Posted on 25 April 2013 by Ronald Gilliam
Big Bag was formed in April of year 2000 in Yangon, Myanmar. The band is led by Kyar Pauk (playing Drums and vocals) and Zaw Zaw Win (guitarist) and has gained in popularity as one of the top Myanmar punk rock bands. A week after forming, the band had their very first bass player Banyar, who gave up the band after 6 months of playing. -Facebook
Comments Off
Posted on 17 April 2013 by Ronald Gilliam
Laila’s Lounge was formed in 1998 and is currently based in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Originally formed by Hadi (Vocals/Lyricist), Bai (Guitars), Icham (Guitars) and they were later joined by Bulat (Bassist), Sham Daging (Drummer) & Ajeep (Keyboards). They played numerous shows in the late 90s and early 2000, captivating audience with their musical textures and sonic-like soundscapes garnering positive reviews from the general gig going community in the process at that time. But due to a number of personal issues, (including Sham Daging deteriorating mental health) they were sent to nowhere land causing Sham Daging to be replaced by Just as the drummer. After Bulat and Just left the band, they were replaced by Anaz (Bassist) and David (ex-Polythene, now with They Will Kill Us All) joined the band on 2nd Guitars with Icham switching to drums. Later, after several frustrating chain of events, Hadi quit on the band and moved to KL where he joined a local theatre group called Sanggar Karya. Bai, the most influential member of the band then followed Hadi’s suit leaving the band on the verge of an impending breakup. It was not until in the later half of 2004, that Anaz’s passion and determination managed to persuade Bai and Icham to rethink about continuing their musical journey and reform the band. Toya now already part of the band and together they worked on new materials until they were later reunited with Hadi in 2006. -last.fm
Comments Off
Posted on 09 April 2013 by Ronald Gilliam
BY2 is a duo from Singapore composed of twins Miko Bai Wei-Fen (白緯芬) and Yumi Bai Wei-Ling (白緯玲) (born March 23, 1992). Their duo band was named “BY2” after their surname “Bai” and that they are twin sisters and have a 10-year contract with Ocean Butterflies Music Pte Ltd.
They debuted with their album “16未成年” on 21 July 2008. These sisters have been given different hairstyles for easy identification due to their uncanny resemblance. However, they claimed to be different in terms of personality. Miko has been described as more introverted and quiet while her sister Yumi, has been described as a more extroverted and outgoing person.
Since young age, both of the sisters have been exposed to performing arts and have learned the violin, piano, ballet and many other styles of dancing. At the age of 13, both of them joined the Ocean Butterflies’ Music Forest’s “非常歌手” training course. The course aims to teach singer-wannabes how to perform on stage and techniques in singing and dancing. They graduated from the course clinching a “Best Costume Design” award. Billy Koh of Ocean Butterflies Music Pte Ltd noticed their talent and gave them a 10-year record deal.
The duo moved to Taiwan in 2007 to further their career. -last.fm
Comments Off
Posted on 03 April 2013 by Ronald Gilliam
Preap Sovath (ព្រាប សុវត្ថិ) born February 27, 1972, in Kandal, Cambodia, is a cambodian/khmer pop singer. Sovath started his singing career in 1992. He records for Rasmey Hang Meas (RHM), generally regarded as Cambodia’s most progressive recording label. Apart from being a singer, Preap Sovath is also an actor, restaurant owner and owner of a wedding boutique.
Preap Sovath performs the style of music known as “Khmer Karaoke”, the name derives from the fact that most sales are of VCDs rather than CDs and all VCD film clips come with karaoke-style subtitled lyrics.
Comments Off
Posted on 18 March 2013 by Ronald Gilliam
Rico Blanco (born March 17, 1973) is a Filipino musician. He is one of the founders of Filipino rock band Rivermaya, where he served as vocalist, pianist, guitarist, and chief songwriter from 1993 to 2007. Blanco has so far recorded, written and produced more local and regional number one hits than any other musician since 1994, and has sold over a million albums in the Philippines and Southeast Asia during that period.
For those who waited a year, Rico Blanco’s new album “Your Universe” is definitely worth it. It’s a defining mark in the 35-year-old musician’s career, and a reminder that he has the freedom to experiment and collaborate with others without compromising sound.
Through the ten tracks of “Your Universe,” we can confirm that Rico’s personal passions are gracefully translated into songs distinctly and undeniably his, even as he collaborates with some of the industry’s best musicians for this album.
