Asian and African studies blog

The world of scholarship has been revolutionised by numerous digitisation programmes undertaken in libraries throughout the world. Now, instead of having to travel thousands of miles for expensive and extensive visits to cities where unique historical sources are housed, it is ever more possible to make a detailed study of a manuscript from one’s own home, in any country, via the internet. Digitisation programmes are usually shaped both by the interests of patrons and the strengths of an institution’s collections, and among the exciting projects to digitise material from the Asian and African collections of the British Library are those of Malay manuscripts in collaboration with the National Library of Singapore supported by William and Judith Bollinger, Thai manuscripts funded by the Royal Thai government, Persian manuscripts in partnership with the Iran Heritage Foundation, and Hebrew manuscripts with the Polonsky Foundation. However, with the emphasis on large projects, it is not always easy to prioritise the digitisation of other important manuscripts from smaller language groups, or from regions for which funding proves difficult to source.

Note in the Bugis language and script, from the diary of the king of Bone, south Sulawesi, 1775. British Library, Add. 12354, f. 2r (detail).

The Southeast Asia section of the British Library is fortunate in that a legacy from the estate of the late Henry D. Ginsburg (1940-2007), who was for over thirty years the Library’s curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian collections, has enabled the digitisation of a small number of significant manuscripts, some representing writing traditions rarely accessible on the internet. In 2013, seven of the most important illuminated and illustrated manuscripts in Vietnamese, Burmese and Javanese were digitised. In 2014 we completed the digitisation of a further 15 manuscripts from Southeast Asia, in Vietnamese, Burmese, Shan, Khamti, Lao, Thai, Bugis, Javanese and Arabic, which this month have been made accessible through the Digitised Manuscripts website.

Artistically, the highlights are probably six Burmese folding book (parabaik) manuscripts, all lavishly and exquisitely illustrated. Three of the manuscripts depict scenes from the Life of the Buddha (Or. 4762, Or. 5757 and Or. 14197) while the other three contain Jataka stories (Or. 13538, Or. 4542A and Or. 4542B, and MSS Burmese 202).


The Jātaka stories about the previous lives of the Gautama Buddha are preserved in all branches of Buddhism. These stories show how he gradually acquired greater strength and moral stature as his soul passed from one incarnation to the other. Shown above is a scene from the Latukika Jataka. The Bodhisatta, the leader of the elephants (gilded) protects the offspring of a quail who had laid her eggs in the feeding ground of the elephants. British Library, Or. 13538, ff. 20-22.

Also in folding book format is a lavishly decorated Buddhist manuscript, Buddhānussati, in Shan language (Or. 12040), a copy of Tamrā phichai songkhrām in Thai language (Or. 15760), and a rare Lao dictionary in three volumes from the 19th century (Add. 11624).


This Shan folding book (pap tup), dated 1885, with the title Buddhānussati contains a text on recollections of the Buddha, explaining mindfulness with the Buddha’s virtues as objects. The embossed gilded covers are studded with multi-coloured mirror glass for ornate floral decoration. British Library, Or.12040, front cover.

Folio 16 of the Tamrā phichai songkhrām, explaining various appearances of sun and how to interpret them. This Thai divination manual for the prediction of wars, conflicts and natural disasters also contains explanations of the shapes of clouds, the moon and planets. British Library, Or.15760, folio 16.

Another rarity that has been digitised in this project is a bound and scrolled paper book (pap kin) in Khamti Shan script, Kuasala Ainmakan (Or. 3494). The book, dated 1860, is sewn in a blue cotton wrapper with a white and pink braided cotton string. It contains the Mahāsupina Jātaka about the dreams of King Pasenadi, the King of Kosala.  

From the Vietnamese collection was selected ‘The Northwards Embassy by land and water’, a rare pictorial manuscript map, Bắc Sứ Thủy Lục Địa Đô (Or. 14907), illustrating the journey from Hanoi to Beijing in 1880. This manuscript is currently on display in the exhibition ‘Geo/Graphic: celebrating maps and their stories’, at the National Library of Singapore (16 January – 19 July 2015).


Tai Ping City , located by Gu Fang Mountain. The city was well fortified with a fortress and could be dated back to the Ming dynasty.British Library, Or. 14907, f. 11r.

