San Antonio College Library

"Janet Carsten offers an original and very personal investigation of the nature of kinship in Malaysia, based upon her own experience as a foster daughter in a family on the island of Langkawi. She shows that Malay kinship is a process, not a state: it is determined partly by birth, but also throughout life by living together and sharing food. Carsten gives the reader a fascinating "anthropology of everyday life," including a compelling view of gender...

In Malaysia, the lucrative palm oil business is stirring global controversy. Vietnam has a burgeoning tourism industry-and is under pressure not to develop it in the manner of neighboring Thailand. This program examines those issues as it traverses both countries, illuminating the balancing act between development, environmental stewardship, and the rights of indigenous peoples. Nguyen Quy Phuong describes his challenges as deputy director of Vietnam's...

This Globe Trekker video follows Justine Shapiro through Malaysia and Thailand. She starts in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, central to the government's mission to make Malaysia a fully developed nation by 2020. She joins the Orang Astli people on a hunting party, which they prepare for by making poison darts. In Thailand, Justine experiences the chaotic Hindu festival of Thaipusam, visits the tourist destination of in Phuket, enjoys a Thai...

Set in postwar Malaya during the turmoil of independence, the colonialists pulling out are personified by Victor Crabbe and his wife, who maintain a steady backward progress to annihilation in this culture which they never learned to understand.

"In "The Year Five," Nguyen Van Trinh, one of the boat people who left Vietnam after the war, is living in a squalid refugee camp on Bidong Island. He is as powerless to repress his sorrow over his daughter's death as the Malaysian administrative chief of the island is to find out who carved Trinh's name into the wooden plank in the staff eating hut." "In "The Public Spectacle," Bridget and Owen Greef, two misfits, have been growing apart because...

"Endangered peoples of Southeast and East Asia: struggles to survive and thrive introduces 14 endangered cultures, from the Kubu of Central Sumatra in Indonesia to the Ainu of Japan. The most pressing issues of these marginalized groups - such as the impact of tourism, prohibition against whaling, or dislocation due to nuclear testing - are brought to light by anthropologists based on their own extensive field work. The cultural and historical information...