Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity
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FIGURES OF SOUTHEAST ASIANMODERNITY Edited by JOSHUA BARKER, ERIK HARMS, and JOHAN LINDQUIST FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY FIGURES OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN MODERNITY FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY FIGURES OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN MODERNITY Edited by Joshua Barker, erik harms, and Johan Lindquist UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I PR ESS Honolulu FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY © 2014 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 18 17 16 15 14 13 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Figures of Southeast Asian modernity / edited by Joshua Barker, Erik Harms, and Johan Lindquist. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3646-7 (alk. paper)―ISBN 978-0- 8248-3741-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Southeast Asia―Social conditions―21st century. 2. Southeast Asia―Social life and customs―21st century. 3. Southeast Asia―Biography. I. Barker, Joshua, editor of compilation. II. Harms, Erik, Ph. D., editor of compilation. III. Lindquist, Johan, editor of compilation. HN690.8.A8F54 2013 305.800959―dc23 2012029391 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid- free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by Julie Matsuo-Chun Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc. FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Prologue Ulf Hannerz xi Introduction JosHUa Barker, erik Harms, and JoHan lindqUist 1 1 THE PHILIPPINES smita laHiri and deirdre de la CrUz 19 Domestic Helper José B. Capino 23 Chinese Mestizo riCHard t. CHU 25 Filipino Seaman kale BantigUe faJardo 27 Public Manager anna romina gUevarra 29 Lawless Element orlando de gUzman 32 Agriculturalist adam LukasiewiCz 34 Bakla Returnee martin f. manalansan 36 Call Center Agent Jan m. padios 38 Community Health Worker mai m. taqUeBan 41 Beauty Contestant t. rUanni f. tUpas 43 2 VIETNAM erik Harms 46 Petty Trader ann marie lesHkowiCH 49 Prostitute CHristopHe roBert 52 Domestic Investor allison trUitt 54 Enterprising Cadre ken maClean 56 Soviet-Trained Scientist CHristina sCHwenkel 59 Aspiring Overseas Student erik Harms 61 Cham H’Roi Girl trUong HUyen CHi 63 Mountain Village Head CHristian C. lentz 65 Photo Retoucher nina Hien 67 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY vi Contents Cultural Expert laUren meeker 70 Vietnamese Transnational(s) ivan small 72 3 CAMBODIA JonatHan padwe 75 Cham Modernizer alBerto pérez-pereiro 78 World Musician stepHen mamUla 80 Village Police Chief eve zUCker 82 Broken Woman annUska derks 84 (Buddhist) Ascetic erik davis 86 Government Official Jenna grant 89 4 LAOS Jerome wHitington 91 Miss Beer Lao Holly HigH 95 Mobile Phone Monk patriCe ladwig 97 Mitigation Expert miCHael dwyer 99 Hippie, Interrupted n. J. enfield 101 Beleaguered Village Leader Jerome wHitington 104 5 THAILAND Jane m. fergUson 107 Grassroots Woman Leader leeray Costa 110 Bangkok Slum Leader pilapa esara 113 Transnational Farmworker sUdarat mUsikawong 115 Thai Airways Flight Attendant Jane m. fergUson 117 Kickboxer pattana kitiarsa 119 Single Woman emily zeamer 121 Rural DJ JUlia Cassaniti 123 Spirit Medium andrew JoHnson 125 Hmong-Thai Schoolgirl traCy pilar JoHnson 127 6 INDONESIA JosHUa Barker and JoHan lindqUist 130 Multimedia Expert karen strassler 133 Muslim Television Preacher James Hoesterey 136 Spiritual Trainer daromir rUdnyCkyJ 138 Person with HIV/AIDS tom Boellstorff 141 Activist doreen lee 143 Ex-Combatant Jesse grayman 146 NGO Worker aryo danUsiri 148 Overseas Female Labor Migrant raCHel silvey 152 Field Agent JoHan lindqUist 154 Street Vendor sHeri giBBings 156 Street Kid(s) CHris Brown 159 Mr. Hajj dadi darmadi 162 Rich Person JosHUa Barker 165 Career Woman Carla Jones 167 7 Malaysia yeoH seng gUan 170 National Leader sven alexander sCHottmann 174 Reactionary gerHard Hoffstaedter 176 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY Contents vii Scholar-Musician syed mUHd kHairUdin alJUnied 179 Hang Tuah, Revisited rUsaslina idrUs 181 Supra-Ethnic Malaysian JUlian C. H. lee 183 Political Satirist kHoo gaik CHeng 185 Squatter yeoH seng gUan 188 Returning Urbanite mattHew amster 190 Timber Entrepreneur miCHael eilenBerg 192 8 SINGAPORE syed mUHd kHairUdin alJUnied 195 Malay Gangster kamalUdeen moHamed nasir 198 Bangladeshi Worker md mizanUr raHman 200 Woman Activist yU-mei BalasingamCHow 203 The Peri-Urban Tenant loH kaH seng 205 The People’s Filmmaker liew kai kHiUn 207 Schoolteacher adeline koH 209 Social Entrepreneur erik HolmBerg 211 9 BURMA niCHolas farrelly 214 Urban Dumsa mandy sadan 218 Journalist tHomas kean 220 Political Prisoner david sCott matHieson 222 Exile david gilBert and violet CHo 225 Sex Worker in Thailand ikUko okamoto 227 Tatmadaw Officer JaCqUeline menager 229 Korean Soap Opera Junkie Aung si 232 Entrepreneur niCHolas farrelly 234 Indie Musician