Encyclopedia of modern asia IV

9 Modern Asia Encyclopedia of Modern Asia Encyclopedia of Volume Malaysia to Portuguese in Southeast Asia A Berkshire Reference Work David Levinson • Karen Christensen, Editors Editorial Board Virginia Aksan McMaster University Edward Beauchamp University of Hawaii, Honolulu Anthony Bichel Central Michigan University Rebecca Bichel Pennsylvania State University Linsun Cheng University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Gerald Fry University of Minnesota Bruce Fulton University of British Columbia Paul Hockings University of Illinois, Chicago Robert LaPorte, Jr Pennsylvania State University Associate Editors Linda Arthur University of Hawaii, Manoa Jamal Elias Amherst College Allen Guttmann Amherst College Josie Hernandez de Leon Laurentian University Gustaaf Houtman Royal Anthropological Institute, London, U.K Bruce Lockhart Singapore National University Patit Mishra Sambalpur University Anthony Smith Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Honolulu Encyclopedia of Modern Asia David Levinson and Karen Christensen, Editors Copyright © 2002 Berkshire Publishing Group Charles Scribner’s Sons An imprint of The Gale Group 300 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10010 Gale and Design™ and Thomson Learning™ are trademark s used herein under license For more information, contact The Gale Group, Inc 27500 Drake Rd Farmington Hills, MI 48331–3535 Or you can visit our Internet site at http://www.gale.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented including phootcopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from Berkshire Publishing Group Since this page cannot legibly accommodate all copyright notices, the acknowledgments constitute an extension of the copyright notice The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper) For permission to use material from this product, submit your request via Web at http://www.gale-edit.com/permissions, or you may download our Permissions Request form and submit your request by fax or mail to: Permissions Department The Gale Group, Inc 27500 Drake Rd Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3535 Permissions Hotline: 248-699-8006 or 800-877-4253, ext 8006 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Levinson, David, 1947Encyclopedia of modern Asia : / David Levinson, Karen Christensen, p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-684-80617-7 (set hardcover : alk paper) Asia—Encyclopedias I Christensen, Karen, 1957- II Title DS4 L48 2002 950'.03—dc21 2002008712 Printed in United States of America 11 13 15 17 19 20 18 16 14 12 10 Contents Volume Volume List of Maps ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xxi Survey of Asia’s Regions and Nations xxv Regional Maps xxxiii Reader’s Guide xxxix Abacus to China List of Maps vii Survey of Asia’s Regions and Nations ix Regional Maps xvii Reader’s Guide xxiii Malaysia to Portuguese in Southeast Asia Volume List of Maps vii Survey of Asia’s Regions and Nations ix Regional Maps xvii Reader’s Guide xxiii China-India Relations to Hyogo Volume List of Maps vii Survey of Asia’s Regions and Nations ix Regional Maps xvii Reader’s Guide xxiii Iaido to Malay-Indonesian Language ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA Volume List of Maps vii Survey of Asia’s Regions and Nations ix Regional Maps xvii Reader’s Guide xxiii Possession to Turkey Volume List of Maps vii Survey of Asia’s Regions and Nations ix Regional Maps xvii Reader’s Guide xxiii Turkic Languages to Zuo Zongtang Directory of Contributors 225 Index 271 v List of Maps Front Matter of All Volumes Hong Kong 548 Huang River 558 Central Asia China and East Asia South Asia Southeast Asia—Insular Southeast Asia—Mainland West and Southwest Asia Volume Volume Afghanistan 21 Altay Mountains 89 Amu Dar’ya 94 Andaman and Nicobar Islands 101 Aral Sea 122 Armenia 159 Azerbaijan 205 Bangladesh 237 Bay of Bengal 269 Bhutan 287 Borneo 308 Brahmaputra River 317 Brunei 329 Cambodia 408 Caucasus 449 Chang River 488 China 504 Volume East Timor Euphrates and Tigris Fergana Valley Ganges River Gobi Desert Great Wall Gulf of Thailand Himalayas ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA 314 352 375 423 438 449 461 513 India Indonesia 53 Indus River 77 Iran 96 Iraq 123 Irian Jaya 144 Irrawaddy River 147 Jammu and Kashmir 203 Japan 207 Java and Bali 267 Kalimantan 302 Karakoram Highway 317 Kara-Kum Canal 319 Kara-Kum Desert 320 Kazakhstan 337 Killing Fields—Cambodia (1999) 369 Kyrgyzstan 424 Laos 443 Luzon 530 Macao 532 Volume Malaysia Maldives 22 Mauritius 86 Mekong River and Delta 136 Mindanao 148 Mongolia 165 Myanmar (Burma) 245 Nepal 307 North Korea 348 Pakistan 424 vii LIST OF MAPS Pamir Range 457 Persian Gulf 480 Philippines 492 Volume Red River and Delta 60 Réunion 82 Sarawak 130 Siberia 195 Silk Road 208 Singapore 212 South Korea 270 Spratly Islands 314 Sri Lanka 317 Strait of Malacca 339 viii Sumatra Syr Dar’ya Taiwan Tajikistan Taklimakan Desert Thailand Tian Shan Tibet (Xizang) Tonle Sap Turkey 354 362 380 394 406 452 481 484 513 540 Volume Turkmenistan Uzbekistan 43 Vietnam 60 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA Survey of Asia’s Regions and Nations T he Encyclopedia of Modern Asia covers thirty-three nations in depth and also the Caucasus and Siberia We have divided Asia into five major subregions and assigned the thirty-three nations to each West and Southwest Asia The West Asian nations covered in detail here are Turkey, Iran, and Iraq Afghanistan and Pakistan form Southwest Asia, although in some classifications they are placed in Central and South Asia, respectively Afghanistan, on the crossroads of civilizations for thousands of years, is especially difficult to classify and displays features typical of Central, West, and South Asia Despite diversity in language (Persian in Iran, Arabic in Iraq, Turkish in Turkey) form of government (theocracy in Iran, dictatorship in Iraq, and unstable democracy in Turkey) and international ties (Iran to the Islamic world, Iraq to the Arab Middle East, Turkey to the West), there are several sources of unity across West Asia Perhaps the oldest is geographical location as the site of transportation routes between Europe and Central, East, and South Asia Since ancient times, people, goods, wealth, and ideas have flowed across the region In 2002 the flow of oil was most important, from the wells of Iran and Iraq through the pipelines of Turkey Another source of unity is Sunni Islam, a major feature of life since the seventh century, although Iran is mainly the minority Shi a tradition and there have long been Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha i minorities in the region Diversity is also evident in the fact that Turkey is a "secular" state while Iran is a theocracy, and in the conflict between fundamentalist and mainstream Islam in all the nations Another important common thread is the shared historical experience of being part of the Ottoman Empire and having to cope with British and Russian designs on their territory and, more recently, American influence And, in the twentieth century, all three nations have sought to deal with the Kurdish minority and its demands for a Kurdish state to be established on land taken from all three nations Unity across Afghanistan and Pakistan is created by adherence to Sunni Islam (although there is a Shi ite minority in Afghanistan) and the prominence of the Pashtun ethnic group in each nation Both nations also experienced British colonialism, although the long-term British influence is more notable in Pakistan, which had been ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA ix ASIA’S REGIONS AND NATIONS tied to India under British rule West Asia is the only region in the world never colonized by Britain, although some experts argue that it did experience significant British cultural influence In all nations resistance to external control—British, Russian, or United States—is another common historical experience Across the region (although less so in Afghanistan) is the stark contrast between the traditional culture and the modernity of liberation from imperial rule, still not complete across the region This contrast is apparent in clothing styles, manners, architecture, recreation, marriage practices, and many elements of daily life In 2002 all the nations faced a water crisis of both too little water and water pollution They all also faced issues of economic and social development, including reducing external debt, controlling inflation, reducing unemployment, improving education and health care, and continually reacting to the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, which exacerbates many of these problems The governments also faced the difficult task of solving these problems while resisting Americanization and also while controlling internal political unrest Political unrest is often tied to efforts at creating democratic governments and the persistence of elite collaboration with tyrannical governments Central Asia Central Asia is known by many names, including Eurasia, Middle Asia, and Inner Asia At its core, the region is composed of five states that became independent nations following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan Scholars sometimes include Afghanistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang province of China within the label Central Asia For this project, Central Asia is restricted to the five former Soviet countries, while Afghanistan is classified in Southwest Asia, and Mongolia and Xinjiang as part of East Asia These states have a shared landmass of 1.5 million square miles, about one-half the size of the United States The region’s unity comes from a shared history and religion Central Asia saw two cultural and economic traditions blossom and intermix along the famed Silk Road: nomadic and sedentary Nomadic herdsmen, organized into kinship groupings of clans, lived beside sedentary farmers and oasis city dwellers Four of the countries share Turkic roots, while the Tajiks are of Indo-European descent, linguistically related to the Iranians While still recognizable today, this shared heritage has developed into distinct ethnic communities The peoples of Central Asia have seen centuries of invasion, notably the legendary Mongol leader Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century, the Russians in the nineteenth and the Soviets in the twentieth century For better or worse, each invader left behind markers of their presence: the Arabs introduced Islam in the seventh century Today Islam is the predominant religion in the region, and most Central Asians are Sunni Muslims The Russians brought the mixed legacy of modernism, including an educated populace, alarming infant mortality rates, strong economic and political participation by women, high agricultural development, and environmental disasters such as the shrinking of the Aral Sea It was under Russian colonialism that distinct ethno-national boundaries were created to divide the people of the region These divisions largely shape the contemporary Central Asian landscape Today the five Central Asian nations face similar