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A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam
Originally published in 1951, it is said that A Dragon Apparent inspired Graham Greene to go to Vietnam and write The Quiet American. Norman Lewis traveled in Indo-China during the precarious last years of the French colonial regime. Much of the charm and grandeur of the ancient native civilizations survived until the devastation of the Vietnam War. Lewis could still meet a King of Cambodia and an Emperor of Vietnam; in the hills he could stay in the spectacular longhouses of the highlanders; on the plains he could be enchanted by a people whom he found "gentle, tolerant and dedicated to the pleasures and satisfactions of a discriminating kind."
334 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
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About the author
Norman Lewis
183 books150 followersNorman Lewis was a British writer renowned for his richly detailed travel writing, though his literary output also included twelve novels and several volumes of autobiography. Born in Enfield, Middlesex in 1908 to a Welsh family, Lewis was raised in a household steeped in spiritualism, a belief system embraced by his grieving parents following the deaths of his elder brothers. Despite these early influences, Lewis grew into a skeptic with a deeply observant eye, fascinated by cultures on the margins of the modern world.
His early adulthood was marked by various professions—including wedding photographer, umbrella wholesaler, and even motorcycle racer—before he served in the British Army during World War II. His wartime experiences in Algiers, Tunisia, and especially Naples provided the basis for one of his most celebrated books, Naples '44, widely praised as one of the finest firsthand accounts of the war. His writing blended keen observation with empathy and dry wit, traits that defined all of his travel works.
Lewis had a deep affinity for threatened cultures and traditional ways of life. His travels took him across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Mediterranean. Among his most important books are A Dragon Apparent, an evocative portrait of French Indochina before the Vietnam War; Golden Earth, on postwar Burma; An Empire of the East, set in Indonesia; and A Goddess in the Stones, about the tribal communities of India. In Sicily, he explored the culture and reach of the Mafia in The Honoured Society and In Sicily, offering insight without sensationalism.
In 1969, his article “Genocide in Brazil,” detailing atrocities committed against Indigenous tribes, led directly to the formation of Survival International, an organization committed to protecting tribal peoples worldwide. Lewis often cited this as the most meaningful achievement of his career, expressing lifelong concern for the destructive influence of missionary activity and modernization on indigenous societies.
Though Lewis also wrote fiction, his literary reputation rests primarily on his travel writing, which was widely admired for its moral clarity, understated style, and commitment to giving voice to overlooked communities. He remained an unshakable realist throughout his life, famously stating, “I do not believe in belief,” though he found deep joy in simply being alive.
Lewis died in 2003 in Essex, survived by his third wife Lesley and their son Gawaine, as well as five other children from previous marriages.
His early adulthood was marked by various professions—including wedding photographer, umbrella wholesaler, and even motorcycle racer—before he served in the British Army during World War II. His wartime experiences in Algiers, Tunisia, and especially Naples provided the basis for one of his most celebrated books, Naples '44, widely praised as one of the finest firsthand accounts of the war. His writing blended keen observation with empathy and dry wit, traits that defined all of his travel works.
Lewis had a deep affinity for threatened cultures and traditional ways of life. His travels took him across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Mediterranean. Among his most important books are A Dragon Apparent, an evocative portrait of French Indochina before the Vietnam War; Golden Earth, on postwar Burma; An Empire of the East, set in Indonesia; and A Goddess in the Stones, about the tribal communities of India. In Sicily, he explored the culture and reach of the Mafia in The Honoured Society and In Sicily, offering insight without sensationalism.
In 1969, his article “Genocide in Brazil,” detailing atrocities committed against Indigenous tribes, led directly to the formation of Survival International, an organization committed to protecting tribal peoples worldwide. Lewis often cited this as the most meaningful achievement of his career, expressing lifelong concern for the destructive influence of missionary activity and modernization on indigenous societies.
Though Lewis also wrote fiction, his literary reputation rests primarily on his travel writing, which was widely admired for its moral clarity, understated style, and commitment to giving voice to overlooked communities. He remained an unshakable realist throughout his life, famously stating, “I do not believe in belief,” though he found deep joy in simply being alive.
Lewis died in 2003 in Essex, survived by his third wife Lesley and their son Gawaine, as well as five other children from previous marriages.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
February 21, 2022
Sadly, I really struggled with this book. I have read around 10 books by Norman Lewis and generally enjoyed them (non-fiction more than fiction, to be fair), and I own another 4 titles.
This one however was perplexing. The subject is interesting to me, in general - Indochina, which Lewis visits in 1950, carrying out a reasonably thorough journey through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. He splits his time with the French colonists and the minority tribes, and mixes history with his present day experiences.
But to explain what the issues with the book are, is more complicated than the overview... I found I never go t into the flow of the writing. While I didn't find it hard to read, but it was never hard to put down. I struggled to pick it back up, and readily jumped onto other books rather than back onto this. I had to force myself to read it chapter by chapter, and as a consequence started skimming. One this starts, it is pretty much all over, as you lose thread of the narrative, and miss out on the details.
I have no other revelations about this book. I strongly recommend you read it and form your own opinion and don't use my review as a reason to avoid it. This is, however, one of the earlier books written by Lewis, and perhaps it is not his finest work - finding his style and his way in travel journalism perhaps.
This is perhaps a book I will return to in the future to try again.
I could not go beyond 2.5 stars, which I can only round down.
This one however was perplexing. The subject is interesting to me, in general - Indochina, which Lewis visits in 1950, carrying out a reasonably thorough journey through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. He splits his time with the French colonists and the minority tribes, and mixes history with his present day experiences.
But to explain what the issues with the book are, is more complicated than the overview... I found I never go t into the flow of the writing. While I didn't find it hard to read, but it was never hard to put down. I struggled to pick it back up, and readily jumped onto other books rather than back onto this. I had to force myself to read it chapter by chapter, and as a consequence started skimming. One this starts, it is pretty much all over, as you lose thread of the narrative, and miss out on the details.
