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Chambers, Paul. Has everything changed in Thai politics under Thaksin?: Political factions before 2001 through 2004.

 In Thailand, intra-party factions and the parties that host them have been major parliamentary players over the past 20 years until Thaksin Shinawatra’s 2001 electoral landslide. But rather than fading out in the face of constitutional reforms, Thai political factions are adapting, Chambers writes, in this analysis of factionalism in Thailand.

Kah Seng, Loh. New winds in economic history: A look at writings on the Great Depression in Southeast Asia.

In the context of new scholarship about the effect of the Great Depression on Southeast Asia, and comparing it with previous scholarship in which colonialism underscored historical research of the area, Kah Seng studies the relationship of history writing and historical context.

Kitiarsa, Pattana. Modernity, agency and lam sing: Interpreting ‘music-culture contacts’ in northeastern Thailand.

Reflecting the noise and tempo of modern life, contemporary versions of lam sing by the younger generation have been brushed aside by critics as the killer of authentic molam traditions in the Isan region of northeastern Thailand. But it can be argued, Kitiarsa writes, this new arrival of the modernized molam genre epitomizes a creative transformation of traditional music in the region.

Shackford-Bradley, Julie. Cerpen: How Indonesian short stories re-present urban space and public discourse.

The Indonesian short story, or cerpen, is a unique literary form that such writers as the late Pramoedya Ananta Toer and others have used to articulate their changing relationship with the modern city. Surveying cerpen from the 1950s to the 1990s, Shackford-Bradley analyzes how these stories’ architecture, imagery, and syntax reflect these environments and the public discourse around them.

Yeoh, Seng Guan. House kampung and taman: Spatial hegemony and the politics (and poetics) of space in urban Malaysia. 

Crossroads, Volume 16:2 (2002) $16.00

Sharma, Shalendra D., Thailand's financial crisis (Part 2): A political economy of reform and recovery.

Part 1 of this article (Crossroads, Vol. 16, No.1) questioned the conventional assumption that the Thai financial crisis of 1997 was the result of cronyism and corruption. This second part discusses the government's response to the unprecedented crisis and the impact of IMF reform measures. It documents the factors that contributed to the fragile and hesitant recovery of the Thai economy which began in the third-quarter of 1999. It illustrates that a broad political-economy approach is key to understand the processes that have led to the recovery. The final section examines the many challenges the Thai economy faces in this era of globalization.

Jory, Patrick, The Vessantara Jataka, Barami, and the Bodhisatta-Kings: The origin and spread of a Thai concept of power.

Pre-modern Thai Literary traditions contain little that can be thought of in conventional terms as "political" theory. I will revisit this line of inquiry by examining the relatively neglected concept of barami ("moral perfection, " "virtue," "charisma"), its origins in Theravada Buddhist discourse, and the manner of its popularization in premodern Thai culture.

Lewis, James, The evangelical religious movement among the Hmông of Northern Vietnam and the government's response: 1980-2000.

Since 1989 the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) has seen a case of widespread religious change to Evangelical Christianity among the highland minority Hmông population of 558,000 in five of its Northern provinces. Where earlier there were no converts, they now number upwards of 175,000. short-wave radio programming from the United States, traditional millenarian beliefs, socio-economic aspirations, and unfulfilled religious longings stimulated Christianity's explosive growth. Perceived threats to internal security and social destabilization have led to intense government opposition. Documents leaked to outside observers show no letup in state-sponsored persecution or in Hmông persistence in following their newfound religion.

Chua, Frank, A history of the singapore Pasar Malam: A market experience in pre-modern Singapore.

The ritual of modern shopping is most apparent in the city-state of modern Singapore. However before the city became a developed global commercial center, ad-hoc localized retail activities such as the pasar malam or "night bazaar" were central to the masses' market experience. Tracing the roots of the pasar malam since the 1950s to its demise by the 1970s, this paper explores the economic and social environment that led to its growth, operations, and eventual regulation. The pasar malam has been revived in recent years but the context of its role and environment bears little to its earlier predecessors.

Schultz, Daniel F. and Maryanne Felter, Education, history, and nationalism in Pramoedya Toer's Buru Quartet.

Pramoedya Toer's Buru Quartet comprises a clear and readable rewriting of Indonesian history from 1898 until the years just preceding Independence. This paper aims to give a background helpful to readers in trying to understand the complexities of Indonesian history as they read through the four novels. It explores Minke, the central character's fascination with Western culture and his embracing of Western ideas through the Dutch colonial system of education in the Dutch East Indies. We show the relationship between Hurgronje's Association Theory, the Culture System, and Minke's early experiences. We explain the centrality of both pan-Islamic and pan-Asian movements as a backdrop. We show how Association Theory fails as Minke emerges from his Dutch education a strong, militant nationalist.

Crossroads, Volume 16:1 (2002) $16.00

Grow, Mary L., Celebrating divine wrath: The spirit cult of Luang Phau Phra Cao Sua, the Tiger King

In Phetchaburi Province devotees of Luan Phau Phra Cao Sua celebrate their relationship to this Ayutthayan king (1703-1709) with an elaborate ceremony know as wai khruu. Spirit mediumship plays a vital role in this ceremony as devotees transform themselves into their respective spirits and collectively pay tribute to the Tiger King. Through a series of invocations and intimate storytelling focusing on the ruler's heroic and benevolent deeds, devotees not only tell the legend of Phra Cao Sua, but moreover, relate his adventures to Phetchaburi history. This article explores how historical memory is re-embodied in spirit mediumship, and how the performative context of the wai khruu encourages the creation of a relic; that is, an Ayutthayan king, the spirit of Phra Cao Sua, who reconstitutes the essence of the ancient ruler, yet also represents in very tangible form and embellished and restored past that is important to devotees.

Kukreja, Sunil, Political hegemony, popular legitimacy and the reconstruction of the ethnic divide in Malaysia: Some observations.

This paper explores recent significant developments in Malaysia as part of the government's attempt to reaffirm political hegemony and popular legitimacy, both of which have been undermined since the late 1990s. Specifically, I examine the public discourse―as captured through the government-dominated mainstream press―surrounding the issue of a potential non-Malay Premier and the Al Ma'unah incident. I argue that the tenor of the discourse exploited and, by extension, fundamentally contributed to the reproduction of the ethnically entrenched communal nature of political culture in the country, adding further to the precariousness of the ethnic divide in Malaysia.

Sharma, Shalendra D., Thailand's financial crisis: From irrational exuberance to the IMF's star pupil.

This paper questions the conventional assumption that the Thai financial crisis was simply due to cronyism, corruption, and weak corporate governance. After all, these problems existed while Thailand notched up impressive growth rates for more than a quarter century before the financial meltdown in July 1997. Rather, it is argued that the volatile convergence of a mounting current account deficit, along with sharp export slowdown, currency and maturity mismatches of Thai commercial banks, rapid build up of private short-term foreign debt liabilities (all of which unexpectedly turned sour in 1996-97), were at the root of the problem. All that this convergence needed was a trigger. The rigger was set off by a loss of confidence on the part of the owners of short-term capital in the Bank of Thailand's capacity to maintain its fixed exchange rate. Most tragically, this convergence was neither foreordained nor sudden―but building-up since mid-1996, roughly one year before the baht's devaluation.  

Marston, John, Khmer Rouge songs.

The article explores the social meaning of songs written and performed during the revolutionary Democratic Kampuchea period in Cambodia (1975-79). After discussing how songs were generated and used, and the social implications they projected in meetings and at work sites, the article analyzes three songs and their attitudes toward nature, labor, youth, and relationships between the sexes. The idea of irony, and how the songs may have taken on increasing irony in the context of the harsh reality of the Cambodian revolution, is explored.

Tagliacozzo, Eric, Amphora, whisper, text: Ways of writing Southeast Asian history.

This article examines some of the many avenues now available to historians for writing Southeast Asia's past. It particularly focuses on three approaches: "Amphora," or the use of material culture; "Whisper," or the utilization of oral sources; and "Text," the writing of these pasts through written materials. The essay argues that Southeast Asian historiography has come a long way in its acceptance of various methodologies, now routinely weaving sources and approaches that were previously considered to be problematic. However, there are still challenges and dilemmas ahead, including issues of access, changing political contexts, and the longevity of some of the source materials themselves. Though Southeast Asian historiography has traditionally been strong in certain subfields (oral history, for example), in other domains it is only now catching up to the discursive traditions of other regional arenas. This article examines some of the past vectors of the discipline and asks where we are now as an intellectual community, as well as where we may be heading in the future.

Crossroads, Volume 15:2 (2001) $16.00

Henry, Eric, Chinese and Indigenous influences in Vietnamese verse: Romances of the 19th century.
Except for rural folk poetry and folk tales, which were transmitted by word of mouth, Vietnamese literature in premodern times was the creation of individuals whose knowledge of the written word was obtained first and foremost through the study of Chinese. The influence of Chinese modes of story telling is therefore very strong in this literature. Nevertheless, indigenous modes of thought receive strong expression as well, and are particularly noticeable in the portrayal of female characters and in the roles played by ghosts, spirits, and other supernatural agents.

Raymond, Chad, The insoluble internal conflicts of agricultural collectivization in Vietnam.

Vietnam, like other communist states in the 20th century, embarked on a program of agricultural collectivization to industrialize its economy and consolidate state power. The Vietnamese system of collectivization produced insoluble internal conflicts that rendered it incapable of generating the increased agricultural productivity needed to provide an inexpensive surplus of capital for investment in industry. Despite several attempts of the Vietnamese Communist Party to re-organize both the form and the incentives of collectivized production, agricultural productivity remained low due to the misallocation of resources, inefficient utilization of labor, and the preference of Vietnamese farmers for the greater returns of private production for the free market. The use of everyday resistance by farmers to resist the state’s imposition of collectivized production played a critical role in causing the Vietnamese Communist Party to abandon collectivization in the late 1980s.

