Miscellany of the South Seas

A riveting tale of danger, adventure, and connection

A riveting tale of danger, adventure, and connection

In 1835 young Chinese scholar Cai Tinglan was caught in a typhoon while sailing across the Taiwan Strait. He and his shipmates spent a harrowing week at sea before drifting to the coast of central Vietnam. With an escort of Vietnamese soldiers, Cai traveled north along the famous "Mandarin Road," meeting governors-general of each province he passed through along his overland journey to Fujian Province in China. Cai documented his experiences in Miscellany of the South Seas (Hainan zazhu), a vivid account of clothing, food, religious practices, government affairs, and other aspects of daily life in early Nguyễn dynasty Vietnam.

Cai's encounters with diasporic Chinese show the Hokkien merchant community's penetration into Vietnamese society, while his warm embrace by Nguyễn officials illustrates a shared elite world of classical culture across international borders. In this first English translation, Kathlene Baldanza and Zhao Lu provide a comprehensive introduction that puts Cai's account in social, political, and economic context, along with extensive annotation and a glossary.

Cai Tinglan蔡廷蘭(1801–1859) was a scholar from the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait.Baldanza Kathlene :

Kathlene Baldanza is associate professor of history and Asian studies at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016).Lu Zhao :

Lu Zhao is assistant professor of global China studies at NYU Shanghai. He is the author of In Pursuit of the Great Peace: Han Dynasty Classicism and the Making of Early Medieval Literati Culture (SUNY Press, 2019) and coauthor of Stalk Images: A Newly Discovered Alternative to the Book of Changes (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Cai Tinglan蔡廷蘭(1801–1859) was a scholar from the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait. Kathlene Baldanza is associate professor of history and Asian studies at Pennsylvania State University and author of Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia. Zhao Lu is assistant professor of global China studies at NYU Shanghai and author of In Pursuit of the Great Peace: Han Dynasty Classicism and the Making of Early Medieval Literati Culture.

"Baldanza and Zhao’s introduction, a precious addition to the original document, offers detailed information on the historical and cultural context, which helps readers understand Cai’s significance in Taiwan’s history and his interactions with local Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants. Altogether, this book is an invaluable source for researching and teaching the environmental history of Southeast Asia, the shared Confucian commonwealth spanning Vietnam and Qing China, and transnational migrants and trading communities, as well as precolonial Vietnamese society."

"This excellent translation by Kathlene Baldanza and Zhao Lu is simultaneously a pedagogical tool and a work of scholarship that contributes to our understanding of the historical connections between East Asia and Southeast Asia, specifically China and Vietnam…[H]ighly recommended to specialists and non-specialists alike."

"Shipwrecked in Vietnam, the Chinese scholar Cai Tinglan has left us a marvelous account of his travels through Vietnam in the 1830s. Beautifully translated and expertly introduced, this unique Asian travelogue provides insights into Vietnam at a crucial time in its history and takes the reader into a world of fascinating coastal connections as our intrepid traveler made his way back to his native home in the Pescadores Islands."—Christopher Goscha, author of The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam

"A major contribution to the fields of overseas Chinese history, travel studies, Southeast Asia studies, and Sinosphere studies."—Bradley Camp Davis, author of Imperial Bandits: Outlaws and Rebels in the China-Vietnam Borderlands

"A superb translation and a virtual treasure house of information on Vietnam as seen through the eyes of a Chinese writer."—James M. Hargett, author of Jade Mountains and Cinnabar Pools: The History of Travel Literature in China