I have no other revelations about this book. I strongly recommend you read it and form your own opinion and don't use my review as a reason to avoid it. This is, however, one of the earlier books written by Lewis, and perhaps it is not his finest work - finding his style and his way in travel journalism perhaps.
This is perhaps a book I will return to in the future to try again.
I could not go beyond 2.5 stars, which I can only round down.
January 1, 2016
It's easy to see why Graham Greene was lured to Vietnam by Lewis's account. The sense of a country -- indeed, an entire region -- on the verge of revolution, beleaguered colonial officials gamely assisting the author in procuring transport from one crumbling outpost to the next, the documentary feel of his descriptions of tribal peoples, struggling to maintain their traditional way of life as their communities are decimated, not by the guerrilla war, but by the exploitation of French plantation owners, who have obtained the right to work the young villagers to death: Greene recognized a good story when he saw one.
Much cause for moral outrage here, but Lewis does not neglect the landscape:
A delightful way to start the new year, embarking with Lewis on an exploration of colonial Vietnam.
Much cause for moral outrage here, but Lewis does not neglect the landscape:
At this season, in early February, there were no flowering orchids, but sometimes in the valley-bottoms, half-extinguished among the bamboos, we caught a glimpse of the fiery smoke of flamboyant trees. A flower, too, grew abundantly by the roadside which looked like willow herb, but was lavender in colour. These were visited by butterflies of rather sombre magnificence—typical, I suppose, of dim forest interiors. Usually they were black with splashes of green or blue iridescence. They did not settle, but hovered poised like fruit-sucking birds, probing with probosces at the blooms. They fluttered in their thousands above the many streams and once, passing through a savannah, we came across what proved on investigation to be the mountainous excretion of an elephant. At first nothing could be seen of it but the flirting of the dark, splendid wings of the butterflies that had settled upon it.And he introduces us to some colorful characters, such as the French official, Dupont:
“He was a corsair out of his day, an adventurer who was swaggeringly going native and whose ardors Laos would tame and temper. Dupont had married a Laotian wife in Luang Prabang and said that he would never return to France. His children would probably be brought up as Buddhists, and by that time, no doubt, Dupont himself would be paying some sort of lax observance to the rites… Dupont was in a great hurry to get back to Luang Prabang because his wife was pregnant and he was afraid that she would hurt herself on her bicycle, although he had dismantled it and had hidden some essential parts.”What I liked best about A Dragon Apparent, probably because it suits my own way of storytelling, is Lewis's meandering style. He wanders about, hitching rides with traders, military convoys, staying with anybody who will have him, and his impressions feel fresh, spontaneous. We catch him worrying whether he has come down with some tropical affliction, are invited to share his amusement over the nostalgia of former Free French operatives who cherished their memories of time spent in drab English provincial towns, "seen now across the years of fierce, sunny exile as congeries of quaint pubs, full of tenderly acquiescent maidens and wrapped in a Turner sunset."
A delightful way to start the new year, embarking with Lewis on an exploration of colonial Vietnam.
July 6, 2022
Evocative, elegant, quite funny prose detailing societies in bewildering flux. Some of the characters, like Dupont, the French army officer “gone native”, and the former Waffen-SS soldier who becomes a prisoner of the Viet-Minh, are truly memorable. It feels like “Apocalypse Now” in book-form, while predating the movie by over two decades.
December 30, 2015
I decided to read Norman Lewis' fascinating travel book on Indochina, A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam (1951) for inspiration and preparation for travel in Cambodia. Lewis travels to Vietnam in 1950 as the French are trying to hold onto their colonial possessions by employing tactics that will ultimately fail for the Americans as well. Most of his analysis comes from the French perspective, but near the end of his travels he meets with some Viet Minh people to get their perspective, which is independence ala India. He visited the Cao Dai temples on the outskirts of Saigon, which I still exist today and which I have visited. The Cao Dai is a strange universal religion which includes Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, and Duc de la Rochenfoucald among its sacred people and fantastic designs of their temples. Another fascinating passage describes his meeting with General des Essars, commander of French troops in Cambodia, informally at Madame Shum's opium den resigned to the fact he will never make fighters of the Buddhist Cambodians. Every man spent a year in monastery and were taught not to kill any living creature. This seems ironic in hindsight when one considers the extensive killing that the Khmer Rougue did in the name of revolution. It is also interesting to read his anecdote of a woman who takes offense of Graham Greene's portrayal of British colonialism in Africa in his novel, In The Heart of the Matter (1948). Little does she realize that he will write about Vietnam in The Quiet American later in 1958. Lewis also travels to Cambodia and wanders among the ruins of Angkor Wat and then onto Laos where he will visit Vientiane, van Vang, and Luang Prabang much like those on the backpacker trail of today. It is a fascinating look at a Southeast Asian that no longer exists especially the isolated tribes like the Moi tribe he describes in detail in the book.
July 10, 2012
Fascinating insight into Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in the 1940s right before it all changed dramatically. The animated and witty narrative of Mr Lewis' adventures meant I couldn't put it down and subsequently bought four more of his books! Highly recommended!
July 16, 2017
Update: I had to give this 3 stars, not 2, because it's well-written and I enjoyed reading it for long stretches of time. If I could judge it on the writing, storytelling and descriptions alone, I'd give it 4 stars. My objections are below.
Written in 1951 by a well-traveled Englishman, this account of his travels documents a surface or superficial view of the lands still controlled by the French and seen then as their colony. I was mightily disappointed that pretty much the only people he speaks with are the French government or military officials stationed in these countries. I was somewhat awed at how he just gets invited to ride in their convoys and sleep in their villas. It was an occupied country, and he was treated sort of like a war correspondent, but he wasn't that, and the war had not yet begun.