Matzner, Andrew, The complexities of acceptance: Thai student attitudes towards kathoey.
In the writings about Thai transgendered males (kathoey) in English-language sources such as the popular press and academic articles, the attitudes of Thai people towards kathoey have often been framed in singular and mutually exclusive terms of "acceptance," "tolerance," or "non-acceptance." However, I believe that these types of conceptual frameworks are overly simplistic because they do not take into account different factors, which may influence how a person feels about kathoey. In this paper, I present the results of fieldwork I carried out at a university in northern Thailand which indicate that students’ attitudes about kathoey are variable, depending on whether a kathoey is a family member, a friend or a stranger. I conclude that, due to the influence of these "circles of familiarity," and due to the complexity and context-dependent nature of students’ attitudes, existing assertions regarding the homogenous nature of Thai attitudes towards kathoey need to be reassessed. 

Tan, Kenneth Paul, Civic society and the new economy in patriarchal Singapore: Emasculating the political, feminizing the public

The patriarchal mindset in Singapore operates most clearly in the practice of compulsory military service for males and population management through childbirth policies. This mindset offers important clues to understanding the political developments that have accompanied Singapore’s transition from old economy to new, primarily the shift towards a politics of openness, consultation, and participation, to engage the wider talents and resources of a consensus-seeking "people sector" focused on community care. The cautious People’s Action Party government has engaged a restructured grassroots network under its control to spearhead and, in the process, monitor the efforts of a public confined largely to "feminine" roles.

Because of formatting errors in Crossroads 15:2, we are offering Kenneth Paul Andrew Sze-Sian Tan's reformatted article free-of-charge as PDF file.

Crossroads, Volume 15:1 (2001) $16.00

Errington, Joseph, His master's voice: Listening  to power's dialect in Suharto's Indonesia
This article discusses a short story by Seno Gumiro Ajidarmo which transforms a minor bit of Indonesian language variation into a vehicle for trenchant criticism of Suharto's New Order regime. A satiric bite is rooted not just in its author's dry wit, but also in its lampooning of a neotraditional understanding of authoritative voice.  Seno Gumiro Ajidarmo is an Indonesian journalist widely known for his amusing and pointed stories about politics and society during Indonesia's New Order era.

Lockhart, Bruce, Re-assessing the Nguyen Dynasty.
In the years since 1986, historians in Vietnam have been re-assessing the role of the Nguyen, the last of the Vietnamese imperial dynasties. Previous assessments of the Nguyen had been harsh, but newer assessments have taken a less doctrinaire line.  The article examines the reasons for the re-evaluation and outlines the changes in perspective on a range of historiographic issues.

Butt, Leslie. An epidemic of runaway wives:  Discourses by Dani men on sex and marriage in Highlands Irian Jaya, Indonesia.
In the province of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, highland indigenous peoples' lifeways have been affected by the in-migration of Indonesia citizens from elsewhere in the archipelago. In the Baliem valley, Indonesian migrants now dominate the economic and political landscape.  The impact of a strong state at the local level has affected the Dani's traditional beliefs and practices surrounding sexuality and marriage.  In earlier times, men used their power and influence to try and regulate marital and sexual relations.  This article addresses the worried way Dani men now talk about a phenomenon they term " runaway wives."  These are Dani women who abandon marriages or who refuse to marry partners chosen for them.  Men's discourses on runaways condenses broader concerns about the waning power of men to regulate domestic and political domains.  They invoke the power of money, the negative aspects of development, and the discriminatory attitudes of migrants to allocate blame for what they see as women's out-of- control sexual behavior.  Through discourses of sexuality and marriage, Dani men make astute commentaries on the costs of their incorporation into the Indonesian nation-state.

Dentan, Robert K. Ambivalences in child training by the Semai of peninsular Malaysia and other peoples.
This article focuses on how a Malaysian people famous for their peaceable ways teaches children to fear and flee outsiders, despite the fact that strangers control many things children (and adults) desire.  The analytical section discusses the disturbing ambivalences and ambiguities of this process and draws a comparison with the also disturbing ambivalences and ambiguities of similar practices, like teaching children about "stranger danger," in modern America.

Crossroads, Volume 14:2 (2000) $16.00

Kepner, Susan Fulop, On translating "Letters from Thailand."

Susan Fulop Kepner's translation of Botan's "Letters from Thailand" has been widely read in the years since it first appeared. Yet it has also been criticized for its deviations from the Thai original. In this essay, Kepner discusses the vicissitudes of the novel's creation and translation, her considerations and methods as the translator, and her ambivalence about the final product.

Schafer, John C., The collective and the individual in two post-war Vietnamese novels.

In the late 1980s, when Vietnam's renovation policy loosened restrictions on writers, novels emerged that described the characters' private dreams and fears in much greater detail than had been done before. Two of these more inward-looking novels are analyzed here: Lê Lựu’s A Time Far Past and Trần Mạnh Hảo's Separation. Both novels argue that limits should be placed on "collective concern" and that individuals should have more say in choice of marriage partners and in other aspects of their lives. The article relates this argument to current issues and to past literary debates, and it considers how life and literature in Vietnam might change if collective concern becomes severely weakened.

Baxstrom, Richard, Governmentality, bio-power, and the emergence of the Malayan-Tamil subject on the plantations of colonial Malaya.
With an eye to the importance of ethnicity in the development of modern day Malaysia, this article explores the historical phenomenon of Tamil labor recruitment and migration to British Malaya rubber plantations between the years 1890 and 1920. During this period, Tamil kangany labor recruiters helped transform South Indian peasants into disciplined plantation workers, serving as catalysts for a process through which Tamil immigrants were remade as human subjects in the new plantation sphere and within the British colonial empire generally. The analytic framework deployed here is Foucauldian, with specific attention paid to how Foucault's concepts of Governmentality and Bio-power can be utilized in colonial studies.  

Hellman, Jorgen, The double edge of cultural politics: Revitalizing Longser Theater in West Java, Indonesia.

National programs designed to revitalize traditional culture often tend to aestheticize arts formerly used to accomplish ritual tasks. In Indonesia, the state program for revitalizing local art is situated in a highly political context. The government incorporates the traditional arts into the discourse of development and channels sentiments of ethnic identity into aesthetic expressions.

Crossroads, Volume 14:1 (2000) $16.00

Causey, Andrew, The folder in the drawer of the sky blue Lemari: A Toba Batak carver's secrets.

From the late 1960s until recently, Toba Batak wood carvers living on Samosir Island (North Sumatra, Indonesia) have produced objects based on traditional forms and designs for sale to western tourists. Lacking a variety of original antique prototypes as models for their recreations, most carvers end up reproducing works identical to each other. This, along with tourists' particular preferences, creates a highly competitive atmosphere in the marketplaces. Some carvers try to circumvent the competition by producing carvings based on unusual antique forms seen in Western publications. This paper discusses a case study of one carver's attempts to obtain, and maintain, exclusive control over certain forms.

Collins, Elizabeth Fuller and Ernaldi Bahar, M.D., To know shame: Malu and its uses in Malay societies.

In Malay-speaking societies, malu (shame, shy, bashful, embarrassed) is a highly productive concept that has effects in a wide array of personal and social realms. It is important in the construction of gender differences, and it underlies the culture-specific psychological (and gender related) syndromes of amuk and latah. In politics malu plays an important role both in the culture of hierarchy foundational to the Suharto regime and in the counter-hegemonic rhetoric of Suharto's critics. In the late 1990s a debate has been underway on how to counter the loss of morality in Indonesian society, with some calling for an Islamic morality of haram (forbidden) and halal (permitted) practices while others argue for a more culturally pluralistic morality based on malu itself.

Kelley, Liam C., Thoughts on a Chinese diaspora: The case of the Macs of Ha Tien.

This paper contemplates the idea of a Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia by examining the case of the Macs, a family that established itself along the Gulf of Siam in the late seventeenth century and soon became prominent. With respect to historical theory, the paper argues that the concept of "diaspora" as an explanatory model is of limited usefulness because the selective memory that it employs does not adequately account for the complexity of lived experience. The discussion concludes, therefore, by suggesting that what is most interesting about diaspora theory, and bears closer scrutiny, is not the largely imaginary entity it attempts to define and discuss--i.e., the "diaspora"--but rather its own idiosyncrasies as a mode of historicizing.

Taylor, Philip, Music as a "neocolonial poison" in postwar southern Vietnam.

In the late 1970s communist critics attacked the musical styles popular among the southern Vietnamese as being "poisonous" cultural vestiges of U.S. neocolonialism. An examination of the Vietnamese commentaries concerning the musical legacies of the former Republic of Vietnam shows that communist reformers considered themselves champions of a univocal and authentic version of modernity. Communist leaders considered Southern Vietnam's musical heritage inauthentic, a putative legacy of enemy domination. They were also concerned that it could thwart the new regime's militarized approach to achieving modernization. The article juxtaposes the resilience of the music with the rhetoric used in the brief but determined efforts to suppress it in the late 1970s.

Crossroads, Volume 13:2 (1999) $16.00

Askew, Marc, Labor, love, and entanglement: Bangkok bar workers and the negotiation of selfhood.
Foreign-oriented prostitutes in Bangkok illustrate the dynamic, multiple, and relational dimensions of the ongoing process of self-formation. Many of these women entered prostitution out of frustration and disillusionment, but once they had adapted to the bar subculture, some of them used the interpersonal strategies of the sex business to "entangle" the finances, emotions, and presence of selected foreign customers in their own projects of building new selves. They thereby demonstrated their agency as they used sex work to improve their social status, gain financial and emotional security, and meet their filial obligations to family.

Kent, Alexandra, Unity in diversity: Portraying the visions of the Sathya Sai Baba movement of Malaysia

Leaders of the Sathya Sai Baba movement in Malaysia espouse an all-inclusive rhetoric consistent with the Malaysian government's emphasis on "unity in diversity." The article describes the movement's origins, composition, leadership, and practices, with special attention to its attempts to include Malaysians of all religions and ethnic groups. Although it has attracted some non-Hindu participants, the movement has for the most part been unable to overcome public perceptions that it remains a neo-Hindu revitalization movement supported primarily by affluent middle-class Indians.

