Southeast Asian Portraits

About the Book

Portraits, leading its spectators on a rural journey across Southeast Asia, displays haunting images of faces and costume, captured mainly during the 1960´s, in a world that no longer exists. The journey starts in Thailand, moves through Vietnam and Laos, and ends in Bali.

A revisit to these locales early in the 21st Century would most likely show how modernization improves education, transport, commerce, health, and communications, but tends to blur ethnic distinctions in language, dress, and behavior.

The engagingly written essays accompanying these images situate them geographically, historically, culturally, and within the author´s own memories.

About the Author

The author embarked on a 44-year career, all but ten abroad, as an Army Officer in Korea and Japan. He next spent almost a quarter-century in the Foreign Service, principally in Southeast Asia. His first assignment to Vietnam was as Vice Consul in Saigon. Subsequently, he was Principal Officer of the Hue Consulate; Province Senior Advisor, Binh Long; Associate Director, Region II (Nhatrang) of the Agency for International Development; and Consul General at Can Tho. Finally he spent a decade with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, mainly in Geneva but initially in Somalia; and four years with a Geneva-based international non-governmental organization.