Sometimes I was annoyed, or even saddened, by his stereotypes, his blithe generalizations about an entire nationality's traits or abilities. This is not the first travel memoir I've read by a British male in a developing country, but it made me feel more conflicted than most. For example, he very bluntly describes (with clear disapproval) how all the labor on the profit-making French plantations is conscripted indigenous people from the mountain villages, and he acutely documents how even a sympathetic governor is (in a sense) left with no choice but to turn a blind eye to slavery. But then, when he goes to Cambodia, he deems all its people lazy and even blames that on the practice of Buddhism, about which he clearly knows almost nothing.
He gives a muddled account of the history of the Khmers and their civilization as he describes the best-known temples at Angkor, but he seems to have no feeling towards anything he sees there (except that he finds the large faces of the Bayon temple "sinister"). He neither meets nor talks with any Cambodian people and apparently made no effort to do so.
Similarly, when he gets to Luang Prabang he seems to be merely bored by the town, mentioning that there is a temple on practically every block, but making no effort to learn any stories associated with them. He climbs Phousi Hill, disparages the little temple he finds there, and promptly makes arrangements to get back to Saigon.
Even when he gets to hang out with Viet Minh for several days (in the final chapter), with no other Europeans present, he learns nothing about them as people. He describes only their physical features and their actions. He has no conversations about their views of past, present, future, or their motivations.
I enjoyed his writing style and the sense of going along with him, seeing through his eyes (much like reading a Paul Theroux book), but by the end I was happy to quit his condescending attitudes.
Written in 1951 by a well-traveled Englishman, this account of his travels documents a surface or superficial view of the lands still controlled by the French and seen then as their colony. I was mightily disappointed that pretty much the only people he speaks with are the French government or military officials stationed in these countries. I was somewhat awed at how he just gets invited to ride in their convoys and sleep in their villas. It was an occupied country, and he was treated sort of like a war correspondent, but he wasn't that, and the war had not yet begun.
Sometimes I was annoyed, or even saddened, by his stereotypes, his blithe generalizations about an entire nationality's traits or abilities. This is not the first travel memoir I've read by a British male in a developing country, but it made me feel more conflicted than most. For example, he very bluntly describes (with clear disapproval) how all the labor on the profit-making French plantations is conscripted indigenous people from the mountain villages, and he acutely documents how even a sympathetic governor is (in a sense) left with no choice but to turn a blind eye to slavery. But then, when he goes to Cambodia, he deems all its people lazy and even blames that on the practice of Buddhism, about which he clearly knows almost nothing.
He gives a muddled account of the history of the Khmers and their civilization as he describes the best-known temples at Angkor, but he seems to have no feeling towards anything he sees there (except that he finds the large faces of the Bayon temple "sinister"). He neither meets nor talks with any Cambodian people and apparently made no effort to do so.
Similarly, when he gets to Luang Prabang he seems to be merely bored by the town, mentioning that there is a temple on practically every block, but making no effort to learn any stories associated with them. He climbs Phousi Hill, disparages the little temple he finds there, and promptly makes arrangements to get back to Saigon.
Even when he gets to hang out with Viet Minh for several days (in the final chapter), with no other Europeans present, he learns nothing about them as people. He describes only their physical features and their actions. He has no conversations about their views of past, present, future, or their motivations.
I enjoyed his writing style and the sense of going along with him, seeing through his eyes (much like reading a Paul Theroux book), but by the end I was happy to quit his condescending attitudes.
May 13, 2018
At the beginning of A Dragon Apparent, Norman Lewis relates that he is advised to visit Indochina immediately if he has any wish to see the tribal people and their culture before they vanish forever. It was good advice. Lewis traveled there in early 1950, just as the fall of China to Mao's Communist forces was making an impact on the war between the French and the nationalists of Indochina, especially the Viet Minh, although Lewis also documents the role of the Issaraks in Cambodia (and even Laos) as well as the Cao Dai in Vietnam.
Most of Lewis' travels, however, focus on the minority tribes in Indochina. The greatest portion of the book is spent on the tribes of Mois (Dagar) in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. But there is also an intriguing chapter on the Meo (Hmong) of Laos. In both instances, these tribes of fiercely independent people were caught between the forces of dehumanizing colonialism, on one hand, and a Communist movement, on the other, that Lewis does not hesitate to compare to Nazi Germany. The Mois are sold into virtual slavery, to be worked to death on French plantations. And because they refuse to accede to the Communist ways that would trample their traditional way of life, the Viet Minh also mark them for extermination. The Meo, who may have been the most rugged of individualists in all of Indochina, meanwhile, come in for respect for their tenacity but criticism of their way of life in denuding the countryside of all vegetation in slash and burn agriculture.
Lewis is sympathetic, albeit somewhat paternalistic, in his attitude. It was 1950, after all. Nearly all the secondary characters Lewis interviews and describes are French officials or colonials. But the last chapter is devoted to Lewis' expedition into Viet Minh territory. His discussions with them clearly frighten him. They are described as putting into place a totalitarian system of life entirely too similar to Hitler's Strength through Joy program--these are Lewis' very words. But the book ends with Lewis recognizing that the end is in sight for France in Indochina. And this was four years before Dien Bien Phu and the final defeat of the French, forcing them out of the region once and for all.
This book is an historical document of a part of Southeast Asia about to be changed forever. Nevertheless, Lewis was also able to note the unique and, for him, terribly valuable ways of life about to disappear. His travels on roads into remote villages describe a landscape just barely in touch with the twentieth century. In particular, his description of the road convoy necessary to reach Vang Vieng from Vientiane tells of almost impassable valleys, washed out bridges, and narrow mountain roads that drop away into vast chasms. Anyone travelling there, today, of course, will find a much improved "highway," although it is still dangerous, filled with rock slides, rampaging rivers in rainy season, and sheer drops on switchback after switchback after switchback, snaking up and down the mountains.
