About this blog

‘Microhistories of Asia’ explores the encounters and journeys of people who lived and passed through the Asian region in the early modern period. I’m particularly interested in the questions of modernity and globalisation, which I hope to investigate through the dramas of everyday life – in locations such as Korea, Hong Kong, and India.

As a person who’s been living a rather nomadic life – most of it in East Asia, I want to explore the connections and encounters between different Asian cultures. When learning about the early modern period in Asia, we often rely on Western accounts (be it diaries, letters, colonial documents), which are filtered by certain racialised and orientalist perspectives. These perspectives have also shaped how Asians view each other today. But I’m really curious to read, for example, about the accounts of a Korean fisherman who was shipwrecked and ended up in the Philippines. How would he have experienced the Philippines in 1802?

Although my interests are broad, I am limited by language, so I hope to begin by looking into Korea and colonial India and Hong Kong. This isn’t a space for academic articles, although I will try to be consistent and thorough in my citations of sources. This is a blog that I keep purely out of personal interest, but I hope it can be useful and interesting for you as well.