No. 136, April 2004

Over one year has passed since the opening of the Kansai-kan, its Asian collection including books, periodicals and newspapers has been enriched even more. The year 2003 was designated as the ASEAN-Japan Exchange Year and relationships between Japan and Southeast Asian countries have recently been getting closer in various fields.  Accordingly, the NDL planned an exhibition that would deepen people’s knowledge of Southeast Asia. The Exhibition was held in the Kansai-kan of the National Diet Library, March 8-27, 2004. With the cooperation of the Toyo Bunko (Oriental Library) and Mr. Kazushige Kaneko (President, Institute of Asian Ethno-forms and Culture), we exhibited 74 books including nine rare books, and five from the Toyo Bunko Collection, and 60 related materials such as clothes and tableware all borrowed from Mr. Kaneko.

Booklet of the exhibition

Southeast Asia is the region located between India and China, and is partly continental and partly islands. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand are located on the Asian continent, while the Philippines, Timor-Leste, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Singapore and much of Malaysia are located in the islands. The continental part is in the tropical monsoon climate zone and the islands are in the wet tropical climate zone. In this region, various ethnic groups with different values have very different ways of life. That is why the characteristics of Southeast Asian culture are said to be "diversity" and "multilayered."

Historically, this region had been influenced by India and China because of its location. After the 16th century, the major part of the region excluding Thailand came to be ruled by European powers. The modern histories of the Southeast Asian countries equally feature freedom from colonial rule, independence and the establishment of a new country.

This exhibition presented books together with ethnographic materials to let visitors fully understand the lives of Southeast Asian peoples.

Many books on Southeast Asia in various fields and levels such as academic research, general introductions and travel guides have been published. In order to introduce today's various lifestyles in Southeast Asia, we selected a wide range of books published recently in Japanese, Western languages, and Asian languages such as Vietnamese and Indonesian. We also selected historical materials. After the "Age of Geographical Discovery" when Western people colonized Southeast Asia, missionaries, colonial administrators, and natural historians wrote about the nature, manners and customs of Southeast Asia at the time. These documents are very important in studying Southeast Asian history. Among such historical documents, rare books of the NDL and the Toyo Bunko were included in the exhibits.

up