Yet Lewis the travel writer was more akin to an explorer than what passes for travel writing these days. No GPS for him. No laptops reserving a cozy air conditioned room at the, now, tourist-laden venue of Vang Vieng. No help if shot by rebels, bandits, or colonial troops. No medical rescue for broken bones, malaria, or dysentery. Only in reading this book do you realize what changes have come over the region in the past almost seven decades. Where only the most fearless and adventurous would once have gone, there is now the millennial backpacker outfitted in all his technological splendor. It's a different world.
Most of Lewis' travels, however, focus on the minority tribes in Indochina. The greatest portion of the book is spent on the tribes of Mois (Dagar) in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. But there is also an intriguing chapter on the Meo (Hmong) of Laos. In both instances, these tribes of fiercely independent people were caught between the forces of dehumanizing colonialism, on one hand, and a Communist movement, on the other, that Lewis does not hesitate to compare to Nazi Germany. The Mois are sold into virtual slavery, to be worked to death on French plantations. And because they refuse to accede to the Communist ways that would trample their traditional way of life, the Viet Minh also mark them for extermination. The Meo, who may have been the most rugged of individualists in all of Indochina, meanwhile, come in for respect for their tenacity but criticism of their way of life in denuding the countryside of all vegetation in slash and burn agriculture.
Lewis is sympathetic, albeit somewhat paternalistic, in his attitude. It was 1950, after all. Nearly all the secondary characters Lewis interviews and describes are French officials or colonials. But the last chapter is devoted to Lewis' expedition into Viet Minh territory. His discussions with them clearly frighten him. They are described as putting into place a totalitarian system of life entirely too similar to Hitler's Strength through Joy program--these are Lewis' very words. But the book ends with Lewis recognizing that the end is in sight for France in Indochina. And this was four years before Dien Bien Phu and the final defeat of the French, forcing them out of the region once and for all.
This book is an historical document of a part of Southeast Asia about to be changed forever. Nevertheless, Lewis was also able to note the unique and, for him, terribly valuable ways of life about to disappear. His travels on roads into remote villages describe a landscape just barely in touch with the twentieth century. In particular, his description of the road convoy necessary to reach Vang Vieng from Vientiane tells of almost impassable valleys, washed out bridges, and narrow mountain roads that drop away into vast chasms. Anyone travelling there, today, of course, will find a much improved "highway," although it is still dangerous, filled with rock slides, rampaging rivers in rainy season, and sheer drops on switchback after switchback after switchback, snaking up and down the mountains.
Yet Lewis the travel writer was more akin to an explorer than what passes for travel writing these days. No GPS for him. No laptops reserving a cozy air conditioned room at the, now, tourist-laden venue of Vang Vieng. No help if shot by rebels, bandits, or colonial troops. No medical rescue for broken bones, malaria, or dysentery. Only in reading this book do you realize what changes have come over the region in the past almost seven decades. Where only the most fearless and adventurous would once have gone, there is now the millennial backpacker outfitted in all his technological splendor. It's a different world.
November 23, 2017
A charming travelogue through Southeast Asia in the days when Vietnam was still a French colony, not that Vietnam's fight for independence was 'charming' but Lewis can make us smile even when describing a bowl of stinking local soup with river octopus arms draped over the sides. This is my favourite form of escapist reading--a well-written travelogue of countries one is interested in, with just the right dash of background history and cultural nuggets.
April 23, 2024
As long as you know what you're getting (basically Graham Greene as non-fiction and with the Catholicism replaced by a sort of aesthete's anarchism), recommended.
September 5, 2007
One of my favorite travel writing books ever. Lewis is relentlessly curious, writes in clear, poetic prose and seems to put himself in all the right places. He is also eerily prescient about the inevitability of brutal war coming to South East Asia.
July 25, 2011
Indochina in a bygone era. Lewis records in scientific anthropological detail the multitude of tribes and their customs/appearances whilst on a roadtrip thru Cambodia
August 17, 2019
I liked how clear eyed he is about the colonialism and also the descriptions of food
April 19, 2025
「這裡，是最後的印度支那。」
去年從柬埔寨旅遊回來後，我一直想找更多關於柬埔寨的遊記來看，因此認識了Norman Lewis 和《東南方的國度》。本書記錄了他在1950年啟程前往西貢，遊歷越南、柬埔寨、以及寮國的見聞。雖然是七十幾年前的書，但他筆下的芒族與苗族、以及殖民政府下的三國都帶來很特別的閱讀體驗。
去年從柬埔寨旅遊回來後，我一直想找更多關於柬埔寨的遊記來看，因此認識了Norman Lewis 和《東南方的國度》。本書記錄了他在1950年啟程前往西貢，遊歷越南、柬埔寨、以及寮國的見聞。雖然是七十幾年前的書，但他筆下的芒族與苗族、以及殖民政府下的三國都帶來很特別的閱讀體驗。
May 6, 2025
Solidly enjoyable old-school travel writing that delivers a frank, witty, and descriptive record of Indochina before war and modernisation completely altered its fabric. Some may find the writing a little dated - Lewis isn’t exactly always politically correct or committedly intrepid - but considering the times, it qualifies as a pioneeringly sincere effort in my eyes, and well worth a read.
June 19, 2019
One needs to like travelogues or history to get through this. One also needs to remember it’s written in 1951, and there’s a sensibility that might otherwise offend or bother some readers.
But if you are going to spend time in Indochina, this book succeeds in setting a nice tone. It’s a release from a publishing house specializing in travel books, and this is deserving of its consideration as a classic.
But if you are going to spend time in Indochina, this book succeeds in setting a nice tone. It’s a release from a publishing house specializing in travel books, and this is deserving of its consideration as a classic.
March 28, 2023
Content warning: this review contains spoilers as well as graphic descriptions of violence
A Dragon Apparent
My mum bought this book for me in preparation for my own trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in February 2023. But in the time it took between Christmas and the actual trip I had failed to reach it in my reading this and it was more than a month after my eventual return from Vietnam when I finally opened it. Not that I lost anything from it, because I think this is a book which has matured with age, a book where the sadness is really captured with retrospective knowledge of what happened after, and what the society became.