He knows how to tickle the fancy of Filipinos by delivering the right amount of romantic prose minus the extra saccharine shot of sap. Perhaps it can be said that he knows the formula of the Filipino’s heart which makes his music work. Definition and identity. This is what sets Rico Blanco apart from most of the local acts. He knows his niche in the industry and makes his mark the way a true blooded artist should: original and a strong definition of one’s identity. -last.fm
Comments Off
Posted on 11 March 2013 by Beau Mueller
Spring 2013 CSEAS SPEAKER SERIES
A Presentation by Gregory F. Moore, Professor and Chair, UHM Dept. of Geology and Geophysics
Economic Development Policies in Southeast Asia: An Overview
Location: Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room); UHM
When: Friday, March 15th, 12:00 P.M.
| Details: |
The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa cordially invites you to a talk with UHM Geology and Geophysics Professor and Chair, Gregory F. Moore. Professor Moore will be giving a 45 minute talk titled, “Economic Development Policies in Southeast Asia: An Overview” followed by a 15-30 minute Q&A/discussion session. All are welcome to attend this free talk!
More info:
The geology of the northeastern Indian Ocean region is dominated by the subduction of the Indian Ocean plate beneath SE Asia. This process leads to great earthquakes and associated mega-tsunamis, such as the Sumatra quake and tsunami of 2004. We now know that subduction zone earthquakes are cyclical: between large quakes, strain accumulates along locked portions of the plate interface. This causes subsidence of offshore islands and uplift of coastal regions. This shifts the shoreline seaward, leaving new ocean-front land for the increasing population to move on to. During an earthquake, this process is rapidly reversed and coastal regions subside, causing inundation of the shoreline. If a tsunami is also generated, the resulting loss of life can be enormous – witness the 2004 Sumatra and 2011 Tohoku events.
Another geologic hazard is caused by changes in building styles. Older wooden structures usually survive ground shaking during quakes, but more modern brick or cement structures often suffer significant damage.
In this talk, I will present evidence for uplift and subsidence along the west coasts of Sumatra and Myanmar during historic earthquakes and will discuss the likelihood for a large earthquake along the west coast of Myanmar.
| Bio: |
Greg spent 4 1/2 years on the research staff at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1 1/2 years as research geologist at Cities Service Research Lab, and 5 years as an associate professor at the University of Tulsa before joining the U.H. faculty in 1989. While at U.H. he has participated in several oceanographic expeditions, including four cruises for the Ocean Drilling Program (one as co-chief scientist). He is a fellow of the Geological Society of America, and a member of the American Geophysical Union, the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
During 2006-2008, Greg worked at JAMSTEC in Yokohama, Japan as Advisor to Asahiko Taira, Director General of the Center for Deep Earth Exploration (CDEX). In November, 2007, we completed the first expedition of IODP drilling with D/V Chikyu in the NanTroSEIZE area south of Honshu, Japan. Stage 2 of NanTroSEIZE took place during June-October, 2009, and Stage 3 began in 2010 and is scheduled to continue in 2012 — Greg will be one of four co-chief scientists on Expedition 338.
More info about Dr. Moore can be found on his official website.
| Event Sponsor: |
Center for Southeast Asian Studies
For more information, please contact The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at cseas@hawaii.edu.
Comments Off
Posted on 04 March 2013 by Ronald Gilliam
The Ngũ Cung Rock Band (Pentatonic) was established to contribute to the Progressive-Hard Rock market, aiming at becoming THE most famous progressive rock band in Vietnam and beyond. They wish to promote the strength of progressive rock music well know in other countries (and yet still bring forth music that has an identity of Vietnamese pride. Although Ngu Cung composition is based on a variety of dramatic “themes & stories” (native to progressive rock), the band also tries to write lyrics that their native fans (of Vietnam) can follow & identify with during normal/everyday life in that country & culture (past, present & future). Now that Ngu Cung has reached a strong level of national fame in its own country, they have branched out to perform live in larger-scale public events & begin penetration outside of Vietnam. -last.fm
Comments Off
Posted on 25 February 2013 by Ronald Gilliam
In 2008 Pop singer Jida (or Jidapa Niyomsrisakul) received two big awards: Best Female Artist and Best New Artist for her album titled “Dizzy.”
In 2010 the image of a focused female vocalist with a charming voice returned (inducing prosperity and success) by working with the music label: Small Room. Jida brought back the sound everyone heard on her single “Plaeng Khuen” from the album “Small Room 007: Boutique.”
On Jida’s newest album “Boy Friends” she performs with a new group of musicians: Patjapong “Gap” Supachaicharoen (Bass), Nattawat “Mai” Kripitch (guitar), Charapat “Ja” Leenanupunth (guitar), and Thammarat “Aem” Sukwat (drums) together they are making their music more fun, full, and enjoyable.
