Thailand
Agrarian Transformation in Thailand, and Rural-Urban Interactions
One of the great joys of my work is making videos of conversations with scholars who research about Southeast Asia. It was my great pleasure
The History of Domestic Tourism in Thailand
As is well known, in the 1960s and 1970s Thailand became a major destination for international tourists. During those same years, Thailand’s domestic tourism market
Revisiting the Vietnamese Annexation of Cambodia (8): Who Exactly was Fighting Whom?
There is an extremely important text for the conflict in the 1830s between “Vietnam,” “Siam” and “Cambodia” that I have never seen an historian use
Revisiting the Vietnamese Annexation of Cambodia (6): A Siamese Report on Clothing
Following up on the previous post, there is another source that mentions Cambodian officials and people wearing Vietnamese clothing – a Thai source known as
Rama VII Discovers Hawaiian History at the Coconut Hut
King Prajadhipok and Queen Rambhai Barni of Siam visited Honolulu in 1931 for only about 24 hours. That is not enough time to really gain
Huge Aloha for Rama VII in 1931
Recently a colleague pointed out to me that King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) and Queen Rambhai Barni of Siam visited Honolulu in 1931. I did not
The Honolulu-Bangkok World of 1970s Trans-Pacific Raunchiness
The idea that Bangkok is a center of sex tourism is something that is now widely known. If I remember correctly, the first time I
“Same Same But Different” Music in Thailand
I haven’t paid much attention to the Thai music scene for a while, but the other day I was looking around at recent music videos
Working Women and Exploitative States in Premodern Southeast Asia
As the field of Southeast Asian Studies developed (particularly in North America and Australia) in the second half of the twentieth century, one of the
Beautiful Saigon, Cambodian Girls and Cathay Pacific Airlines
There is a very famous Vietnamese song from the 1960s written by Y Vân called “Saigon is Beautiful” (Sài Gòn đẹp lắm). I remember being
The Absence of the Kwien in 1914 Chiang Mai
I was reading a book from 1914 called the Directory for Bangkok and Siam. Intended as a guidebook for foreign businessmen, this book contains a
Italians and Americans in Thailand in the 1970s
In writing a post recently on hapa actresses from Southeast Asia I came across the name of an Indonesian-Dutch hapa actress whom I had never
White Men and Brown Women in Semi-Colonial Siam
If you visit an English-language bookstore like Asiabooks in Bangkok you will probably find a shelf or two of novels that are all devoted to
Mattie Calogreedy, Anna Leonowens and Marie Vannier – Hapa Women at Mainland Southeast Asian Courts in the Nineteenth Century
The story of the overthrow of the Konbaung Dynasty by the British in the late nineteenth century is a complex one, but a simplified explanation
The Death and Afterlife of the Public Phone in Southeast Asia
I was in the Rangoon airport a while ago when I came across this scene here. It is a space for some kind of public
A Letter from Lord of Thailand Tengku Abdullah Osman
On 21 October 1945, Lord of Thailand Tengku Abdullah Osman sent a letter to “Mr. D. Headley, Lieutnent (sic) Colonel & Chief Commander Civil Affairs,
The Isaan Vietnamese in 1970
In 1999, Christopher Goscha published a pioneering study called Thailand and the Southeast Asian Networks of the Vietnamese Revolution (1885-1954) in which he looked at
From Chinese to American by Conquest in Siam
In 1898, shortly after US naval forces had captured Manila, a man of Chinese ethnicity arrived at the port in Bangkok on a boat from
The Han Style and Power Dressing in Nineteenth-Century Vietnam
I pointed out a long time ago on this blog (here) that there are nineteenth-century Vietnamese texts that refer to Vietnamese as “Hán” 漢. In
Humanity, Scholarship and Beer
Just by chance I came across this picture of the Thai historian, Charnvit Kasetsiri, on facebook today. The text at the top says (and I