Schafer, John C. Phan Nhat Nam and the battle of An Loc and An Loc: The Unquiet East" (Excerpts from Fiery Red Summer), by Phan Nhat Nam, translated by John C. Schafer
This article focuses on a translation of excerpts from Fiery Red Summer, an account of the Spring Offensive of 1972, by Phan Nhat Nam, South Vietnam's most famous war reporter. The introductory essay provides background on the offensive and suggests why it and the battle for An Loc, arguably the most important battle of the Vietnam War, have received little attention from U.S. historians. The translated excerpts from Fiery Red Summer that follow describe how the 6th Battalion of the 1st Airborne Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam fought bravely to link up with troops defending An Loc, thereby helping break the communist siege of the town. Both the essay and the translation suggest that to understand an event such as the battle for An Loc one must consider multiple perspectives.
   

Crossroads, Volume 13:1 (1999) $16.00

Sachs, Dana, Small tragedies and distant stars: Le Minh Khue's language of lost ideals

Vietnamese author Le Minh Khue began publishing stories as a young revolutionary soldier in the 1960s. Since that time, her work has undergone a dramatic transformation from wide-eyed idealism to clear-eyed skepticism. This change in outlook parallels a pervasive sense of disappointment both among Vietnamese writers from the North and within post-war Vietnamese society as a whole. Le Minh Khue's "language of lost ideals" uses stylistic qualities such as narrative detachment, complex characterizations, contrasts between past and present, and precise, telling details to convey that sense disillusionment.

Carstens, Sharon, Dancing Lions and disappearing history: The national culture debates and Chinese Malaysian culture.

National culture debates in Malaysia reached a climax in the 1980s. Heightened concerns among Chinese Malaysians were fueled by a perceived widening of the ethnic gap between themselves and Malays, and by their increased exposure to alternative versions of Chinese identity from abroad. Chinese Malaysians called for preservation and acceptance of the lion dance as part of Malaysian culture, continued availability of Chinese language education at all levels, and inclusion of Chinese historical figures in Malaysian state historiography. The responses to these issues among different groups of Chinese Malaysians varied according to the issues' entrenched encoding(s) within multiple cultural schema. While tensions have eased during the 1990s, the culture debates have not entirely ceased.

Montojo, Kenneth, The political economy of Philippine oil deregulation.
This article examines the political economy of the Philippine oil industry from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, a period culminated by attempts to deregulate the industry as the prior close relationship between the national government and the oil companies became increasingly less cost effective. The study is based on the premise that Philippine economic policies, and oil industry policies most of all, tend to be motivated by concern for either patrimonialism, economic development, or state legitimacy. The interactive institutional analytical framework employed here has the advantage not only of revealing those factors that in the late 1980s­early 1990s forced the government and the oil industry to alter their relationship but also of highlighting subtle changes in the policy decision-making process that would be missed by the rent-seeking approach.

Fanany, Rebecca and Z. Mawardi Effendi, Minangkabau children to Indonesian adults: Promoting public policy through Indonesian language teaching in West Sumatra, Indonesia.

The Indonesian government uses language classes not only to teach school children the Indonesian language but also to convey norms and values for national citizenship. The overall effect of Indonesian language instruction in West Sumatra is to define language domains, convey the state's values, inform students of public policy campaigns, and teach good citizenship.

Crossroads, Volume 12:2 (1998) $16.00

Seng, Loh Kah, Within the Singapore story: The use and narrative of history in Singapore.

Political groups rarely embrace history for altruistic reasons. In Singapore, the past is an important legitimizing instrument in sustaining the hegemony of the governing People's Action Party. The PAP government has abandoned its initial hostility to history and embarked on the creation of an authoritative "Singapore Story" of the nation's past. Official initiatives like National Education, introduced in 1997, draw selectively from Singapore's history to formulate sustained themes like the country's "vulnerability" and the need for "communitarian values." The object lessons drawn from the past are directed toward young Singaporeans, whose supposed individualism and preference for parliamentary opposition are perceived by the PAP as proof of a dangerous disregard for such lessons. The most compelling chapter of the "Singapore Story," that dealing with the 1950s and 1960s, has been authorized primarily by the personal experiences of the PAP Old Guard, whose privileged positions as leaders of government during that period have allowed them to pre-empt alternative interpretations of contemporary events.
 

Jose, Jim, Imperial rule and the ordering of intellectual space: The formation of the Straits Philosophical Society.
This paper examines the foundation of the Straits Philosophical Society in Singapore in 1893. Created by a significant cross-section of the European colonial elite, the SPS was a new development within the intellectual and cultural life of Singapore. In some respects the SPS represented a nascent intelligentsia in the sense that it developed an identity constructed around its members' sense of themselves as an intellectual elite. It is argued that the SPS was a particular intellectual space, an ordering of colonial space, within which its members stimulated and reinforced philosophical aspects of their imperial sensibilities. The reality of imperial rule was deeply implicated in their philosophizing.

Okazaki, Yoshiko, Liturgical music among the Toba Batak people of North Sumatra: The creation of a new tradition.

This is a study of the meaning of liturgical music in relation to religion and culture among the Catholic Toba Batak people in North Sumatra. The specific focus is on the incorporation of indigenous musical elements into the Toba Batak Mass in response to Church guidelines for liturgical renewal. Clearly, a new local tradition in religious music is developing. In the process, however, the complex nature of religious change is revealed as the symbolic meanings of non-Christian instrumental music are recalled and revaluated in the context of Catholicism.  

Vail, Peter T. Modern muai thai mythology.
This paper examines historical references to muai thai (Thai kickboxing), the Thai national sport, to analyze its significance and meaning in Thai culture. Focusing on four explicit royal chronicle references to boxing, and several others popularly construed to be about boxing, the paper shows how these accounts serve to define boxing's role in Thai national culture, and how boxing itself is deeply intertwined with popular notions of Thai character and nationalism. Muai thai is taken to signify an inherent and definitive combination of "warrior spirit," martial toughness, and perseverance that is supposedly shared among all males of the Thai race. Moreover, historical links between muai thai and the Thai royalty encourage the perception of boxing as a viable means of upward social mobility for commoner practitioners

Crossroads, Volume 12:1 (1998) $16.00

Loos, Tamara. Issaraphap: Limits of individual liberty in Thai jurisprudence.
In this article, I examine the Thai concept of issaraphap, commonly translated today as either liberty or independence, before and after the promulgation of the 1908 Penal Code in Siam. Unlike the Western notion of liberty, issaraphap was not perceived as an inherent trait possessed equally by each individual and subsequently subject to loss or violation. Rather, the meaning of issaraphap depended on whether the term was used in reference to a superior or a subordinate as determined by gender and status. When the authors of the 1908 Penal Code translated liberty as issaraphap, they radically reconceptualized the traditional idea of issaraphap into a new right possessed theoretically by each person, thus providing the opportunity after 1908 for some gender and status subordinates to seek adjudication for issaraphap-based claims.

Shiro, Momoki, Dai Viet and the South China Sea trade: from the 10th to the 15th century.
Dai Viet, the forerunner of modern Vietnam, was no longer a great South China Sea trading center by the time it gained independence in the 10th century in present-day northern Vietnam. Nevertheless, the subsequent state development of Dai Viet continued to depend more on the control of trade networks and export commodities than on peasants and agrarian produce. From the 13th to the 15th centuries, Dai Viet undertook large-scale hydraulic works on the Red River Delta and founded a Chinese-style bureaucracy. Such Sinicization not only increased the area's agricultural potential but also fostered the development of new export commodities, including ceramics. Its strength renewed, Dai Viet crushed the rival polity of Champa and proceeded to seize prosperous ports in modern central Vietnam, thus reestablishing itself as the preeminent force in the region's maritime trade.
 

Fordham, Graham. Northern Thai male culture and the assessment of HIV risk: Toward a new approach.
In the context of the Thai HIV/AIDS epidemic, this paper takes up the issue of male sexual risk-taking in Northern Thailand. It argues that much AIDS research to date reflects Western assumptions about Thai sexuality and about Thai rationality and attitudes towards risk-taking. The paper suggests that if we are to understand Thai male sexual risk-taking, we must view it in its total cultural context. A new model is proposed for understanding risk-taking in Buddhist Northern Thailand, one which views the taking of risks by young men as an integral part of the constitution and testing of masculine identities.

Crossroads, Volume 11:2 (1997) $16.00

Naylor, Nora, Orientalism/Occidentalism: The founding of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d'Indochine and the politics of painting in Colonial Vietnam, 1925-1945, by Nora Naylor
By focusing on the opening of a French art academy in Vietnam, this article examines issues surrounding the early development of Western-style oil painting by Vietnamese artists in the first half of the twentieth century. In particular, the article discusses the different ways in which a colonial institution, which was established to educate Vietnamese artists in the fundamentals of classical academic painting, has been interpreted by art historians in Vietnam and scholars in the West. Vietnamese art historians have viewed the school as the site which gave birth to a nationalist oriented painting tradition whereas Western scholars have tended to either disregard it altogether or to see it as yet another example of colonial repression of indigenous culture. In this interpretation, Western scholars have in some sense clung to the orientalist notion that only 'authentic' or 'purely indigenous' works of art are to be taken seriously, while Vietnamese scholars have in fact refused to see the “Occidentalized” components of the students' works. The students of the colonial school, in emulating their teachers, in fact produced an “Occidentalized” version of Vietnamese art whose base lies in “orientalism.”

McLeod, Mark W. "Pacify the Westerners and Massacre the Heretics!" The Scholars' Rising in Central Vietnam, 1874, by Mark W. McLeod
In 1874, Vietnam's Nghe-an and Hà-tinh provinces were convulsed by an anti-Catholic and anti-French movement called the "Scholars' Rising." Confucian scholars and their supporters attacked the local Catholic communities as part of a broader program of opposition to French colonialism, with which they considered the Catholics to be linked. Imperial Vietnam, bound by treaties with France to protect the Catholics under its authority, suppressed the Rising. However, Catholic missionaries blamed Vietnamese officials for fomenting the movement and successfully lobbied the French colonial government in Cochin China to force the Vietnamese state to compensate the Catholic communities for their losses.

Ear, Sophal, Cambodia and the "Washington Consensus."
Cambodia's economic progress from 1993 to the end of 1995, though limited and short-lived, was encouraging. By employing an analytical framework adapted from John Williamson's discussion of the "Washington Consensus," I examine ten aspects of Cambodia's domestic economic reform policies during the 1993-95 period. I also consider the country's politico-economic position at that time relative to the ASEAN member nations. It is argued that the Consensus reforms, combined with Cambodia’s then-prospective membership in ASEAN, had the potential to boost not only the country’s own economic development but also that of the proposed ASEAN Free Trade Area, to be established in the year 2003. Finally, I suggest that Cambodia can still realize the reform goals it had during the period under consideration.

