This paper aims to clarify the early contact between Japan and Vietnam—both Tonkin and Cochinchina—during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by investigating letters sent from Vietnam to Japan. In order to better understand the letters and their background, a paleographical approach is adopted. The oldest letter was sent from Tonkin by Nguyễn Cảnh Đoan, a high-ranking military officer residing in Nghệ An Province. The addressee, “King of Japan,” is a fictitious person, which indicates that Vietnamese officials did not understand contemporary Japan. Two entrepreneurs took advantage of this gap in knowledge to deceive Nguyễn Cảnh Đoan into sending the letter to a nonexistent King. The second and third letters were sent from Nguyễn Hoàng to Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Terasawa Masanari (a chief officer of Nagasaki), not to Tokugawa Ieyasu.

From investigations of the format and terminology of these three as well as other letters, it is clear that both the Trịnh King and Nguyễn lords aimed to relativize the authority of the Lê emperor and to promote their status by arrogating the title of “An Nam Quốc vương (King of Annam).” The Tokugawa Shogun also utilized the exchange of letters with a foreign monarch to enhance his authority.

In December 2016, the element titled “Practices related to the Viet beliefs in the Mother Goddesses of Three Realms” was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Under Vietnam’s socialist government, rituals and festivals related to the beliefs in Mother Goddesses had been prohibited as superstition before the Doi Moi period. Even though these beliefs and related practices were reevaluated and revived as a beautiful tradition, especially after the 1990s, there has been constant debate over whether beliefs in Mother Goddesses can be categorized as superstition. The question here is why Vietnam’s government applied for the inscription of this element while it had not yet concluded the debate. In this article, by considering this question we examine how Vietnam’s government intends to increase control over this element through naming, protecting, and avoiding its transformation. We also demonstrate that the framework for the heritagization of this element has been changed from theaterization to purization as beliefs, so that the government can criticize and prevent stage adaptation or theaterized rituals as an unintended transformation of heritage.

This paper provides a comparative reexamination of the cultural revitalization that occurred alongside nation building in Thailand from the 1930s to the 1980s in the context of local performances of the traditional Northeastern Thailand performing art molam. The Introduction gives an overview of how Thai nation building gave cultural revitalization a unique meaning to counter colonial Western influence. Chapter 2 provides a brief history of cultural revitalization in Northeastern Thailand and describes how treatment of molam performers evolved from the nation-building period around the end of the nineteenth century to the 1980s. Chapter 3 discusses the Ministry of Culture’s National Artist Award Project (Sinlapin Haeng Chat) and how the cultural evaluation system is applied in Thai society. Chapter 4 shifts the focus to rural areas, and how regional arts participants—e.g., molam performers—in Northeastern Thailand gain public recognition and inclusion through institutional cultural revitalization. Chapter 5 details how regional molam artists perform and react while being aware of the National Artist awards, as part of cultural revitalization in Northeastern Thailand (fuenfu watthanatham isan) as well as the greater context of globalization. The Conclusion outlines the effects of cultural revitalization on the lives of molam performers in the social context.

In August and September 2013 Thai rubber farmers blockaded a main road in Khuan Nong Hong Junction, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Southern Thailand, demanding that the government guarantee the price of rubber. From there the movement spread to other places in the region. This article examines the development of the movement with special attention to participants’ reasons and affect. Interviews with farmers who initiated or participated in the movement revealed multiple reasons for their involvement, ranging from events that took place during the course of the movement to the insincere attitude of the government. An observation of the blockade revealed that participants’ gestures and expressions reflected emotions that coalesced in the form of physical anger, which finally led to the blockade. The government’s misunderstanding of the role of emotion complicated the situation.