Three exotic views of Southeast Asia

Ng's treatment of these interesting figures adds to our understanding of the forces which were at work in shaping the perception of those who travelled and wrote about Southeast Asia. Three Exotic Views of Southeast Asia also reminds us that we should resist the complexity of recovering the ways in which people in colonial society regarded their world¿Ng has succeeded in making these figures and the worlds they represented a bit more accessible to us. Southeast Asian Studies"[In Ai Wu's case] Ng provides a vivid case of an individual's experience under a discriminatory regime, viewed as natural by westerners and humiliating by the Burmese. Citing other commentators, such as Collis, Somerset Maugham, and Orwell, she gives a gripping, in-depth analysis of colonial society. "Under colonial rule in Burma you live like a 'sahib or a dog'". Ng aptly titles one of her chapters and there seems to be no way in between. Itinerio