Oliver, Susan, Contemporary issues facing Shan youth and their families.
Limitations to education are studied in Thongmakhsan, Thailand―a small Shan village near the Burmese border. While the expenses (both direct and indirect) and distance to schools are limiting factors for many, one of the strongest impediments is cultural. Through interviews and a census, this paper looks at educational aspirations parents have for their children, and contrasts it with conflicting desires for continued traditional lifeways. In general, parents want their children to get a good education so they can get a well-paying job, they are reluctant to let their children erode their Thongmakhsan-Shan identity by living far from home. Desire for material security conflicts with traditional expectations and creates unresolved tensions for Shan youth in northern Thailand.

Crossroads, Volume 11:1 (1997) $16.00

Diamond, Catherine, Moving Beyond tears and laughter: The social comedies of Michael Chiang and Hugh Lee
Two talented Asian playwrights, Michael Chiang in Singapore and Hugh Lee in Taiwan, have become their countries' most popular comic writers for the stage, attracting audiences in the tens of thousands. In their scripts, the two men have combined elements of farce and melodrama that capture the flavor of their contemporary societies and have contributed to the formation of a distinct cultural identity. However, in some of their recent works they have tried to integrate elements of the realist problem play as well. Instead of maintaining a tone of light-hearted humor to satirize their societies' foibles, they have injected a more direct critique which comes into conflict with the simplistic plots and the stylized characters, who are not developed enough to carry the ideological weight the play-wrights impose upon them. Lee and Chiang want to be considered as serious playwrights on the world stage, but up until now their attempts at seriousness have been compromised by their fear of losing their loyal audiences, who expect the traditional recipe of "tears and laughter" in a contemporary context.

Kukreja, Sunil, The political economy of ethnic group incorporation:  The case of Punjabis in Malaya
This article examines the incorporation of Punjabis into Malaya in the period between the 1870s and 1940s. By employing the framework of "middleman roles," I discuss Punjabi immigration into Malaya and illustrate the dynamic transformation of their roles as major parts of the process of ethnic group incorporation and adaptation. The analysis is built on the argument that the incorporation of Punjabis during the period under consideration was shaped by the intricate interplay of socio-political constraints related to the process of colonial control and expansion in Malaya. The discussion illustrates how these factors initially put the Punjabis in a defacto "political middleman" role before they fully developed as "economic middlemen." Following this I assess the applicability of Bonacich's middleman model to the Punjabi experience in Malaya.

Weisman, Jan R., Rice outside the paddy: The form and function of hybridity in a Thai novel
This paper examines some of the problematic issues of racial hybridity in contemporary Thailand through an analysis of the fictional portrayal of Thai hybrid individuals in the archetypical story, Khao Nok Na. I argue that the modern Thai treatment of hybridity, both fictional and real, privileges some forms over others as it 1) reflects Thai Buddhist concepts of the phenotypical expression of accumulated religious merit, 2) reflects and creates audience desire and anxiety as it reminds the nation of its actual, perceived, or feared loss of control over the course of its development and globalization, and 3) insists on Thai control of its various images as a means of alleviating the anxieties so created.
 

Shapiro, Lawrence, English Language instruction in Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnam's current program of economic restructuring, known as "Doi Moi," has led to a new surge in adult education through the establishment of foreign language night centers focusing primarily on the study of English. Language skills are an unquestionable asset for Vietnamese nationals aiming to capitalize on the new opportunities that foreign investment in the country has created. Over one hundred foreign language night centers are currently operating in Ho Chi Minh City. Examining the historical background, materials, curricula, teaching methodologies, and student and teacher populations of these schools help increase our understanding of English language training in Vietnam today.

Crossroads, Volume 10:2 (1996) $16.00

Kepner, Susan, Anna (and Margaret) and the King of Siam.
This essay presents the results of initial research for a dual biography of Anna Leonowens, author of The English Governess at the Court of Siam (1870) and Siamese Harem Life (1873), and Margaret Landon, who based her 1944 novel, Anna and the King of Siam, on Leonowens's books. While the eventual biography will focus equally on the lives of both women, this essay is limited to: 1) an examination of the life of Anna Leonowens (Ann Edwards Owen) before, during, and after her years in Siam; 2) new information about events in Leonowens's childhood that may have influenced the writing of her in famous books; 3) comparatively limited remarks about Margaret Landon; and 4) factual information about the life of the court during the reign of King Mongkut as reflected in documents and correspondence of the time and in comparison with the portrayal of the king and his court in Leonowens's and Landon's works.
 

Kheng, Cheah Boon, Writing indigenous history in Malaysia: A survey on approaches and problems.
The relationship between the past and the present among the various ethnic groups of Malaysia has often been a subject of heated controversy in Malaysian historiography. During the period of British rule and up to the immediate post-independence period in the 1960s, the nation's historiography was open and pluralistic and accommodated every ethnic group. However, after the bloody May 13, 1969 inter-racial riots, the policy of the Malay-based government has been to impose the history, cultural identity, and will of the Malays on the other ethnic groups. This article discusses how this came about as well as various other problems and approaches in the development of indigenous historical writing in Malaysia from the colonial period to the present-day. It also focuses on the major academic debates among Malaysian historians from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Tran, Angie Ngoc, Through the eye of the needle: Vietnamese textile and garment industries rejoining the global economy.
Within the context of "doi moi," the Vietnamese term referring to the ongoing process of market reform in Vietnam since the early 1980s and the augmentation of export markets since the early 1990s (European Union and the former socialist markets), this paper demonstrates that the Vietnamese Textile and Garment Industries have benefited from domestic economic reforms and have adapted flexibly while rejoining the global economy. Using the global commodity chains framework, the analysis shows that big foreign buyers and East Asian NIC middlemen have played prominent roles in shaping domestic production structures and employee working and living conditions. Moreover, it enriches the buyer-driven chains framework by showing the variation in value-added properties in triangular (European Union) versus non-triangular (Eastern European) manufacturing network systems. Although the remarkably flexible multi-level subcontracting arrangements of most textile and garment firms in both state and private sectors has helped them integrate into the world-economy, this same flexibility has posed challenges to Vietnamese workers and producers as well as to domestic integration efforts in the 1990s.

Crossroads, Volume 10:1 (1996) $16.00

Skidmore, Monique, In the shade of the Bo Tree: Dhammayietra and the re-awakening of community in Cambodia.
Survivors of the Pol Pot regime are devising, within a Buddhist framework, strategies of embodied resistance to the dominant discourse of fear and violence in contemporary Cambodian society while at the same time re-building such notions as identity and bodily integrity. The Dhammayietra ritual, or "peace walk," may provide a way through the symbolic "washing-away" of Khmer Rouge memories, the creation of new collective memories, and the reclaiming of a physical manifestation (Angkor Wat) of the Buddhist-centered world view for some Cambodians to emerge, at least in part, from the sensorially numb space they necessarily created in order to survive the terrors of the Khmer Rouge era.

Mott, William H., IV, Legal and diplomatic management of foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia.
The common experiences of the ASEAN nations suggest several law-like regularities about how governments can best use national law and international diplomacy to manage foreign direct investment (FDI). When applied to foreign direct investment in ASEAN countries from 1957 through 1989, a set of regression equations shows the influences of Foreign Investment Laws, Bilateral Investment Treaties, and Multi-lateral Investment Agreements on FDI flows. If stable, Foreign Investment Law affects FDI positively with a short lag, while, contrary to common wisdom, its incentives and deterrent provisions seem not to exert significant effects on FDI flows. Bilateral Investment Treaties and Multilateral Investment Agreements are un-doubtedly the most powerful influences on FDI flows. Some regional factors seem to be important, and previous levels of FDI operate, through adaptive expectations, to influence future flows. Multilateral Investment Agreements seem to have a perverse effect on determining the direction of FDI flows

Perry, Len, Singapore's rapid industrialization: A re-assessment.

Controversy has recently arisen over the extent to which productivity growth has contributed to the rise in economic prominence of many of Asia's newly industrialized economies (NIEs). Krugman (1994) and others have, for example, challenged the orthodox view that Asia's NIEs have experienced rapid economic growth because of the application of improved technology. Krugman argues, instead, that rapid economic growth has been achieved mainly by the application of a greater volume of labor and capital resources, rather than the more efficient use of those resources.

Dayley, Robert, Infrastructural adjustment: The political economy of infrastructure development and marginalization in Thailand
Development in Thailand can be characterized as "marginalization amidst growth." Between 1970 and 1990, Thailand experienced a steady increase in relative poverty, yet per capita income and physical infrastructure grew at rates far higher than in most countries in the developing world. This paper addresses questions about Thailand's developmental record by exploring how the processes of infrastructure development and marginalization intersect. It is argued that a symbiotic relationship exists between these two processes and that this relationship is caused by the aggregate affect of various structural and behavioral political-economic mechanisms.

Scupin, Ray, The emergence of anthropology in Thailand: The role of Suthep Soonthornpasuch
Many social scientists have noted that the postmodern condition of late capitalism has resulted in a new relationship between Western scholars and scholars in the so-called periphery. Many of the scholars in developing countries have become global anthropologists who have refined and developed Western models by drawing on indigenous knowledge and concepts. Suthep Soonthornpasuch is one such scholar who has pioneered the discipline of anthropology in Thailand. This essay includes a biographical sketch of Suthep, focusing on his training in the UK and the US and his activities and scholarship in Thailand. The essay discusses both the intellectual and political influences that have affected Suthep's anthropological activities in Thailand and have made him a truly global scholar.

Crossroads, Volume 9:2 (1995) $12.00

Quigley, Kevin F. F., Environmental organizations and democratic consolidation: The case of Thailand
Although it is generally acknowledged that civil society contributes to consolidating democracy, exactly how this happens is much less well understood. This article examines the experience of three prominent environmental organizations in Thailand over the past twenty years, finding that these organizations, along with other nongovernmental organizations, cause structural changes in state-society relations that make Thailand more pluralistic and contribute to consolidating democracy. Environmental organizations provide a widening circle of Thai citizens with virtually unprecedented opportunities to participate in the policy-making process, enabling them to develop civic skills essential to democratic consolidation.