challenges: building robust economies, developing stable, democratic governments, and integrating themselves into the regional and international communities as independent states They come to these challenges with varied resources: Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have rich oil reserves; several countries have extensive mineral deposits; and the Fergana Valley is but one example of the region’s rich agricultural regions x ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA ASIA’S REGIONS AND NATIONS Finally, the tragic events of September 11, 2001, cast world attention on Afghanistan’s neighbors in Central Asia The "war on terrorism" forged new alliances and offered a mix of political pressure and economic support for the nations’ leaders to suppress their countries’ internal fundamentalist Muslim movements Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is conventionally defined as that subregion of Asia consisting of the eleven nation-states of Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam Myanmar is sometimes alternatively classified as part of South Asia and Vietnam as in East Asia The region may be subdivided into Mainland Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam) and Insular Southeast Asia (Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore) Malaysia is the one nation in the region that is located both on the mainland and islands, though ethnically it is more linked to the island nations of Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines Perhaps the key defining features for the region and those that are most widespread are the tropical monsoon climate, rich natural resources, and a way of life in rural areas based on cooperative wet-rice agriculture that goes back several thousand years In the past unity was also created in various places by major civilizations, including those of Funan, Angkor, Pagan, Sukhothai, Majapahit, Srivijaya, Champa, Ayutthaya, and Melaka Monarchies continue to be significant in several nation—Brunei, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Thailand—today Subregional unity has also been created since ancient times by the continued use of written languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Lao, Khmer and the rich literary traditions associated with those languages The region can also be defined as being located between China and India and has been influenced by both, with Indian influence generally broader, deeper, and longer lasting, especially on the mainland, except for Vietnam and Singapore, where influences from China have been more important Islamic influence is also present in all eleven of the Southeast Asian nations Culturally, Southeast Asia is notable for the central importance of the family, religion (mainly Buddhism and Islam), and aesthetics in daily life and national consciousness In the post–World War II Cold War era, there was a lack of regional unity Some nations, such as Indonesia under Sukarno, were leaders of the nonaligned nations Countries such as Thailand and the Philippines joined the U.S side in the Cold War by being part of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) A move toward greater unity was achieved with the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967, with the founding members being Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand Subsequently other Southeast Asian nations joined ASEAN (Brunei, 1984; Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam 1997; Cambodia 1999) As of 2002, communism was still the system in Laos and Vietnam and capitalism in Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, the Philippines Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore Political, economic, and cultural cooperation is fostered by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia Economically, all the nations have attempted to move, although at different speeds and with different results, from a reliance on agriculture to an industrial or service-based economy All nations also suffered in the Asian economic crisis beginning in July 1997 Alongside these sources of similarity or unity that allow us to speak of Southeast Asia as a region is also considerable diversity In the past religion, ethnicity, and diverse colonial experience (British, Dutch, French, American) were major sources of diversity Today, the three major sources of diversity are religion, form of government, and level of economic development Three nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA xi POETRY—KOREA Chinese cousin, which consisted of five or seven characters per foot, Korean hanshi generally consisted of four As only the upper class was schooled in Chinese characters and the art of writing them with ink brushes, hanshi and all other types of early Korean poetry did not reach beyond the aristocracy The rich content of hanshi was recited by chanting, and common subjects were scenic views, love, and loyalty as well as self-reflection and self-ridicule Shilla Poetry The first uniquely Korean poetic form to appear was the hyangga songs of the Shilla period (57 BCE–935 CE) Two dozen remaining works from the mid-sixth to late ninth centuries are four-line, eight-line, and ten-line poems The four-line poems tend to resemble folk ballads, whereas the ten-line poems have a more highly developed structure of three parts of four, four, and two lines The extant eight- and ten-line hyangga were composed for memorial and other ceremonial use They were written by Buddhist priests and by warriors of the elite hwarang youth troops and were sung instead of merely recited Contributing to the distinctness of hyangga is that while they were written in Chinese characters, at times the characters were employed only for their meaning, being pronounced instead with the synonymous native Korean word At other times, characters are used merely for their pronunciation, their original meaning discarded to substitute for Korean syntactic particles and connectives Unlike hanshi, which was written in Chinese syntax, hyangga was sung purely in the Korean language of the period Koryo Songs Koryo kayo (Koryo songs) gradually replaced hyangga as the Koryo dynasty (918–1392) took over rule from Shilla Also referred to as changga (long songs), they differed from hyangga in that they were longer, with a freer, less disciplined form, and were daringly direct in nature Koryo kayo were transmitted orally throughout the entirety of the Koryo period, not written down until well into the fifteenth century A new poetic form was introduced into the later Koryo kayo of the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries that became known as pyolgok (special tunes) The extended form of pyolgok consisted of numerous stanzas, and they were referred to as kyonggi songs They were based on the Chinese characters and Chinese classics of the aristocracy and reflected Confucian thought The short-form pyolgok, on the other hand, structure the entire piece into a single stanza Disparagingly referred to as sogyo (commoner’s ditty) by the aristocratic class for not 536 conforming to their Confucian norms, they nevertheless contained a subtlety and delicacy to their lyrics Choson Verse The creation of a phonetic alphabet for Korean in 1446 signaled a boon for the writing of poetry in the Choson dynasty (1392–1910) Although shijo (tunes of the times) had their beginnings in the late Koryo period, it was in the fifteenth century that the genre began to flourish and did so for five hundred years These short, witty epigrams expressing a single thought or observation became the first truly Korean vernacular verse and had a greater influence on modern poetic form than any other Korean verse form The basic form of shijo, pyong-shijo, consists of three lines of fourteen to sixteen syllables with each line divided into four feet of three to four syllables each The two variations of the basic form are os-shiji, which has a slightly extended first or second line, and sasol-shijo, in which the first two lines are highly extended and the third line less so Characteristic of classical shijo is a sensibility expressed through the simplicity of unadorned emotion They deal with a wide range of subjects including love, sorrow, the virtue of a life of hardship, the delights of nature, and human existence The first of the great shijo poets, the controversial bureaucrat Chong Chol (1536–1593), expresses great sensitivity and a desire for self-perfection in Rain on a Lotus Leaf: A sudden shower spatters a lotus leaf, But I cannot find the track of water I wish my heart was like that leaf, that nothing ever stained it (O’Rourke 1982: 21) Characteristic of modern shijo is that each work is titled, they are relatively free in form and quite commonly break the rules of versification, they are intended to be read as opposed to listened to, and they favor the use of sensitive expression and metaphor With the appearance of the Korean alphabet, a new vernacular verse genre, kasa, emerged Like the Koryo kayo before it, a kasa was meant to be sung It has the form of four feet per line with three or four syllables to each line and no limit on the number of lines Kasa can be characterized as a hybrid of musical verse and prose, as an essay set to rhythm During the early part of the Choson period, kasa, like concurrently popular shijo, was written by aristocrats, but in the later Choson period, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA POETRY—PHILIPPINES commoners began to compose kasa and it was enjoyed by both classes Recurring kasa themes include contemplation of nature for spiritual enlightenment, gentlemanly virtues, and the metaphor of male-female love to express the sovereign-subject loyalty relationship The kasa of the late Choson period tended to be longer in length and more prosaic in nature Modern Poetry The opening of Korea at the end of the Choson period saw an influx of Western ideas that had enormous ramifications for all aspects of society and culture, including the formation of a new and modern poetry Both the adoption of free verse and the reconstruction of the traditional folk ballad, especially by Kim Sowol (1902–1934), set the foundations for modern Korean poetry in the 1930s The poetry of the late 1920s and early 1930s, led by Chong Chi-yong (b 1903), was steeped in imagery, representing Korea’s first experimentation with modernism The poetry of the late 1930s and early 1940s, the harshest years of the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945), captured the emotions of the people in their plight Yun Tong-ju (1917–1945) succinctly captures this in The Sorrowful Race: White towels are wrapped around black heads, White rubber shoes are on rough feet White blouses and skirts cloak sorrowful frames, And white belts tightly tie gaunt waists (Shaffer 1999: 26) After liberation in 1945 and the ravages of the Korean War (1950–1953), much of the most acclaimed poetry has dealt with the excesses of political power and the plight of the oppressed Most noted for their works in this area are Shin Kyoung-rim (b 1936), Ko Un (b 1933), and Kim Chi-ha (b 1941) Probably most highly regarded of Korean’s modern poets is