2
VOLUME 6, NUMBER 2
FEBRUARY–APRIL 2021
HISTORY
3 Thomas A. Bass
Kissinger and Ellsberg in Vietnam
TAIWAN
POETRY
INTERVIEW
NOTEBOOK
ASIA
MYANMAR
HONG KONG
JOURNALISM
CHINA
AUSTRALIA
7 Michael Reilly
8 Maw Shein Win
9 Andrew Quilty
12 Yuen Chan
Between two whales
‘Phone booth’, ‘Shops’, ‘Restaurant’, ‘Factory’, ‘Eggs’, ‘Huts’
Mullah Abdul Rahman, Taliban commander
In China’s grip
13 Richard Heydarian Underground Asia: Global Revolutionaries
and the Assault on Empire by Tim Harper
14 David Scott Mathieson The Burmese Labyrinth: A History of the Rohingya Tragedy
by Carlos Sardina Galache
15 Holmes Chan Defiance: Photographic Documentary of Hong Kong’s
Awakening; Voices
16 Martin Stuart-Fox You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the
Story of War by Elizabeth Becker
18 Anne Stevenson-Yang Anxious China: Inner Revolution and Politics of Psychotherapy
by Li Zhang
19 Jeff Sparrow The Carbon Club: How a Network of Influential Climate
Sceptics, Politicians and Business Leaders Fought to Control Australia’s Climate Policy by Marian Wilkinson
MALAYSIA
RELIGION
HERITAGE
20 Charles Brophy Automation and the Future of Work by Aaron Benanav;
Work in an Evolving Malaysia: The State of Households 2020, Part II by Khazanah Research Institute
21 Christopher G. Moore Finding the Heart Sutra; Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector
and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan by Alex Kerr
22 Farah Abdessamad Returning Southeast Asia’s Past: Objects, Museums, and
Restitution by Louise Tythacott and Panggah Ardiyansyah (eds)
HISTORY
SHORT STORY
POEM
23 Carl Vadivella Belle Life Under the Palms: The Sublime World of the Anti-
Colonialist Jacob Haafner by Paul van der Velde (translated by Liesbeth Bennink)
24 Ken Kwek
27 S Rupsha Mitra
Teochew opera
‘Winter wanderings’, ‘Gestalt of memories’, ‘During the war’
TRIBUTE
THAILAND
INDONESIA
28 Sunisa Manning
29 Tyrell Haberkorn
30 Jennifer Lindsay
Anthony Veasna So
A Good True Thai by Sunisa Manning
The Book of Jakarta by Maesy Ang and Teddy W. Kusuma (eds)
POETRY
31 Michael Freeman Magnolia, 木蘭 by Nina Mingya Powles; chengyu chinoiserie
by Leung Rachel Ka Yin
POEM Nha Thuyen
TRANSLATION
32 Violet Cho
NEIGHBOURHOOD 33 Anthony Tao
‘Where are the wings beating from’ (translated by Kaitlin Rees)
Language is power
In my hutong
PROFILE
PUBLISHING
34 Abby Seiff
36 Marc de Faoite
POEM Rory Harris
FOOD
BOOKSELLER
37 Tse Wei Lim
38 Siddharth Dasgupta
Anup Kaphle
Dropping English
‘Change’
Childhood snacks
Radhika Timbadia
PUBLISHER & EDITOR Minh Bui Jones
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ko ko thett (poetry), Preeta Samarasan (fiction), Pauline Fan (translation)
DESIGN Jess Barr WEBSITE Nicholas Lhoyd-Owen
DISTRIBUTION Shu Wen Chye
SUB-EDITORS Allen Myers, Mina Bui Jones, Abby Seiff PROOFREADER Izzy Souster
COVER ILLUSTRATOR Elsie Herberstein
ARTISTS Damien Chavanat, Charis Loke, Gianluca Costantini, Erica Eng, Paul Orchard, Badiucao
PO Box 417, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia; editor@mekongreview.com
Mekong Review is published four times a year; next issue May 2021