Two very different Javanese manuscripts were digitised. The first, Serat Jaya Lengkara Wulang (MSS Jav 24), contains ethical teachings of the royal house of Yogyakarta, with many fine examples of illumination. The other manuscript (Sloane 2645) is a work on Islamic law, Mukhtasar Ba Fadl or Muqaddimat al-Hadrami, here going under the title Masa'il al-ta'lim, written in Arabic with interlinear translation and marginal commentary in Javanese in Arabic (Pegon) script. The manuscript, which is dated 1623, is from the founding collections of Sir Hans Sloane, and may be one of the earliest dated examples of a Javanese manuscript in Pegon script, and written on Javanese paper dluwang) made from the bark of the mulberry tree.

Illuminated architectural section heading from a Javanese manuscript, Serat Jaya Lengkara Wulang, Yoygyakarta, 1803. British Library, MSS Jav. 24, f. 22v.

Start of a new chapter (bab) in Masa'il al-ta'lim, in Arabic with interlinear translation in Javanese, 1623. British Library, Sloane 2645, f. 34r (detail).

The final manuscript, also from Indonesia, is in the Bugis language and script (Add. 12354). This is the personal diary of Sultan Ahmad al-Salih Syamsuddin of Bone, in south Sulawesi, covering the years 1775-1795, and written in his own hand. The diary contains a wealth of detail on the social, political, economic and cultural life of Sulawesi in the late 18th century.

Entries for the first few days of August 1781, in the Bugis diary of Sultan Ahmad al-Salih. British Library, Add. 12354, f. 52r (detail).

Annabel Teh Gallop, San San May, Jana Igunma, Sud Chonchirdsin

Southeast Asia section curators

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Early dictionaries of Southeast Asian languages

The expansion of European power in the 16th century made Southeast Asia one of the prime destinations for European adventurers, including not only merchants but also Christian missionaries. Profits from overseas trade in exotic goods from this region, such as spices and forest products, attracted European traders to Southeast Asia, long before this commercial activity spiralled and became an integral component of Western colonialism. The desire to convert local people to Christianity also brought priests into various parts of Southeast Asia from the early 16th century.

Western missionaries, diplomats and traders all needed to be able to communicate with the indigenous populations, and dictionaries were essential tools in facilitating their work. In 1522 Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian who joined Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe, compiled a word-list of Malay with approximately 426 entries. In 1651, the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, a trilingual Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary compiled by Alexandre de Rhodes, was published in Rome for religious purposes. His work contributed tremendously not only to the development of dictionaries in Vietnamese but also to the use of Romanised script for the Vietnamese language (Quốc Ngữ or national language).  Rhodes was a French Jesuit priest and lexicographer who was sent to Vietnam in 1619. His dictionary was later used in the development of a Vietnamese–Latin dictionary compiled by another French missionary, Pigneau de Béhaine, in 1783. The latter work was revised by Jean-Louis Taberd and was published as a Chinese-Vietnamese-Latin dictionary in 1838.

Alexandre de Rhodes, Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum. Rome: Typis Sacr. Congreg, 1651. British Library, 70.b.16.

On March 30, 1795, the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) (National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations) was founded in Paris, with a mission to teach living Oriental languages ‘of recognized utility for politics and commerce’. The British and the Dutch were engaged in similar academic activities, and various centres for research and scholarship in ‘Oriental Studies’ were founded in London, Leiden and overseas. In July 1800, Fort William College was established in Calcutta. Founded by Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General of British India, it emerged as a research and publication centre with a primary aim of training British civilians in languages and cultures of the subjugated country. The College published thousands of books in English, translated from major languages of the Indian subcontinent, including dictionaries of Bengali, Hindustani and Sanskrit.

In Britain, the London Oriental Institution was co-founded by John Borthwick Gilchrist and the East India Company in 1805, primarily as a college to teach Indian languages to civil servants.  Gilchrist had been the first professor of Hindustani at Fort William College in Calcutta. However, as British interests were not only limited to India but also included Southeast Asia , the Council of the Fort William College also recommend that the government of India should compile a similar work in the major languages of mainland and maritime Southeast Asia (then vaguely named collectively as the nations in the Eastern isles, between India and China). Hence, the Comparative Vocabulary of the Barma, Maláyu and Thái Languages by Dr John Leyden was published in 1810.

John Leyden, Comparative Vocabulary of Barma, Maláyu and Thái Languages. Serampore: The Mission Press, 1810.  British Library, 12904.cc.12.

