Maritime Southeast Asia was a lot more complex historically than most people realise. There were at least 5 different Indian dynasties that held extended trade links, the Chinese, some evidence of Romans or at least Roman trade goods (eg. in Cambodia/South Vietnam), regular seasonal trading to Australia, water dwelling peoples, stable ocean-going multi-hulled vessels, and even coins from East Africa that have been found in northern Australia. https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-cultu...
The higly contested South China Sea in the ancient days was called Champa Sea due the Champa Kingdom that once controlled more than half of modern Vietnam for more than a thousand years until the Nguyen warlords took over a few hundreds years ago [1].
Champa language is a close relative to proto-malay and old-malay languages. Originally 'garam' (meaning salt) was not in their original language vocabulary but it's believed to be introduced by the sea traders from the word garum for the salty fermented fish sauce that was once very popular in Roman, now a very common food sauces in South East Asia including Thailand and Vietnam [2]. Based on ancient Roman record for example Geoponika, the garum was normally used as salt replacement in their diets and probably due to its popularity perhaps it is considered as salt by the native Champa people and most probably where the word garam got its name about 2000 years ago.
[1] The Cham: Descendants of Ancient Rulers of South China Sea Watch Maritime Dispute From Sidelines:
Modern garum is Nước Chấm ("Cham sauce") in Vietnam, Nam Pla ("fish sauce") in Thailand. Even in China it gets used a lot in the southeast cuisines (Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian).
I'm not sure we can confidently assert that it was a salt replacement in all cases, because anyone living on the ocean has an infinite supply of salt which is impossible not to discover, nor can one claim it was not an original development in the region, because fermenting fish is self-advertising. However, I think the extent to which Romans used garum as a trade good combined with other Roman findings is sufficient attestation that a Roman version may have arrived at least once as a further link within trade networks via Indian shores. Local historiography is extremely sketchy in this period, relying on isolated Chinese references.
Whatever happened, local culinary traditions would have already been well established by (1) local geography; (2) Austronesian peoples; (3) prior links from shorter distance coastal trading; and (4) Indian states' long distance voyaging. To assert they had no supply of salt or had never discovered fermented fish would be difficult at best.
I am not saying they don't have salt but it's a kind of popular salt replacement. For Asian cooking soy sauce is used in most of Asian cooking and and nowadays for example they are three type of popular soy sauces, 1) original 2) sweet and 3) salty, but even the original and the sweet one is very much salty. If you cook with soy sauces you need to adjust for the saltiness and do not put much salt, and some cases with salty soy sauce you don't add salt at all since it's already salty enough. I think this what probably happened, in the old days there's no Monosodium glutamate (MSG) for artificial umami flavour and they probably use garum as a kind of convenient hybrid salt and umami flavour (MSG) replacement. Most of the Asian restaurants now apparently are using MSG for better taste but personally I have found it bad for after taste with my nose feel itchy and dry soon afterwards.
Late roman. like 4th century. Trade with Taprobrane would be almost routine by then surely? Spice islands, the silk road was almost 500 years old by then. Money flows.
The Makasar traded with Aboriginal people for trepang (sea cucumber), which they boiled down, dried on their boats and traded with China where it was, and still is used for food and medicine.
That trade was ongoing when the Dutch first arrived in East Indies, they burnt a lot of local records of the existing kingdoms so it's hard to know how far back such trade went on for - although this suggests regional trade going back to at least 4 BC.
I know where it is, but I was replying to "late roman. like 4th century. Trade with Taprobrane would be almost routine by then surely?" - a lot further than Taprobane (Sri Lanka) - the Romans did trade directly with the west coast of India, at least, but the other side of the Indian Ocean was a lot further from any Roman territory.
I mentioned the silk road for that reason. Nothing I said meant to imply direct trade with rome from Bali. I am sorry if I gave that impression. Coinage travels far when it's weight is tied to its value, or scarcity imparts extra value. If Balinese elites put roman coins in tombs, I would doubt its because they had low value to them.
My comment back story is I was joining up the far end of the Silk Road
> the silk road was almost 500 years old by then. Money flows.
with the Trepang trade, which would have gone past Bali on the way.
Superfluous in any case, the spice trade alone would be sufficient to extend Silk Road trade beyond China and into what would later be called the Dutch East Indies.
The dutch destroyed Bali. Women used to go bare breasted in Bali before the dutch brought in their women with long skirts, sleeves, hat and gloves and civilised the fuck out of the balinese people.
I’m pretty sure it’s the tourism that destroyed Bali. There’s plenty of videos and photos showing Balinese living traditional lifestyles in mid to late 20th century. The Dutch colonisation of Indonesia is actually notable for how little they tried to integrate the cultures.
Well, the same custom is present in Spanish beaches, but this is actually a double-edged sword. Once a woman starts showing their breasts she will continue to do so until her death. Some things you'll see in Spain cannot be unseen.
Well, unless you posses a superhuman ability to walk around with your eyes closed sometimes it is simply impossible not to see some breasts against your will.
You're overthinking it :) My original comment was just a reply to a guy who said "Bali used to be great, because women used to show their breasts", and I was like "believe me, some breasts you'd rather not see". I really do not care why women show their breasts, I just do not want to be traumatized by it :P
I think it is a bit of both.
In the corporate world, cleavage showing is a deliberate strategy employed to grease the wheels. Women know how to leverage their breasts.