Womack, Sarah, The remakings of a legend: Women and patriotism in the hagiography of the Trung Sisters
This paper examines the twentieth century manipulation of the hagiography of the Trung sisters, two legendary Vietnamese national heroes. Sources present the legend in four distinct forms which communicate the widely examined different messages concerning women and patriotism. These sources illustrate the evolution of sentiment on these issues throughout the nationalist period.

Kong, Lily, Popular music and a "sense of place" in Singapore

This paper illustrates how popular music written, produced, and performed by Singaporeans provides a means through which the culture and society of Singapore may be understood. Music with English language text conveys a sense of place and reflects a distinctively Singaporean spirit and identity. The paper examines four themes: the portrayal of Singapore's multiracial population which reflects a unique cultural synthesis; the Singaporeans' concept of urbanity, manifested as the simultaneous attraction and repulsion towards the city and the desire for nature and the rustic; the distinctive social engineering in Singapore; and the way in which global issues are imported into local agendas, as reflected in 'green' concerns in Singapore-produced songs.

Crossroads, Volume 9:1 (1995) $12.00

Vore, Bob. The literature of James Joyce and Nick Joaquin: Reflections of national identity in Ireland and the Philippines
Taking the Filipino writer Nick Joaquin as having been inspired by the example of James Joyce, this paper presents a comparative study of the two as a means of increasing our understanding of Joaquin's works. Background discussion highlights cultural and historical similarities between the Philippines and Ireland to help account for common features in the authors' writings. Joaquin is identified with his Irish predecessor as a literary modernist who has successfully adapted the colonial language of English to his own cultural milieu. Comparative readings of five primary texts highlight themes of artistic and patriotic self exile, cultural betrayal, cross-generational discord, and social alienation, further showing these writers as traditionalists who initially interpret change in terms of conflict and rebellion. Yet whereas Joyce's artist-characters remain in defiant, creative seclusion, Joaquin's characters affirm both the possibility and preferability of socially-integrated lives at once traditional and modern.

Richter, Linda K., Changes in Philippine policy formation and implementation: Land reform and tourism development under Marcos, Aquino, and Ramos
Land reform and tourism development have been cabinet-level departments during the administrations of Presidents Marcos, Aquino, and Ramos. These two sectors illustrate not only specific priorities, agendas, and leadership styles, but also the larger political environment shaping each presidency. Though his campaign said little about these sectors, it appears that the Ramos administration's pragmatic and strategic approach to policy challenges may prove more successful than previous administrations which offered them greater rhetorical support.

Crossroads, Volume 8:2 (1994) $17.95

Miller, Terry E., and Jarernchai Chonpairot, A History of Siamese Music Reconstructed from Western Sources, 1505-1932.

An encyclopedic account of Siamese folk and classical musics, instruments, and theatrical performance genres as related through Western sources, the manuscript's major goal is to reconstruct Siamese musical history in the absence of reliable indigenous sources, while also evaluating the Western sources' strengths and shortcomings.

Crossroads, Volume 8:1 (1993) $12.00

 Eberhardt, Nancy, The cultural context of moral reasoning: Lessons from the Sahn of Northern Thailand.

This paper focuses on two aspects of Shan culture: 1) the social organization of children’s relationships with others; and 2) children’s growing understanding of certain cosmological and religious beliefs that have implications for moral reasoning. I will then show how these two aspects of children’s experience—the structure of their social world and the system of beliefs they are slowly acquiring—are reflected in their responses to the sorts of story problems that are at the core of most cross-cultural research on moral development. Since these story problems are based on those used by Piaget and his followers,  begin with a brief overview of the Piagetian theory of moral development.

Soh, Key Cheng, Glimpses of youth values in Singapore.

This article is an attempt to piece together findings of recent studies of values of young persons inside and outside of Singapore. The purpose is to provide a conveniently available knowledge base of an empirical nature for informed discussion by those who are interested in and feel concerned about youth values.

 Ockey, Jim, Chaopho: Capital Accumulation and social welfare in Thailand.

After a long political struggle, the elected Chatichai government managed to pass a social security scheme into law in July of 1990, despite the objections of the military and its allies in the appointed senate. This act is the beginning  of a government welfare plan for workers in Thailand, yet it is still very limited in scope. Initially, it covered only workers in large private sector enterprises, although eventually coverage will be extended to employees in smaller enterprises. Agricultural workers are excluded. Thus while millions of urban workers will benefit, the vast majority will remain outside the government welfare system. Those excluded will be forced to continue to depend on traditional forms of welfare services. In this article, I will look at one of these traditional forms, the reliance on patrons involved in activities of dubious legality, the chaopho, or “godfathers.” I will trace the origins of this group, discuss their role in welfare services, and attempt to analyze changes taking place in the role of the chaopho in Thai society.

 Reinecke, Gerhard, Social security in Thailand: Political decisions and distributional impact.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the political decisions leading to the introduction and the enforcement of a Social Security Act in Thailand and the distributional impact of the social security scheme at the present stage of enforcement.

 Crossroads, Volume 7:2 (1992) - Special Issue: Vietnamese Poetry and History $12.00

 Vuong, Tran Quoc, Popular culture and high culture in Vietnamese history.

In this paper, examining pre-modern Vietnamese history, I propose to analyze Vietnamese culture form the “cultural oneness” perspective. I will show that both harmony and struggle are integral parts of Vietnamese culture. Also, I will show that the popular and official cultures interacted, became the basis of, and enriched one another.

 Taylor, Keith W., The poems of Doan Van Kham.

Most poetry that survives from the Ly dynast of 11^th and 12^th century Vietnam can be divided into three general categories. Around twenty poems can be associated with Han ballad-style poetry, usually of four-, five-, six-, or seven-syllable lines, often mixed in irregular combinations of couplets. Around thirty penta-syllabic quatrains survive. These two formal categories will not interest me in this essay. Here, I am interested in the thirty-six surviving quatrains and octaves written in seven-syllable lines and, in particular, the twenty or so of these that observe the conventions of Recent Style prosody. An appreciation of Recent Style prosody will expose the poetic skill of Doan Van Kham, a Vietnamese poet who wrote in the late 11th century.

 Whitmore, John K., The Tao-Dan Group: Poetry, cosmology, and the state in the Hong-duc period (1470-1497).

Section headings: I. Poets and Office, II. Poetry and Cosmology, III. Other Writings of the Time.

 Jamieson, Neil, Shattered identities and contested images: Reflections of poetry and history in 20th-century Vietnam.

The efforts of poets to transcend common sense have been attacked and defended by some of the best minds in the civilized world for over two millennia. If, as I posit, poetry and history are indeed alike in some important ways and sometimes can play similar social roles, a brief review of some of the arguments over poetry may shad some fresh light upon our conceptions of history and the social implications of how history, and poetry, get written.

Crossroads, Volume 7:1 (1992) - Commemorating the Work of Lucien and Jane Hanks $12.00

In this issue of Crossroads, we are publishing a special panel that was held at the 1991 Association for Asian Studies meetings in New Orleans. The panel in its final form here begins with a previously published biographical sketch of Lucien Mason Hanks by Charles F. Keyes, and a biography of Jane Richardson Hanks was written especially for this issue by Cornelia Ann Kammerer and Nicola Tannenbaum. With the assistance of Jane Hanks, Corinne Biggs, and Cornelia Kammerer, we are able to offer what we can finally call the definitive bibliographies of the Hankses.

Crossroads, Volume 6:2 (1991) $12.00

Nagavajara, Chetana, Parody as translation: The case of Phibun Wonthen.

The title of this paper may be misnomer. It does not deal with translation in usual sense; nor does it aim primarily at proving a theoretical point. Obviously, there are certain theoretical considerations that have to be brought to bear on the main argument of the essay, and occasionally make references to theoretical writings, particularly those by Western scholars. Theory and theorizing are not the main focus of the present paper. As for the subject of translation, we shall not take translation as a cross-cultural activity transcending linguistic barriers, but instead, I shall address the specific problems of parody considered as translation, which involves here almost exclusively the act of “translating” within the framework of one and the same language.

Swearer, Donald K., Sulak Sivaraksa’s Buddhist vision for renewing society.

This article provides an introduction to Sulak Sivaraksa’s Buddhist vision for the renewal of society, a title taken from one of several volumes of his English language system.

Henry, Patricia B., The writer’s responsibility: A preliminary look at the depiction and construction of Indonesia in the works of Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

In this paper I would like to consider several themes that come up repeatedly in Pramoedya’s work, through which he has over the years, defined his role as  writer, as a Javanese, and as an Indonesian nationalist. His earlier works of the 1940s and 1950s will be discussed as well.

Crossroads, Volume 6:1 (1991) – Special Issue: Modern Malaysian Music $12.00

Lockard, Craig A., Reflections of change: Sociopolitical commentary and criticism in Malaysian popular music since 1950.

This study explores the relationship between popular music and sociopolitical change in Malaysia over the past four decades, with special attention to the 1980s. In particular the analysis focuses on Malay and English popular music (especially song texts) produced by and for Malaysians that serves as a vehicle for social commentary and, in some cases, social criticism. Several important singers and groups are profiled, including analysis of some of their more popular and critical songs and recordings.

Crossroads, Volume 5:2 (1990) – Special Thai Issue (Part Two) $12.00

O’Connor, Richard A., Siamese Tai in Tai context: The impact of a ruling center.

Focuses on the Siamese Tai and how their ruling centers have redrawn traditional Tai lines.

Tannenbaum, Nicola, The heart of the village: Constituent structure of Shan communities.

The households, temple, tsao mong house, and the tsau wan, or heart of the village, together constitute a Shan community. Here, I describe each area, associated ritual, and briefly compare it wit accounts of similar elements for other Tai groups. These contrasts help to identify what is particularly “Shan” about this pattern of village organization within the larger framework of Tai culture.  

Renard, Ronald D., Tai Lü self, house, village, and mœeng.

