (BCAS) are now available online at no charge for the years 1968 to 1983 (click on the archives tab). The BCAS, currently published under the title Critical Asian Studies (also available free of charge), is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes scholarly articles on Asia and the Pacific region.

Upon our own ground : Filipino short stories in English, 1956 to 1972 / edited by Gémino H. Abad. Diliman, Quezon City : University of the Philippines Press, c2008.

This title, a two-volume anthology of Filipino short stories published between 1956 and 1972, is a continuation of the late professor Leopoldo Y. Yabes’s three-volume set of Filipino stories from the period 1925 to 1955. In the words of the editor, the stories selected here “represent Filipinas, that is, our sense of our own historical reality: our land and our people, and the way we think and feel, and so, live.”

Phan Chau Trinh and his political writings / translated and edited by Vinh Sinh. Ithaca : Cornell University Press, c2009.

Phan Châu Trinh (1872-1926) is often credited for being the first and most articulate champion of democracy and popular rights in Vietnam. Like his contemporary Phan Bôi Châu, Phan Châu Trinh was a staunch Vietnamese nationalist who was committed to bringing about real political and cultural change in Vietnam. The two differed only with respect to their methods. Whereas Phan Bôi Châu was convinced that only by means of armed resistance would the Vietnamese achieve national independence from the French, Phan Châu Trinh eschewed violence. He argued that the key to realizing national independence lay in achieving fundamental changes within Vietnamese culture and society. In a sense, he was taking a leaf from the writings of Chinese scholar Kang Youwei (1858-1927), who stood for “self-strengthening.”

The present volume includes a biographical chronology and a very useful introduction in which the author provides some historical background on the life and work of Phan Châu Trinh, thus setting the stage for the highlight of the book, the translations of four of Phan Châu Trinh’s best-known essays.

Heather, David. Vietnam posters : the David Heather collection / David Heather, Sherry Buchanan. Munich ; New York, N.Y. : Prestel, c2009.

Several years ago David Heather, a British businessman, curator and voracious collector of Vietnamese and North Korean art, stumbled upon an enormous collection of Vietnamese propaganda posters in a small, run-of-the-mill shop in the old quarter of Hanoi. The collection, which Heather subsequently purchased, consists of propaganda posters from the 1950s to the present-day. The posters depict a wide range of themes. The most prevailing theme, however, is the French and American wars, and the valiant struggle of the Vietnamese people. The posters depict the Vietnamese people as tenacious, formidable, and heroic, and the Vietnamese leadership as sagacious, resolute and self-sacrificing. Needless to say, the venerable Ho Chi Minh appears larger than life itself. The French and the Americans, meanwhile, are portrayed as weak and morally corrupt. This, too, is no surprise.

This visually stunning collection, all digitally reproduced here, provides excellent insight into modern Vietnamese political history and culture. The volume includes a short historical essay by Sherry Buchanan.

Stengs, Irene. Worshipping the great moderniser : King Chulalongkorn, patron saint of the Thai middle class. Singapore : NUS Press ; Seattle : University of Washington Press, c2009.

Every so often a book lands on my desk which is difficult, if not impossible, to summarize in a paragraph or two without feeling that I ought to have written more. Worshiping the great modernizer is such a book. Here Irene Stengs, an anthropologist by training, examines the making of the cult of the larger-than-life figure King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910). Stengs argues that the cult of King Chulalongkorn, while long in the making, crystallized during the economic boom of the 1980s and 1990s. She also claims that the making of this cult was inextricably linked to the urban Thai middle-class, who looked to Chulalongkorn, the “great modernizer,” for inspiration and guidance during this period of rapid and far-reaching economic change. Stengs also compares the popular image of King Chulalongkorn with that of the present king.

Stengs analysis of the carefully crafted narrative underpinning the image of King Chulalongkorn is intriguing. The general picture that emerges from this narrative is one of a politically astute, public-minded, reforming monarch, who transformed Siam from a weak, back-water agrarian society into a civilized, modern nation-state. After all, he abolished slavery, reformed the educational system, and made government more efficient and attentive to the needs and well-being of the people. In a word, he modernized Siam. In so doing, King Chulalongkorn single-handedly saved the kingdom, or so the narrative goes, from succumbing to colonial rule.

Is there an element of hyperbole in this narrative? Of course, but there is also some truth to it, which Stengs appears to overlook. Nevertheless, it is a thought-provoking book, and worth our attention.

