BBL 3221

1. BBL 3221 SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN LITERATURE 1ST. MEETING 7.9.2014

2. Dr. Manimangai Mani • E-mail : manimangai.upm.edu.my • Contact no: 016-5316715 • Room : No. 4, MakmalSiber 2, MuziumWarisanMelayu.

3. Course outline

4. Con’t

5. Con’t

6. Evaluation • Test 1 - 10% • Test 2 - 20% (Quiz) • Assignment – 30% (Must pass up by Week 10) • Final Exam – 40%

7. South Asian Countries

8. South Asian Countries • South Asia or Southern Asia is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities, also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east. • Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian Plate, which rises above sea level as the Indian subcontinent south of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush.

9. South Asia is home to one fifth of the world's population, making it both the most populous and most densely populated geographical region in the world. • The countries in South Asia are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

10. Southeast Asian countries

11. Southeast Asian Countries • Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a sub region of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plate, with heavy seismic and volcanic activity.

12. Southeast Asia consists of two geographic regions: Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as Indochina, comprises Cambodia, Laos, Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Vietnam and Peninsular Malaysia, and Maritime Southeast Asia comprises Brunei, East Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, Philippines, Christmas Island, and Singapore.

13. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India are geographically considered part of Southeast Asia. • Eastern Bangladesh and the Seven Sister States of India are culturally part of Southeast Asia and sometimes considered both South Asian and Southeast Asian. • The rest of New Guinea is sometimes included so are Palau, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands, which were all part of the Spanish East Indies.

14. The Texts • Novel • 1. Thailand – Sing to the Dawn from Min Fong Ho Collection

15. Short stories • 1. Indonesia – Her by TitisBasino • 2. Malaysia – The Guardian Knot by K.S. Maniam in ARainbow Feast: New short stories edited by Mohammad A. Quayum. (156-170). • 3. Vietnam – The Cat that Slept on the Altar by Truong Tiep Truong in ARainbow Feast: New short stories edited by Mohammad A. Quayum. Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2010. (Pages 313-318) • 4. Singapore – Evening Under Frangipani by Philip Jeyaretnam in Blue Silk Girdle: Stories from Malaysia and Singapore edited Mohammad A. Quayum. Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2010. (Pages 190-218)

16. 5. Philippines – Celery, Tulips and Hummingbirds by Linda Ty-Casper in ARainbow Feast: New short stories edited by Mohammad A. Quayum. Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2010. (Pages 319-328) • 6. India – The Wait by Vijay Lakshmi in ARainbow Feast: New short stories edited by Mohammad A. Quayum. Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2010. (Pages 132-140) • 7. Bangladesh – Waiting by Farah Ghuznavi in ARainbow Feast: New short stories edited by Mohammad A. Quayum. Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2010. (Pages 52-63)

17. The European Invasion Southeast Asia • Europeans first came to Southeast Asia in the 16th century. It was the lure of trade that brought Europeans to Southeast Asia while missionaries also tagged along the ships as they hoped to spread Christianity into the region. • Portugal was the first European power to establish a bridgehead into the lucrative Southeast Asia trade route with the conquest of the Sultanate of Malacca in 1511. • The Netherlands and Spain followed and soon superseded Portugal as the main European powers in the region. The Dutch took over Malacca from the Portuguese in 1641.

18. Britain, in the form of the British East India Company, came relatively late onto the scene. Starting with Penang, the British began to expand their Southeast Asian empire. • They also temporarily possessed Dutch territories during the Napoleonic Wars. • In 1819 Stamford Raffles established Singapore as a key trading post for Britain in their rivalry with the Dutch. However, their rivalry cooled in 1824 when an Anglo-Dutch treaty demarcated their respective interests in Southeast Asia. • From the 1850s onwards, the pace of colonization shifted to a significantly higher gear.

19. This phenomenon, denoted New Imperialism, saw the conquest of nearly all Southeast Asian territories by the colonial powers. The Dutch East India Company and British East India Company were dissolved by their respective governments, who took over the direct administration of the colonies. • Only Thailand was spared the experience of foreign rule, although, Thailand itself was also greatly affected by the power politics of the Western powers.