Norman Lewis travelled to Vietnam in 1950, and over the course of a few months in the spring of that year he crossed the south of that country, then a round tour of Cambodia, a visit to the two major cities of Laos and a return to Viet-Minh territory in the Mekong Delta. A lot has changed since the 1950s, in a lot of ways. Social attitudes, for one, and Lewis displays the language of his time as he stays with hill tribes he calls ‘backward’ and ‘degenerate’, complete with physical descriptions of east Asians which would be removed by a modern publisher. But Lewis travels with an open mind, and he challenges the stereotypes of these ‘so-called primitive tribes’. The book flows with implicit criticism of colonialism, and he never stoops to the casual sexism which pervades many books of the era. I have heard it said that an author should not be judged by the language prevalent in their time, but rather their attitude - and if we take this perspective on ‘A Dragon Apparent’, then Lewis has produced a bold and progressive work. The only area where it consistently falls short is the descriptions of recreational hunting, which present an ambivalence and disrespect of animal life and wellbeing, from all parties in the journey, which is repulsive to the modern reader.
The starring factor in this book is the interactions with other people. Lewis deals with everyone he meets with warmth and compassion, taking them all equally seriously - but never too seriously. All, that is, save the occasional American missionary, for whom he reserves his most scathing sarcastic mockery. The hill tribes of Vietnam and Laos are given all the due respect and interest of the colonial governors and the Emperor of Vietnam himself - even, perhaps, more. Their cultures are rich and varied, their customs are taken seriously, if with the tinge of humour that pervades the whole book, their societies are not inherently superior or inferior to any other one - they are simply different. What Lewis does not appear to approve of is the forcing of European culture and values upon the wide patchwork of religions and rituals of the dozens of ethnic groups of Indochina. He laments the loss in value of traditional art and the declining numbers of practitioners, and he despises the crude erasure of local spiritual beliefs at the hands of foreign organised religions which seem only to care about one’s religious well being and not whether they are being forced into labouring on brutal plantations.
It is this fusion of peoples and cultures which provides so much of the allure for Lewis and the reader during his travels in Indochina. And this is something I experienced myself whilst there. In Cambodia, South Vietnam and North Vietnam the customs and cultural differences are so diverse that every new location brings with it a richness of experience and discover, a fresh new insight into the numberless states of the human condition. It is Lewis’s love of the diversity of the lands he travels which really spring from the page, he relishes in every new culture and faith he comes across and describes with delight the unique beliefs and behaviours of every people and every region. Each new character he journeys with is given a rich and colourful portrait, almost never cruel, almost always humorous. Some of the best sequences are amongst the Mois and the Meos, where Lewis has to come to terms with cultures and societies utterly alien to his western perspective, and lifestyles unrecognisable to an Englishman. He is challenged with accepting them, and usually, he does.
Lewis tries to avoid any explicit political opinions, and yet he can’t really avoid them. The only two groups who are really condemned are the vile plantation owners, who run their enterprises on brutalised forced labour, and the foreign missionaries who I mentioned earlier. The French colonial authorities have mixed presentations: some humble, some arrogant, some sympathetic, some ignorant, but all on some level hypocritical. The Viet Minh communists, who rise in prominence towards the end of the book, are presented with such lack of bias that on finishing it I would not have been able to say whether Lewis was an enemy of communism or had some sympathies for it himself. But the author can’t hide the fact that he takes to be obvious from his travels: the French regime is inevitably doomed.
This is not a book where the author does his best to avoid making fun of people. Lewis’s writing is funny, and his deadpan tone makes jokes of almost everybody he meets. This light, underhand mockery is not reserved for any particular group or organisation, nor is it ever particularly malicious or undermining, except towards a few missionaries and colonists. Take, for example, Lewis’s description of the Moi people of southern Vietnam. He doesn’t hide his humour, as a European, when he observes the Moi practice of trading pots for items of value as the vessels are believed to contain powerful spirits who bring good luck to a family. But he means no ill through this, and treats the Moi with the utmost respect at every point, never making judgements about their intelligence or character. Writing can be funny and respectful at the same time, and ‘A Dragon Apparent’ provides many good examples of this. If anything, Lewis’s description serves to demonstrate how different ways of thinking amongst the Moi are to his western mindset. His cool and often sarcastic narration gives the book its energy and vitality and makes for a much more enriching read. In fact, Lewis’s engaging style makes for some of the most fluid and enjoyable prose I have encountered in a while.
The most powerful thing about this book, after all of that, only comes from reading it seventy years after its publication. The title, ‘A Dragon Apparent’, describes what Lewis finds in Indochina - the remnants of the ‘Dragon’, in the ruins of Angkor and the crowds of Saigon and the pagodas of Vientiane, the magnificent legacy of a glorious part, apparent despite the trials of a century of colonialism. The great sadness for Lewis is that this beautiful past is quickly fading, and the future presents uncertainty and violence. We in the 21st century can confirm that his fears were well-founded. Only in the towering temples of Angkor did Lewis’s dragon survive when I travelled in Indochina. In the rest of Cambodia and Vietnam society had changed beyond all description.
My copy of the book began with a preface to the 1982 edition, written by Lewis, denouncing the annihilation wreaked upon Indochina by the Vietnam War and subsequent depredations of groups such as the Khmer Rouge. Lewis’s Cambodia is a serene and beautiful country, with the most merciful legal system in the world, a tiny army, and a population apparently incapable of organised violence. My Cambodia was marked by the visit we made on a second day there to Choeung Ek Killing Fields, with its mass graves where the bones were still visible, and the tree on which they smashed the skulls of infants, and the grey pagoda stacked with hundreds of skulls exhumed from the dry earth.
Indochina in the 1950s was like another universe.