The Comparative Vocabulary has 3166 entries in Burmese, Malay in Jawi script, Thai in Romanised script and English. The entries were not listed in alphabetical order but arranged by topics, such as God, nature, the elements, diseases, trades, commerce, ships, armies and warfare, and government. In the 1830s, Eliza Grew Jones, a Baptist missionary who travelled to Burma and Siam, compiled a handlist of about 8,000 Thai-English words, phrases and terms.  Her original manuscript has now disappeared, but in 1839 the Rev. Samuel P. Robin had made a copy of her work, and this manuscript dictionary is currently held in the Widener Library, Harvard University.

Printing in Thai script in Thailand only began in 1835, when an American Protestant missionary, Dr Dan Beach Bradley (1804- 1873), brought a Thai script printing press from Singapore to the kingdom. This made it possible to publish Thai and multilingual dictionaries, the first appearing in 1854. It was compiled by Auctore D. J. B. Pallegoix, a French missionary to Siam during the mid-1850s. Entries appear in Thai, Latin, French and English and were arranged according to Roman alphabetical order.

D.J.B. Pallegoix, Dictionarium Lingue Thai Sive Siamensis. Paris: Jussu Imperetoris Impressum, 1854. British Library, 825.l.13.

In 1828, A Grammar of the Thai or Siamese Language, written by Captain James Low while he was serving with the East India Company in Penang, was printed in Calcutta. This comprehensive analysis of Thai language can be regarded as one of the earliest textbooks on Thai grammar in a western language. The text also contains Thai script and a long Thai-English vocabulary. Low’s introduction to the book reads: ‘The proximity of the Siamese empire to the British settlements in the Straits of Malacca, and to the lately acquired territory of Tennasserim; the increasing number of Siamese living under British protection in these settlements; and the new political relations which exist betwixt the British and the Siamese courts; have rendered it desirable that facilities should be afforded for the study of the Siamese or Thai language, to those to whom, either from their public or professional situation, a knowledge of it may be advantageous….But it is also manifest, that without the knowledge alluded to, our intercourse with the Siamese must be limited and unsatisfactory, while we cannot expect to gain an accurate acquaintance with their real history and character as a people, or with their ideas, their literature, and their polity. ‘

James Low, A Grammar of the Thai or Siamese Language. Calcutta: The Baptist Mission Press, 1828. British Library, Grammatical Tracts 1827-36, 622.i.28 (3).

As more Westerners travelled to Southeast Asia in the 19th century, dictionaries played a vital part in facilitating dialogue with locals. Some travel journals from this period introduced lists of essential words in local languages. For example, Frederick Arthur Neale, who wrote an account of his visit to Siam in 1840, compiled a list of 100 Thai words and 18 Thai numbers in his Narrative of a Residence at the Capital of the Kingdom of Siam (Neale 1852: 238-241). When Henri Mouhot’s travel diaries of Siam, Laos and Cambodia between 1858-1860 were published in London in 1864, there was a substantial Cambodian vocabulary and list of phrases in the appendix to his book. These linguistic activities by foreign travellers illustrate Western attempts to understand Southeast Asian cultures and languages, even though they were primarily to serve their own political and economic interests.

Further reading:

Mouhot, Alexandre Henri. Travels in the central parts of Indo-China, Cambodia and Laos during the years 1858,1859, and 1860. London, 1864.

Neale, Frederick Arthur. Narrative of a Residence at the Capital of the Kingdom of Siam. London: Office of the National Illustrated Library, 1852.

Sud Chonchirdsin, Curator for Vietnamese

One of the most interesting Vietnamese manuscripts in the British Library, Bắc Sứ Thủy Lục Địa Đô or, in Chinese, Beishi shuilu ditu, ‘The northwards embassy by land and water from Hanoi to Beijing’ (Or. 14907), has just been digitised. Written in the Vietnamese language in Chinese characters (chữ Hán) and dated 1880, the manuscript is a complete visual record of the route from Bắc Thành (the former name of Hanoi under the Nguyễn Dynasty) through China to Beijing, taken by envoys of the Vietnamese Emperor Tự Đức (r.1847-1883) on their tribute-bearing mission in 1880. This work was probably created as an archival record of the journey. Roads, mountains, waterways, bridges, buildings, cities and towns are all clearly depicted, as are the points of departure and arrival on the first and last pages. The title, written in Chinese characters (Beishi shuilu ditu), also includes the date (gengchen) of the journey, according to the Chinese 60-year cyclical system. The annotations on each page list place names and distances in Chinese miles (li or ly in Vietnamese) with occasional useful notes, such as ‘from here merchants used only Qianlong money’. Land routes are marked in red ink and water routes are recorded in blue ink.

