Ten years of Mekong Review
Kirsten Han
A reflection from Mekong Review’s Editor-in-Chief on the occasion of our tenth anniversary issue.
Category: Issue 41
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.
The ink that never dries
Alfian Sa’at
By writing poetry from death row, Pannir Selvam Pranthaman sets out to prove that he’s more than just a condemned prisoner.
Thank You (Dedicated to Those Who Care)
Pannir Selvam Pranthaman
A poem by Pannir Selvam Pranthaman.
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.
Hope in the everyday
Tshechu Dorji Wong
Hope doesn’t always come in grand gestures. Hope, I have come to believe, is less about optimism and more about practice.
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.
The librarian of Vietnam’s banned books
James Tager
In a nondescript office on a university campus in Taipei, Trịnh Hữu Long maintains one of the world’s most extensive collections of Vietnamese banned books.
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.
Black chicken soup
Justina Lim
A short story by Justina Lim.
Taiwan’s historical burden
Jacques van Wersch
The conceit of Chris Horton’s Ghost Nation is that most of the world treats Taiwan like it doesn’t exist, and he makes the case that Taiwan deserves bolder recognition.
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.
Delicate matters
Peixuan Xie
Playing with nationalism is to take part in a risky game.
Lying flat in Qing China
Sebastien Smith
As an attempt to preserve what is gone, Shen Fu’s writing endures as a reminder to treasure what we still have and what we will someday mourn.
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.
Reflections on a golden period
Kenneth Barrett
Stephen Simmons has produced an important record, with a wealth of historical information, that highlights the work of artists during the Sangkum era.
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.