At the end of June, the evolution of the health situation in France allowed the resumption of many activities, giving us hope for a return to normal. At the EFEO, this has led to the partial reopening of the library at the Maison de l'Asie (by appointment only) from July and to the gradual return of staff to the site.

Unfortunately, the borders of most Asian countries remain closed, and a partial reconfinement has been necessary in certain countries where the EFEO is located. For this reason we will not be able to hold our biennial General Meeting this autumn in Chiang Mai. Nevertheless, the EFEO has decided to maintain its research grant program for master's and doctoral students, in the hope that the recipients will be able to visit their fields in the coming months.

In this letter you will find new "Focus" of the activities of our centers in Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, and Taipei. We are also pleased to present our last three publications: the Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, the Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie devoted to Buddhist statuary in Korea, and a monograph on political reform in Burma during the colonial era.

Wishing you all a beautiful summer.

Christophe Marquet
Director of the EFEO

As part of the Kyoto lectures, Luciana Cardi (University of Osaka) presents: "Animal Shape-Shifters from Japanese Folktales to North-American Fiction".

At 6 p.m. (Japan time). The conference will be broadcasted online via Zoom. The password for logging in will be posted on the Kyoto Center's blog and ISEAS websites the day before.

The opening in 2012 of an EFEO center in Ho Chi Minh City, housed in the city center in a former French villa made available by the Consulate General of France, has made it possible to relaunch scientific cooperation with research institutions in southern Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City University of Social and Human Sciences, the Institute of Social Sciences of the South, Center No. 2 of the National Archives, etc.), in partnership with French research institutions (EPHE, IRD, various universities).

Mainly oriented towards studies on the rural world in general and the social and political management of water in particular, the research is articulated within the global programme entitled Le Vietnam, une société de l’eau : étude des rapports État-paysannerie décryptés au travers du prisme de l’hydraulique (XIIe-XXIe siècles) [Vietnam, a water society: study of State-peasant relations deciphered through the prism of hydraulics (12th-20th centuries)]. Initially, they focused on the long process of hydraulic development of the Red River delta under the leadership of successive dynasties between the 12th and 19th centuries. Based on the study of flood and drought episodes recorded in the imperial annals, they show an interventionist imperial state, notably through the implementation of major dyking works, but which proved incapable of containing the particularly violent floods of the river and its tributaries over the long term.

Legend: Interview with farmers in Hoa Duc commune (Local Governance - Phuoc Hoa Water Resources Management Project).

In the South of the country, the Gouvernance locale de l’eau – gestion contemporaine de la ressource dans le bassin de Dông Nai – Sai Gon [Local Water Governance - Contemporary Resource Management Project in the Dông Nai - Sai Gon Basin] project proposes a multiscalar study of the modalities of agricultural water management in two recently created irrigated perimeters. Concretely, the observations and analyses focus on the relations maintained (or not maintained) by the institutional (public and private) and individual actors involved in water management, the perception of the modalities of governance and distribution of the resource according to each group of actors, and the participation of farmers in collective user organisations. In addition to this main programme, the School's Centre is involved in two international projects: WANASEA (Strengthen the Production, Management and Outreach Capacities of Research in the Field of Water and Natural Resources in South-East Asia), where it coordinates and runs an annual training workshop on field surveys in the social sciences, and GEMMES (Economic impacts of climate change in Vietnam, adaptation strategies and sustainability).

Legend: Trainees and trainers of the workshop Field Research - Qualitative Methodologies in Social Science at the Barku Municipality Headquarters (center, Ms. Roeurn Sopheap, Mayor of Barku) - Second edition of the Asian Water Platform - WANASEA project: Cambodia, 7-13 July 2019.

In terms of publishing, the Centre's activities are of two kinds. On the one hand, original publications, such as the unpublished illuminated manuscript l'Histoire de Luc Vân Tiên (trilingual, 2016) or the equally unpublished graphic collection (225 plates) by Henri Oger kept at the University of Keiô in Tôkyô (in preparation). On the other hand, the publication in Vietnamese of reference works, notably those by Maurice Durand as part of a collection dedicated to him (Tranh Dân Gian Viêt Nam [Popular Vietnamese Imagery - 2017]; Diên thân và nghi thuc hâu dông Viêt Nam [Technique and Pantheon of Vietnamese Mediums - 2019]; in preparation Thê Gioi Truyên Nom [L'univers des truyên Nôm].

Legend: Cover of the Vietnamese edition of Maurice Durand's Technique and Pantheon of Vietnamese Mediums (1956) [Diên thân và nghi thuc hâu dông Viêt Nam, 2019].

Finally, since the end of 2018, the Centre has been organizing a monthly conference-debate cycle on its premises, with national and international researchers for an audience of about forty guests (maximum capacity) composed of researchers, teachers, students and intellectuals from Vietnam and abroad. Some of these conferences are filmed (subtitled videos accessible on the School's YouTube channel).