And let’s not forget the wave of westernisation and the inevitable tide of modernisation and capitalism. Lewis describes Phnom Penh as a city where few buildings had multiple stories as this was deemed a violation of Buddhist principles. I remember clearly the view from my hotel in Phnom Penh at night, where the gleaming skyscrapers and blazes of neon lights could be something out of Bladerunner.
The Cambodians were an optimistic people when I met them, not because their future was so bright, but because their past had been so dark that, as my guide said, ‘there are hardly any old people’ as the Khmer Rouge murdered so many. The Vietnamese were tired with decades of communism, and the country was filled with lingering resentment from the years when the country was bombed from top to bottom by the United States Air Force. The twilight splendour and serene innocence that Lewis found when he travelled Indochina had long been incinerated in napalm attacks and the deadly rain of B-52s.
That was the final tragedy for me, which made the end of the book I had enjoyed so very much, and brought back every happy memory of my trip, so much sadder. Norman Lewis was right when he predicted that trouble was coming, but he could never have guessed the path awaiting the countries he loved so much: a path of shocking bloodshed, vast destruction and, at the bitter end of a bitter road, genocide.
Content warning: this book contains violence, racism, allusions to sexual and physical abuse, and cruelty to animals
A Dragon Apparent
My mum bought this book for me in preparation for my own trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in February 2023. But in the time it took between Christmas and the actual trip I had failed to reach it in my reading this and it was more than a month after my eventual return from Vietnam when I finally opened it. Not that I lost anything from it, because I think this is a book which has matured with age, a book where the sadness is really captured with retrospective knowledge of what happened after, and what the society became.
Norman Lewis travelled to Vietnam in 1950, and over the course of a few months in the spring of that year he crossed the south of that country, then a round tour of Cambodia, a visit to the two major cities of Laos and a return to Viet-Minh territory in the Mekong Delta. A lot has changed since the 1950s, in a lot of ways. Social attitudes, for one, and Lewis displays the language of his time as he stays with hill tribes he calls ‘backward’ and ‘degenerate’, complete with physical descriptions of east Asians which would be removed by a modern publisher. But Lewis travels with an open mind, and he challenges the stereotypes of these ‘so-called primitive tribes’. The book flows with implicit criticism of colonialism, and he never stoops to the casual sexism which pervades many books of the era. I have heard it said that an author should not be judged by the language prevalent in their time, but rather their attitude - and if we take this perspective on ‘A Dragon Apparent’, then Lewis has produced a bold and progressive work. The only area where it consistently falls short is the descriptions of recreational hunting, which present an ambivalence and disrespect of animal life and wellbeing, from all parties in the journey, which is repulsive to the modern reader.
The starring factor in this book is the interactions with other people. Lewis deals with everyone he meets with warmth and compassion, taking them all equally seriously - but never too seriously. All, that is, save the occasional American missionary, for whom he reserves his most scathing sarcastic mockery. The hill tribes of Vietnam and Laos are given all the due respect and interest of the colonial governors and the Emperor of Vietnam himself - even, perhaps, more. Their cultures are rich and varied, their customs are taken seriously, if with the tinge of humour that pervades the whole book, their societies are not inherently superior or inferior to any other one - they are simply different. What Lewis does not appear to approve of is the forcing of European culture and values upon the wide patchwork of religions and rituals of the dozens of ethnic groups of Indochina. He laments the loss in value of traditional art and the declining numbers of practitioners, and he despises the crude erasure of local spiritual beliefs at the hands of foreign organised religions which seem only to care about one’s religious well being and not whether they are being forced into labouring on brutal plantations.
It is this fusion of peoples and cultures which provides so much of the allure for Lewis and the reader during his travels in Indochina. And this is something I experienced myself whilst there. In Cambodia, South Vietnam and North Vietnam the customs and cultural differences are so diverse that every new location brings with it a richness of experience and discover, a fresh new insight into the numberless states of the human condition. It is Lewis’s love of the diversity of the lands he travels which really spring from the page, he relishes in every new culture and faith he comes across and describes with delight the unique beliefs and behaviours of every people and every region. Each new character he journeys with is given a rich and colourful portrait, almost never cruel, almost always humorous. Some of the best sequences are amongst the Mois and the Meos, where Lewis has to come to terms with cultures and societies utterly alien to his western perspective, and lifestyles unrecognisable to an Englishman. He is challenged with accepting them, and usually, he does.
Lewis tries to avoid any explicit political opinions, and yet he can’t really avoid them. The only two groups who are really condemned are the vile plantation owners, who run their enterprises on brutalised forced labour, and the foreign missionaries who I mentioned earlier. The French colonial authorities have mixed presentations: some humble, some arrogant, some sympathetic, some ignorant, but all on some level hypocritical. The Viet Minh communists, who rise in prominence towards the end of the book, are presented with such lack of bias that on finishing it I would not have been able to say whether Lewis was an enemy of communism or had some sympathies for it himself. But the author can’t hide the fact that he takes to be obvious from his travels: the French regime is inevitably doomed.
This is not a book where the author does his best to avoid making fun of people. Lewis’s writing is funny, and his deadpan tone makes jokes of almost everybody he meets. This light, underhand mockery is not reserved for any particular group or organisation, nor is it ever particularly malicious or undermining, except towards a few missionaries and colonists. Take, for example, Lewis’s description of the Moi people of southern Vietnam. He doesn’t hide his humour, as a European, when he observes the Moi practice of trading pots for items of value as the vessels are believed to contain powerful spirits who bring good luck to a family. But he means no ill through this, and treats the Moi with the utmost respect at every point, never making judgements about their intelligence or character. Writing can be funny and respectful at the same time, and ‘A Dragon Apparent’ provides many good examples of this. If anything, Lewis’s description serves to demonstrate how different ways of thinking amongst the Moi are to his western mindset. His cool and often sarcastic narration gives the book its energy and vitality and makes for a much more enriching read. In fact, Lewis’s engaging style makes for some of the most fluid and enjoyable prose I have encountered in a while.