Comments Off
Posted on 20 February 2013 by Ronald Gilliam
Wednesday, February 20
Center for Korean Studies Auditorium @6:30 PM
Philippines, 1995 (114 mins)
Tagalog w/English subtitles
Director: Chito S. Roño
Screenplay: Jose F. Lacaba, Roy Iglesias
Cast: Christopher De Leon, Richard Gomez, Dina Bonnevie, Joel Torre, Teresa Loyzaga
Eskapo (Escape) begins with video footage of the days just before Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972: eerie, washed-out images of marching demonstrators and riot police. It’s a terrifying beginning that sets an ominous tone for everything that follows.
What follows is a ’70s party in full swing. Director Chito Roño glides his camera into the middle of the action and rubs our noses into the decadence of the period, reminding us pitilessly of how embarrassing we looked. Those clashing colors! Those teased wigs! Those floor-sweeping pants!
The movie regains its bearings when the military arrests Sergio Osmeña III (Richard Gomez) and Eugenio “Geny” Lopez Jr. (Christopher de Leon), scions of Philippine society.
From here we see the step-by-step procedure as the story of the descent into the maws of Martial Law is clearly and harrowingly set out eventually leading to the two men’s escape from the Fort Bonifacio detention center in 1977.
Eskapo is so entertainingly well made that in terms of intelligence, visual style, and acting, it deserved the title as ‘Filipino Film of the Year” (1996).
-Noel Vera, Critic After Dark
Please support the distributor by purchasing their film!
Distributor: kabayancentral.com
Reminder…dress warmly, the auditorium is heavily air-conditioned.
Comments Off
Posted on 19 February 2013 by Beau Mueller
* Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam
* Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam
* Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (The New Cold War History)
* Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-75
* Kontum: The Battle to Save South Vietnam
| Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam |
by Nick Turse
Metropolitan Books, 2013
Based on classified documents and first-person interviews, a startling history of the American war on Vietnamese civilians
Americans have long been taught that events such as the notorious My Lai massacre were isolated incidents in the Vietnam War, carried out by “a few bad apples.” But as award‑winning journalist and historian Nick Turse demonstrates in this groundbreaking investigation, violence against Vietnamese noncombatants was not at all exceptional during the conflict. Rather, it was pervasive and systematic, the predictable consequence of orders to “kill anything that moves.”
Drawing on more than a decade of research in secret Pentagon files and extensive interviews with American veterans and Vietnamese survivors, Turse reveals for the first time how official policies resulted in millions of innocent civilians killed and wounded. In shocking detail, he lays out the workings of a military machine that made crimes in almost every major American combat unit all but inevitable. Kill Anything That Moves takes us from archives filled with Washington’s long-suppressed war crime investigations to the rural Vietnamese hamlets that bore the brunt of the war; from boot camps where young American soldiers learned to hate all Vietnamese to bloodthirsty campaigns like Operation Speedy Express, in which a general obsessed with body counts led soldiers to commit what one participant called “a My Lai a month.”
Thousands of Vietnam books later, Kill Anything That Moves, devastating and definitive, finally brings us face‑to‑face with the truth of a war that haunts Americans to this day.
| Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam |
by Fredrik Logevall
Random House, 2012
The struggle for Vietnam occupies a central place in the history of the twentieth century. Fought over a period of three decades, the conflict drew in all the world’s powers and saw two of them—first France, then the United States—attempt to subdue the revolutionary Vietnamese forces. For France, the defeat marked the effective end of her colonial empire, while for America the war left a gaping wound in the body politic that remains open to this day.
How did it happen? Tapping into newly accessible diplomatic archives in several nations and making full use of the published literature, distinguished scholar Fredrik Logevall traces the path that led two Western nations to lose their way in Vietnam. Embers of War opens in 1919 at the Versailles Peace Conference, where a young Ho Chi Minh tries to deliver a petition for Vietnamese independence to President Woodrow Wilson. It concludes in 1959, with a Viet Cong ambush on an outpost outside Saigon and the deaths of two American officers whose names would be the first to be carved into the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In between come years of political, military, and diplomatic maneuvering and miscalculation, as leaders on all sides embark on a series of stumbles that makes an eminently avoidable struggle a bloody and interminable reality.
