Though novels are not unknown in Southeast Asia, it is the short-story form that has been chosen here to represent the area. Neither novels nor stories are, however, indigenous. They are largely Western inventions, and it was the colonial experiences of most of these countries that determined the directions their fiction would take.
In Singapore, for example, English was in many schools the medium of education. Thus "the writing did not reflect a Singaporean sensibility but European and American literary influences." Only when fiction began to be written and taught in the vernacular Singaporean did life and locale begin to be reflected.
This proved true in most of the countries of Southeast Asia. Vietnam had a literary template, the didactic short-fiction genre known as xiaoshuo. But this influence, as the name indicates, came from China. When Vietnamese was for the first time romanized in the late-19th century, the French colonial period was on its way and, with it, new Western models. And after this, the Americans.