the prolific So Chong-ju (1915–2000), who took Korean myth, legend, and historical anecdote and crafted them into masterpieces While the popularity of poetry seems on the wane in much of the world, it enjoys great popularity among the people of Korea David E Shaffer See also: Literature—Korea; So Chong-ju; Yi Kyu-bo; Yun Son-do Further Reading Anthony of Taize, Brother, and Young-Moo Kim (1993) The Sound of My Waves: Selected Poems by Ko Un Ithaca, NY: Cornell University ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA Kim, Joyce Jaihiun (1974) The Immortal Voice: An Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry Seoul: Inmun Publishing Ko, Won (1970) Contemporary Korean Poetry Iowa City: University of Iowa Press Koh, Chang-soo (1984) Best Loved Poems of Korea Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym International Corp Lee, Sung-il (1998) The Moonlit Pond: Korean Classical Poems in Chinese Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press McCann, David (1986) Unforgettable Things: Poems by So Chongju Seoul: Si-sayong-o-sa ——— (1980) The Middle Hour: Selected Poems of Kim Chi Ha Stanfordville, NY: Human Rights Publishing Group O’Rourke, Kevin (1982) The Cutting Edge: A Selection of Korean Poetry, Ancient and Modern Seoul: Yonsei University Press ——— (1995) Poems of a Wanderer: Selected Poems of Midang So Chong-ju Dublin, Ireland: Dedalus Press ——— (2000) "Kevin O’Rourke’s Korean Poetry Page." Accessed January 2002, from http://korea.insights.co kr/english/poem Rutt, Richard (1998) The Bamboo Grove: An Introduction to Sijo Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press Shaffer, David E (1999) The Heavens, the Winds, the Stars and Poetry: The Works of Yun Tong-ju Seoul: Hakmun Publishing POETRY—PHILIPPINES The history of Philippine poetry can be described in four major literary periods: precolonial (before 1521), Spanish colonial (1521–1898), U.S colonial (1898–1946), and contemporary (1946–present) A strong indigenous oral tradition is interwoven with the Spanish and U.S colonial influences of culture and language Poetry has been written in Tagalog (the national language) and in the eighty-seven regional dialects, as well as in the Castilian Spanish of Miguel de Cervantes and Lope de Vega and the American English of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain Precolonial Poetry An indigenous oral tradition of bugtong (riddles) and sawikain (proverbs) played a central part of community life in villages of precolonial Philippines Short four-line poems called tanaga evolved from this oral tradition Each line contained seven or eight syllables, and at the heart of the poem was a cryptic metaphor called a talinghaga Popular folk musical verse was divided into several categories: the diona, talindao, and auit (songs sung at home); indolanin and dolayanin (street songs); hila, soliranin, and manigpasin (rowing songs); holohorlo and oyayi (cradle songs); ombayi (songs of sadness); omiguing (songs of tenderness); tagumpay (triumphant songs); dopayanin (boat songs); hiliriao (drinking songs); and diona (wedding songs) Through 537 POETRY—PHILIPPINES these verses the local history, politics, and culture were passed from generation to generation The most skilled poets would memorize epic cycles that took two to four days to recite during all-night dramatic performances Two examples of precolonial epics that survive today are Biag ni Lam-ang (Legend of Lamang) in Ilocano (a northern Luzon dialect) and Ibalon in Bicol (a southern Luzon dialect) Poetry in the Spanish Colonial Period With the arrival of the Spanish colonizers Ferdinand Magellan (1521) and Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (1571) came priests and their tradition of European Catholicism Satanas (Satan) first appeared in Tagalog poetry, and the Christian themes of sin, guilt, and retribution became central concerns of the native population In 1610, Tomas Pinpin, a Filipino poet working for the Dominican printing press in Bataan (a town outside Manila), wrote a book entitled Librong Pagaaralan nang manga Tagalog nang Uicang Castila (A Book in Which Tagalogs May Study the Spanish Language) In this book Pinpin inserted six auit that had alternating Spanish and Tagalog lines This type of bilingual poetry was written by a group called the Ladino Poets Metrical romances called awit or korido were also popular with the literary crowds The most influential Tagalog romance of the period was the politically cryptic Florante at Laura (Florante and Laura; 1838), written by Francisco Baltazar, also known as Balagtas (1788–1862) The first book of poetry written in Spanish by a Filipino was Sampaguitas y Poesias Varias (Sampaguitas and Other Poems; 1880) by Pedro Paterno (1858–1911), which was printed in Spain Paterno, Marcelo H Del Pilar (1850–1896), Jose Rizal (1861–1896), and Isabelo De Los Reyes (1864–1918) were literary and political figures called Ilustrados (enlightened ones) who were living in Madrid and working to attain political freedom for the natives back in the Philippines The first Filipino female poet to attain outside recognition was Leona Florentino (1849–1884), whose poems were exhibited in the Exposition Filipina in 1887 in Madrid and in the 1889 Exposition Internationale in Paris Poetry in the U.S Colonial Period In 1898, the U.S president William McKinley (1843–1901) announced that it was the United States’ moral duty to take possession of the Philippine Islands because the Filipinos had to be civilized, educated, and Christianized After U.S soldiers "pacified" the native population during the Philippine-American War (1899–1902), thousands of U.S teachers were sent throughout the archipelago to teach the Filipinos the 538 English language In just a few years, English became the privileged form of expression for poets, prose writers, and dramatists The earliest Filipino poems written in English were published in 1905 in Berkeley, California, in The Filipino Students’ Magazine, which was edited by pensionados (Philippine-American government scholars) The first book of poetry written in English, Azucena (1925) by Marcelo De Gracia Concepcion (1895–1954), was published in the United States by G P Putnam’s Sons The most influential Filipino poet, Jose Garcia Villa (1908–1997), lived most of his adult life in New York City His books are Have Come, Am Here (Viking Press, 1942), Volume Two (New Directions, 1949), and Selected Poems and New (McDowell, Obolensky, 1958) Another early immigrant Filipino poet was Carlos Bulosan (1911–1956), who published political poems in American magazines like The New Yorker, Poetry (edited by Harriet Monroe) and Saturday Evening Post In Manila in 1940, the Commonwealth Literary Prize in English poetry was given to Rafael Zulueta Da Costa (1915–1990) for Like the Molave and Other Poems Native themes were well represented by such local poets as Fernando Ma Guerrero (1873–1929), Lope K Santos (1879–1965), Jose Corazon De Jesus (1896–1932), Amado V Hernandez (1903–1970), Alejandro G Abadilla (1904–1969), Angela Manalang Gloria (1907–1999), and Trinidad Tarrosa Subido (1912–1993) Contemporary Poetry The declaration of formal independence from the United States on July 1946 brought a sense of a new beginning to the people and poets of the Philippines A generation of poets who studied at the famed Iowa Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa in the 1950s—Bienvenido N Santos (1911–1996), Ricaredo Demetillo (1920–1998), Dominador I Ilio (b 1913), and Edith Tiempo (b 1919)—came back to the Philippines with the literary ideals of the American New Criticism The 1970s and 1980s proved to be a politically aware era for Filipino poets, who were writing under the censorship of the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand Marcos (1965–1986) As a reaction to the 1983 assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr., a leading antiMarcos politician, several poets formed a literary organization called PLAC (Philippine Literary Arts Council) to protest the abuses of the government One of its leading founders was Alfred A Yuson (b 1945), whose neorealist books of poems are Dream of Knives (1986) and Trading in Mermaids (1993) Current trends in Filipino poetry are best exemplified by the pyrotechnic imagination of Eileen R Tabios (b 1960), whose book of poetry Beyond Life Sentences (1998) won ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA POETRY—VIETNAM the National Book Award given by the Manila Book Critics Circle Her poems incorporate the American precision of Marianne Moore, the experimental joie de vivre of Paul Valery, and the imagistic intensity of Pablo Neruda Nick Carbo Further Reading Abad, H Gemino (1999) A Habit of Shores: Filipino Poetry and Verse from English, 60’s to the 90’s Quezon City, Philippines: University of the Philippines Press Abad, H Gemino, and Edna Z Manlapaz, eds (1989) Man of Earth: An Anthology of Filipino Poetry and Verse from English, 1905 to the Mid-50’s Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press Carbo, Nick (1996) Returning a Borrowed Tongue: An Anthology of Filipino and Filipino American Poetry Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press Carbo, Nick, and Eileen Tabios, eds (2000) Babaylan: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina American Writers San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books POETRY—VIETNAM Chinese chronicles trace the mythic origin of the Vietnamese to a union between a dragon king from the watery south and an immortal fairy queen from the mountainous north some four thousand years ago Vietnam’s history of poetic activity may be as ancient, based on the rich musicality of the Vietnamese language with its six tones and an age-old love of folk song that endures in modern Vietnamese culture By the end of the tenth century CE, literary intelligentsia influenced by Chinese poetics developed a written poetic tradition in chu Han (Chinese script) By the fifteenth century, a demotic form of Vietnamese writing known as chu nom, or nom, became popular, fostering poetic license to alter strict Chinese metrical patterns to suit Vietnamese language and folk song forms Chu Han and nom poems persisted until French colonization (1859–1945), when quoc ngu (romanized Vietnamese) gradually superseded these two scripts Quoc ngu eventually enabled many poets, who had also become enamored of French romanticism, to discard any restrictive residue of Chinese poetics and create new experimental forms of poetry During the thirty years of struggle for independence (1945–1975), poets split over ideological differences as the country became divided into North and South After reunification in 1975, poets and writers were strongly encouraged to compose verse in quoc ngu with themes complementary to socialist realism In the early 2000s, poetic freedom of expression remains somewhat circumscribed in Vietnam ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA Folk Songs (ca-dao) Vietnam’s rich oral tradition of folk poetry, ca-dao (unaccompanied songs), is the lyrical expression of peasants and village folk While most ca-dao were orally transmitted over generations, it is possible