Mekong Review

“I am Chinese”

Frankie Huang

Tyrus Wong’s extraordinary 106 years on earth, told in meticulous detail by Karen Fang, is a story of resilience and triumph.

A borderlander’s reckoning

Wavie Hu

“The mountains are high and the emperor far away.” Reckonings from a borderland—on walls, my friend J, and choosing a life in diaspora.

Street cries

Phạm Thu Trang

Street cries in Vietnam are more than simple calls of commerce; they form an urban soundscape—a way of sensing time, place, and season.

Small things

Paul French

With When Sleeping Women Wake, Emma Pei Yin takes her place in a long-running and constantly evolving tradition of Chinese female-centred historical fiction.

Pragmatic idealism

Isaac Neo

An idealistic and highly personal approach to foreign policy is what sets Tommy Koh apart from many of his fellow luminaries in Singapore’s diplomatic sphere.

Cybercrime unchained

Nick J. Freeman

Cybercrime is a big business, and some of its leading perpetrators are playing a cat-and-mouse game with the authorities in Southeast Asia.

The murder of Affan Kurniawan

Sylvie Tanaga

Indonesians were already furious at their government, seen as out-of-touch at a time of economic hardship. After an armoured police vehicle ran over a young delivery rider, they became unstoppable.

Pol Pot’s guests

Colin Meyn

Meeting with Pol Pot adds to Rithy Panh’s resume as the most prolific maker of films about the regime that took his family and terrorised his country.

Into the fray

Aie Balagtas See

Returning to politics, Leila de Lima says, is the only choice if she wants to keep fighting for justice, the rule of law, and truth.

Scars of victory

Robic Upadhayay

Every decade or so, Nepal endures upheaval, then dusts itself off—a cycle of destruction and reconstruction. But, maybe this time, the cycle will finally be broken.

Bringing Iwao home

Kirsten Han

Hakamata Iwao is believed to have been the world’s longest-serving death row prisoner. For more than half a century, his sister Hideko has never given up on him.

Memories of disaster

Shu-Mei Huang

As discussions of a so-called nuclear power renaissance resurface, Return to Fukushima pushes us to (re)consider not only the ways we live but also the exploitative systems through which energy is produced and consumed.

Those who left on those who stayed

Will Nguyen

Claudia Krich’s Those Who Stayed: A Vietnam Diary is an invaluable primary source for those studying regime change, documenting firsthand the disintegration of the South Vietnamese government and the coalescence of a byzantine military administration in its wake.

After the Malaysian ‘gay novel’

Alicia Izharuddin

The exploration of a character’s sexuality in Tash Aw’s latest novel has triggered backlash among conservatives in Malaysia, but pushing back in today’s fraught times is itself a complex undertaking.

Writing nearby, gathering hope

Lenette Lua

How does one love a world that is increasingly fractured? A reflection on curating at Objectifs and participating in the artistic projects by Chu Hao Pei and Arie Syarifuddin in Singapore.

The blue guitar

Ken Kwek

An encounter in Penang with a man named Kelvin D Loovi, who tells a story about his blue guitar.

Silencing

Paul French

For English language readers outside China, these translations of The Running Flame and Soft Burial help to reframe Fang Fang as a writer of more than Wuhan Diary.

A party man

Martin Laflamme

Despite enduring humiliation, punishment, and incarceration, Xi Zhongxun’s loyalty to the Party—and even his “emotional attachment” to Mao Zedong—never wavered.

Entangled histories

Kiara Agoncillo

Filipino Hongkongers are generally excluded from the city’s self-understanding as an Asian metropolis with a distinct cultural heritage, but the historical ties between Hong Kong and the Philippines run deep.

Clerical politics

Michel Chambon

With both humanist insight and historical precision, Paul P. Mariani shows how Bishop Louis Jin Luxian was, above all, a Jesuit of his time.

Mutual aid

Pablo Bayer

An exhibition in Pattani brings art collectives from three countries together to create dialogue on communal work and solidarity, encouraging people to look beyond stereotypes of Thailand’s deep south.

The power of fandom

Nway and Htaike

In a world that often overlooks the power of young people online, fan communities have emerged as an unseen engine of revolution in Myanmar