The mission passed through Gong Xian County in Henan Province and crossed Luo River. British Library, Or.14907, ff.54v-55r.

Towards the end of the 19th century Vietnam was faced with serious threats from French colonialism. After taking South Vietnam (Cochin China) in the 1860s, the French gradually fulfilled their territorial desire to occupy the rest of the kingdom.  In January 1874, after another defeat, the court of Emperor Tự Đức had to sign a treaty with the French which led to the occupation of North Vietnam. Under this treaty, Vietnam ‘s foreign policy was under the control of French colonial power. However, Vietnam still kept up its tradition of sending tribute missions to China.

The tribute system was employed in Chinese foreign policy for many centuries before its collapse at the end of the 19th century under the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). As the most powerful kingdom in East and Southeast Asia, China saw herself as ‘the Middle Kingdom’ and demanded that smaller and ‘inferior’ kingdoms in the region send her tribute on a regular basis. Small states in the region willingly sent tribute missions to Beijing, while not viewing this tradition as acknowledgement of vassalage to China; on the contrary, it was perceived as a reciprocal system, whereby Beijing was accepted as the patriarch of other, inferior, kingdoms. Once their missions had been received by the court in Beijing, recognition by China gave rulers of smaller kingdoms legitimacy to rule. The tribute system also provided security and political stability for smaller kingdoms against invasions from China so long as they did not implement any policy which would disturb the Middle Kingdom.

Arriving at Ansu Xian County in Hebei Province, north of the Yellow River, their route took them through temples and the White Pagoda. British Library, Or.14907, f.66r.

As a neighbouring country, Vietnam had been one of the most active participants in the Chinese tribute system, which offered political gains allowing for peaceful co-existence with its powerful neighbour. As Brantly Womack points out, China was always Vietnam’s greatest political threat. Thus Chinese recognition of the Vietnamese court as the legitimate rulers of the country was invaluable and was tantamount to an acknowledgement of Vietnam’s right to exist.   In contrast to the colonialism of Western imperialism, China acted as the passive guarantor of a matrix of unequal but autonomous relationships, rather than as an active metropolitan power: to go to Beijing was more reassuring than to have Paris come to you (Womack 2006: 135).

From its very beginnings, not only did independent Vietnam publicly accept its status as a vassal, but it sent its most prominent scholars as emissaries on tribute missions.  William Duiker has characterised the historical relationship between China and Vietnam as follows: ‘To China, the Vietnamese must have resembled a wayward younger brother … Chinese attitudes toward Vietnam combined paternalism and benevolence with a healthy dose of arrogance and cultural condescension stemming from the conviction that it was China that had lifted the Vietnamese from their previous state of barbarism. As for the Vietnamese, their attitude toward China was a unique blend of respect and truculence, combining a pragmatic acceptance of Chinese power and influence with a dogged defence of Vietnamese independence and distinctiveness’ (Duiker 1986: 6).

Guangning Gate (30 ly before the main City gate). British Library, Or.14907, f.69r.

The 1880 tribute mission took place against a backdrop of political difficulties in Vietnam. After the signing of the 1874 treaty, there was unrest in North Vietnam (Tonkin) among Vietnamese who saw the Nguyễn rulers as weak leaders who had readily capitulated to French power. The Black Flag rebellion, led by Lưư Vinh Phục, caused disruption to foreign commercial businesses and French religious missions, disturbing both Beijing and Paris. Hence two Chinese incursions took place in 1878 and 1879, while at the same time, the French kept putting pressure on the court in Huế with the threat of another invasion (Đinh Xuân Lâm 1999: 47). In order to appease the Chinese and to seek help from the Middle Kingdom, the Vietnamese court tried to send missions to Beijing.  Some missions were successful, but others were intercepted by the French. The 1880 tribute mission was therefore one of several attempts. It probably crossed the border in early October and arrived in Beijing in December 1880.

Zhengyang Gate, Beijing, leading to the Forbidden City. British Library, Or.14907, f.69v.