The most powerful thing about this book, after all of that, only comes from reading it seventy years after its publication. The title, ‘A Dragon Apparent’, describes what Lewis finds in Indochina - the remnants of the ‘Dragon’, in the ruins of Angkor and the crowds of Saigon and the pagodas of Vientiane, the magnificent legacy of a glorious part, apparent despite the trials of a century of colonialism. The great sadness for Lewis is that this beautiful past is quickly fading, and the future presents uncertainty and violence. We in the 21st century can confirm that his fears were well-founded. Only in the towering temples of Angkor did Lewis’s dragon survive when I travelled in Indochina. In the rest of Cambodia and Vietnam society had changed beyond all description.
My copy of the book began with a preface to the 1982 edition, written by Lewis, denouncing the annihilation wreaked upon Indochina by the Vietnam War and subsequent depredations of groups such as the Khmer Rouge. Lewis’s Cambodia is a serene and beautiful country, with the most merciful legal system in the world, a tiny army, and a population apparently incapable of organised violence. My Cambodia was marked by the visit we made on a second day there to Choeung Ek Killing Fields, with its mass graves where the bones were still visible, and the tree on which they smashed the skulls of infants, and the grey pagoda stacked with hundreds of skulls exhumed from the dry earth.
Indochina in the 1950s was like another universe.
And let’s not forget the wave of westernisation and the inevitable tide of modernisation and capitalism. Lewis describes Phnom Penh as a city where few buildings had multiple stories as this was deemed a violation of Buddhist principles. I remember clearly the view from my hotel in Phnom Penh at night, where the gleaming skyscrapers and blazes of neon lights could be something out of Bladerunner.
The Cambodians were an optimistic people when I met them, not because their future was so bright, but because their past had been so dark that, as my guide said, ‘there are hardly any old people’ as the Khmer Rouge murdered so many. The Vietnamese were tired with decades of communism, and the country was filled with lingering resentment from the years when the country was bombed from top to bottom by the United States Air Force. The twilight splendour and serene innocence that Lewis found when he travelled Indochina had long been incinerated in napalm attacks and the deadly rain of B-52s.
That was the final tragedy for me, which made the end of the book I had enjoyed so very much, and brought back every happy memory of my trip, so much sadder. Norman Lewis was right when he predicted that trouble was coming, but he could never have guessed the path awaiting the countries he loved so much: a path of shocking bloodshed, vast destruction and, at the bitter end of a bitter road, genocide.
Content warning: this book contains violence, racism, allusions to sexual and physical abuse, and cruelty to animals
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 12, 2019
A fascinating trip into 1950 Vietnam. A country that is lost to modern day. Lewis writes in an easy style but provides an insight into French colonialism, missionaries, and the native tribes of SE Asia. Thoroughly recommended for anyone travelling to that part of the world or simply interested in 20th century history.
April 22, 2015
A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam by Norman Lewis is a beautifully written, highly enjoyable report of his travels through three countries that no longer exist.
His writing style is descriptive and compelling, with an underlying tone of dry humor that is hard to get, but makes it all the more enjoyable. His subjects are three of the most beautiful countries in the world during a time when their beauty had not been marred beyond recognition by war. No wonder then that A Dragon Apparent kept my interest for all 317 pages of the book.
The position in which Lewis undertakes his travels is also one that no longer exists today: as a journalist he is invited to tea with kings and high ranking diplomats, whether he wants to or not and has access to many places the average traveler will never get to. In addition, he traveled Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam during a time when travel was not as common place as it is now, certainly not in Asia. And of course the timing is unique; the French colonial regime is struggling to keep a grip on the region. Lewis suspects that this region will be forever altered and this might be his last chance to see it in its current glory, adding an extra layer to the book.
In short A Dragon Apparent is a very good travel story, which provides imagination stimulating insights into the French colonial era, as well as the life and situation of many an Asian tribe that has since disappeared. I predict you'll enjoy reading the book as well as fantasizing about the world Lewis describes when you not reading it.
His writing style is descriptive and compelling, with an underlying tone of dry humor that is hard to get, but makes it all the more enjoyable. His subjects are three of the most beautiful countries in the world during a time when their beauty had not been marred beyond recognition by war. No wonder then that A Dragon Apparent kept my interest for all 317 pages of the book.
The position in which Lewis undertakes his travels is also one that no longer exists today: as a journalist he is invited to tea with kings and high ranking diplomats, whether he wants to or not and has access to many places the average traveler will never get to. In addition, he traveled Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam during a time when travel was not as common place as it is now, certainly not in Asia. And of course the timing is unique; the French colonial regime is struggling to keep a grip on the region. Lewis suspects that this region will be forever altered and this might be his last chance to see it in its current glory, adding an extra layer to the book.
In short A Dragon Apparent is a very good travel story, which provides imagination stimulating insights into the French colonial era, as well as the life and situation of many an Asian tribe that has since disappeared. I predict you'll enjoy reading the book as well as fantasizing about the world Lewis describes when you not reading it.
January 7, 2019
Thanks to stumbling on this book I’ve now discovered both Norman Lewis and E Land publishing. Norman Lewis lead an inspiring life, traveling the world up until his death in his mid 90s and writing extensively about it. This particular title he wrote in 1950 while traveling in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the last days of French occupation, just when the tide of communism was turning and before America officially got involved. If you get your hands on the E Land copy there is a preface the author wrote from 1982 giving perspective on how things have changed since he wrote the book in the early 50s, namely the Vietnam War and Pol Pot. Not to romanticize this era but it definitely was a very different time.
My favorite part was the deep dive into the various tribes living in the region and their customs and the colonists behavior towards them. This is both fascinating and disturbing. I also enjoyed the eloquence of Norman’s prose, a formal type of writing you don’t get anymore that takes you back to the different era he wrote this in. You can almost hear the clack of his typewriter in the words on the pages. I read this book while visiting Laos and definitely felt transported to a time far away from my normal life back home in Texas.