Logevall takes us inside the councils of war—and gives us a seat at the conference tables where peace talks founder. He brings to life the bloodiest battles of France’s final years in Indochina—and shows how from an early point, a succession of American leaders made disastrous policy choices that put America on its own collision course with history: Harry Truman’s fateful decision to reverse Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policy and acknowledge France’s right to return to Indochina after World War II; Dwight Eisenhower’s strenuous efforts to keep Paris in the fight and his escalation of U.S. involvement in the aftermath of the humiliating French defeat at Dien Bien Phu; and the curious turnaround in Senator John F. Kennedy’s thinking that would lead him as president to expand that commitment, despite his publicly stated misgivings about Western intervention in Southeast Asia.
An epic story of wasted opportunities and tragic miscalculations, featuring an extraordinary cast of larger-than-life characters, Embers of War delves deep into the historical record to provide hard answers to the unanswered questions surrounding the demise of one Western power in Vietnam and the arrival of another. This book will become the definitive chronicle of the struggle’s origins for years to come.
| Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (The New Cold War History) |
by Lien-Hang T. Nguyen
The University of North Carolina Press, 2012
While most historians of the Vietnam War focus on the origins of U.S. involvement and the Americanization of the conflict, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen examines the international context in which North Vietnamese leaders pursued the war and American intervention ended. This riveting narrative takes the reader from the marshy swamps of the Mekong Delta to the bomb-saturated Red River Delta, from the corridors of power in Hanoi and Saigon to the Nixon White House, and from the peace negotiations in Paris to high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow, all to reveal that peace never had a chance in Vietnam.
Hanoi’s War renders transparent the internal workings of America’s most elusive enemy during the Cold War and shows that the war fought during the peace negotiations was bloodier and much more wide ranging than it had been previously. Using never-before-seen archival materials from the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as materials from other archives around the world, Nguyen explores the politics of war-making and peace-making not only from the North Vietnamese perspective but also from that of South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States, presenting a uniquely international portrait.
| Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-75 |
by George J. Veith
Encounter Books, 2012
The defeat of South Vietnam was arguably America’s worst foreign policy disaster of the 20th Century. Yet a complete understanding of the endgame—from the 27 January 1973 signing of the Paris Peace Accords to South Vietnam’s surrender on 30 April 1975—has eluded us.
Black April addresses that deficit. A culmination of exhaustive research in three distinct areas: primary source documents from American archives, North Vietnamese publications containing primary and secondary source material, and dozens of articles and numerous interviews with key South Vietnamese participants, this book represents one of the largest Vietnamese translation projects ever accomplished, including almost one hundred rarely or never seen before North Vietnamese unit histories, battle studies, and memoirs. Most important, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of South Vietnam’s conquest, the leaders in Hanoi released several compendiums of formerly highly classified cables and memorandum between the Politburo and its military commanders in the south. This treasure trove of primary source materials provides the most complete insight into North Vietnamese decision-making ever complied. While South Vietnamese deliberations remain less clear, enough material exists to provide a decent overview.
Ultimately, whatever errors occurred on the American and South Vietnamese side, the simple fact remains that the country was conquered by a North Vietnamese military invasion despite written pledges by Hanoi’s leadership against such action. Hanoi’s momentous choice to destroy the Paris Peace Accords and militarily end the war sent a generation of South Vietnamese into exile, and exacerbated a societal trauma in America over our long Vietnam involvement that reverberates to this day. How that transpired deserves deeper scrutiny.
| Kontum: The Battle to Save South Vietnam |
by Thomas P. McKenna
The University Press of Kentucky, 2011
In the spring of 1972, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam in what became known as the Easter Offensive. Almost all of the American forces had already withdrawn from Vietnam except for a small group of American advisers to the South Vietnamese armed forces. The 23rd ARVN Infantry Division and its American advisers were sent to defend the provincial capital of Kontum in the Central Highlands. They were surrounded and attacked by three enemy divisions with heavy artillery and tanks but, with the help of air power, managed to successfully defend Kontum and prevent South Vietnam from being cut in half and defeated.
Although much has been written about the Vietnam War, little of it addresses either the Easter Offensive or the Battle of Kontum. In Kontum: The Battle to Save South Vietnam, Thomas P. McKenna fills this gap, offering the only in-depth account available of this violent engagement. McKenna, a U.S. infantry lieutenant colonel assigned as a military adviser to the 23rd Division, participated in the battle of Kontum and combines his personal experiences with years of interviews and research from primary sources to describe the events leading up to the invasion and the battle itself.
Kontum sheds new light on the actions of U.S. advisers in combat during the Vietnam War. McKenna’s book is not only an essential historical resource for America’s most controversial war but a personal story of valor and survival.
Comments Off
stream...
Copyright © The Center for Southeast Asian Studies.Theme by 
Modification & Development by 
Powered by 
