Search

GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Supporting geography educators everywhere with current digital resources.

Open Search
Tag

SouthEast Asia

My Family’s Slave

She lived with us for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized who she was.

 

The Spanish Crown eventually began phasing out slavery at home and in its colonies, but parts of the Philippines were so far-flung that authorities couldn’t keep a close eye. Traditions persisted under different guises, even after the U.S. took control of the islands in 1898. Today even the poor can have utusans or katulongs (“helpers”) or kasambahays (“domestics”), as long as there are people even poorer. The pool is deep.

Source: www.theatlantic.com

This article created a huge stir from the moment it was published, especially within the U.S. Filipino community.  Slavery is reprehensible, but to most people today, it is incomprehensible to imagine how one human could ever enslave another.  This story of a Filipino family that brought a ‘domestic worker’ with them to the United States is a riveting tale that offers glimpses into the cultural context of modern-day slavery.  The author was born into this family and it’s a painful tale intermingled with agony, love, cruelty, tenderness, guilt, and growth.  This article is a long read, but well worth it.  You can listen to a 55-minute audio version of the article, or also listen to the NPR 5-minute version.    

 

Tags: migration, labor, Philippines, culture.

0

The Spice Trade’s Legacy

“In its day, the spice trade was the world’s biggest industry. It established and destroyed empires and helped the Europeans (who were looking for alternate routes to the east) map the globe through their discovery of new continents. What was once tightly controlled by the Arabs for centuries was now available throughout Europe with the establishment of the Ocean Spice Trade route connecting Europe directly to South Asia (India) and South East Asia.”

Source: cleanfooddirtygirl.com

The spice trade changed how we eat forever but it did so much more.  The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire cut off Europe from the vital trade routes to the east and access to the most prized commodities of the day.  What drove European exploration to get around Africa and to cross the Atlantic?  It was to reshape their situation location relative to the economic networks that shaped the emerging global economy.  In essence, the spice trade reshaped the fortunes and trajectories of several major world regions.   

 

Tags: Southeast Asia, food production, diffusion, globalization, agriculture, economic, industry, economic, historical, regions.

0

The other Asian tiger

“Vietnam’s success merits a closer look.”

 

Which Asian country has roared ahead over the past quarter-century, with millions of its people escaping poverty? And which Asian economy, still mainly rural, will be the continent’s next dynamo? Most would probably respond “China” to the first question and “India” to the second. But these answers would overlook a country that, in any other part of the world, would stand out for its past success and future promise.

Vietnam, with a population of more than 90m, has notched up the world’s second-fastest growth rate per person since 1990, behind only China. If it can maintain a 7% pace over the next decade, it will follow the same trajectory as erstwhile Asian tigers such as South Korea and Taiwan. Quite an achievement for a country that in the 1980s was emerging from decades of war and was as poor as Ethiopia.

 

Tags: Vietnam, globalization, development, economic, SouthEastAsia.

Source: www.economist.com

0

Mekong Delta fights losing battle against salt water

Vietnam’s rice region is facing the worst drought to date. Over half a million people have been affected, and the country could lose one million tons of its staple food.Leaders of six countries along the Mekong River met in China to discuss the relief measures.

Source: www.youtube.com

Economic progress for some often entails job loss and environmental degradation for others.  As dams upstream are slowing the flow of the Mekong River, the low-lying delta that is a rich agricultural region is facing the ocean water that is moving further inland.  The once isolated and remote Mekong is experiencing some impacts of globalization. 

 

Tags: fluvial, water, Vietnam, agriculture, SouthEastAsia.

0

How To Get A Country To Trust Its Banks

“It’s something you can see on every block in most major cities. You probably see one every day and never give give it a second thought. But in Yangon, Myanmar in 2013, an ATM was a small miracle. For decades, Myanmar was cut off from the rest of the world. There were international sanctions, and no one from the U.S. or Europe did business there.”

Source: www.npr.org

We often assume that one form of technology, a system, institute should work equally well where ever it is.  But the nuances of cultural geography mediate how societies interact with technological innovations, and as demonstrated in this Planet Money podcast, “People in Myanmar (Burma) were reluctant to use ATMs because they didn’t trust the banks. They weren’t sure that the machines would actually give them their money.”  

 

Tags: Burma, Southeast Asia, poverty, development, economic, podcast.

0

Malaysia’s ‘Allah’ controversy

Is limiting the use of the Arabic word for God a sign of growing intolerance towards minorities?

Source: stream.aljazeera.com

In Arabic, the word Allah means God.  Christian Arabs refer to God as Allah and Arabic versions of the Bible reference Allah.  As Arabic and Islam have diffused in interwoven patterns, the linguistic root and the theological meanings have became intertwined to some.  BBC World and Al-Jazeera have reported on this issue as the Malaysian government has attempted to ban the use of the word Allah to any non-Muslim religious group.  Language and religion just got very political.  

Tags: language, religion, political, Malaysia, SouthEastAsia, culture, Islam.

0

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