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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
Rice padi house, with bamboo drying outside, Vientiane
Courtesy Gina Merris
Louangphrabang family at home
Courtesy Gina Merris
Lowland Lao in formal dress celebrating the opening of Lane Xang
Bank, Louangphrabang
Courtesy Gina Merris
Lowland Lao in formal dress in front of Wat Xieng Thong dressed for
the Lao New Year in typical Louangphrabang style
Courtesy Ernest Kuhn
A member of the People's Revolutionary Youth Union
Courtesy Gina Merris
Hmong children
Courtesy Harvey Follender
Laotian society is above all else characterized by
semiindependent rural villages engaged in subsistence
agricultural
production. Ethnic, geographic, and ecological differences
create
variations in the pattern of village life from one part of
the
country to another, but the common threads of village
selfreliance , limited regional trade and communication, and
identification with one's village and ethnic group persist
regardless of the setting. Rural trade networks, however,
have been
a part of life since the 1950s. Except near the larger
towns and in
the rich agricultural plains of Vientiane and Savannakhét,
villages
are spaced at least several kilometers apart and the
intervening
land variously developed as rice paddy and swidden fields
or
maintained as buffer forest for gathering wild plants and
animals,
fuelwood, and occasional timber harvest.
Ethnicity differentiates the villages but is usually
not a
source of conflict or antagonism. Nearly all villages are
ethnically homogeneous, although a few include two or more
distinct
groups. Ethnic mixing often has resulted from different
groups
migrating to a new settlement site at about the same time,
or a
larger village at a crossroads or river transit point
developing
into a minor trading center. Ethnic identity is never
absolutely
immutable. Some minority Laotian individuals have adopted
lowland
Lao behavior and dress patterns, or intermarried with
lowland Lao,
and have effectively acculturated to lowland society. In
some
units, military service has also brought together Laotians
of
different ethnic groups, both before and after 1975.
Only since 1975 has there been any sense of national
unity
among most rural villagers. Precolonial governments
depended more
on a system of control at the district level with the
chao
muang (district chief) maintaining his own allegiance
and
tribute to the state
(see Government Structure
, ch. 4).
Administrative practices under the French and during the
post-World
War II period was confined primarily to provincial and a
few
district centers. The government was able to extract taxes
with
some facility but had little impact on the daily lives or
thoughts
of most villagers. However, since 1975, the government has
expended
considerable energy and resources on national unification,
so that
even isolated villages recognize the role of local
government and
consider themselves at some level to be part of a Laotian
state.
Data as of July 1994
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