that literati who remained close to rural life composed ca-dao anonymously Sometimes bawdy in content, often playful and irreverent, these folk songs ironically reflect social inequities and the vicissitudes of life, village customs and mores, romantic love, and the splendor of Vietnam’s landscape Since folk songs are closely attuned to Vietnamese tastes and feelings, they are even used in schools for teaching children geography, history, and other subjects Parts of well-known folk songs also can be included in more formal poems The importance of ca-dao in Vietnamese culture was recognized by Nguyen Van-Ngoc, who compiled the first systematic collection, Tuc-ngu phong-dao (Proverbs and Folk songs) in 1928 Folk songs are found in a wide range of forms, from two-syllable to six- and eight-syllable verse using both medial and final rhymes, and rules for tone harmony give the verse a musical quality The most popular form is luc-bat (six-eight) meter in which the first line has six syllables and the second line eight syllables These couplets can be expanded into long verse narratives (truyen nom), as in The Tale of Kieu Luc-bat couplets and narrative verse alike follow a rhyme scheme such that the final syllable of the first line rhymes with the sixth syllable of the second line, and the eighth syllable (the final syllable) of the second line rhymes with the sixth syllable of the third line, and so forth Traditional Poetry (tho cu) Vietnam was essentially a province of China from 111 BCE to 939 CE By the end of the tenth century, the art of composing classical Chinese verse became one of the most highly regarded activities of the Vietnamese literati Ultimately, the Ly dynasty (1009–1225) officially mandated that classical Chinese be used for education and governmental business By adopting China’s Neo-Confucian traditions, the Ly monarchs may have hoped to forestall further Chinese domination These adopted Chinese traditions included the Song dynasty (960–1267)–style civil-service examinations, requiring knowledge of Chinese poetry and the ability to compose it Once integrated into the civil-service examination system, verse writing in classical Chinese became a major concern of Vietnamese scholars, a concern that persisted until the traditional examination system was abolished in 1918 Chinese classical poetry was governed by strict rules prescribing the number of lines, tone harmony, 539 POETRY—VIETNAM rhyming patterns, and parallelism of words, phrases, and sentences It was typically based upon Chinese Tang-dynasty (618–907 CE) metrical rules for sevensyllable octets The popular bat cu form has eight lines, each consisting of seven monosyllabic words The caesura is always after the fourth word The tone of each word is fixed and the rhyme is the same pattern throughout the poem The first two lines form an introduction, the last two a conclusion The subject matter, imagery, and language of classical verse also were formalized, circumscribing the poet’s ability to express much spontaneous emotion Nevertheless, some Vietnamese scholar-poets developed this Chinese style of traditional poetry into their own distinctive genre by incorporating indigenous imagery and imparting a dynamic quality to their poems Some of the first recorded classical poems in Chinese were by Vietnamese Buddhist monks and reflect religious themes, such as the transitory nature of the world and the aesthetics of solitude Poems by the literati, such as Truong Han-Sieu (d 1354), and Chu (Van) An (1292–1370), explored a variety of subjects, including patriotism, the importance of moral virtues, filial piety and loyalty to the king, and the joys and sorrows of life, including romantic love During the Late Le dynasty (1428–1788) this genre was promoted by the poet-monarch Le Thanh-Tong (1460–1497), who established the Tao Dan group, which was known for developing a new style of classical poetry (vinh-su) to praise historical events Both monks and scholars continued to use classical Chinese for regulated verse and prose, but by the Early Le dynasty (980–1009) they may also have written in nom to compose eightline stanzas or long narratives in the native luc-bat meter or its variants Chu Nom ("southern writing"), or Nom is the term for native or demotic characters created from the Chinese ideographs Nom graphs were used for their phonetic and semantic value; sometimes they were used only as indicators of the semantic meaning of a Vietnamese word or its pronunciation This novel script may have been created by the time Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation became established, around the eleventh century It was already widely used under the Tran dynasty (1225–1400) Very little Vietnamese nom poetry has survived from prior to the time of Nguyen Trai (1388–1442), who edited some important nom texts, including Quoc-am thi-tap (Collected Poems in National Language) During the Tran and Late Le dynasties, writers in nom wrote reflective poems about the intrigues and artificiality of court life, or eulogies on nature in which a sense of peace and authenticity was sought 540 Verse in nom achieved its height in the eighteenth century The most popular of the nom narratives is The Tale of Kieu (Truyen Kieu or Kim Van Kieu), by Nguyen Du (1765–1820) It is a romantic tale of tragic karmic consequences, admired for its pathos and lyrical beauty Other well-known long lyrical poems from this period include Cung oan ngam khuc (A Royal Concubine’s Complaint) by On Nhu Hau (1741–1798), lamenting the fate of a beautiful concubine trapped in a restrictive palace culture, and Chinh-phu ngam (Lament of a Warrior’s Bride) by the female poet Doan Thi-Diem (1705–1746), depicting the tragedy of a forlorn wife waiting in vain for her husband to return from war Both chu Han and nom were utilized by some poets well into the twentieth century, but ultimately they were superseded by the popularity of poetry in quoc ngu (romanized script) Classical poets like Nguyen Khuyen (1835–1909) and Tran Te Xuong (1870–1907), who lived at the end of the nineteenth century, were sad to see their traditional world disintegrate as rapid changes wrought by French occupation transformed Vietnamese society During this era the poets Nguyen Dinh-Chieu (1822–1888) and Bui Huu-Nghia (1807– 1872) wrote patriotic verse in resistance to French colonization, and the scholar and poet Phan Chau-Trinh (1872–1926) was imprisoned for this patriotism Chu Manh Trinh (1862–1905) and Duong Khue (1839–1902) wrote defeatist verse, while Tran TeXuong (1870–1907) created satirical poetry about corrupt bureaucrats Other poets simply retired in disgust from colonial office to live a reclusive existence Modern Poetry The establishment of the French presence in Vietnam by the end of the nineteenth century caused both economic and social upheavals During the colonial period (1862–1945), books in Chinese were gradually superceded by those in nom and then in quoc ngu, codified by a Jesuit missionary, Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), in 1651 This vernacular script was used predominantly in Catholic circles until colonial bureaucrats promoted it to the non-Catholic press and encouraged French colonials living in Vietnam to read Vietnamese in quoc ngu After 1920, the explosion of quoc ngu newspapers provided a popular venue for the publication of a new type of Vietnamese poetry By 1932 a new type of verse launched by the poet Phan Khoi (1887–1958)—inspired by French romanticism, realism, and the alienation caused by a rapidly changing colonial society—became progressively more important This New Poetry (tho moi), popularized by ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA POETRY—VIETNAM Nguyen Khac-Hieu (1888–1939), was written without restrictions on rhyming pattern, line length, or emotional expression From 1932 to 1940, the New Poetry movement revolved around young poets following master poet The-Lu (1906–1989), assisted by the literary group Tu-Luc Van Doan ("Self-Reliance") and their periodical titled Phong-hoa, which published the poems These young poets, from the urban middle class, reflected a sense of failed individualism, melancholy, and alienation as second-class colonial citizens in their own country During the 1930s, they became preoccupied with an important debate about the use of poetry: the "art for art’s sake" or "art for the sake of life" controversy French influence was strongest in the south, where poets completely rejected rhyme for assonance and adopted new techniques, such as enjambment, alliteration, and caesura Some poets continued to write in the classical forms as well From 1940, poets drifted in different ideological directions as nationalism developed in reaction to the colonial policies of the Vichy regime in France and the subsequent defeat of Japan in World War II Some accomplished poets, such as Huy-Can (b 1919), and ToHuu (b 1920), became deeply involved in the quest for independence Poets in the north, who had been part of the New Poetry movement in the 1930s, shifted from a 1930s style of romantic, alienated individualism or a 1940s style of rural realism to a more ideologically relevant socialist realism Xuan Dieu (1917–1985) and likeminded northern poets became involved in the Literary Association for National Salvation and used poetry to reform the thoughts of local soldiers and cadres Meanwhile, poets in the south retained more French influence and continued to write free verse dealing with a wider spectrum of subjects and experimental forms Ideological differences were exacerbated by the partition of Vietnam at the seventeenth parallel in 1954 Following the partition, there were two distinct directions for poetry: socialist realism in the north and the deepening development of New Poetry in the south Northern poets who continued to protest against the ideological direction of socialist realism were soon silenced by the political dictum of "art for the sake of life," while poets in the south remained adamant about "art for the sake of art." Northern poet Che Lan-Vien (1920–1988) wrote unsympathetically of an unreformed northern poet shipped off to a work camp: "What good is all that futile verse that flows like water / And does not serve the people so much as a single bowl of rice?" (translated by Neil Jamieson) Many poets in the south, such as Thanh Tm Tuyen (b 1936) and Nguyen Sa (b 1930), who had fled the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA north in their childhood, continued to develop the New Poetry style Female poets such as Nguyen Thi Hoang (b 1939) became more prominent during the 1960s She wrote of the pain and conflict of Saigon’s youth in a poem titled "Confession" (1963): "my misery knows no bounds / Night after night I strain to listen to the vespers / While agonizing over a hundred lonely griefs" (translation by Nguyen Dinh Tuyen) During the 1960s and 1970s, as the entire country became progressively engulfed in a bitter civil war with American involvement, poets on both sides took the tragedy of war as the subject of their poetry When Vietnam was reunified under Communist control in 1975, southern poetry written between 1954 and 1975 