The French perceived the Vietnamese court’s attempt to seek help from China as a violation of the 1874 treaty, which stipulated that Vietnam’s foreign affairs were under French authority. The colonial power thus used this as one of the pretexts to launch another attack against the Vietnamese. In April, 1882, French forces attacked Hanoi and consequently Huế. Emperor Tự Đức passed away on July 17, 1883 just before the court agreed to sign another treaty with the French (August 25, 1883), which brought all three parts of Vietnam under complete control of French colonial government.

The advent of French control over Vietnam seriously affected Chinese interests because trade between southern China and northern Vietnam was disrupted. Therefore, from 1882 China sent troops to northern Vietnam to protect its interests and fighting between French and Chinese forces erupted. However, the weakening Qing dynasty was not able to match the French might. The confrontation ended with Tientsin Agreement in May 1884 (Đinh Xuân Lâm: 1999, 58), in which China agreed to rescind its claims over Vietnam’s sovereignty. This also brought an end to the long-lasting tradition of the tribute system between China and Vietnam.

Further reading:

The manuscript Or. 14907 has been fully digitised and can be viewed here.

Đinh Xuân Lâm, chủ biên. Đai cương lịch sử Việt Nam, tập 2.  [Hà Nội] : Nhà xuất bản giaó dục, 1999.
Duiker, William J. China and Vietnam: Roots of Conflict. Berkley, California: University of California, 1986.
Trần Nghĩa. ‘Sa’ch Hán Nôm tại Thư viện vương quốc Anh’ in Tạp chí Hán Nôm (3[24], 1995). Hà Nội : Viện nghiên cứu Hán Nôm, pp.3-13.
Womack, Brantly. China and Vietnam:  The Politics of Asymmetry. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Sud Chonchirdsin, Curator for Vietnamese

With thanks to Baohe Chen for help in reading the Chinese inscriptions.

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Vietnam War Art

The Vietnam War had a substantial impact on those involved, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. During the 1960s and 1970s, artists from both sides of the conflict, Vietnamese and American, created paintings to capture the human side of the war.

Weaving. Pastel. Artist: Dương Ðình Khoa. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1969, no.139. British Library, SU216(2)

In June the Army Vietnam Combat Artists programme was established as part of the United States Army Art programme. From August 1966 through to 1970, the U.S. Army sent teams of artists into Vietnam to record their experiences as soldier artists.

In Vietnam, art was also utilised as a propaganda tool to enlist mass support for the war. In the North the Hanoi College of Fine Arts, which was founded by the French in 1925 during the period of colonial rule, played a vital role in training artists during the Vietnam War, while in the South, from 1961 unofficial art classes began in the Resistance or “liberated” areas controlled by the National Liberation Front (NLF) or the Việt Cộng in the Mekong Delta.  From June 1962 patriotic artists from the North volunteered to go to the South to train fellow artists in the liberated zones. From 1964, official art classes started at NLF headquarters (Buchanan 2008: 2, [19]).

Grandmother. Lacquer. Artist: Phạm Viết Song. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1970, no.152. British Library, SU216(2)

Mother heads to the Alert Unit. Silk painting. Aritst: Nguyễn Phan Chánh. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1972, no.167. British Library, SU216(2)

Despite hardships and difficulties during the war, the Vietnam War artists from both the North and the South risked their lives to capture many different aspects and events of the War in various media including paintings, drawings, and sketches. Nguyễn Toan Thi, a guerrilla artist in the South, who after the War became the Director of Hô Chí Minh City Fine Arts Museum, recounts his experiences as follows:  “Art classes were held outside in the forest until our schools were bombed: classes were then held underground. Art teachers and students shared the same trenches. We fought and sketched together, to record spontaneous and realistic images of the battlefield and our life in the forest. Our headquarters were not like a mini-Pentagon. The administration, soldiers and artists lived in nylon and canvas tents under the forest trees … We moved camp every two or three days… As a guerrilla artist, I was fully engaged in the fighting. Unlike artists who were civilians…”  (Nguyễn Toan Thi, “Memories of a Guerrilla Artist”, in Buchanan 2008: [29-30])


Fight till the end. Silk painting. Artist: Cố Tấn Long Châu. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1967, no.115. British Library, SU216(2)

In 1966 the Fine Arts Museum opened in Hanoi and occasionally displayed works from the Vietnam War artists.  In addition to these art exhibitions, the Hanoi regime also published art works in their various official publications.

