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H.M.A. Leow

H.M.A. Leow

Rooted in postcolonial Southeast Asia, H.M.A. Leow writes from the crossings of cultures and stories. She has a scholarly background in multi-ethnic US American history and literature, with a career bridging the newsroom and the classroom. Her art and research center on gender, ethnicity, and narrative, but her interests are curious and catholic.

A woman wearing a face mask walks inside the Universal Studio station on March 05, 2020 in Osaka, Japan.
Education & Society

The Fear of Bare, Naked Ladies’ Faces

The mask, like the veil, is seen by the anxious West as concealing a racialized female subject in need of liberation from a backward culture.
Japanese Travel Poster, ca. 1936
Politics & History

Western Travel Writers or Japanese War Propagandists?

Even as Japan courted Western tourists with images of exotic customs and untouched landscapes, the Second Sino-Japanese War raged across East Asia.
Photo: Bruce Lee and Maria Yi in a scene from the Kung Fu film Fist Of Fury in 1971 Source: Getty
Education & Society

The Legacy of Bruce Lee’s Sex Life

Lee’s untimely death in 1973 sparked an argument between his widow and his girlfriend over his libido that played out publicly in international media.
Portrait of a young woman leaning on a meridienne by Louise Hersent, 1828
Education & Society

The Colonial Commodity of Knock-Off Cashmere

The import and mass-market replicas of the Kashmiri shawl highlighted Victorian anxieties about empire and its role in industrial modernity.  
The cover of the play Abbu San in Old Japan
Arts & Culture

Blackface on Stage in “Old Japan”

The use of blackface may seem out of place in a Japanese-inspired stage production—until you think about the money to be made by dealing in stereotypes.
A portrait of Lin Yutang beside the cover of his novel, Chinatown Family
Arts & Culture

The Chinatown Novel That Wasn’t

Examining Lin Yutang’s 1948 novel Chinatown Family, Richard Jean So reveals the ways in which literature is shaped by editorial interventions.
Cover of The Chinese question in Australia, 1878-79
Politics & History

The Chinese Question in Australia

The local British tried to bar Chinese traders from Australian shipping routes. Louis Ah Mouy, Lowe Kong Meng, and Cheong Cheok Hong had something to say about it.
The cover of "Go" by Kazuki Kaneshiro
Arts & Culture

Race and American Pop Culture in Zainichi Stories

A close reading of the 1996 novel GO suggests zainichi identity is in dialogue with multiple national cultures, including American.
A still from the film Sumpah Pontianak, 1958.
Education & Society

The Indonesian Frontier Town Named for a Jungle Vampire

The city of Pontianak is notable for sharing its name with a vengeful folkloric revenant known by various monikers across the Malay Archipelago.
Arts & Culture

The Geographical Misdirection of Cold War B-Movies

Some American Cold War films meant to allude to the contested theater of Vietnam were filmed in Thailand or the Philippines. Why the positional shenanigans?
Mary Oyama
Education & Society

Dear Deirdre: The Japanese American Agony Aunt

Using the nom de plume Deirdre, California-born writer Mary “Mollie” Oyama Mittwer offered advice on changing gender roles and cross-ethnic relationships.
JSTOR Collections

From Oriental Riviera to Global Asia: Hong Kong in Travel Posters

A collection of travel posters shared via JSTOR by Hong Kong Baptist University highlights Hong Kong’s unique place in the global imagination over the decades.
Isis Theater, 1932
Arts & Culture

The Chinese Movie Theater in Shanghai’s “No Man’s Land”

The Isis Theater of pre-war Shanghai occupied a unique space as a Chinese-run cinema in an international “contact zone.”
Miss Songkran Surin contest in 1953
Arts & Culture

She’s the Very Model of a Modern Militant Woman

A gun-toting killer seems like an unlikely heroine for a nationalist classic novel, but that’s the story of Luang Wichit Wathakan’s Huang rak haew luk.
Portrait of Indian author and poet Rabindranath Tagore, circa 1935.
Arts & Culture

Tagore in Saigon: Culture, Contradictions, Champagne

Rabindranath Tagore’s visit to Vietnam in 1929 fanned the debate about the region’s potential future without the French.
From the cover of Rising Sun by Michael Crichton
Arts & Culture

Colorful Plots and Racial Undertones in Modern Crime Fiction

Tarik Abdel-Monem argues that American crime fiction reflects mainstream prejudices in depicting mixed-race individuals as either deformed or superhuman.
Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories
Arts & Culture

Wartime Injustice: When “Yes” Means “No”

The mother-daughter relationship in Hisaye Yamamoto’s fiction is a stand-in for the relationship between the American nation-state and the Nisei male citizens.
Lakshmi Sahgal
Politics & History

Recruiting Warrior Queens for the Rani of Jhansi Regiment

Why did so many plantation workers in Burma, Malaya, and Singapore rush to join the all-woman Rani of Jhansi regiment of the Indian National Army?
Caricature of Joseph Conrad by David Low in Lions and Lambs, 1928
Arts & Culture

Joseph Conrad’s Travel Stories Weren’t Black and White

Conrad’s celebration of imperial exploration is accompanied by an acknowledgment that such feats often go hand-in-hand with oppression and exploitation.
The cover of Sonyŏn kwahak from September, 1965
Science & Technology

Popular Science—but Make It North Korean

In the 1950s, science in North Korea was presented in a way that fired children’s imaginations and encouraged youth to develop ideas that served the state.
Catholic Church of the Saviour,also called Xishiku Church or Beitang in Beijing, China
Education & Society

Building Notre Dame in Beijing

Chinese church architecture progressed from initial setbacks to reflect a two-way transfer of design and building techniques as East met West.
Interior courtyard at the Thian Hock Keng Temple in the Tanjong Pagar area of downtown Singapore, a traditional Taoist temple established in 1839
Education & Society

Debating the Definition of Taoism

Taoism and Hinduism are two different spiritual systems, but one thing they have in common in Singapore is that they’re both very difficult to define.
A tug boat towing a barge with sand in coastal waterway near Singapore
Business & Economics

The High Cost of Sand in Southeast Asia

The clean, green garden city of Singapore has been built on sand extracted—at significant environmental cost—from its neighbors.
Maize, tomato and apple of paradise
Education & Society

“Simple, Wholesome Food” for a New American Nation

In the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, Americans faced understandable anxiety about what their society would look like—and what they should eat.
A woman working late at night on business plans
Politics & Government

How to Headhunt for “Singapore Inc”

Some upwardly mobile Singaporeans who have worked abroad may express their buy-in through coming-of-career narratives.

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