Had the eminent physicist Ernest Rutherford actually once said that “all science is either physics or stamp collecting”, he might have botany in mind, a discipline the very basis of which is collecting and labelling plants according to strict taxonomies. In her (perhaps aptly entitled) new book, Unmaking Botany, Kathleen C Gutierrez sets about describing not just the history of botany in the Philippines but how the practice of it intersected with the imperial projects of Spain and the United States.
Author: Peter Gordon
Japan is a favourite destination for tourists the world over, but one reason it appeals to Hong Kong tourists (for whom it is a particular favourite) is that Kanji allows them to more or less work things out despite not knowing Japanese at all. Zev Handel’s new book Chinese Characters Across Asia tells the story of how the Chinese writing system was adopted—and adapted—in Japan as well as Korea and Vietnam.
Quite a lot of archaeological water, to say nothing of history writing, has flowed under the bridge since Early Southeast Asia’s first edition in 2014.
The Dead Sea—and its environs of Jericho and the Jordan River—is perhaps second only to Jerusalem as a place where history, archaeology, religion, politics and international relations meet and mix. It is, as Nir Arielli points out in his new book, quite a bit older, and today is as much a place of environmental as political dispute.
China has been one of the leading sources of overseas visitors to the Maldives in recent years. Bin Yang, a professor of history at City University of Hong Kong, makes the argument in Discovered but Forgotten that this is to some extent a rerun of the situation in the 14th and 15th centuries when the Maldives were firmly on Chinese maps of places to visit.
A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro’s photographs of Macau are certainly worth that and more. This latest collection consists of 100 photos taken during the last five years, a period which included Covid-19. The photojournalist, who been resident in Macau for well over a decade manages both to capture something of the inexpressible essence of the city, as well to provide visuals that will intrigue and engage anyone interested in either cities and the people that live in them. The “poética” of the title is apt.
Most people “collect” stuff, but Paul Bromberg is a “collector”, the difference being that he proceeds with intent and purpose, focusing on a relatively narrow group of objects.
Pirates and piracy seem to be about as universal as death and taxes, and Chinese and Western piracy bear much in common, from violence and hardship, to oppression from the authorities as both cause and consequence, as well as a certain amount of popular romanticism. In Outlaws of the Sea, Robert J Antony provides an overview of the Chinese version of the phenomenon, situated “along the southern coast of China and in the South China Sea between the 1630s and 1940s,” which he places firmly in the broader sweep of Chinese history.
The modern classics of Southeast Asian literature, with the singular exception of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, largely remain a blank spot on the English-language literary map. Thank goodness, then, that Penguin Southeast Asia has in recent years published translations from, for example, Vietnamese and Tagalog; Pauline Fan’s recent translation of a collection of Malay short fiction by the iconic writer Fatimah Busu is a welcome addition.
Hong Kong rounded out the Puccini centenary year with Musica Viva’s new production of Il Trittico (“The Triptych”), a trio of one-act operas. Each is sufficient in itself, yet the whole magically becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Il tabarro (“The Cloak”) leads off with tragic melodrama, Suor Angelica is both spiritual and a tear-jerker, while Gianni Schicchi is Puccini’s sole foray into comic opera buffa.
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