Legend: Entrance to the exhibition Popular Vietnamese Imagery - Maurice Durand, Hanoi, Thang Long Heritage Preservation Centre - Hanoi, 29 August 2018 (extended to an undetermined date).

Legend: Installation of the bronze statue of Reclining Vishnu (Ga5327) from the Western Mebon in the southeast wing of the museum.

These movements mainly concern the rooms devoted to the statuary of the Angkorian period, from the 9th to the beginning of the 13th century. In particular, the spaces dedicated to the statuary of Koh Ker were reorganized with the installation of the imposing sculpted groups of Prasat Chen (the battles of Valin and Sugriva and Bhima against Duryodhana), several of whose statues have been returned to Cambodia in recent years.

A few steps away from the museum, in the Chanchhaya Pavilion, the Royal Palace pavilion devoted to dance, Khom Sreymom is carrying out polychromy studies on architectural decorations and friezes of dancers in relief (cement elements dating from its reconstruction in 1913) located on the ground floor.

At the same time, as part of the Museum's Centenary celebrations, the Workshop is continuing to produce some forty notices in three languages and to collect documents, particularly from the MNC's photographic collection, which will punctuate the tour of the collections, thus providing a better understanding of the museum and the personalities who have enriched it over the century.

The aim may be to shed light on an aspect of the museum or its various collections: sculptures, inscriptions, photographs or curiosities, while paying attention to provenance, the hazards of conservation or materials.

Many people make valuable contributions to the preparation, proofreading and translation of these records.

Here is an example of a notice that provides information on a couple of statues that are very popular in Cambodia and tells you about their history:

Legend: Prasat Neang Khmau, viewed from the West with the ancient Vihear set back from the probably site of a third tower in the South, which has now disappeared. ©NMC – c.1950.

Legend has it that a beautiful princess Neang Khmau from Phnom Chisor, was once banished by her father after falling in love with a young man who attracted her by playing sweet music with a leaf. Condemned on the orders of her father to live as a recluse in a temple located on the plain, she eventually forgot her first love and fell in love with a monk who abandoned his vows on her account and married her. This is how the temple got its name.

Legend: Photographs of the surveys of the paintings in the South Tower by Henri Mauger / 1936 © EFEO_CAM12632.

Legend: Christophe Marquet and WANG Ming-ke (Director of the IHP from March 2015 to February 2020) on 4 November 2019 at the IHP, Academia Sinica.

The EFEO Center in Taipei was inaugurated in 1992 at the Academia Sinica in cooperation with the Institute of Modern History. It then became associated with the Institute of History and Philology (IHP) where its premises have been located since 1996. This collaboration includes an inter-library exchange agreement that facilitates the circulation of archival documents and publications between the two institutions. Researchers assigned to the Centre have mainly devoted their studies to the history of China and Taiwan, as well as to the sociology and anthropology of Chinese religions in collaboration with their Taiwanese colleagues. Philological work, such as the inventory of the Tibetan collection of the Fu Ssu-nien Library or the cataloguing of a collection of Burmese manuscripts, was also carried out. More recently, the political history of the Chinese frontiers, the history of Sino-Tibetan relations, the history of urban administration, the study of Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan, maritime history, the history of Taiwanese archaeology and the prehistory of Taiwan have been the subject of major programmes. The fruit of this research has been the subject of numerous publications, including, among others, Urban Life in China, 15th-20th Centuries: Communities, Institutions, Representations, edited by Luca Gabbiani in 2016, and The Hybridity of Buddhism: Contemporary Encounters between Tibetan and Chinese Traditions in Taiwan and the Mainland, published by the EFEO Press in 2018 under the direction of Fabienne Jagou.

Legend: Participants in the EFEO-IHP-CRCAO Taiwan Maritime Landscapes from Neolithic to Early Modern Times colloquium held in Paris in November 2015.

The second, Taiwan Maritime Landscapes from Neolithic to Early Modern Times, prepared by Paola Calanca, Frank Muyard, and Liu Yi-chang, one of the deans of Taiwanese archaeology, and supported by the PHC Orchid program, resulted in an international colloquium being held in Paris in November 2015. This project generated a second collaboration, this time with the Institute of Archaeology of the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), on the interactions between prehistoric cultures around the South China Sea in the Metal Age, culminating in the Maritime Exchange and Localization across the South China Sea, 500 BC-500 AD symposium held in Tainan in November 2018. The publication of books resulting from these two symposia is currently in preparation.

Legend: Participants in the EFEO-NCKU Maritime Exchange and Localization across the South China Sea colloquium, 500 BC-500 AD. held in Tainan in November 2018.

In addition to the activities and research carried out with researchers from Academia Sinica, the Taipei Centre collaborates with other Taiwanese institutions in organizing conferences and workshops, including the departments of history and anthropology of the National Taiwan University, Tsing Hua National University, and Tamkang University.