When Lü people advise others to be good to their neighbors, they might well tell them, “ya leng mot khop mœng” (“do not raise weevils that will bite the mœng”). Another common Lü saying is “ban mœng chang gu ao koe tot” (“if the banmœng is insipid, add some salt to it”) A ban is literally a village but can refer to an individual house. A mœng (Shan, möng; Thai, müang) traditionally was a collection of villages that could encompass all the villages in a single valley or larger units comprising many valleys, like for example, a county. These sayings, particularly the latter, thus could apply to very local situations or more universal ones, involving all the Lü as a whole.

Lefferts, H. Leedom, Jr., The cultures of boxes: Information flow and social organization among the Northeast Thai and Lao.

This paper will examine some Tai cultural “fact” and investigate how these facts, along with Tai modes of production, may bring about a new understanding of Thai-Lao of Isan (Northeast Thailand) in order to bring to bear data concerning Tai culture (which we can also call an information system) and modes of production.

Kirsch, A. Thomas, The quest for Tai in tai context: forethoughts and afterthoughts.

Concluding remarks and commentary on Crossroads Special Thai Issue (Part Two).

Crossroads, Volume 4:2 (1989) – Special Thai Issue (Part One) $12.00

DeGrossa, Pamela S., Kamphæng Din: A study of prostitution in the all-Thai brothels of Chiang Mai City.

A majority of previous studies have deal with masseuses or bargirls exclusively. While perhaps drawn to prostitution for the same reasons as those subjects I interviewed, these women seem to live better than the women in small all-Thai brothels. The women in smaller houses are usually less experienced in the business, more vulnerable, and accept lower wages. The location of this study is brothels for Thai men in the city of Chiang Mai. research was conducted in those song commonly know as Pratu Lek (“iron door”), Kamphæ Din (“dirt wall”), and Santi Tham (“peace of the Dharma”).

Montague, Susan P., International tourism in the eastern seaboard of Thailand.

The eastern seaboard region of Thailand is an area that encompasses Chonburi and Rayong provinces. It has been selected by the Thai government as a focal area for extensive economic development. The development goals are two-fold: first, to alleviate congestion in Bangkok, the Thai capital, by encouraging various industries to reallocate the eastern seaboard region; and, second, to attract new industry from abroad to situate there. The government’s development plans for the region are only now beginning to be implemented, although the plans themselves were formulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This paper examines the history of that growth and looks at some of the ways in which it is likely to have an impact on the government’s development plans.  

Wilson, Constance M., The Thai rice trade and government revenues, 1885-1890.

The Thai Customs House Service maintained very detailed records of the revenues collected from the export of rice. These accounts, located Bangkok, are clear and well preserved. They permit us not only to determine the amount of revenue being collected by the customs House, but, in addition, to break these accounts down by market, by the ethnic group of the exporter, and by the brokerage houses that shipped most of the rice. These records indicate the degree to which the Thai courts was dependent on the activities of a small number of brokers, Chinese and European, for the greater part of the revenue it received from the export of rice.

Neher, Clark D., and Budsayamat, Political interaction in Northern Thailand.

We wish to analyze the interactions of the residents of three villages in Northern Thailand. We presumed no overarching theory of politics to “explain” Thai politics, although a set of assumptions was posited and confirmed by the field research as a context for analyzing interpersonal ties. We found a society characterized by flux and diversity of behavior, with behavior more situational than patterned. At the same time we found a loose pattern of interactions among Thai, who act rationally and pragmatically with each other as they seek to have their needs met. Our primary purpose was to examine the importance of personal exchange relationships in Thai society and, more specifically, to evaluate the role of patron-client (clientelistic) ties. Even more specifically, we wanted to assess how people in three Northern Thai villages meet their changing need and gain material rewards: information, status, and public goods.

Rhum, Michael R., The lords of Ava: Spirit rites in Northern Thailand.

In this paper I shall examine the meaning of Tai Yuan (Northern Thai) spirit sacrifices (liang phi). My interest here is more in what the rites say than how they say it, and I shall approach this mainly by situating them in their total ritual and social context, for that is where their meaning is to be found. This is specifically an argument for regarding Yuan spirit religion as an integrated while and against treating it as something made up of various disparate parts. I particularly have in mind those anthropologist who have sought to explain the so-called “matrilineal descent group” or “lineage” ancestral spirits of the Yuan (phi pu-na) by reference to either kinship or gender while giving little heed to the wider context in which these spirit cults operate. I think, however, that our starting point should not be the particularizes of kinship or gender, or this or that spirit, but the total social and ritual formation in “a ritually involuted society, where the domains of religion, polity, and economy [and I would add, kinship] fuse into a single total phenomenon.”

Wyatt, David K., Assault by ghosts: Politics and religion in Nan in the 18th century.

In the chronicles of the old principality of Nan, in Northern Thailand, there appears an episode centering on Wat Phrathat Chæ Hæng, the great Buddhist reliquary monument and associated monastery, that since the 14th century has stood at the hear of Thai life in Nan. It is difficult to take this story at face value; but it is also unwise to dismiss it as simple foolishness or superstition. A careful examination of the story might serve to tell us something about the relations between religion and politics in the 18th century Northern Tai world’ and it would suggest perhaps something also about the ways in which these people thought about their own history and how it should be written and transmitted to subsequent generations.

Hartmann, John F., George M. Henry, and Wibha Senanan Konganada. 

The old Thai text under study here is the anonymous Thai literary classic Lilit Phra Lo. An epic-romance, it is one of the most famous works in the history of Thai literature. The poem displays superbly exquisite lyrics, relays a subtle yet powerful message, and is passionate in tone and monumental in emotive effect. Many scholars have made speculations about the date, the authorship, and the regional dialect of the text.

Bhikkhu, Santikaro, Atammayatā: The rebirth of a lost word.

The term atammayatā cannot be found in the Paili Text Society’s dictionary. Readers will find it difficult to discover references to it in scholarly works, whether they come from West or East. The meditation masters of Tibet, Burma, or Zen do not seem to be interested in it. Mention it to most Buddhist and they will not know what you are talking about. Yet there is evidence in the Canon that the Buddha gave this word significant meaning. Currently, one of Thailand’s most influential monks, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, is teaching that it is “the highest word in Buddhism, the final word of Buddhism.”

Crossroads, Volume 4:1 (1988) – Special Burma Studies Issue $12.00

Nu, U. Nats

Speech delivered on the occasion of the dedication of the Center for Burma Studies, Northern Illinois University, 30th July 1897.

Schober, Juliane, The path to buddhahood: The spiritual mission and social organization of mysticism in contemporary Burma.

It is argued here that normative Burmese Buddhism and mystic beliefs share religious and social conceptions that are ultimately derived from the Theravada textual tradition. An examination of Burmese mysticism in terms of Theravada conceptions sheds light on the structure of mystic beliefs and on the ambiguous relations of mystic groups to monasticism and lay religion. It also explains the social formation and political economy of support systems mysticism typically creates.

Jordt, Ingrid, Bhikkhuni, Thilashin, Mae-chii: Women who renounce the world in Burma, Thailand, and the Classical Pali Buddhist Texts.

The history of women renunciates in Theravada Buddhism is extremely sketchy. There is general agreement among historians that the Buddha established an order of nuns (bhikkhuni) about five years after he had established an order of monks; the order of nuns lasted only until approximately 456 A.D.; the order never  reached mainland Southeast Asia. Recent research, however has unearthed new sources indicating that bhikkhuni and bhikkhuni monasteries existed in 13th century Pagan in Burma. Information such as this suggests a need to reexamine these historical questions.

Bekker, Sarah M., Transformations of the Nats: The humanization process in the deception of the thirty-seven lords of Burma.

The images of the Thirty-Seven Lords at the Shwezigon appear to be of different periods and different styles, although all the nats whose images are on the altar are claimed by the Burmese to be related to the Pagan period. Since these images of the group—as a group—are these oldest existing, they are worth examining for the clues they can give use about earlier beliefs.

Chutintaranond, Sunait, Cakravartin: Ideology, reason, and manifestation of Siamese and Burmese kings in traditional warfare (1538-1854).

My fundamental purpose in writing this paper is to rewrite some of the history of Siamese-Burmese warfare, emphasizing the spiritual aspect and not the physical aspect of war activities. To be more precise, I purport to examine the origin of the cakravartin concept and its functions in the politics of wars between Siam and Burma and how the concept had substantial impact on the Siamese and Burmese concept of kingship ad the idea of political expansion. Nevertheless, within this limited space, I have had to narrow my interest by presenting only a portion of my research that will examine in particular the connections between cakravartin and the concept of mandala or “field of power” of ancient Siamese-Burmese sovereigns and how it shaped the fundamental nature of warfare between the two rival states.

Woodward, Mark R., When one wheel stops: Theravada Buddhism and the British raj in Upper Burma.

This paper examines some of the religious consequences of the elimination of Buddhist kingship and the imposition of British rule in Upper Burma. It focuses on Mandalay, discussing the ways in which British rule transformed the religious landscape of the city and fostered the development of novel lay Buddhist institutions to take the place of official, royal patronage systems of the Burmese state.

Tun, Than, Observations on the translation and annotation of the Royal Orders of Burma.

The Royal Orders of Burma are instructions made by kings on things that they wanted done and on methods of how they should be done. An order would affect either the whole kingdom, as with a declaration of war, or an individual alone, such as freeing him from slavery. Although the focus of an order may concern the immediate issue which a king wishes to address, in general these orders reveal the social and cultural background of the people.

Kyaw, Aye, Status of women in family law in Burma and Indonesia.

Burma, a Buddhist country, was a former British colony and the product of a bitter, if not very bloody, transition to independence. Indonesia, on the other hand, is primarily an Islamic country, was a Dutch colony, and has had a long and sometimes, violent fight for independence. Colonial powers in both countries maintained their respect for local laws so long as they did not conflict with the statutory or administrative laws. n Burma, no family law can be called nationally applicable to all Burmese citizens; however, two laws—the Burmese customary law, which is “unwritten,’ and the Buddhist Women’s special Marriage and Succession Act of 1954—are operative among Burmese Buddhists and are also applicable to mixed marriages. in Indonesia, Undang Undang Perkawinan or Marriage Law is nationally applicable to all Indonesian citizens. In view of this background, this study attempts to investigate the status of women in Burmese and Indonesian family laws.

Lefferts, H. Leedom H., Jr. Contemporary Burmese earthenware.

