Real History: The Invisible Barrier Keeping Two Worlds Apart

 A look at why the wildlife in Southeast Asia and Australia, Papua New Guinea etc. are so different from each other. Useful setting knowledge for the world of Sundaland. The clue is in the past, the time of the last Ice-Age.

Real History: The Lemon was "invented" in Asia

This information has almost no relevance for playing RPGs but just another interesting piece of evidence for South East Asia being very important in early human history.

The lemon is a human invention that’s maybe only a few thousand years old.

The first lemons came from East Asia, possibly southern China or Burma.  (These days, some prefer to refer to Burma as Myanmar.  I’ll try to stay out of that controversy here and stick to fruit.)  The exact date of the lemon’s first cultivation is not known, but scientists figure it’s been around for more than 4,000 years.  The lemon is a cross breed of several fruits.

From: How The Lemon Was Invented

Reminder that the Chicken, Sugarcane, Bananas, the Coconut as well Ginger were also first domesticated in or around Southeast Asia.

More about early domestication around the world: Geographical Sites and Ecological Components of Agricultural Domestication