was harshly suppressed Poets in the former Republic of Vietnam fled the country, unwilling to be restricted to writing in a style of socialist realism Those who could not escape were sent to reeducation camps In reaction to his forced imprisonment, Ha Thuc Sinh penned the following lines: "Do not die, Poetry / When I need you so much! / Be like a sharp knife / That I may yet have a weapon to fight the enemy" (translated by James Banerian) Vietnamese poetry in the early 2000s is a highly regarded genre Bookstalls selling miniature pocket-size collections of both traditional and modern poetry can be found along the bustling roads of any major city Poetry continues to be published in journals and newspapers by poets usually aligned with specific writers’ associations situated in Hanoi, Hue, or Ho Chi Minh City Poems continue to be recited at gatherings of friends, and folk songs continue to be sung by peasants for their pleasure After so many years of writing in the style of socialist realism, poets may enjoy a wider but still limited freedom of expression with the new doi moi (renovation) policy implemented in 1986 Teri Shaffer Yamada See also: Chu Nom; Ho Xuan Huong; Literature— Vietnam; Tu Luc Van Doan; Sino-Vietnamese Culture Further Reading Balaban, John (1980) Ca Dao Viet Nam: A Bilingual Anthology of Vietnamese Folk Poetry Greensboro, NC: Unicorn Press ———, trans (2000) Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press Bowen, Kevin, Nguyen Ba Chung, and Bruce Weigl, eds (1998) Mountain River: Vietnamese Poetry from the Wars, 1948-1993 Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 541 POJAGI Bowen, Kevin, and Nguyen Ba Chung, trans (1999) Distant Road: Selected Poems of Nguyen Duy Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press Durand, Maurice M., and Nguyen Tran Huan (1985) An Introduction to Vietnamese Literature Trans by D M Hawke New York: Columbia University Press Ha Thuc Sinh If I Should Live to Return: Report to the Free World Trans by James Banerian Distributed for the translator by Dalley Book Service Huynh Sanh Thong (1979) The Heritage of Vietnamese Poetry New Haven, CT: Yale University Press Huynh Sanh Tong, ed and trans (1996) An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems: From the Eleventh through the Twentieth Centuries New Haven, CT: Yale University Press Jamieson, Neil (1992) "Shattered Identities and Contested Images: Reflections of Poetry and History in TwentiethCentury Vietnam." Crossroads 7, 2: 70–134 Linh Dinh (1996) "The Cat Sits on a Palm Tree: An Introduction to the Folk Poems, Proverbs, and Riddles of Viet Nam." In North Viet Nam Now: Fiction and Essays from Ha Noi Viet Nam Forum 15 New Haven, CT: Yale University Council on Southeast Asia Studies, 135–159 Ly Chanh Trung (1960) Introduction to Vietnamese Poetry Vietnam Culture Series, no Saigon, Vietnam: Ministry of Culture Nguyen Cong Tru (1987) "Fourteen Poems." Trans by Huynh Sanh Thong Viet Nam Forum New Haven, CT: Yale University Council on Southeast Asia Studies, 79–91 Nguyen Du (1983) The Tale of Kieu Trans by Huynh Sanh Thong New Haven, CT: Yale University Press Nguyen Dinh Hoa (1994) Vietnamese Literature: A Brief Survey San Diego, CA: San Diego State University Nguyen Ngoc Bich "The Poetic Tradition of Vietnam." In Some Aspects of Vietnamese Culture, edited by Nguyen Din Hoa Monograph Series, no Carbondale, IL: Center for Vietnamese Studies, 19–38 ———, ed and trans (1975) A Thousand Years of Vietnamese Poetry New York: Alfred A Knopf ———, ed (1989) War and Exile: A Vietnamese Anthology Springfield, VA: Vietnamese PEN Abroad POJAGI Pojagi, or po, are Korean cloths (most often silk or ramie) used to cover, store, or carry items They range in size, color, and design depending on function Most commonly, they are square or rectangular so the opposite corners can be tied together to hold their contents securely Pojagi have long been a part of Korean culture but flourished in the Choson dynasty (1392–1910) They are still prevalent today for formal gift-giving, storage, and as a practical alternative to shopping bags in an environmentally conscious society Some of the most common forms of pojagi are the table po (sangpo) to cover food, blanket po (ibulpo) to store bedding, and everyday pojagi to carry items 542 Most pojagi are of patchwork design, allowing for thrifty use of fabric remnants, and are also highly artistic in their use of color and design They often incorporate bright colors and geometric patterns There are embroidered pojagi (supo) bearing floral motifs for more formal uses The pojagi for wedding rituals are double-faced in blue and red, the two traditional wedding colors Two varieties include the bridal chest po (hampo) and ceremonial present po (yedanpo) to wrap gifts between the bride and groom’s families, respectively Jennifer Jung-Kim Further Reading Korean Overseas Information Service (1995) Pojagi Wrapping Cloths Korean Heritage Series no Seoul: Korean Overseas Information Service POL POT (1925–1998), leader of Khmer Rouge guerrillas of Cambodia Saloth Sar, as Pol Pot was originally named, lived comfortably as a child with his father (a prosperous landowner), along with his brother, sister, and female cousin, under the protection of King Sisowath and King Monivong of Cambodia For a time Saloth Sar lived in the royal palace, where he witnessed the feudalistic practices, including his sister and cousin’s becoming royal consorts, experiences that might have affected his later political thinking Because of his family’s status, Saloth Sar attended several French-language schools (a privilege afforded few Cambodians) but failed to earn a high school diploma He subsequently lived in a Buddhist monastery as a novice monk for a few months In 1949 Saloth Sar’s fluency in French and his family’s political connections earned him a scholarship to study in France, but there he neglected academics to study left-wing politics As a result, he was forced to return to Cambodia when he failed his exams, shortly after joining the French Communist Party in 1952 Before returning, however, he spent time in Yugoslavia working in a labor battalion After Cambodia’s independence Saloth Sar led a double life, teaching in a private school in Phnom Penh (1954–1963) and commanding the country’s Communist Party In 1965 he visited China and was inspired by the Cultural Revolution, which he saw as a meaningful revolutionary model Supported by Chinese officials, he returned to Cambodia and spent the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA POLITICAL PARTICIPATION, UNOFFICIAL—CHINA In 1979 the Vietnamese entered Cambodia and drove the Khmer Rouge from power, but for nearly two decades Pol Pot and his army hid in the jungles of Thailand and northern Cambodia and terrorized the Vietnamese-dominated Cambodian government and the local population Soldiers led by Ta Mok, his former comrade, arrested Pol Pot in 1997 after he had ordered some subordinates killed On 15 April 1998, while listening to the Voice of America, Pol Pot learned that Ta Mok intended to deliver him to an international tribunal for trial Before midnight he was dead, allegedly from heart failure, though some suspect suicide or even murder Greg Ringer Further Reading One of the few photos of Pol Pot hangs in the Tuoi Sieng Museum in Phnom Penh, which had been a Khmer Rouge prison and torture center (PABLO SAN JUAN/CORBIS) next four years refining the radically utopian ideology he was to practice as Pol Pot After Cambodia’s ruler Prince Norodom Sihanouk was overthrown in a pro-American coup in 1970, the Khmer Rouge (Cambodian Reds, or Communists)— a term the prince derisively applied to Pol Pot’s rebels—waged guerrilla warfare against the Cambodian army Intensive U.S bombing of the Cambodian countryside no doubt increased the popularity of the Khmer Rouge Eventually occupying the capital of Phnom Penh in April 1975, the guerrillas forced the city’s million residents—and those of other towns— into the countryside within two days to work in agricultural communes During the next four years, nearly million people were murdered or died horribly from overwork, disease, or starvation, as Pol Pot brutally took Cambodia back to "Year Zero," in the process destroying the country’s economy and society ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA Becker, Elizabeth (1998) When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution Washington, DC: Public Affairs Chandler, David (1999) Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot 2d ed Boulder, CO: Westview Press Chandler, David, Ben Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua, eds (1988) Pol Pot Plans the Future: Confidential Leadership Documents from Democratic Kampuchea, 1976–1977 New Haven, CT: Yale Council on Southeast Asia Studies Heder, Stephen R (1991) Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan Clayton, Victoria, Australia: Monash University, Centre of Southeast Asia Studies Kiernan, Ben (1985) How Pol Pot Came to Power: A History of Communism in Kampuchea, 1930–1975 London: Verso ——— (1998) The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79 New Haven, CT: Yale University Press POLITICAL PARTICIPATION, UNOFFICIAL—CHINA When individuals or groups become active in the family, at work, and in clubs, the economy, or politics in order to achieve or influence certain aims in public life, such actions can be called political participation China’s traditional political culture allowed the vast majority of the population only a small degree of formal participation Confucianism defined duties (to the ruler, to the state, to the family), but no rights Independent political institutions and parallel power structures were always suppressed One exception was the concept of the Mandate of Heaven, which permitted people to rebel in order to depose an incompetent ruler, should the state be in political, economic, and social decline Locally, selfgoverning villages and communities enjoyed a relatively large degree of autonomy Clans, kinship groups, secret societies, temple organizations, guilds, and regional groupings organized their own social spheres Also, the assertion of interests against those 543 POLITICAL PARTICIPATION, UNOFFICIAL—CHINA of state and bureaucracy happened informally through connections, corruption, negotiation, and strategy Political Participation before 1949 Toward the end of the empire (1912) and during the republic (1912–1927), the basis for a legal system with laws and law courts began to develop, and political parties, professional organizations, literary and artistic circles, and mass media emerged At the beginning of the 1930s, there were attempts to introduce general elections for the offices of heads of villages or communities The strengthening of authoritarian structures between 1912 and 1949 limited the development of a civil society largely autonomous of the state, which could have led to democratic forms of participation Communist Control of Political Participation The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) initially allowed alternative forms of political participation in the regions it controlled After the founding of the People’s