British Pathé, a media company which produced films from 1910 until 1970 in the United Kingdom, has uploaded [1] more than 80,000 historic news clips to its YouTube channel. Its archives [2] also included numerous films that featured countries in the Southeast Asian region. Many of these films are valuable resource that could teach us a lot about the region’s recent past and even the present. Below are some of the interesting videos we found in the British Pathé collection [3]:
1. Invasion of Laos [4] in 1953.
2. Manila retaken [5] by Allied Forces in 1945. After the war, Manila was the second most devastated city in the world after Warsaw.
3. Water Festival in Burma [6] (Myanmar) in 1946. It seems water splashing today was as rowdy and fun as before.
4. Indonesia's Independence Day [7] celebration in 1945.
5. Bangkok street rally [8] in 1940. Compared to some of the street demonstrations in the present, the rally in this video was peaceful and orderly.
6. A school in Hanoi [9], Vietnam in 1973. See the bomb shelters near the end of the video.
7. New Year [10] in Vietnam in 1949
8. Cambodia [11] in 1969.
9. Singapore election [12] in the 1950s. After 1959, elections in Singapore have been dominated by only one party, the party founded by Lee Kuan Yew.
10. Manila flood [13] in 1960. Flooding is still a major problem in Manila today.
11. Kuala Lumpur [14], Malaysia in the 1950s.