Burma, in its current political and economic context, is ideally situated to provide examples of the perpetuation of locally-made ceramic artifacts in an age of near universal replacement by machine-produced items. With an official policy that severely limits imports of non-essential good, handicrafts in general, especially those that would be replaced by bulky, easily broken or damaged imported products, continue to be produced in large quantities. But where do these pots come from? What are the ecological and social conditions of their production and distribution? What are their uses? To begin to answer these questions, I visited two major pottery-producing locations and the site of one individual entrepreneur. Moreover, at these pottery locations, I found interesting differences and potentially fruitful direction of inquiry where I did not expect to find them.

Tuchrello, William, A survey of selected resources for the study of Burma.

This discussion of Burma research materials and resources will, on the one hand, review Burma studies materials and, on the other hand, offer some alternatives to Southeast Asian field work studies. Data for this bibliographical essay was collected on a trip to Burma in November 1986. Additional sources are the Burma bibliographies which were compiled as a result of the Burma conference at the Wilson Center. I have not concentrated on standard sources on Burma which are cited in the 1986 bibliography nor on the obvious works such as the Southeast Asia Catalogs of Cornell or LC. Rather I have attempted to cite collections and works which are lesser known in American. Because most countries where Burma studies is taught are included in this selective survey, the organization is geographical.

Crossroads, Volume 3:2-3 (1987) $12.00

Sarkissian, Margaret, Armenians in South-East Asia.

This paper documents some of the glimpses of Armenian communities in South-east Asia over the centuries.

Fenner, Frank, Smallpox in Southeast Asia.

Includes discussion on: the biological features of the disease that affect its behavior in human populations, smallpox prior to the 20th century, smallpox in Mainland Southeast Asia, Smallpox n the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines, smallpox in the 20th century, and vaccination.

Yusof, Abdul Maulud, Culture change in Malay society: From peasantry to entrepreneurship.

It is the aim of this paper to show that Malay society, which has been rural and traditional in the past 300 years or so, can accommodate changes and is capable of reviving old values such as entrepreneurship. Maylays, who have since moved to the cities in large numbers after the end of the Second World War, have a sufficient, adaptive, cultural mechanism to compete in the urban world with established migrant communities. The Malay society in general has also created a national leadership that was able to introduce possible culture changes in Malay society without dismantling basic Malay culture. The process of change in society, however, cannot be fairly judged by analyzing such processes over a one or two generation period.

Foley, Kathy, The tree of life in transition: Images of resources management in Indonesian theatre.

This paper will report on ideas of Indonesian artists concerning resources usage, especially in relation to forests. The images I will cal upon are distilled from two different theatrical strains—the traditional wayang theatre, especially as it is practiced in Sundanese and Javanese culture; and modern dram, which thrives in the major metropolitan areas of the archipelago using Indonesian language as its medium. The insights I offer merely indicate patterns that I have noted in my studies of Indonesian theatre and do not pretend to exhaust the topic.

Scupin, Raymond, Interpreting Islamic movements in Thailand.

Topics include: History of Islam in Thailand, traditional Islam in Thailand, Islamic reformism, and recent Islamic trends in Thailand.

Hudak, Thomas John, Internal rhyme patterns in classical Thai poetry.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the patterns of sâmphàt nay used in classical Thai poetry. These patterns may be divided into two groups. The first group consists of the recognized patterns, those patterns commentators list as required for poetry. It is assumed that poets consciously attempted to use these patterns in their poetry. The second group, on the other hand, consists of patterns that may or may not have been recognized by the poets. While almost all Thai poetic compositions contain the recognized patterns, it is in the poetic compositions of highest quality, those by Rama II (1809-24) and Sunth n Phuu (1786-1855) for example, where the unrecognized patterns abound.

Crossroads, Volume 3:1 (1986) - Special Issue: Seven Hundred Years of Thai Writing $12.00

Seutrong, Chey, Reflections on King Ram Khamhaeng of Sukhothai.

Various artifacts are examined, shedding light on the personal history and characteristics of King Ram Khamhaeng of Sukhothai. 

Hartman, John F., The spread of south Indic scripts in Southeast Asia.

Subject headings include: Historical background, linguistic groupings, the influence of writing instruments and surfaces, and aesthetics.

Nacaskul, Karnchana, Works in Thailand commemorating the 700 years of Thai writing.

To observe the 700th Anniversary of King Ram Khamhaeng’s Codification of the Thai Alphabet, a number of activities have been organized among various educational and cultural centers in Thailand. The activities summarized tin this paper are commemoration exhibitions and symposia on the Seven Hundred Years of Thai Writing at Chulalongkorn University, a seminar at the Office of the Prime Minister, and a series of lectures at Nakhon Pathom Cultural Center. Major topics are the development of the Thai alphabet and numerals, the uses of the Thai language in mass communications and politics, and some interesting features of the Thai language.

Danvivathana, Nantana, Phonetic interpretation in the earliest Thai script through historical spelling.

A phonetic interpretation of the earliest known Thai inscription.

Winship, Michael, Early Thai printing: The beginning to 1851.

This research teaches us not only about Thailand and Thai culture, but also for the lessons that can be learned about the printing press as an agent for change and about the impact of Western ideas and technology on a foreign world and culture.

Henry, George, A proposal for a general computer-based Romanization for Southeast Asian Indic-derived scripts.

Over the past several years, John Hartmann and I have developed a system for Romanizing Southeast Asian Languages and converting them to the native orthography with the use of a microcomputer. The native orthography can either be displayed on the microcomputer’s screen using the computer’s graphics capabilities, or sent to a dot matrix printer. We have used Apple computers (the II Family) and dot matrix printers; the software described in this paper is written in Apple’s version of Pascal. Recently, there has been some interest expressed in porting this software system to other microcomputer systems. This paper is an attempt to provide information to those interested in attempting such a conversion.

Jagacinski, Ngampit, The Tai writing of Sipsongpanna.

Discussion includes: Historical background, traditional script, and reform script.

Hartmann, John F. Varieties of Tai Dam script.

An analysis of the historical underpinnings of Tai Dam scripts.

Bickner, Robert, Changing perspectives on language and the poetic arts in Thailand.

In this paper I focus on the exact nature of the basic poetic unit, or wák. Misunderstandings about the nature of the poetic unit are, I believe, the major source of the feeling that the ancient poetry is uneven in quality. Also, the point bears upon attempts to determine the origins of Thai poetic forms.

Gething, Thomas, Selective development of the Thai lexicon.

Over time the Thai language has selected certain lexical items from other languages and borrowed them into Thai. Such borrowing is well know to linguists in all areas of the world and is worthy of study not only in and of itself, but also for what it reveals about the history of the speakers of the language in which the borrowed items appear.

Hudak, Thomas, Spelling reforms of Field Marshall Pibulsonkram.

This article discusses substitutions and reforms in the development of the Thai alphabet.

Tiengleaddawong, Manot, and Mary Lou Robertson, The Thai Braille writing system.

This article falls into three parts: Section One offers a small glimpse at the life of Louis Braille, “father of the reading fingers,” who has endowed his comrades who share his fate with the wonderful 6-dot system. Section Two describes briefly the works and life of Miss Caulfield, founder of the Bangkok School for the Blind, who gave birth to the Thai Braille writing system. Section Three presents a comprehensive explanation of the Thai Braille alphabet, punctuation marks and other necessary symbols used in the Thai writing system.   

Crossroads, Volume 2:3 (1986) $12.00

Gandour, J., R. Dardarananda, H. Buckingham, Jr., and A. Viriyavejakul, A Thai adaptation of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination.

Up to the present, no comprehensive aphasia battery has been available for use in Thailand. This article contains the first comprehensive diagnostic aphasia examination to be developed for use with Thai-speaking patients. The exam should be useful to neurologist, psychologist, linguist, speech pathologist and speech therapist.

Wessing, Robert, Wearing the cosmos: Symbolism in batik design.

In this essay I will examine some specific batik design motifs by looking at individual design elements and their possible meaning. The next step will be to look at these elements or combinations of elements as statement about being Javanese and one’s consequent place in the cosmic totality.

Weightman, G. H., Changing patterns of internal and external migration among Philippine Chinese.

The last three decades have produced profound political and social changes in the size, distribution, and class composition of the Philippine Chinese. These demographic changes have involved internal and external migration, changes of legal status, and changes in neighborhoods by expansion or contraction. Because many American writers have underemphasized the importance of social stratification among the Philippine Chinese these changes are often obscured or misunderstood. In addition, misinterpretations of the assimilation process has added to misunderstanding of the dynamic processes involved.

Scupin, Raymond, Thailand as a plural society: Ethnic interaction in a Buddhist kingdom.

This essay will characterize the plural nature of Thai society. Historical and ethnographic sources will be drawn upon in order to delineate the development of Thailand as a type of plural society. General processes due to Thai political and administrative policies which have had implications for various ethnic groups in Thailand will be surveyed. The consequences of these policies will be explored to determine trends in inter-ethnic adaptations and processes in Thailand. In addition the utility of plural theory as it applies to Thailand will be assessed and evaluated.

Crossroads, Volume 2:2 (1985) – Special Issue: 200 Years of the Chakri Dynasty $12.00

Gedney, William, Patrons and practitioners: Chakri monarchs and literature.

This brief account will describe some of the most noteworthy literary accomplishments of five Chakri kings from the point of view of a foreign student and enthusiast.

Woodward, Hiram W., Jr., Monastery, palace, and city plans: Ayutthaya and Bangkok.

This is a paper about alignments—structures placed in a single row. Sometimes buildings within a single monastery form an alignment; sometimes alignments extend from one monastery to another, giving a city a single dominant spine. I will examine evidence of possible alignments at Ayutthaya and Bangkok.

Reynolds, Frank E., Theravada Buddhism and economic order.

This article presents a synthetic overview of Theravada attitudes related to economic matters that can provide a framework within and against which more specialized studies may subsequently can be pursued.

Ramakomud, Sriprinya, Theravada Buddhist values and economic development.

Theravada Buddhism, as the religion of more than 80 percent of the Thai population is assumed to have a significant effect on society and economics. Such an effect often is said to have more of a negative than positive impact on the nation’s economic development. The aim of this paper is to explore this idea more deeply.