20. By 1913, the British occupied Burma, Malaya and the Borneo territories, the French controlled Indochina, the Dutch ruled the Netherlands East Indies while Portugal managed to hold on to Portuguese Timor. • In the Philippines, Filipino revolutionaries declared independence from Spain in 1898 but was handed over to the United States despite protests as a result of the Spanish-American War.

21. Colonial rule had a profound effect on Southeast Asia. While the colonial powers profited much from the region's vast resources and large market, colonial rule did develop the region to a varying extent. • Commercial agriculture, mining and an export based economy developed rapidly during this period. • Increased labour demand resulted in mass immigration, especially from British India and China, which brought about massive demographic change.

22. The institutions for a modern nation state like a state bureaucracy, courts of law, print media and to a smaller extent, modern education, sowed the seeds of the fledgling nationalist movements in the colonial territories. • In the inter-war years, these nationalist movements grew and often clashed with the colonial authorities when they demanded self-determination.

23. With the rejuvenated nationalist movements in wait, the Europeans returned to a very different Southeast Asia after World War II. • Indonesia declared independence in 17 August 1945 and subsequently fought a bitter war against the returning Dutch; the Philippines was granted independence by the United States in 1946; Burma secured their independence from Britain in 1948, and the French were driven from Indochina in 1954 after a bitterly fought war (the Indochina War) against the Vietnamese nationalists.

24. During the Cold War, countering the threat of communism was a major theme in the decolonization process. • After suppressing the communist insurrection during the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960, Britain granted independence to Malaya and later, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak in 1957 and 1963 respectively within the framework of the Federation of Malaysia.

25. English literature in Malaysia emerged after the 1940s. • Its origin can be traced to the late 1940s, in the activities of the Literary and Debating Society of the King Edward VII Medical College Union which published "The Cauldron", the first journal to publish literary work in English in Malaya and Singapore.

26. With the establishment of the University of Malaya in 1949, "The Cauldron" was transferred to the university's Raffles Society and it took the name of "The New Cauldron". • Since then, Malaysian Literary works have been published in many journals, both in local and foreign universities and also by local and international publishing houses. • Writing in English in Malaysia has been kept alive largely through the determination of an English educated minority, both Malay and non Malay.

27. South Asia (Indian Sub-continent)

28. British in India • British involvement in India during the 18th century can be divided into two phases, one ending and the other beginning at mid-century. • In the first half of the century, the British were a trading presence at certain points along the coast; from the 1750s they began to wage war on land in eastern and south-eastern India and to reap the reward of successful warfare, which was the exercise of political power, notably over the rich province of Bengal.

29. By the end of the century British rule had been consolidated over the first conquests and it was being extended up the Ganges valley to Delhi and over most of the peninsula of southern India. • By then the British had established a military dominance that would enable them in the next fifty years to subdue all the remaining Indian states of any consequence, either conquering them or forcing their rulers to become subordinate allies.

30. Influence of English Language in India • As a result of British colonial rule until Indian independence in 1947, English is an official language of India and is widely used in both spoken and literary contexts. • The rapid growth of India's economy towards the end of the 20th century led to large-scale population migration between regions of the Indian subcontinent and the establishment of English as a common lingua franca between those speaking diverse mother tongues.

31. English Literature in Indian Sub-Continent • English literature in India refers to the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language and whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. • It is also associated with the works of members of the Indian diaspora, such as V. S. Naipaul, Kiran Desai, JhumpaLahiri and Salman Rushdie, who are of Indian descent.

32. English Literature in the Indian subcontinent is only one and a half centuries old. • The first book written by an Indian in English was by Sake Dean Mahomet, titled Travels of Dean Mahomet. • Mahomet's travel narrative was published in 1793 in England. In its early stages it was influenced by the Western art form of the novel. • Early Indian writers used English unadulterated by Indian words to convey an experience which was essentially Indian. Raja Rao'sKanthapura is Indian in terms of its storytelling qualities.

33. Rabindranath Tagore wrote in Bengali and English and was responsible for the translations of his own work into English. • DhanGopalMukerji was the first Indian author to win a literary award in the United States. • Nirad C. Chaudhuri, a writer of non-fiction, is best known for his The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian where he relates his life experiences and influences. • P. Lal, a poet, translator, publisher and essayist, founded a press in the 1950s for Indian English writing, known as Writers Workshop.