My favorite part was the deep dive into the various tribes living in the region and their customs and the colonists behavior towards them. This is both fascinating and disturbing. I also enjoyed the eloquence of Norman’s prose, a formal type of writing you don’t get anymore that takes you back to the different era he wrote this in. You can almost hear the clack of his typewriter in the words on the pages. I read this book while visiting Laos and definitely felt transported to a time far away from my normal life back home in Texas.
May 21, 2008
One of the best travel books I have read in a long time. Norman Lewis tramped through southeast asia in the 50's as the region was undergoing a transition from fighting the French colonials to (they didn't know it yet) being caught in the Cold War conflicts of the 60's. Lewis was fortunate to observe the vanishing ancient cultures as they went down for the third time: the Viet Minh were on the rise and repelling the French, and the region's cultures would, in the next 5 years, be incinerated.
Lewis' prose is tight and "British", full of understatment and dry humor, very enjoyable in an old-world way. Mostly it's just a travelogue: jeeps being caught in the mud, tribal chiefs falling down drunk, etc. But there are glimpses of ancient cultures, visits with kings, and description and criticism of the colonial system and the ways it had already been crushing the life out of the populace for many years.
Lewis' prose is tight and "British", full of understatment and dry humor, very enjoyable in an old-world way. Mostly it's just a travelogue: jeeps being caught in the mud, tribal chiefs falling down drunk, etc. But there are glimpses of ancient cultures, visits with kings, and description and criticism of the colonial system and the ways it had already been crushing the life out of the populace for many years.
August 15, 2011
A terrific book that colourfully and truthfully takes you with the author through Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the last days of French colonisation. It shows the cruelty and disaparity that exists between the nbative people of "INDOCHINE" and the ruling French.
It is hiumourous in places, and historically spot on, it even sniffs out the foreboding American presence waiting in the shadows; and it certainly doesn't predict Pol Pot and the Khimer Rouge arriving in the mid 70's , when th eFrench could bately scartch a Cambodian army together due to their disposition to kill and strong Buddhist beleifs.
An informative, interesting and hiumerous read.
It is hiumourous in places, and historically spot on, it even sniffs out the foreboding American presence waiting in the shadows; and it certainly doesn't predict Pol Pot and the Khimer Rouge arriving in the mid 70's , when th eFrench could bately scartch a Cambodian army together due to their disposition to kill and strong Buddhist beleifs.
An informative, interesting and hiumerous read.
November 16, 2012
Interesting to read as a snapshot of Vietnam when all the conflict was still contained within its borders. This was before US intervention and shows how the french struggled to keep order before withdrawing completely.Lewis has a good eye for highlighting the constant beaurocratic delays so often encountered in oriental countries and spends most of this book travelling around in army jeeps, freight lorries and diplomatic vehicles rather than face delays at airports and rail stations. I felt that there was more to be said on Laos as the book is predominantly based in Vietnam but is still enjoyable
November 16, 2015
Started off with real promise and I couldn't put it down, and whilst it never lost its captivation, I did find it became a bit repetitive in places and the end just happened - it just ended; no summary, no full circle, no final thoughts. I loved his dry, black humour style and his narration, in the main, was entertaining, if the experiences became a little samey. The quality of the photographs in the book are very poor - even allowing for their age, there are plenty of programmes that can enhance old photos but these were often just black, largely indistinguishable blobs on the page.
August 21, 2015
A fascinating portrait of a very important period in that regions history. Lewis is an excellent writer and a thorough journalist.
Make sure you get a copy with the forward he wrote afterwards in the 1980s as it is the best part of the book.
My only criticism is he spends so much time trying and failing to get to Laos and Cambodia that he's in Vietnam for over two thirds of the book - not ideal if you're reading for specifically Laos or Cambodia.
Make sure you get a copy with the forward he wrote afterwards in the 1980s as it is the best part of the book.
My only criticism is he spends so much time trying and failing to get to Laos and Cambodia that he's in Vietnam for over two thirds of the book - not ideal if you're reading for specifically Laos or Cambodia.
June 10, 2013
Fantastic introduction to what was once known as IndoChina. Great insights into the 'twilight of the French colonial regime' and a world that has now vanished, and full of stories and anecdotes about 'a society on the brink'. A wonderful read for anyone wanting to know more about this largely forgotten time. First published in 1951.
December 14, 2015
A great book about what happens when West meets East, when modern technology meets Stone Age, and how this can be devastating for the original and fragile cultures. Written by impartial Englishman with exceptional talent for storytelling and sharp eye for details. It's a pity that this book cannot be used as a travel guide because those times are forever gone. In any case, really good read!
November 9, 2015
This is not really the book I read, it was An empire of the East (which I coulnd't find on Goodreads), about his travels through Aceh and East Timor. Lewis paints - and this he does very well - a disturbing picture (the killing of men and nature!); and this was at the end of the last century. I bet it has only gotten worse. Shame!
June 23, 2017
Hard work for me...
I'm going to beg to differ with the other reviewers... I've been reading for fifty years, but I have seldom come across a book containing so many words I was unfamiliar with! This made reading disjointed and, together with the author's slightly "colonial" attitude, resulted in the low rating.
I bailed out at 20% - but will re-read later...
I'm going to beg to differ with the other reviewers... I've been reading for fifty years, but I have seldom come across a book containing so many words I was unfamiliar with! This made reading disjointed and, together with the author's slightly "colonial" attitude, resulted in the low rating.
I bailed out at 20% - but will re-read later...
June 9, 2010
It's got a kind of deadpan Monty Pythonesque humour and it takes you back effectively to a very different time. Though it's not always easy going I found myself coming back to his observations about the area time and again during our travels.
June 3, 2018
I loved this book, the writing was lovely, really poetic. His observations were spot on, love the way he skewered French Colonialism and the evangelical missionaries. So interesting to hear about this part of the world pre-Vietnam war.
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