Localizing and transnationalizing contentious politics : global civil society movements in the Philippines / [edited by] Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem. Lanham, Md. : Lexington Books, c2009.

This volume, which grew out of a broader research project undertaken by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, examines the complex relationship between globalism and civil society movements in the Philippines. More specifically, the book chronicles the emergence and, equally important, the responses of these various civil society movements to an array of prevailing social and economic problems, including debt relief, international trade regulations, global taxation, anti-corruption and free trade.

Boisselier, Jean. Studies on the art of ancient Cambodia : ten articles by Jean Boisselier / translated and edited by Natasha Eilenberg & Robert L. Brown. Phnom Penh, Cambodia : Reyum Pub., 2008.

Jean Boisselier was one of the most accomplished students of Southeast Asian art and the foremost authority on Hindu and Buddhist sculpture. This volume contains ten of Boisselier’s most important scholarly works in English translation.

Tingley, Nancy, 1948-. Arts of ancient Viet Nam : from river plain to open sea / Nancy Tingley ; with essays by Andreas Reinecke … [et al.].Houston : Asia Society and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston ; New Haven : Distributed by Yale University Press, c2009.

This well-written and beautifully illustrated volume represents the culmination of a two-decade long project initiated by Nancy Tingley, long-time curator of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.The concept, if not the actual project, was simple: to borrow works of art from leading Vietnamese museums for an exhibition in the United States. Conceived in the long shadow of the Vietnam War,  Tingley aimed to present to the American people a different image of Vietnam by highlighting its glorious cultural history and rich artistic heritage. The exhibition, Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea, and the accompanying volume, grew out of these aspirations. The exhibition, scheduled to open in September 2009 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, features Vietnamese art from the 5th century BC to the 18th century. The present volume includes photographs of many of the exhibit pieces, as well as essays by Andreas Reinecke, Nancy Tingley, Pierre-Yves Manguin, Kerry Nguyen-Long, and  Nguyen Dinh Chien.

Baird, Ian (Ian G.). People, livelihoods, and development in the Xekong River Basin, Laos / Ian G. Baird and Bruce Shoemaker. Bangkok, Thailand : White Lotus Press, c2008.

This is the first serious study (in any language) of the rapidly changing economic and cultural landscape of the Xekong river basin in Laos. The Xekong River originates in the central highlands of Vietnam, runs southwesterly through Laos, and enters Cambodia, where it flows into the Mekong. The Xekong River basin, with a area of more than 22,000 km, dominates the topography of central Laos. Leaving aside the natural beauty and rich diversity of the flora and fauna found here, the Xekong River basin is also home to a wide range of ethnic groups, some of which, such as the Austroasiatic Mon-Khmer speakers, have inhabited the basin for over 5,000 years. This volume surveys the history of human settlements in the Xekong River basin, the diverse cultures, livelihoods, and political ecology. Against this backdrop, the authors examine the changes, some with far-reaching consequences, that have taken place in the last decade or so in the name of economic development. The general picture that emerges is one of a complex struggle between the local inhabitants and the Lao state over the basin’s rich but rapidly diminishing natural resources. Other themes include mounting crises of cultural identity and the disappearance of traditional ways of life and livelihoods.

Michaud, Jean, 1957-. ‘Incidental’ ethnographers : French Catholic missions on the Tonkin-Yunnan frontier, 1880-1930. Leiden, Netherland ; Boston, Mass. : Brill, 2007.

This is a rather interesting book. In this monograph, Michaud, an anthropologist by training, examines colonial missionary ethnography written around the turn of the 20th century by French Catholic missionaries posted in upland northern Vietnam. The missionaries were inextricably bound up in the history of the French colonial state. Their credibility as ethnographers is thus somewhat suspect. As agents of the Western religious establishment, the colonial regime, and as emissaries of ‘modernity’, the recorded thoughts of the French Catholic missionaries were almost certainly “tainted with bigotry” (p. 6). However, without belying the problematic nature of colonial missionary ethnography, Michaud argues that these texts are an important source of information. Although one must scrutinize these sources with sufficient care, they contain valuable information about the highland peoples of northern Vietnam, much of which might not otherwise see the light of day. In addition, these accounts offer invaluable insight into the motives and worldview of French missionaries and administrators at the height of the colonial period.