Republic (1949), however, the CCP monopolized political and public life Calls for freedom of speech and participation in politics were soon put to an end (for example, Mao Zedong’s Hundred Flowers Campaign, a brief period of open criticism of the government, which was ended in 1957) As obvious dissatisfaction with the CCP and its structures became apparent, critics were arrested as right-wingers and punished From then on, such movements were subject to stronger political and ideological control Mao’s "mass line" was supposed to be the central instrument for the articulation of people’s interests and participation in society In theory it involved consultations between the population (mainly farmers) and functionaries, with the aim of adapting the party’s politics to the actual situation However, the decisive partner in these consultation processes was always the CCP, which gathered and then interpreted the opinion of the masses according to its own aims and ideas It sought the people’s support, not their participation The CCP launched political campaigns in which the masses were to be mobilized to help reach economic or political aims Divergent opinions or new forms of organizations were tolerated only as long as they echoed the aims of the dominant opinion in the political elite Mass mobilization was carried out by the party leadership and was supervised by the political elite The participation mechanisms promoted by the CCP (criticism and self-criticism, wall news sheets, ideological study groups) tended to become ritualized and were more a means of social control than of fostering political participation 544 Political Participation in the Era of Reform Social pluralization in the course of China’s reform policies since 1979 has opened up possibilities for more social involvement New and existing social groups that were not represented in the CCP (private entrepreneurs, professional groups, migrant workers, ethnic minorities, and religious groups) have sought economic, social, and political participation and the creation of channels for the expression and pursuit of their interests This is true for both formal and informal structures Formal participation can take place both in the CCP and outside it: in the mass organizations (unions, Communist Youth League, Women’s Federation, People’s Militia), in the so-called Political Consultative Conferences, in non-Communist parties, and in many new associations and clubs Such associations articulate interests; that is, they produce social input that influences political decision-making processes The increasing separation between the public and private spheres and the state’s retreat from many areas of society give these associations more room to maneuver, widen their autonomy, and create and articulate a social counterweight to state actions, all of which provide more space for direct participation This is also true for elections at county, township, or village level, which were institutionalized and subject to new laws in the first half of the 1980s Particularly at village level, the village-leadership elections may lead to a type of grassroots democracy, although until now these elections have often taken place in only modified or limited form Informal Political Participation At the informal level, the creation or use of guanxi ("personal connections") can be used to influence decisions or push interests Guanxi function through networks, patronage, bribes and other forms of corruption, and nepotism They are a permissible means of seeking compromises and negotiating interests as long as they not disrupt the political framework set up by the CCP The informal level also includes illegal forms of political participation, such as organizing illegal demonstrations or strikes, refusing to pay taxes, or forming illegal interest groups (trade unions, secret societies, underground churches, regional groups) Additionally, a kind of regionalism is developing in the form of increased regional and local autonomy based on economic practices In areas with strong local economies, local interests are prioritized over state interests Communities report lower than actual profits in order to pay fewer taxes and use the money for local development, or they turn to protectionism (im- ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA POLITICAL PARTICIPATION, UNOFFICIAL—CHINA port or export bans for products to or from other provinces) to safeguard their own markets This regional autonomy can also include negotiating how much income tax must be passed on to the central government, developing independent foreign trade in goods and currency, or deviating from central policies These phenomena are a kind of regional participation, because they lead to more involvement in decisions in the interests of the region or the community, even if they are in the form of deviation from official policies Such informal patterns make it clear that participation and decision-making structures in China cannot be explained by the analysis of formal channels only Where there are few opportunities for formal participation, informal means of advancing particular interests also exist In order to implement its policies and widen its popular support, the CCP has been trying to include more people and groups in discussion and consultation processes Interest groups, which had not been integrated into existing structures or which were outside official discourse, have furthered this attempt to widen participation The discourse is limited in the sense that those involved have to accept the political system and the leadership of the CCP However, groups that in the past had no means of expressing their needs and desires now have the opportunity to articulate their interests Collective Action by Social Groups China’s peasant population has made use of specific forms of protest behavior that are highly effective Protest activities include supplying falsified (reduced) harvest figures; claiming that the amount of cultivable land is less than it really is and that income is lower than it really is; giving the worst-quality products to the state; refusing to cooperate with state directives; engaging in tax evasion, negligence, and theft or destruction of state property; and organizing informal interest groups This kind of everyday resistance, which can be seen as political participation and articulation of interests by the weakest in society, can in the long term lead to political changes because of its high social and economic costs In societies where there is no other way to express dissatisfaction, such behavior is the peasants’ only means of resistance One example of such collective action was taken at the end of the 1970s Due to stagnation and poverty, farmers in poor areas spontaneously began to divide collectively held land among themselves and to return to family-run farming The economic success of these measures led to the CCP’s approving them as "agri- ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA cultural reform," which was then implemented across the whole country In this case, collective action initiated political change It provided the solution for economic difficulties and was therefore approved by members of the Party leadership Finally, at the level of the individual, means of political participation include guanxi networks and bribery Gift giving, hospitality, bonuses, and "donations" from entrepreneurs to functionaries are all means by which individuals attempt to gain a voice in political decision making Although direct participation in Chinese power structures is still dependent on membership in the CCP, political power and political influence not stem only from membership in the party Today China’s people have more and more opportunity to voice their interests and to participate in the political life of the nation outside the CCP and formal structures Thomas Heberer See also: Guanxi; Social Associations—China Further Reading Christiansen, Flemming (1996) Rai Shirin: Chinese Politics and Society London and New York: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf Gao, Bingzhong (2001) "The Rise of Associations in China and the Question of Their Legitimacy." Social Sciences in China (spring): 73–87 Heberer, Thomas, and Wolfgang Taubmann (1998) Chinas Ländliche Gesellschaft im Umbruch Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag Heberer, Thomas, and Kerstin K Vogel, eds (1997) FrauenLos!?: Politische Partizipation von Frauen in Ostasien Münster, Germany: Lit-Verlag Lieberthal, Kenneth (1995) Governing China: From Revolution through Reform New York: W W Norton Pearson, Margaret M (1994) "The Janus Face of Business Associations in China: Socialist Corporatism in Foreign Enterprises." Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs (January): 25–48 Saich, Tony (2000) "Negotiating the State: The Development of Social Organizations in China." China Quarterly (March): 124–141 Shi, Tianjian (1997) Political Participation in Beijing Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Shue, Vivienne (1994) "State Power and Social Organization in China." In State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World, edited by Joel S Migdal, Atul Kohli, and Vivienne Shue Cambridge, U.K., New York, and Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press, 65–88 Unger, Jonathan (1996) "Bridges: Private Business, the Chinese Government, and the Rise of New Associations." China Quarterly (September): 63–88 545 POLO, MARCO POLO, MARCO (1254–1324), Venetian trader and explorer Marco Polo, born into a Venetian trading family with Eurasian connections, went along with family members overland to Mongol China, where he spent some seventeen years (1275–1292) and may have held some official position He traveled extensively (mostly by sea), and finally returned to Italy in 1295 Shortly thereafter, while a prisoner of war of the Genoese, he dictated his memoirs to a fellow prisoner who also happened to be a writer of romances, and who may have embellished what he heard considerably There also exist several alternative versions in a variety of languages (the original was in Old French), which vary considerably in detail and in overall coverage In any case, the memoirs were an immediate sensation, and few books have been more translated or have had as great an impact upon the European imagination as have Marco Polo’s travels Marco Polo’s Impressions of Mongol China During Marco Polo’s time, most of Eurasia was divided up among various competing khanates, successors to a unified Mongol empire The largest was Mongol China, which included a substantial part of Central Asia as well as what is now China Marco Polo’s account naturally contains extensive information about it since he spent most of his time there What most impressed him, besides daily life at the exotic court of Khubilai Khan (1215–1294), was the sheer wealth of much of the society that he saw He makes this clear in his description of the former Song dynasty capital of Hangzhou (called Kinsay, from a Song term designating its status as a "temporary" capital after the Song loss of northern China) According to Marco, the sheer well-being of the inhabitants