6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Review for History 422: Vietnam War Studies, January 24, 2006
Nicola Cooper. France in Indochina: Colonial Encounters. Oxford: Berg 2001.
In France in Indochina, Nicola Cooper is concerned with revealing aspects of France's colonial discourse with Indochina, but from a fresh perspective. Cooper looks at French popular culture: movies, books, music in an attempt to gain a better understanding of Indochina in French colonial discourse. The narrative is principally concerned with the period between 1867 and 1954. Cooper discusses such subjects as the conquest and transformation of Indochina, the role of women in the colonies and a review of how Dien Bien Phu has been depicted in France.
Cooper argues that French popular culture of the period viewed Vietnam as a feminine virgin land. Indochina was seen as a place where Frenchmen could go and make a name for themselves by constructing buildings or railroads; in effect taming Indochina with oftentimes phallus-like monuments to themselves and the greatness of France.
She shows how Indochina was given a highly centralized school system where vocational training was stressed. It was frowned upon for Indochinese to come to France for an education because it was seen as dangerous. French language training was also promoted to the detriment of native tongues. Cooper asserts that this was purposeful and was designed to see the gradual adoption of French as the language of common communication in Indochina. Textbooks in France depicted the colonial administration of Indochina as virtuous and honorable. The textbooks promoted the notion of Mise en Valuer: a term which connotes not only economic development, but also the moral and cultural improvement to be wrought in the colonies (29).
In the attempt to create a new Indochina in their image, the French imported styles found in other parts of Asia and fused them with western architecture. The new French Indochina was to be visible everywhere: bridges, railroads, buildings. Entire cities like Saigon were torn down and rebuilt in the new French style. Cooper argues that this was a conscience effort on the part of the French to reinforce their status in Indochina. It was also used by the French as justification for their status: France brought civilization and modernity.
Cooper's chapter on France's 1931 colonial exposition is the most interesting section of the book in my opinion. The colonial exposition was a festival the nation put on, a grand spectacle to show off France's greatness, wealth, and benevolent administration of its overseas possessions. The other empires of Europe where invited to attend but the French dominated exposition by building models of Laotian temples and examples of the new French style being built in Indochina. Anyone who attended could sample Asian cuisine and learn more about the empires of Europe. By far the most impressive display at the exposition was the near-scale rendering of the ancient city of Angkor Wat. Despite the fact that Spanish and Portuguese explorers had visited the site since the 1700's, the colonial exposition saw the rise of a new Francophone version of its discovery in which French explorer Henri Mouhot is the hero. Cooper asserts that Angkor Wat is hugely important as a metaphor to explain French colonial discourse with Indochina. In the French constructed myth behind Angkor Wat's rediscovery it took a Frenchman, when the natives had left the site to the ravages of the jungle and time. The French perceived themselves as not so much introducing civilization to Indochina, but reintroducing it.
Copper's shows us that while the colonial exposition of 1931 was meant to show everything that was good and just about French colonialism in Indochina, the exposition was ill timed- for the year before saw the Yen Bay riots in Vietnam, the largest expression of indigenous unrest to French colonial authority. She traces how the riots saw an increase in interest by the journalists of the "mother country" towards Indochina, and French writers descended in droves upon Indochina. Their mission was to find out just what was the best representation of Indochina: the one put forth by the colonial exposition, or the Yen Bay riots and student protests of elite Vietnamese in Paris to the French actions in putting down the rebellion. The journalists found that French administration in Indochina was far from the enlightened view espoused at Home. They decried what they saw as devolution of the quality of French colonial administration. Cooper goes on to detail that the blame for this devolution came from an unlikely source: the growing number of Western woman in the colony. French writers blamed woman whose social status was elevated in Indochina from what it should have been because of the paucity of Western woman as the root cause of the devolution. It was argued that these women brought their provincial attitudes with them to Indochina, to the detriment of the colony and France.
One of Cooper's more interesting assertions is her belief that despite contrary evidence, some it documented in the book, the French look back upon their empire with nostalgia and see their role in the history of Indochina as largely positive. She cites Raymond Aron, the preeminent French intellectual of the 20th century, who argued against reclaiming the empire at the end of the Second World War because he thought the costs would be too much for France to bear, not out of any empathy for the right of people to govern themselves. Cooper asserts that this is an opinion all too many in France still share with Aron, and she laments that most French have failed to come to terms adequately with the darker consequences of their country's colonial discourse with Indochina. Mise en Valeur is still alive and well.
Quibbles that one might have with the book are that Cooper cited numerous French language sources throughout the narrative, but provides no translations in her footnotes or endnotes thus making the book less accessible to a larger audience. This is unfortunate since the author raises many interesting questions. The indigenous peoples of Indochina are almost completely removed from the story in this study, seen only through the lens of French culture, art, and letters.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Where are the English subtitles?, November 29, 2002
Like the previous reviewer, I had to read this book for a class. The book gives the view of Indochina from the French perspective. Relying on novels, newspapers, movies and other items of popular culture, the author shows how French culture created an image of Indochina and dealt with their first colonial defeat. Chapters include discussions of the French Exhibition of 1931 and the role of gender in the cultural image of Indochina and a number of fairly sophisticated historiographical arguments. The author does a good job of summarizing each of her points which is extremely beneficial since this is not a book for the casual reader.
I felt that in some areas the author was stretching her points but perhaps that makes the book more provacative. My one major criticism is the constant injection of long paragraphs in French with no English translations. The previous reviewer found that aspect of the book beneficial. Perhaps he or she is bilingual and able to read the French. Most English readers are not. I felt that I lost a great deal because I was unable to read the quotations. Would it have been so hard to footnote those quotes in English since the book was published for an English speaking audience?
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good although incomplete review., March 1, 2004
The author proposes to review the colonial effort in Indochina between 1867 and1954. She discusses the conquest, building, transforming and marketing of these colonies. She then discusses the work of the colonizers and the role of native and French women in the colonies. The work ends with the battle of Dien Bien Phu, the exodus of the boat people, and the revisiting of Indochina.
She did not go into details about the exploitation of the country resources or of the natives, except to mention about French brutal colonial past. One error is to think that the Vietnamese presently living in France were submissive and apolitical. My feeling is that they were not as interested in French as in Vietnamese politics, therefore were not vocal about French state affairs (see Bousquet: Behind the Bamboo hedge).
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