ABSTRACT
During this period, Raquez became a roving reporter for the paper of record in Hanoi, L'Avenir du Tonkin, bringing him on expeditions across Southeast Asia, from the French sphere of influence in the southwest of China throughout Indochina and as far afield as Singapore and Bangkok. Includes excerpts from Raquez’s work for periodicals. A trip through Guangxi and Guangzhou during a terrible famine uncovers French machinations to establish a sphere of influence by courting local strongmen; King Norodom’s final water festival, or Bon Om Touk, an example of French khmerité; Singapore, where he met Ahmet Ataullah Bey the night of his death; in Bangkok for King Chulalongkorn’s Jubilee celebrations; tensions as Siam undergoes modernization by royal decree; description of Sel Hybat, the cabaret Raquez hosted in Hanoi, along with contextualization of vice in colonial Hanoi; travels to Hue to celebrate Tet with the emperor of Annam, who may be insane or is pretending to be insane or is only projected as insane by French media; King Norodom dies and is replaced by his half-brother Sisowath, the French favourite; Raquez is caught in a typhoon while travelling on the coast of Annam and shelters in a temple with local villagers whom he comforts with draughts of the brandy and absinthe he carries in his luggage.