and level of economic activity there—in its many markets, for example, frequented daily by more people than lived in any Italian city—was almost beyond belief It was Marco Polo’s descriptions of the wealth of the East, above all, that drew European attentions during the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Age of Exploration, when Marco Polo’s book was required reading for anyone interested in the East, including Columbus Marco Polo’s Other Travels In addition to China, Marco or his family visited the other khanates of the Mongolian world, including the Golden Horde, which ruled Russia, the Russian steppe, the Volga basin, and associated areas; the Il-Khanate of Iran, through which young Marco traveled on the way to China and by which he returned; and the domains of the Chagatai house in Turkistan, also crossed during Polo’s outbound journey He also heard of, or personally touched on, a great many other areas as well For example, in some official capacity, he not only visited southwest China and Yunnan, an area which had only recently been made a part of China by Mongol conquest, but also Burma, invaded several times by the Mongols He left behind as a result a valuable firsthand account that is the earliest detailed European notice of the area He was also the first European writer to mention Japan, although he did not visit it Before A miniature painting from Maudeville’s Book of Marvels shows Marco Polo before Kubilai Khan (BETTMANN/CORBIS) 546 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA PONDICHERRY returning to Europe, Marco Polo not only visited Manzi, or south China, but also sailed through insular southeast Asia, including Java, the Indian Ocean, and Persian Gulf, then made a final return lap through IlKhanate domains, the empire of Trebizond (on the southeastern shores of the Black Sea), and Byzantium Legend and Folklore in Marco Polo’s Memoirs In addition to providing often quite accurate factual information about the countries that he visited, Marco Polo’s memoirs are a treasure trove of legend They speak at length of Prester John, the supposed Christian king of the East whose realm was a primary target of early explorers in later centuries He also repeats many interesting travelers’ tales about various superstitions associated with the deserts of Central Asia There is, for example, the Island of Women, one of a pair of mythical islands divided by sex, or the Dry Tree that had stood since ancient times in an immense plain Some of the travelers’ tales, like that of the Dry Tree, were of great antiquity and for that reason are of great interest to folklorists In all of this, perhaps the most valuable information of all is Marco Polo’s independent testimony on how Mongol China actually worked Like the Persian historian Rashid ad-Din (1247–1318), he describes a regime more Mongolian than Chinese, one in which Khubilai and his court moved with the seasons in the traditional Mongolian way and engaged in typical Mongolian occupations while doing so, including much-loved hunting Rachewiltz, Igor de (1999) "F Wood’s Did Marco Polo Go To China? A Critical Appraisal by I de Rachewiltz." Retrieved February 2002, from: http://rspas.anu.edu au/eah/Marcopolo.html Yule, Henry, and Henri Cordier ([1903–1920] 1975) The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian vols Reprint ed Amsterdam: Philo Press POLONNARUVA Polonnaruva was an ancient Sri Lankan capital that became a residence of Ceylon’s kings in the fourth century CE and flourished owing to its proximity to the Mahaweli River and its location on the route to southern Sri Lanka, east of the central highlands It became a second capital in the eighth century and succeeded Anuradhapura as the sole capital after the destruction of that city in 993 The invading Cholas made Polonnaruva their capital, as did the Sinhalese who overthrew them The city reached its height under King Parakramabahu I (reigned 1153–1186), who built a walled city containing extensive gardens, monastic and temple complexes, and many monuments in brick and stone, all watered by a vast man-made lake It was deserted in the thirteenth century after a series of invasions and the spread of malaria drove the political centers to the coasts The ruins of monuments built by the Cholas and Parakramabahu I are well preserved A modern town arose in the twentieth century after the restoration of the ancient irrigation reservoirs and the suppression of malaria It has become a major tourist destination and in 1982 was named to the UNESCO World Heritage List Patrick Peebles Marco Polo and Revisionist History Marco Polo’s descriptions of China and other parts have always seemed a little larger than life to some, and of late there has been a major effort to discredit him Marco Polo’s book does have its problems, but this effort is largely based upon a misappraisal of the environment he describes It was not very Chinese, but if Marco preserves a Turkic nickname for a Chinese city, this was because he lived in a heavily Turkicized environment Similarly, if he was thinking in Persian much of the time, this is also only to be expected given the dominance of Persian culture at the Mongol court Paul D Buell Further Reading Franke, Herbert (1966) "Sino-Western Contacts under the Mongol Empire." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: Hong Kong Branch, 6: 49–72 Pelliot, Paul (1959–1973) Notes on Marco Polo vols Paris: Impremerie Nationale, Librairie Adrien-Maisonneuve ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA Further Reading Saparamadu, S D., ed (1995) The Polonnaruva Period Special Number on the Polonnaruva Period issued in Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of the Accession of King Parakrama Bahu the Great Ceylon Historical Journal Smith, Bardwell (1986) "The Pursuit of Equilibrium: Polonnaruwa as a Ceremonial Center." Journal of Developing Societies 2: 193–207 PONDICHERRY (2001 pop 808,000) The union territory of Pondicherry consists of the former French settlements of Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahe, and Yanam, which lie scattered in South India These were transferred to the Indian Union in 1954 The capital, Pondicherry, lies on the southeastern coast of India It is bounded on the east by the Bay of Bengal and on the other three sides by the state of Tamil Nadu Karaikal is situated on the east coast, about 150 kilometers south of Pondicherry Mahe lies on the west- 547 PORCELAIN—EAST ASIA ern coast and is surrounded by the state of Kerala, while Yanam is situated on the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh Nearly 45 percent of the people in Pondicherry are engaged in agriculture Food crops include rice, millet, and pulses, while sugarcane, peanuts, and cotton are the major cash crops Modern industries have also come up in Pondicherry The principal industries include textiles, computers, electronic goods, biopolymers, pharmaceuticals, leather goods, and a range of consumer products The capital Pondicherry had been the headquarters of the French colonies in India since the seventeenth century and has a rich French cultural heritage The French Boulevard Town, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and Auroville Museum are some places of interest to tourists Sanjukta Das Gupta Further Reading Miles, William F S (1995) Imperial Burdens: Countercolonialism in Former French India Boulder, CO: Lynn Reinner Publications Mittal, Arun (2000) Visit Pondicherry Mumbai, India: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan PORCELAIN—EAST ASIA Porcelain (ceramic ware made with kaolin, a fine white clay) was first made in China around 850 CE during the Tang dynasty (618–907) An Islamic traveler who had visited China in 851 described clay vessels that looked to him like glass There is available evidence that fine white stoneware (pottery made from high-firing clay other than kaolin) was being made in China as long ago as 1400 BCE, and Chinese potters appear to have been acquainted with kaolin in the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) The forerunner of the modern-day porcelain was not made until the Tang dynasty, several centuries later This Tang-dynasty porcelain is known as hardpaste or true porcelain It was produced by mixing kaolin, which is formed by the decay of feldspar, a chief constituent of granite, together with petuntse, a form of feldspar found only in China Kaolin is the essential ingredient for the manufacture of porcelain It is found throughout the world and known for its white firing characteristics (that is, the fact that the finished product appears white rather than gray or brown or rustcolored) and high fusion temperature (that is, the high heat required to turn the constituent ingredients into porcelain) Chemically, kaolin comprises kaolinite, muscovite, quartz, feldspar, and anastase Kaolin and petuntse are fused together by firing in a kiln, first at 980°C, then dipped in glaze and refired at a higher 548 temperature of about 1300°C Petuntse is responsible for binding the clay particles together and giving porcelain its translucency The high temperatures used in the firings in the kiln vitrify the ceramic body; that is, they give it its glassy characteristics Some of the most beautiful Chinese porcelain wares were made during the Song dynasty (960–1279), including eggshell porcelain, which was thinner and more translucent than previously manufactured porcelain Ding ware, which was produced in northeastern China, has a molded design which is emphasized by its typical ivory-colored glaze There were two other types of porcelain that were produced during the Song dynasty, although slightly later These were the Longchuan and Jingbai wares The Longchuan wares were near-white ceramic bodies under a bluish-green translucent glaze (celadon) reminiscent of green jade, a favorite stone among the Chinese This ware showed to great advantage the incised or molded decoration of the period Jingbai ware, made in Jiangxi (which eventually became the center of Chinese porcelain manufacture), was delicately formed It was distinguished by a pale blue glaze with decorations of incised flowers and foliage Porcelain was not widely made in China until the Yuan dynasty (1297–1368) It was also only at this time that the Chinese started to use a kaolin-based compound to produce a material that when fired in the kiln at very high temperatures turned both white and translucent The Spread of Porcelain to Europe Porcelain’s origins in China led to it being called "china." China was first brought to Europe in the twelfth century; Portuguese traders began importing it in the sixteenth Sometime between then and the beginnings of porcelain manufacture in Europe in the late eighteenth century, the Portuguese introduced the name "porcelain." Today, the terms china and porcelain are used interchangeably The only clear effort to delineate between china and porcelain is to use china to refer to figurines and items for use with meals Porcelain, on the other hand, is taken to be a broader term that has been applied to a wider range of products So reference is made to a tea set that is made from either china or porcelain, but