Mekong Review

Category: Volume 10

Preserving Cantonese

Chong Ja Ian

Simin Li’s book is a reminder that continuing assertions about the singularity of Chinese culture and politics belie the pluralism and diversity of the Sinophone tradition.

Architecture in context

Troels Steenholdt Heiredal

Shifting Horizons: The Generation of Emancipatory Architecture in Taiwan is a unique exhibition including the many aspects that make up architectural production and attempting to locate the formation of contemporary Taiwanese architecture.

Lessons in fragility

Radhika Oberoi

Nature provides expressive backdrops for Han Kang’s fiction; while she chronicles human frailty and barbarity, she also allows the light to seep in through the foliage.

When Gilbert & George went to China

Paul French

Among a post-Tiananmen flurry of activity, Gilbert & George, the British duo who’d been a dominant force in the UK’s 1980s art scene, made a trail to China and inspired many looking to break free of their constraints.

Making protests fun

Seulki Lee

How does one save the world against evil with little more than one’s own imagination? When faced with hopeless nonsense from the political leadership, what can one do with their writing?

Political theatre

Calum Stuart

Singaporean actor Lim Kay Siu on the differences between acting in Hollywood and in Singapore, the power of theatre to raise public awareness of important issues, and getting political on live streams while playing a ukulele.

Goodbye to Cousin Merle

Jeremy Mair

Cousin Merle’s abscission from the family tree didn’t elicit any great feeling on my part, but the fact that there was no Chinese blood in the family was a little more complicated.

Moke

Martin Stuart-Fox

Lieutenant Colonel E.D. Murray—“Moke” to friends and fellow officers—knew nothing about Cambodia, but for a few brief weeks towards the end of 1945, he was, in his own words, its “uncrowned king”.

The valued and the expendable

William Arighi

Both Patricia Evangelista and Neferti X.M. Tadiar’s books question what it means to be human. While some are valued because of their contribution to capitalism, those who are less productive in the profit-making sense are treated as disposable.

The mystery of the Little People

James Baron

Few who encounter Pas-ta’ai, the ritual to the “little people”, and the complex, sometimes contradictory, folklore associated with it are unmoved. Some even become obsessed with unravelling the ceremony’s mysterious origins.

Undiplomatically speaking

Isaac Neo

While the bulk of the book focuses on diplomacy, Living the Asian Century can also be read as an introduction to the governance style of Singapore’s first generation of leaders as seen through Mahbubani’s eyes.

We are gonna make it

Ruby Thiagarajan

Instead of asking what is or how to be one’s authentic self under capitalism, Peripathetic is curious about whether capitalism leaves us with any room for authenticity at all.

Lost and found

Miguel de la Fuente-Lau

For a relatively slim volume, Lio Mangubat’s Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves: Lost Tales from the Philippine Colonial Period, 1565–1946 covers a broad swath of Philippine history.

Vietnam’s Latin script

Thiện Việt

The adoption of chữ Quốc ngữ, the Vietnamese alphabet that has officially been in use for over a century now, was a notable part of Vietnam’s effort to pull itself out of China’s orbit.

The hardliner

James Crabtree

Matt Pottinger doesn’t much like the term “China hawk”. Even so, he’s become one of the most prominent voices in the United States pushing for a tougher line against Beijing.

Writing Myanmar

Peixuan Xie

For San Lin Tun, writing about Myanmar in English is a way for Myanmar writers to take control or ownership of the country’s narrative.

Racism and repression

Andreas Harsono

Indonesia’s National Library may not contain a lot on West Papua, but five books, reviewed by Andreas Harsono, describe its tormented history.

Imagining Orwell in Burma

Joe Freeman

Theroux’s Burma Sahib is a novel about awakenings: sexual, political and literary. Filling a historical void with fiction, Theroux invents and probes every nook and cranny of Orwell’s life in Burma.
 

The defector talks

Paul French

Thae Yong-ho’s book, a must read for the dedicated band of North Korea watchers, reminds us of the millions still struggling to survive between the 38th Parallel and the Yalu River.

Compromise(d)

Martin Laflamme

Zhou Enlai might have attempted to temper some of Mao Zedong’s worst excesses, but he did not have the courage to defy Mao when it counted the most.

The decoloniser

Munkhnaran Bayarlkhagva

Gankhuugiin Purevbat was never keen to claim credit, but his contribution to the rebirth of Mongolian Buddhism and the decolonisation of Mongolia cannot be denied.

Enduring

Kirsten Han

Hai Fan’s Delicious Hunger doesn’t focus on major historical milestones, but it doesn’t mean that the experiences described in this collection of short stories are inconsequential—quite the opposite.

Grey, all grey

Haresh Sharma

Like many in Singapore, artists exist on a strange monochromatic spectrum—the lighter side provides access to opportunities and awards, the darker potentially leading to loss of employment. How should one navigate this space?

Looking in

Ruby Jusoh

The rich traditions of Adat Perpatih in Negeri Sembilan demonstrate how deeply rooted customs can evolve while maintaining their core values.

Family duty

Kang-Chun Cheng

Creating Feeding Ghosts, a graphic memoir, was the only way Tessa Hulls could think of to repair her relationship with her mother and make sense of the responsibilities borne by each generation.

Translating Javanese

Jennifer Lindsay

She Wanted to be a Beauty Queen is a good read for anyone, but, together with supplementary material like George Quinn’s comprehensive afterword, is an especially terrific resource for students of Indonesian or Southeast Asian literature.

A bookworm’s haunt

Nicholas Yong

A focus on Singaporean authors, coupled with the fact that bookstores in the city have found it increasingly difficult to survive, makes Book Bar feel like an anomaly.

A-ma

Sawarin Suwichakornpong

“Whenever I think of a family member, I always think of A-ma. Her life tells the story of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.”

Barnard’s bestiary

Peter A. Coclanis

That animals and plants have been inserted, in increasingly powerful ways, in historical narratives represents a powerful challenge to human-centred accounts that have long been dominant.