Legend: WU Mi-cha (Director NPM), Christophe Marquet, and Frank Muyard (head of the EFEO Center in Taipei) during a meeting at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan in November 2019.

The Center has also developed several exchange and cooperation agreements. Thus in 2007 the EFEO and the National Palace Museum (MNP) in Taipei began a collaboration to encourage exchanges and research on the history of arts and culture in Asia between the two institutions. The agreement was initially aimed, through the organization of workshops, lectures, and exhibitions in Taiwan and in the EFEO centers in Southeast Asia, at enriching the experience of the museum's scientific staff in the field of non-Chinese Asian arts in view of the opening of the Southern Branch of the museum in Chiayi, which will be inaugurated in 2015. It now provides for an annual reciprocal exchange of researchers to conduct research in the archives and collections of the Musée du Palais, or in one of the EFEO's regional centers. Over the past two years Michela Bussotti and Luca Gabbiani have thus come to Taiwan where, in parallel with their research project, they have given lectures on technical transfers and cultural exchanges in the field of printing between China and Europe, and on the urban history of Peking.

Legend: Signature of the agreement between the EFEO and the Faculty of Arts of Cheng Kung National University, by Christophe Marquet and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts NCKU CHEN Yuh-Neu.

Finally, among the cooperative activities of the Taipei Center, emphasis is placed on the training and supervision of students and young researchers. Since 2014, study days have been organized alternately with the Centre for Cultural and Intellectual History of the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica, and its director Chen Hsi-yuan, and with the Taipei branch of the Centre d'études français sur la Chine contemporaine (CEFC), also located on the campus of Academia Sinica. These days, held in French, English, or Chinese, provide an opportunity for meetings and exchanges between doctoral and post-doctoral students at the Academia Sinica and those from French institutions linked to the EFEO or the CEFC. Its latest iteration took place on June 22, 2020, with the CEFC on a variety of themes ranging from the ethical practices of Taiwanese indigenous documentary filmmakers and the revolutionary dimension of Chinese popular literature of the 1910s to an anthropological analysis of the role of temples in Taiwanese politics.

The photographic holdings of the EFEO remain accessible on the photo library website.

The first 300 photographs from the Guy and Jacqueline Nafilyan collection have been put online and some have been published on the EFEO's Instagram. This collection contains several thousand photographs taken in Cambodia between 1965 and 1972. They will be put online regularly as they become available.

Guy Nafilyan (1922-2011) was an architect. He worked at the Conservation of Angkor (Siem Reap) between 1961 and 1965 before teaching architecture and archaeology at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh from 1966 to 1972. Guy Nafilyan devoted an important graphic study to the temple of Angkor Wat in the collection of Archaeological Memoirs (No. 4) of the École française d'Extrême-Orient (1969). Jacqueline Nafilyan, his wife, also had a passion for Khmer art and together they built up this important photographic collection.

Legend: Aerial view of the Bayon temple (Cambodia) from the Guy and Jacqueline Nafilyan collection, taken between 1961 and 1965 (EFEO_NAFI002).

In collaboration with the sociologist Florence Padovani of CFC-Beijing (Beijing branch of the Centre d'études français de la Chine contemporaine, CEFC), Guillaume Dutournier co-edits a special issue of the journal Chinese Perspectives on the making of intangible cultural heritage in China. The issue is scheduled for publication in spring 2021, under the title "Authenticating China. Governance and Valuation Through Intangible Cultural Heritage". The call for papers is already available on the Beijing Centre's blog and will soon be available on the CEFC website. Articles can be submitted until 30 September 2020.

Legend: Paper-cut in a yaodong house, Xiaocheng village, Yanchuan district, Shaanxi province (Bodolec 2009).

On July 20 the lecture by François Lachaud (EFEO) "Les Chemins hantés du nord: Bouddhisme et société locale dans le Japon moderne (1700-2000)" [The haunted paths of the North: Buddhism and local society in modern Japan (1700-2000)], which was held as part of the ASIES (EFEO-EPHE-EHESS) Master's program on Monday, June 8, will be put online. Details will be posted on the website.

The project Pratiques de l'écrit d'après les manuscrits de Dunhuang : Contenu, fonction, matérialité, directed by Costantino Moretti and Jean-Pierre Drège, will start in July 2020 thanks to Scripta-PSL funding. This project aims to develop a digitized information base allowing the cross study of the available data on the "trademarks" of the written medium (paper), on the variations relating to the structuring of its sub-units (in other words, the layout), in relation to the texts they contain, which will make it possible to identify trends in the choices of production, organization, and use of the manuscript book. This tool will make it possible to carry out new targeted research on different aspects of the history of the medieval manuscript book.

The third and final registration phase for the "Asian Studies" Master's degree will take place from 25 August to 21 September 2020.