The savvy of Thai monarchs has often been credited for their country's success in escaping colonialism and in keeping the forces of Emperor Hirohito 'at bay' during the Second World War. While this is a fair compliment, Thailand's unbroken independence was also the result of sheer geographic luck; as we shall see, the kingdom was spared in part because it buffered the competing claims of England and France in Burma and Indochina, and because the strange course of the mighty Mekong River, which in Europe's eyes defined Thailand's eastern boundary, was wildly misunderstood until the late nineteenth century.
Spanish conquest unified the Philippines as a single country, though the archipelago's many islands encompassed diverse peoples, traditions, and religions; the southern Philippines remain largely Muslim, as they were at the time of Spanish arrival four and a half centuries ago. The various peoples and cultures which today comprise the modern country of Indonesia were first placed under one helm as a corporate entity- for what we know as Indonesia was originally a creation of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (the Dutch East India Company, or V.O.C.), not of Dutch colonialism per se. By the early twentieth century, Dutch colonial rule, which grew out of the V.O.C. administration, encompassed every one of the vast and varied shores stretching from Sumatra to western New Guinea, save for the little Portuguese colony in eastern Timor. Burma is composed of several long-rivalrous kingdoms that were joined together under the British Empire; large minorities to this day do not acknowledge the jurisdiction of Rangoon over their lives. The country of Laos was a French creation, concocted from several perry states caught between occupied Vietnam and independent Thailand. Malaysia was sewn together from various sultanates on the peninsular main-land and from the Bornean territories of the former Brooke Raj (Sarawak) and the North Borneo Company (Sabah). The colonial entrepot of Singapore became part of post-colonial Malaysia and was then reborn as the independent Republic of Singapore. In a sense, one might see the modern nation of Singapore as the descendent of the Srivijaya empire, which dominated maritime trade through the Singapore-Malacca Straits a millennium ago.
The modern country of Vietnam was also the progeny of colonialism. But, although the tragic war between North and South Vietnam is still fresh in the memory of many of us, bloody intra-Vietnamese conflict dates back to well before French occupation, and the history of Vietnam's divided map began far earlier than the temporary division established at the Geneva Convention of 1954. In fact, the precedent to split Vietnam dates back to 1540, when a wall separating the warring northern and southern regions of the country was constructed at about 17° north latitude by the Chinese. The Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia during World War II, and the Indochina Wars that followed, marked the transition of Southeast Asia out of the colonial era.
Continuing Change
The map of Southeast Asia remains challenged by internal influences. Separatist movements in the southern Philippines and in southern peninsular Thailand, in both cases drawn along religious lines, would like to transform the maps of those countries, while secular ideologies have altered the map in Indochina. The present rulers of Burma have abandoned their country's 'colonialist' name in favor of Myanmar, though many people continue to use the older name because the use of 'Myanmar' could be construed as a legitimization of their power (the acknowledgment of sovereignty is, of course, one of the oldest functions of maps and their nomenclature). The island of Timor in Indonesia, which a century ago was split in half to settle competing Dutch and Portuguese claims, finds its niche on the map still being contested. Although western (Dutch) Timor has been part of the country of Indonesia since 1950, East Timor remained a Portuguese colony until 1975, when it was annexed by Jakarta. In 1999, however, economic pressures made Jakarta reconsider whether sovereignty for East Timor might be in Indonesia's interest. On the high periphery of Southeast Asia, China has forcefully asserted its long-standing claims to sovereignty over Tibet. The Paracels, seemingly inconsequential islands which pierce the vast South China Sea to the delight of air travelers with window seats, were seized by China in 1974 at the close of the Vietnam War. As the harvesting, mining, and drilling of the seas becomes as important as that of the land, possession of the Paracels threatens to become a destabilizing issue in the region.
Social and environmental upheavals are also changing the map of Southeast Asia. A dramatic redistribution of traditionally rural societies to urban areas has created mega-cities unprepared to support their people. Poor rural folk learn via modern means of communication and the media that cities, despite their often overwhelming poverty, are also zones of hope and change. This is being exacerbated by radical changes to the topography: the reckless deforestation of vast regions has rendered many local environments unable to sustain their communities. A case in point of this syndrome is the Isaan (northeast) region of Thailand, where land clearance policies enacted decades ago to expand the agricultural frontier, as well as the teak trade, have laid to ruin the forests which since time immemorial had moderated the extremes of the natural dry and rainy seasons. Severe drought, alternating with ruinous floods, is now the norm, leading many of the traditionally poor people of the northeast and other regions to try their luck in the cities, despite the difficulties of finding work and accomodation among the swelling ranks of the country's urban poor.
Some efforts are being made to better distribute population and resources. In a policy reminiscent of the homestead laws enacted in the United States in the 1860s, the government of Indonesia has offered people of Java and Bali a plot of land in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) or Irian Jaya (western New Guinea), complete with a one-way plane ticket and a year's supply of rice. Although this policy of transmigration (as it has come to be known) is done at the expense of further cutting of the rain forest and the cultural isolation of the volunteers, it nonetheless has succeeded in offering a new beginning for many families disenfranchised by the rapid changes of the past few decades. If this redistribution of people is successful, future maps may show much of New Guinea as ethnically Malay. But, for the moment, Irian Jaya is an example of the sometimes awkward incongruity between the political and physical map of Southeast Asia, for many of western New Guinea's indigenous people are only casually aware that their home lies on the map of Indonesia.
Chapter 2
Southeast Asian Maps and
Geographic Thought
Moreover, they [the Thais] submitted a map of their own country.
Ming Annals recording Thai ambassadors in China, 1375.
In order to examine early indigenous Southeast Asian maps, we first need to ask: What is a map? We will use a fairly broad definition: a map is a spatial representation of a place, thing, or concept, actual or imagined. Note that the subject of the map is not restricted. A map can chart the path to a neighboring village, to a successful endeavor or a fortuitous event, or even to the next life; it can illuminate the relationship between various levels of existence or consciousness, or between a previous or future age of the earth. Whether a monk charting the metaphysical, a king illustrating the divine link he shares with the gods, or an ordinary person inspired to scratch out a plan of her paddy in the moist earth for the sheer pleasure of doing so, our definition lays down no parameters for the medium used; a map need not even be of a material nature.
Indian Influence
Until the arrival of Islam, Southeast Asian ideas of man's place on earth were very much influenced by cosmological considerations that ultimately came from India. These external influences, which were themselves the result of a co-mingling of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain beliefs, conceived the earth as a small part of a vast cosmos, according it a far less central role in Creation than in Christian doctrine. The desire to understand the cosmos was a natural concern since it was simply an extension of knowledge about one's own immediate environment. The nature of the cosmos became even more significant when Buddhism took hold in Southeast Asia, and 'other-worldliness' began to