New Mandala

On Wednesday I will be attending the International Conference of Thai Studies being held at Thammasat University in Bangkok. I attend the conference with considerable mixed feelings. Many readers may be aware that in March 2007 New Mandala raised the issue of a boycott of the conference.  In that post we reproduced the following statement from [...]

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Some of New Mandala readers and contributors may be familiar with an article by Grant Evans entitled “Transformation of Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, PRC” and included in the book Where China meets Southeast Asia (ISEAS, 2000). In that article, Evans referred to various tourist projects planned to be carried out in Jinghong, the capital of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous [...]

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For those of you interested in the Thai love affair with the Lue of Sipsongpanna, here is another addition to the T(h)ai studies bookshelf. Yuan thi yungthong (Visit peacock-land): Sipsongpanna by Suphin Ritphen. It is an account of a three week visit to Sipsonpanna in 2006. There are plenty of pictures (but in black and white). ISBN: [...]

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A few days ago I posted several images of Sipsongpanna, taken during my recent (brief) visit there. My selection of images was intended to raise questions about Sipsongpanna’s cultural characteristics. I deliberately chose Han Chinese and modernist images to serve as a contrast with common representations of Sipsongpanna as a site of trans-border “Tainess” (representations that [...]

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This is a wonderful image from Burma of the Buddhist saint/spirit Upakhut (thanks very much to the photographer Ampika Rattanapitak). Here are two other images: upakhut-2.JPG and here upakhut-3.JPG.
Upakhut is an important figure in local belief in many areas of Burma, northern Thailand and Laos. The stories of his origins are numerous. (For those interested, The Legend [...]

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In an important public debate concerning recent events in Thailand, a series of international scholars have discussed the rather odd idea of changing Thailand’s name back to Siam. The discussion was kicked off  earlier this week when prominent Thai historian Charnvit Kasetsiri argued that “Siam” was more ethnically inclusive than “Thailand.” The discussion has been picked up [...]

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Today’s Nation carries a piece by Chang Noi  that discusses the idea of a boycott of the 10th International Thai Studies Conference. (For previous New Mandala discussion of this issue see here and here.) The article concludes:
A boycott may or may not be a good idea. But the call for this boycott signals something important. The theme [...]

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The 10th International Conference on Thai Studies will be held in Bangkok for 3 days early in 2008.  For some of us, this might seem like a lifetime away but the handsome conference website is already starting to take shape and a wide-ranging call for papers has been issued.
The theme of the conference is “transnationalism” which [...]

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