Wilson, Constance M., Commentary on Theravada Buddhism and economic order and on Theravada Buddhist values and economic development.

Constance M. Wilson compares and contrasts Frank E. Reynolds, “Theravada Buddhism and economic order” and Sriprinya Ramakomud’s “Theravada Buddhist values and economic development.”

Ayal, Eliezer B., The interpretation of the economic development of Thailand.

Is Thailand a success story or not? This question has been asked for decades and will continue to be asked in the future. The answers given seem to shift back and forth, depending to a significant degree on the current concerns of social scientists, including development economists. Many say that Thailand has not utilized its full potential, but this might be said of most other countries as well, since it is not clear how such a potential is determined. This is not merely a reflection of the difficulties of quantitative measurement, but is also a reflection of the fact that the economy is part and parcel of the total society and polity. A country cannot escapee its past, which defines the parameters of its present potential; and its future potential is determined by actions taken at present on what was inherited form the past. 

Punyaratabandhu-Bhakdi, Suchitra, Structural problems in the governance of Bangkok.

In our view, discussion of whether to centralize or decentralize Thailand’s system of government and administration are entirely misdirected. They are misdirected because they fail to take into account the central defining property of the present-day government of metropolitan Bangkok, which is of crucial importance in any consideration of reform or reorganization. Unless this factor is accorded due recognition, reform proposals are likely to be meaningless, for they ignore the facts of the situation.

Neher, Clark, Commentary on “Structural problems in the governance of Bangkok.”

Clark Neher comments on Suchitra Punyaratabandhu-Bhakdi’s “Structural problems in the governance of Bangkok.

Wyatt, David K., The Bangkok monarchy and Thai history.

I will examine the active role of some members of the Chakri Dynasty in promoting the study and writing of Thai history—considering that 200-year period as a dead and buried finished block of time—and attempt to suggest as assess its shape and quality. I will conclude by wondering, if only theoretically, about the relationship between “history” and “history.”

Gesick, Lorraine, Comment of Professor Wyatt’s “The Bangkok monarchy and Thai history.”

Lorraine Gesick comments on David K. Wyatt’s “The Bangkok monarchy and Thai history.”

Neher, Arlene B., Some uses of Thai history: A response to David Wyatt, “The Bankok monarchy and Thai history.”

Arlene B. Neher responds to David K. Wyatt’s “The Bangkok monarchy and Thai history.”

Crossroads, Volume 2:1 (1984) $12.00

Warren, Charles P., Agricultural development of the Batak of Palawan, Philippines: A case study.

In this paper I try to present the observations of three ethnographers, Warren, Eder, and Cadelina, as they have reported the techniques and ramifications of Batak agricultural practices at different points in time. My contribution to the analysis is to suggest that Batak stability and change can be understood more fully by examining the links between the Batak and the neighboring lowlanders in their agricultural and other subsistence activities, since competition for space and labor marks Batak-lowlander relationships, along with exploitation of the Batak at every opportunity.

Richter, Linda K., Policy-making in martial law Philippines: The rhetoric and the reality.

This paper is directed at: (1) understanding how t land reform and tourism development came to be New Society priorities; (2) examining the evolution of each of these policies; (3) and evaluating the impact of each of these policies in terms of the rhetoric that launched them.

Van Esterik, Penny, Rice and milk in Thai Buddhism: Symbolic and social values of basic food substances.

This paper explores the meaning of rice and milk in cultural historical context, bases partly on the ideological definition in the texts of Theravada Buddhism. Since foot exchanges communicate to both participants and observers, they can be used to analyze social relationships. using rice and milk as the two primary food substances, I will define the food transactions between mother and infant, and monk and layman in Central Thailand. Finally, I will draw out and make explicit what is being communicated in both contexts. The paper concludes with a warning against assuming that ideology explains food choices.

Gandour, Jack, Vowel duration in Thai.

In spite of considerable interest in the phonological analysis of vowel duration in Thai and the relationship between tone and vowel duration across Thai dialects, only scant temporal information is currently available on the production of Thai single and geminate vowels. The aim of this paper is to provide further information on the production of single and geminate vowels in a fixed segmental and tonal context by normal Thai adults.

Volume 1:3 (1983) – Special Issue: Southeast Asian Studies and International Business $12.00

Sentell, Gerald D., Thailand’s Fifth Plan: Will it succeed?

The article discusses economic conditions and trends effecting Thailand’s export industry.

Thomas, M. Ladd, Political violence in Thailand.

During the past few decades Thailand has experienced a measure of political stability despite frequent coup d’etats, a student uprising, a Thai-Muslim separatist movement, and a communist insurgency. This paper examines the nature and scope of the major expressions of political violence in Thailand thus far, and then draw some inferences as to whether this violence is likely to continue.

Liddle, R. William, Polity and economy in Suharto’s Indonesia.

Includes discussion on: The political structure of the New Order, the Indonesian political economy and Suharto’s strategies for survival, and the Indonesian political economy and the future of the New Order.

Emmerson, Donald K., Understanding the New Order: Bureaucratic pluralism in Indonesia.

My goals in this article are to review the spectrum of perceptions about political authority in Indonesia; to introduce the related concept of bureaucratic pluralism; and then, by combining data on military penetration of the higher central bureaucracy with a case study of how bureaucratic actors shape policy, to show how the concept might be used to evaluate the perceptions. My ultimate purpose is to understand better the nature of the New Order.

Kerkvliet, Benedict J. Tria, Possible demise of the Marcos regime.

Kerkvliet analyzes the state of the Marcos regime in terms of: Accomplishments and problems, regional differences, opposition, and pressures for regime change.

Noble, Lela Garner, Mindanao: A perspective from the Philippine frontier.

Working from Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet’s “Possible demise of the Marcos regime,” Lela Gerner Noble shifts perspectives to Mindanao to focus on developments there and to reflect on the significance of those developments.

Simon, Sheldon W. The Indochina Imbroglio and external interests.

Topics discussed: The conflict between Vietnam’s and China’s security interests, ASEAN’s views of the Indochina situation, the implications of Vietnam’s economic situation, and prospects for a negotiated solution.

Weatherbee, Donald E., Communist revolutionary violence in the ASEAN States: An assessment of current strength and strategies.

Donald E. Weatherbee discusses the international communist environment in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and The Philippines.

Crossroads, Volume 1:2 (1983) $12.00

McNabb, Scott F., the Hill Areas Education Project of Northern Thailand: constraints and prospects for Hill tribe participation.

Topics covered: Background of the Hill Areas Education Project, analysis of obstacles to participation, and project outcomes. 

Goodman, Grant F., A sense of kinship: Japan’s cultural offensive in the Philippines during the 1930s.

What many observers have termed a “cultural offensive” became an integral part of Japan’s growing interest in the Philippines during the 1930s. The obvious reasons for the acceleration of Japan’s activities in those years and for the greater Philippine response to those activities were, of course, the immediacy of Philippine independence and the expansion of Japanese power in the Orient. Especially important in this context were the seemingly concurrent American forced draft toward Philippine freedom and the anticipated withdrawal of the American military presence in the area. Increased Philippine-Japanese contacts were, I believe, in direct proportion to these phenomena. This paper describes selected examples of Japanese-Filipino interaction in the non-political and non-economic realms, and attempts to analyze the impetuses for these several interchanges as well as their mutual effects.

Meadows, Martin, The dilemma of moderate ideologies in developing countries: The Philippine Christian social movement, 1967-1972.

Topics covered: Overview of political developments during the 1960s, historical overview of the Christian Social Movement, Manglapus and third partyism, the ideological framework, and theory and practice.

Winzeler, Robert L., The development of British colonial scholarly interpretations of Malay Islam.

Robert L. Winzwler poses a discussion on British colonial views of Malay Islam in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Lent, John A. The Philippine press at the advent of the 1980s.

Topics covered: Government-press relationships: background, press-government relationships: contemporary scene, and press economics.

Crossroads, Volume 1:1 (1983) - Special Philippine Studies Issue $12.00

Almirol, Edwin B., Philippine American Studies on the West Coast: Or another love relationship at a crossroads.

Edwin B. Almirol explores the state of Philippine American Studies in 1983.

Carlson, Alvar W., The settling of recent Filipino immigrants in midwestern metropolitan areas.

A quantitative study of data concerning Filipino immigrants including discussion of characteristics and settling patterns.

Fernandez, Doreen G., Philippine-American cultural interaction.

This article explores Philippine-American relationships with popular culture. The author discusses stage entertainment, radio, television, film, comics and magazines, and popular music.

Alejandro, Reynaldo G., Contemporary dance in the Philippines.

Reynaldo G. Alejandro discusses three exponents in the development of contemporary Philippine folkloric dance: the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company, Leonor Orosa Goquingco and her Filipinescas Dance Company, and Francisca Reyes Aquino.

Doeppers, Daniel F., Financing urban construction in the Philippines, 1900-1941: The rise and decline of mutual building and loan associations.

During the 1900-1941 period in the Philippines some of the capital extracted from the production of commodities for export was invested in urban real estate development through various financial conduits including both private individuals and institutions. The mix of major institutional participation in real estate mortgage finance was particularly fluid, involving new government—run banks, older commercial banks, domestic insurance companies, and mutual building and loan associations. During the later 1920s and early 1930s building and loan associations constituted the single most important source of mortgage finance in Manila. This essay charts the origin , success, and final decline of this set of institutions.

Ulack, Richard, Migration and intra-urban mobility characteristics of squatters and urban dwellers.

This paper examines the intraurban mobility characteristics of the low income slum and squatter population of Cagayan de Oro City, northern Mindanao. More specifically, most of the discussion will be concerned with the intraurban mobility characteristics of couples since their marriage. This preliminary study is basically descriptive since there is not yet a large amount of research completed on intraurban migration in developing nations.

Elwood Douglas J., Interfaith relations in the Philippines during the 1960s and 70s.

Topics covered: The contemporary religious situation in the Philippines, Inter-Protestant and Anglican-Independent Catholic relations, and Christian-Muslim relations.

Cullinane, Michael, The Filipino Federation of America.

This paper focuses on the early years of the Filipino Federation of America (1925-1940) and attempts to place the organization and its members in the context of the prewar Filipino experience in America.