Although the British Library does not hold original examples of this art work, it has a number of official publications in its Vietnamese collections, which published artworks from the Vietnam War during the 1960s and 1970s. All the pictures shown here were reproduced in Báo Ảnh Việt Nam [SU216(2)], a serial which started publication before the War, and still operates today.


A guerrilla fighter returns to cosy shelter on Route 9. Pastel. Artist: Huỳnh Biếc. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1971, no.159. British Library, SU216(2)

After the battle. Watercolour. Artist: Việt Sơn. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1971, no.161. British Library, SU216(2)

Further reading

Báo Ảnh Việt Nam.  Hà Nội: Thông tấn xã Việt Nam, 195[?]-.  British Library, SU216(2). 

Buchanan, Sherry. Mekong Diaries 1964-1975. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Vietnam behind the lines : images from the war, 1965-1975.  Jessica Harrison-Hall with contributions by Sherry Buchanan, Katharine Lockett, and Thu Stern. London : British Museum Press, 2002.

Two websites on American art and propaganda from the Vietnam War:
http://vietnamwar.cloudworth.com/art-and-propaganda.php
http://reactingtovietnam.wikispaces.com./American+art+of+the+Vietnam+Era

Sud Chonchirdsin
Curator for Vietnamese

During the early stage of the Vietnam War in the 1960’s, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) had two urgent tasks.  The first was to produce enough food to supply their armed forces as well as the population as a whole, in order to ease the early days of the transformation of North Vietnam into a communist state.  The second task was to prepare the country for war, especially after the United States of America became involved.  To achieve these two goals, the regime in Hanoi tried various means of communicating with the people in order to maximise their capability to contribute to the successes of the country.  It was stressed that it was not only men who could contribute to this noble task, but all sectors of society, including women, youths and the various ethnic groups.

Under the strict socialist regime, different forms of regulated and controlled media, including newspapers and magazines, were used to help the government to meet this objective. Both content and illustrations in the media always emphasized the successes of the war and of food production, to boost the morale of the public during a difficult period. At the same time, they never failed to ridicule their enemies, whether the American or South Vietnamese administrations.

The British Library holds a small but rich collection of provincial and local newspapers from North Vietnam, published by local branches of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party from 1964 to 1965.  Illustrations from newspapers and journals in this collection demonstrate how the communist regime in the North used printed media in light-handed way to encourage the population to assist the state in achieving these two goals, in the form of cartoons and drawings.  Some of these are shown below; the English translations of the Vietnamese captions are my own.

‘US territory stretches to the 17th parallel of Vietnam,’ President Ngô Ðinh Diệm of the Republic of Vietnam announces at New York on 13 May 1957.  Văn, no. 5, 7 June 1957, front page.  British Library, SEA.1986.c.60. 

Madam Ngô Ðình Nhu presents her female army: ‘Your Excellency, my female soldiers are all virgins. They all have a doctor’s certificate to prove it, and are ready to be handed over to Your Excellency for “practice”’.  Văn Nghệ Quân Ðội, no.12, December 1962, page 27.  British Library, 16684.a.3.


‘You join the army to kill the enemies / You go to the frontier zone / We have to say good-bye now, wait for the victory day / At home (we) women will manage to take care of other business.’  Hải Dương Mới, no.314, 12 May 1965, page 4.  British Library, SU224/18.


‘Applying fertilizer to the soil to get a good yield of winter crops.’ Hà Giang, no.355, 9 September 1965, page 2.  British Library, SU224/17.

 
‘Protected from the rain and kept out of the heat during the day / To allow us to thresh and dry out crops / To fulfil our responsibility to the country / ‘Fighting America’ to save the country – we have contributed.’ Hải Dương Mới, no.318, 26 May 1965, page 4.  British Library, SU224/18.


‘Push up production, prepare for fighting the war’.  Hải Dương Mới, 21 July 1965, front page.  British Library, SU224/18. 


‘President Johnson’s toast for peace.’  Khoa Học Thường Thực, no.177, 15 May 1965, page 8.  British Library, SU220/13. 

Further reading

Sud Chonchirdsin, ‘Cartoons and propaganda from North Vietnam during the early stage of the Vietnam War’, SEALG newsletter, no.44 December 2012, pp.6-21

Sud Chonchirdsin, Curator for Vietnamese