34. R.K. Narayan is a writer who contributed over many decades and who continued to write till his death recently. He was discovered by Graham Greene in the sense that the latter helped him find a publisher in England. • Graham Greene and Narayan remained close friends till the end. Similar to Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Narayan created the fictitious town of Malgudi where he set his novels. • Some criticisedNarayan for the parochial, detached and closed world that he created in the face of the changing conditions in India at the times in which the stories are set.

35. Others, such as Graham Greene, however, feel that through Malgudi they could vividly understand the Indian experience. • Narayan's evocation of small town life and its experiences through the eyes of the endearing child protagonist Swaminathan in Swami and Friends is a good sample of his writing style. • Simultaneous with Narayan's pastoral idylls, a very different writer, Mulk Raj Anand, was similarly gaining recognition for his writing set in rural India; but his stories were harsher, and engaged, sometimes brutally, with divisions of caste, class and religion.

36. References • The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company 1600-1760 by K N Chaudhuri (Cambridge, 1978) • The East India Company: A History by Philip Lawson (London, 1993)

37. NOVEL • SING TO THE DAWN by MINFONG HO

38. Minfong Ho • Minfong Ho was born in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), to an economist father and chemist mother, who were both of Chinese descent. • Ho was raised in Thailand, near Bangkok, enrolled in Tunghai University in Taiwan and subsequently transferred to Cornell University in the United States, where she received her Bachelor's degree in economics.

39. Her father was a businessman and diplomat named Ho RihHwa while her mother was a chemist and a bilingual writer, Li Lienfung. • It was at Cornell that she first began to write, as a way to combat homesickness. She submitted a short story, titled Sing to the Dawn, to the Council for Interracial Books for Children for its annual short story contest. • She won the award for the Asian American Division of unpublished Third World Authors, and was encouraged to expand the story into a novel.

40. After graduating from Cornell University in 1973, Ho returned to Asia and began working as a journalist for The Straits Times in Singapore. • She left two years later for Chiang Mai University in Thailand, where she taught English. The three years she spent in Chiang Mai had a deep impact on her.

41. Together with her students and colleagues, Ho spent several periods living and working in nearby villages, as part of the ongoing student movement to alleviate rural poverty. • While the student leaders were preoccupied with organizing the peasants into a political group in their search for democracy, Ho became more aware of the emotional world of the women and children there.

42. Minfong Ho presents realistic depictions of her native Southeast Asia. Her writings mainly focus on strong female protagonists who interact with their families and friends against the backdrop of real events. • Ho is often recognized for the sensitivity and understanding with which she treats the feelings of her characters as well as for her depiction of Asian life and locale.

43. Setting • Rural village in Thailand • Peasant homes • Poor houses

44. Characters • Dawan • Kwai ( Dawan’s brother) • The teacher • Noi • The grandmothar • Dawan’s parents • The monk • Bao (Dawan’s new friend)

45. Issues in this novel • The oppression of women • Poverty among the peasants • Love between siblings

46. Her by TitisBasino

47. Recent trends and developments in the region’s literature - Indonesia

48. Dutch in Indonesia • The Dutch came to Indonesia in the late 1590s, and they remained a dominant political force there until the advent of World War II in 1941. An interesting consideration is the development of Islam and the Dutch colonial presence. • Once Indonesia declared her independence from Holland on August 17, 1945, Islam was more evident in Indonesian society. Today Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, with about 87 percent of the people practicing Islam.

49. The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Dutch government in 1800. • During the 19th century, Dutch possessions and hegemony were expanded, reaching their greatest territorial extent in the early 20th century. • This colony which later formed modern-day Indonesia was one of the most valuable European colonies under the Dutch Empire's rule, and contributed to Dutch global prominence in spice and cash crop trade in 19th to early 20th century.[

50. The colonial social order was based on rigid racial and social structures with a Dutch elite living separate but linked to their native subjects. • The term "Indonesia" came into use for the geographical location after 1880. • In the early 20th century, local intellectuals began developing the concept of Indonesia as a nation state, and set the stage for an independence movement.