Aung naing tHU (pseUdonym) 236 EPILOGUE BenediCt anderson 240 Notes 247 Further Reading 279 Contributors 285 Thematic Index 295 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is the product of a set of dialogues that began at Stockholm University in 2006, continued on a panel at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in 2008, and reached fruition at a workshop at Yale University in 2010. We are grateful to all the people who contributed to these dialogues. We are especially thankful to Rosalind Morris, Xiang Biao, Joe Errington, and Ben Kiernan, all of whom provided incisive comments that shaped our thinking just as our plans for the book were beginning to take shape. Mike McGovern provided invaluable comments on the introduction, and Andrew Carruthers and two anonymous reviewers gave us many helpful suggestions for improving the entire manuscript. At the University of Hawai‘i Press we would like to thank Pamela Kelley for her ongoing enthusiasm and support for the project, Cheri Dunn for managing the transformation of the manuscript into a book, and Lee S. Motteler for careful copyediting. The dialogues that underpin the book were made possible through the sup- port of a number of funding agencies and institutions, including the Swedish School of Advanced Asia Pacific Studies, the Yale University Council on Southeast Asian Studies, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education, and the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund administered by the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. We thank Quang Phu Van, Indriyo K. Sukmono, Michael Dove, Kristine Mooseker, and Yale graduate students for helping to make the Yale Workshop the success that it was. We are also grateful to Behzad FOR PERSONAL ixUSE ONLY x Acknowledgments Sarmadi and Jean Chia, who worked on the index and helped prepare the final manuscript for submission. Finally, we are indebted to Cornell Southeast Asia Publications for per- mission to republish portions of an earlier article that helped set the stage for this book: Joshua Barker, Johan Lindquist, et al., “Figures of Indonesian Modernity,” Indonesia 87 (April 2009): 35–72. FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY PROLOGUE uLf hannerz My visits to Southeast Asia have been rather few and far between, but as the manuscript of Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity comes into my hands, I am reminded of some particular moments and experiences. My first encounter with the region was in early May 1975, when I arrived in Bangkok—and it was only a few days after Saigon had (as the common term had it) “fallen,” and the long war in Vietnam was finally over. According to the widely ac- cepted “domino theory,” it would be Bangkok next. That prospect was anx- iously debated in at least some quarters of the city those days. A little later, in Penang, I made my first acquaintance with an important Southeast Asian institution, the food court—at the time not yet so common elsewhere in the world, but to my mind a sort of tropical megaversion of a smorgasbord—and I also had my first taste of the durian fruit. Then in 1987, I happened to arrive in Manila just a few days after a coup attempt by a dashing young colonel, “Gringo” Honasan. It was not yet quite clear whether the attempt was really over. There were soldiers behind sand- bags here and there in the streets. Nobody seemed quite sure where “Gringo” was: still in the city? In the forest? On an American gunboat, outside the harbor? The so-called mosquito press, tabloids in black-and-red print that had emerged after the fall of the Marcos regime, seemed to spread rumors and speculations efficiently. And then Corazon Aquino, still president de- spite “Gringo’s” endeavor, went on television to speak to the nation. She started out, spectacles on, speaking in English, reading from a manuscript. Then she made a very brief pause, took her glasses off, looked straight into FOR PERSONAL xiUSE ONLY xii Prologue the camera, and continued speaking in Pilipino—at which point, of course, I was lost. A couple of months later, when I was in Kuala Lumpur, there was the moment when Prime Minister Mohathir Mohamad targeted a varied set of people whom he defined as adversaries, placing them in detention, in what became known as Operation Lalang. (In Khoo Gaik Cheng’s account of Malaysian political satire in this volume, we are reminded in passing of this event.) Recently in Singapore (2011), I found public attention focused on a new book featuring an interview with Lee Kuan Yew, father of the city-state, by a set of local journalists. Lee, now in his late eighties, still with a unique official position as minister mentor (abbreviated MM in the media), apparently as self-confident as ever and still a man of strong opinions, had offered some views on the place of Muslims (in this context, basically meaning Malays) in society, and then the current prime minister, who also happens to be the min- ister mentor’s son, had to display his capacity for damage control.