Review book Bujang Valley

The book subtitled heritage ,archaeology and national identity drives the thesis of Bowens Liaos research.this is.his MA thesis in the department of Malay Studies in the NUS and.his dissertation was published as an academic book by SIRD,a publisher for social studies.I took a minor in history taught.by eminent historian Prof Khoo Kay Kim,Krishnan Jit and cultural anthropology under Dr Tan Chee Beng.I really enjoyed the theoretical discourse and the field trip i did to investigate folk religious practices of Ma Tzu in Pulau Ketam,a fishing.village.i remembered the ancient artifact of a buddha statue a fisherman found in his fishing net and placed on his altar table.it looked ike a historical buddha i saw in sukhotai thailand. But the irony was my host was a varsity mate from a fervent evangelical church that was making inroads into the youth circle on the island.so how long will folk practices of the fishing community survive.the process of the field survey helped me a lot when i was teaching college students to make videos of documentary and they came up with mind boggling research on AIDs to the HockChiew culture in Sarawak. Back to the book i found it appalling that a 1,000 uear old candi was demolished by a Chinese housing developer who had no idea of the historical value of candi 11.its heartbreaking like the villagers who demolish the Great Wall of China to get stones to build houses. This is the evidence of the oldest settlement in South East Asia but there is lack of monitoring by the museum department.USM anthropologist says the recent findings are very important not just for Malaysia but also the southeast asian region since they show evidence of monumental structures and a civilization that.included systematic exploitation of iron ore from local mountains in smelting tools and ritual structures. Based on the discovery history should be rewritten.The assumption is for tbe last 2,000 years Indonesia had the Srivijaya and Majapahit civilizations along with the ancient ivilizations in Vietnama n thailand but now the history is changing.So strict laws should ensure better preservation of ancient sites from overdevelopment of road infrastructure or housing estates.time for tbe tourism ministry to promote bujang valley.