Showing 1 - 5 of 5
Integration or disintegration
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 11/08/2017
» One of the lesser-known activities of the European Union in this region is the funding of academic research designed to "help the EU and its member states make coherent and culturally relevant foreign policies" towards the region.
Retelling a great Lao-Thai tale
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 22/02/2016
» Sinxay is a story which appears in slightly different versions with slightly different names in Mon, Thai, Lao and Khmer. The plot is a classic quest in which a hero prince is banished by the machinations of evil siblings, travels long through forest and mountain, defeats many fearsome enemies, and is eventually celebrated in a great homecoming. Old versions were written in verse for recitation at festivals. Key scenes were popular with artists painting temple murals. During the nationalist era in the 1940s, the great littérateur of Laos, Maha Sila Viravong, began a prose version in a conscious attempt to create a Lao national literature. More recently, Sinxay has been celebrated as a kind of national hero in Laos. In 2005, Khon Kaen municipality adopted Sinxay as symbol of the city, and characters from the tale sprouted on the peaks of the city's lamp posts.
Silent no more
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 17/03/2014
» Why have Northeasterners become such enthusiastic supporters for Thaksin Shinawatra, the Pheu Thai party and the red-shirt movement? Charles Keyes first arrived in the Northeast in 1962 as a research student in rural anthropology. After the 2010 crackdown on red shirts in Bangkok, he realised he had to rethink all he had learned and written about the region over the last 48 years. This book is the result.
Festive Isan in full colour
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 04/03/2013
» This book reproduces a beautiful festive scroll from Thailand's Northeast that is now in Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum.
The loud (but lost) American
Life, Chris Baker, Published on 30/01/2012
» In print, the name of Jim Thompson is rarely far away from the word "legend". The outline of his life is well known. He arrived in Bangkok at the tail end of the Second World War as part of the proto-CIA. He gained a reputation as a host, bon viveur, aesthete and art collector. He started a glamorous silk business, that still bears his name, and built a house that remains a major tourist attraction. He disappeared off the face of the earth in 1967, providing the mystery which is essential for any good legend.