{"title":"Malay Perspectives on Ming China during the Age of Exploration","authors":"A. Akhtar","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0031","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:When the Portuguese and Spaniards first arrived in the South China Sea (ca. early 1500s), the commercial worlds they encountered in centres like Melaka and Manila were closely connected with the politics and economy of China under the Ming dynasty (r. 1368–1644). This article examines how the Malay sultanates conceptualized China in three works of Malay epic literature (Malay: hikayat)—the Hikayat Raja Raja Pasai, Hikayat Hang Tuah, and Sejarah Melayu. A comparison of these semi-fictional texts with historical accounts provides evidence that during Europe’s Age of Exploration, when Southeast Asia first became the crossroads of global maritime exchange, the sultanates of Southeast Asia were deeply intertwined with Chinese diplomacy in ways that help explain European colonial-era activities in the South China Sea well into the twentieth century.","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"95 1","pages":"1 - 21"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43397759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘An Hour Before Dawn’: Social and Political Awareness among English-Educated Students in Post-War Singapore","authors":"Theophilus Kwek","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Histories of post-war student activism in Singapore have generally focused on the Chinese middle school students, as well as undergraduates at the University of Malaya, with comparatively little attention to the attitudes and actions of the English-educated students in Government schools. This article adds to a growing historiography of the period by pointing to the potential of student publications as primary sources, read in context of late colonial education policy and the broader trajectory of Anglophone writing from Singapore. A close reading of six prose texts published by students at Raffles Institution in 1954, a watershed year for student activism, suggests that student writing can provide significant clues about the level of social and political awareness among the English medium schools of the period.","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"95 1","pages":"107 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46450759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heat and Colonial Weather Science in the Straits Settlements, c. 1820–1900","authors":"Fiona Williamson","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Historical explorations of tropical heat in a colonial context have largely focussed on two interconnected spheres: colonial perceptions of place and body, and the implications of heat on different bodies as found in medical thought and practice. This article moves the discussion towards a history of colonial scientific thought about heat as component of weather and of escalating nature-induced hazards, studied in the observatory or meteorological department. It considers how heat features in nascent meso-scale atmospheric knowledge, in meteorological theory, and as a by-product of urbanisation and land-use change. In so doing, it conceptualises the scientific understanding of heat as essentially responsive, embodied within science as a result of the way heat was prioritised within a local context and in the contemporary understanding of human-induced climatic change. The article bridges disciplinary boundaries between the history of science and environmental history, shedding light on an underexplored aspect of the Straits Settlements’ past: the scientific history of urban heat.","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"95 1","pages":"39 - 55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43569867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Singapore Mall Generation: History, Imagination, Community ed. by Liew Kai Khiun (review)","authors":"Linda Y. C. Lim, P. Fong","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0022","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"95 1","pages":"141 - 142"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42153372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wang Gungwu and Malaysia ed. by Danny Wong Tze Ken and Lee Kam Hing (review)","authors":"Diana J. Wong","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0024","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"95 1","pages":"144 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46341346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Federal Education Policy and the Role of Muhammad Yusof bin Ahmad, 1951–1955","authors":"A. Husni, Mahani Musa","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0020","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Muhammad Yusof bin Ahmad, an Unofficial Member of the Federal Legislative Council (FLC) from 1951 to 1955, served on the Special Education Committee when education policy for an independent Malaya was being hotly debated. The Education Ordinance, 1952 revamped the education system, offering a unified curriculum taught in a single common language, but various constraints prevented the government from implementing its provisions. Muhammad Yusof pressed on, taking a special interest in the formulation of language policy in 1954, but in the end, the government abandoned the principles of the 1952 law. A new Education Ordinance passed in 1957 represented a triumph of racially based politics. This article revisits the events of this period as seen by a member of the FLC when Malaya stood on the cusp of independence.","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"95 1","pages":"109 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45750446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Penang: The Fourth Presidency of India 1805–1830. Vol. 3: Water, Wigs and Wisdom by Marcus Langdon (review)","authors":"Kwa Kwa Chong Guan","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"95 1","pages":"146 - 149"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42045493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Salt Licks: Their Vital Importance to the Conservation of Wildlife in Malaya","authors":"T. Hubback","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0021","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"95 1","pages":"133 - 140"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46407630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Malaysian Branch of the The Royal Asiatic Society","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0030","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44678868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"World Heritage and Urban Politics in Melaka, Malaysia: A Cityscape below the Winds by Pierpaolo De Giosa (review)","authors":"Jerry P. Dennerline","doi":"10.1353/ras.2022.0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2022.0028","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society","volume":"95 1","pages":"153 - 155"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46550018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}