the material used to make a toilet is porcelain The Chinese technique for manufacturing porcelain remained a secret During the medieval period, Europeans, whose appetite for the aesthetic beauty of kaolin clay seemed insatiable, tried experimenting with various materials in the hope of discovering the Chinese formula; it was not discovered until the early ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA PORTUGUESE eighteenth century In the meantime, China exported its porcelain wares, especially its blue and white ware (porcelain decorated with cobalt-blue designs under a clear glaze) in ever increasing quantities, beginning in the sixteenth century Such exports were conducted largely through the British and Dutch East India Companies By 1700, there was a vast trade in porcelain The wares of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) were particularly prized Ming-Dynasty and Qing-Dynasty Ware Ming potters paid more attention to painted designs and less to the forms of the wares There was great success with the production of the blue and white wares During the reign (1505–1521) of the Zhengde emperor (1491–1521), wares with a yellow ground were made when the art of fusing enamels or colored glass onto the surface of the glaze was perfected The well-known center for porcelain manufacture, Jingdezhen (in Jiangxi), reached its peak during the reign of the great Qing emperor Kangxi (1654–1722, reigned 1661–1722) This center produced numerous wares for the use of the court as well as large quantities of porcelain to satisfy the demands of the European market Wares of exceptional beauty would be produced to commemorate the birthdays of emperors Especially popular during the reign of Kangxi was famille verte, wares in which various shades of green predominate Then a black enamel background was used, giving rise to the name famille noire and later the famille rose that included a range of rose pink enamels These wares were popular during the reign (1726–1795) of the Qianlong emperor (1711–1795), the grandson of the Kangxi emperor Most of the enamel was then added in Guangzhou (Canton), which was the primary trading port Japanese Porcelain True porcelain was made in Japan only after the early part of the seventeenth century Only then were the necessary clay materials discovered in Hizen The Japanese used a purple-toned underglaze blue (that is, a blue underglaze design) on a grayish-colored ceramic body The later wares from Japan that were popular in Europe were painted in rich vermilion and other colors and decorated with a profusion of flowers together with gilding This decorative style was known as Imari, which was the name of the seaport from which these porcelains from Arita were being shipped Some of the finest porcelain created in Japan is decorated in Kakiemon style This style is named after a family of potters in Arita who were credited with having introduced, during the middle of the seventeenth ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA IN SOUTHEAST ASIA century, the use of enamel painting in soft reds, greenish-blue, turquoise, yellow, and the occasional underglaze blue Korean Porcelain Much early Korean porcelain, such as that of the twelfth century, has been found to be so like the Chinese Ding ware that it is difficult to distinguish Collectors consider Korean wares far more delicate and elegant than the Chinese, at least in the forms The techniques for making Korean celadon (manufactured during the Koryo dynasty, 918–1392) were later lost, but recent research has come close to discovering the lost techiques Ooi Giok Ling Further Reading Honey, W B (1945) The Ceramic Art of China and Other Countries of the Far East London: Faber and Faber Payton, M., and G Payton (1973) The Observer’s Book of Pottery and Porcelain London: Frederick Warne & Co POROS (c fourth century BCE), ruler in the Punjab Poros is the classical Greek name of a ruler in the Punjab (northwestern India) who was also called Parvataka His kingdom lay between the Jhelum and the Chenab Rivers In 326 BCE, instead of submitting to Alexander of Macedon as his neighbors in Taxila had, Poros fought a remarkable battle, which Alexander found to be one of the toughest he had ever undertaken The Punjabi’s strategy was to form a square with his slow-moving infantry, longbow archers, and war elephants However, his forces were no match for the faster and more mobile Greek cavalry, especially as Alexander had trained his troops to counter elephants Though he was wounded and beaten, Poros did not flee from the battlefield Alexander was so impressed with the king’s personality that he befriended Poros and reinstated him in his kingdom, perhaps even increasing its territory After Alexander departed from India, the Punjab was liberated from the Greek thrall by Chandragupta Maurya Poros’s role in the liberation is unknown Paul Hockings Further Reading Rapson, E J., ed (1922) Ancient India Vol.1 of The Cambridge History of India Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press PORTUGUESE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA In the fifteenth century, Spain and Portugal, as both formal allies and trading rivals, began to circumnavigate 549 PORTUGUESE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA the globe to seek out new lands to expand trading networks and to spread Catholicism A papal edict of 1493 divided the "New World" (or non-European world) between Spain and Portugal This edict had assumed that the world was flat, but the circumnavigation of the globe by Ferdinand Magellan (c 1480–1521) in 1521 led to the 1529 Treaty of Saragossa to divide Asia The treaty gave the Spanish a free hand in the Philippines, while the Portuguese had sole rights to the islands that now form Indonesia Growth of Portuguese Control Arab traders dominated the lucrative trade from the spice-producing islands of what is now Indonesia Portugal, a small and somewhat poor nation, excelled at seafaring The skilled Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama (c 1460–1524) arrived on India’s southwest coast, at Calicut (Calcutta), in 1498 Da Gama was followed by Afonso de Albuquerque (1453–1515), appointed viceroy of India in 1509, who established a number of imperial possessions for Portugal The Portuguese established a series of strategic ports and small territories in western Africa, Arabia, and southern and eastern Asia to control the trading routes to the Spice Islands of what is now Indonesia The aim of the Portuguese was to secure key ports rather than to conquer territory By the sixteenth century the Portuguese sphere of influence included African, Arabian, and South Asian ports as well as North Sumatra, Melaka, Bantam (West Java), Manado (North Sulawesi, Indonesia), parts of Maluku, Ambon, and the island of Timor in maritime Southeast Asia, and Macao and Taiwan in East Asia Trading posts were also set up, with permission from local potentates, in Ayutthaya (a kingdom in what is now Thailand), Cambodia, and Myanmar (Burma) A crucial event was the capture of Melaka, the strategic Malayan trading city that lies on the all-important Strait of Malacca, in 1511 Control of Melaka gave Lisbon a monopoly on the spice trade to Europe When Albuquerque finally captured it, his troops slaughtered the local Muslim population, while the sultan fled to Johor, where he rallied his forces for a counterattack Until the arrival of the Spanish in the Philippines in 1564, the Portuguese were without European rivals in the region Portugal used a series of "factories" (handling posts) to process the raw commodities and used naval power to dominate the trading routes, although they never gained complete hegemony However, the spice was tremendously lucrative, with the value of the trade in the sixteenth century being worth several times the entire revenue collected in Portugal itself The Portuguese discovered that there was little that Southeast 550 Asians wished to buy from Europe, but there were commodities they wanted from elsewhere Thus the trading network that linked the various parts of Africa, Arabia, and Asia enriched the Portuguese middlemen, who took the profits back to Portugal: ivory and gold from Africa, textiles from India, spice from Indonesia, and manufactured goods from China Limitations and Decline of Portuguese Control The spread of Portuguese religion and culture was, on the whole, far less successful The rough and often violent behavior of the Portuguese sojourners left a very poor impression on the peoples of Southeast Asia, vast numbers of whom had adopted the Islam of Arab and Indian traders The peoples of the Malay Peninsula and the Spice Islands favored trading with their coreligionists in the Middle East For the Portuguese forces, occupation of their Southeast Asian possessions was hazardous, with fifteen major assaults by sultans in Johor, Aceh, and Java between 1513 and 1616 The Portuguese had also adopted the regular tactic of piracy against Muslim vessels, in the name of Christianity, which helped to undermine any pretensions to legitimacy they might have had Opposition to the Portuguese solidified the power of emerging sultanates of neighboring areas that, hitherto, had only nominal control over the people in whose name they governed The Portuguese also began to suffer severe domestic problems, in part because of the tremendous loss of men in the colonies due to conflict, piracy, and disease The Dutch, on their arrival in the region in the seventeenth century, were able to displace the Portuguese in their key strongholds, notably by conquering Melaka in 1641 The Portuguese withdrew gradually from almost all of their ports but were able to hold the eastern part of Timor, creating the separate territory of East Timor One Portuguese legacy was the adoption of new words into Bahasa (Malay), particularly for new technologies of the time, which are still in use to this day There is a smattering of Portuguese surnames around Southeast Asia, particularly in Melaka, denoting the descendants of marriages between Portuguese sailors and local women, which were quite common in colonial times Anthony L Smith Further Reading Dixon, Chris (1991) South-East Asia in the World-Economy Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press Osborne, Milton (1995) Southeast Asia: An Introductory History St Leonard’s, Australia: Allen & Unwin Tarling, Nicholas (1966) A Concise History of Southeast Asia Singapore: Donald Moore Press ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA ... 60 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA Survey of Asia? ??s Regions and Nations T he Encyclopedia of Modern Asia covers thirty-three nations in depth and also the Caucasus and Siberia We have divided Asia. .. similarity on a base of pre-existing Japanese and Korean cultures and civilizations China’s influence was xiv ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN ASIA ASIA’S REGIONS AND NATIONS greatest before the modern period... Period Central Asia? ??Late Medieval and Early Modern Central Asia? ? ?Modern Khiva, Khanate of Paleoanthropology—Central Asia Quqon, Khanate of Kazakhstan Kazakhstan—History Kazakhstan—Profile Kyrgyzstan