In French eyes Laos were...

wall-e · Member

In French eyes Laos were...

Lao Isan · Senior Member

That in the past. Now Laos is developing. At least Lao have a country. If not becaus of French Laos would be like Isan. Thailand territory.

DEATHEP · Senior Member

population of Vientiane: 200,000
population of Ho Chi Minh City: 7,000,000 which is 35 times larger.

Does that clarify anything for you?

wall-e · Member

DEATHEP wrote:

population of Vientiane: 200,000
population of Ho Chi Minh City: 7,000,000 which is 35 times larger.

Does that clarify anything for you?

Normally , the less population is , the easier to administrate and develope . Small population is a good condition to develope health care and education. But Vientiane health care and education are way too bad compared to Ho Chi Minh City.

Anyway , if you use population as an excuse , let's say : Ho Chi Minh City has 7000000 people , Laos has about 7000000 too. But Ho Chi Minh City GDP is 38 billions USD which is 6 times larger than the whole GDP of Laos and larger than Laos and Cambodia composed .

Laoser · Senior Member

both suffered from the war, but it seem like loa is not getting any progress after 35 yearsLOL

paris_vientiane · Guru

It is true that the french asked many vietnamese to administrate Laos and not lao people... that was probably one of their big mistake, clearly justifying that after a few decades lao people claimed independancy

but
"the French believed [...]"
This is always a mistake to generalise. Maybe "french government believed.." but there was many french people involved in the french "presence" in Laos.... i don't think french did think all the same thing.

-- Edited by paris_vientiane on Wednesday 13th of October 2010 12:13:17 PM

paris_vientiane · Guru

"Is that why Laos is for ever poor ?"

Probably not.

For sure, french did not develop the country as much as lao people could expect... and for sure less than Vietnam

But the reason is probably that the economic potential of Laos was not as strong as neigtbour countries. The lack of access to the sea is clearly a big drawback of Laos and was someting absolutly critical at tis time.

Anyway, french did many things to develop the country: they built the first railway, many building that were particulary modern and beautifull at this time (sad to see that once french gone away, lao people did not take care those beautifull buildings enough: now many look old, dirty, broken.... but most of them could be great buildings if renewed), develop many cities, develop administration,etc...

but asking vietnamese to administrate the country.... what a stupid idea!!!!!! How could they imagine lao people would accept that????

To finish, just be carefull with some "history books".. especialy the ones "influenced" by governments (french or lao). the reality is very often much more complex than what some people want to believe... not just black or just white. There is some good and some bad in all situations.

French certainly bring both good things and bad things to Laos... seams at the early begining of the story, french bring more good than bad, and after a few decades, the situations seams to be inverted (more bad than good)... so it was time for French to go back home.

-- Edited by paris_vientiane on Wednesday 13th of October 2010 12:16:09 PM

paris_vientiane · Guru

wall-e wrote:

Normally , the less population is , the easier to administrate and develope .

I'm not sure small population disseminated over a wide territory (espacialy a territory where traveling is not easy, because of mountains, big rivers,e tc...) is so easy to administrate.

The big grow of Vientiane is something not very old. Originaly, Vientiane was not so big and people were more disseminated over all the lao territory.

Laoser · Senior Member

paris_vientiane wrote:

It is true that the french asked many vietnamese to administrate Laos and not lao people... that was probably one of their big mistake, clearly justifying that after a few decades lao people claimed independancy

but
"the French believed [...]"
This is always a mistoke to generalise. Maybe "french government believed.." but there was many french people involved in the french "presence" in Laos.... i don't think french did think all the same thing.

more like begging for independence LOL.seem to me, loa likes to live in fantasy

Lao Isan · Senior Member

Laos fight for independent. Maybe Isan should too no more slave to Bangkok.

chiip · Guru

Most of french explorers related good pictiures of lao people, their kindness, their generosity even very poor, they are always ready to invite you to share food with, but lao people are scattered, travelling from a village to another one took long time, three or four hour of walk the reach or even half a day, so, the commerce is unknown and lao are mostly self-sufficient in term of food in every village. The forests abound in game animals, river have plenty of fish but they coudn't sell it. the only one commercial term they known was the exchange : ten kilo of rice for five kilo of dried fish. Very few people possessed money for the good reason that it didn't exist, they money in that time was in a form of real silver and the price of these silver depended on its quality, mostly in a form of a block of wood that people used it to put food for pigs called '' Nheun khanh or Nheun Hang " generally used to buy precious things like buffaloes, oxen or for dowry or marriage settlement by laomen. And that style of living made the lao people independant and disliked any kind of rules or regulations. lao are gentle people, don't like to oppress others but don't like others to oppress them neither. As the french are very strict in term of regulations and wanted their colonies to enforce the french administration laws and regulations. It didn't work ! If French colonist were less arrogant and were a little bit more gentle with its colonies, I don't think that the indochina people would fight back, and those people would love frenchmen and their technologies, their style of living, their language even their home. But the french government " Petain??? " thought that Indochina people were only savages or a kind of wild animals. Many Frenchmen I'm acquainted deplored the act of treating their colonies by their government at that time some even said that if the french government was right and did what it should be done, the other side of the mekong river would still be laos...but the french army didn't want to offend the british army which were much stronger.
The French colonists brought more good things than bad things ? I really have no idea about that but one thing I'm sure is that if the french had good technologies as of they have nowaday, all the gold of Laos would have flown to france like the obelisk from egypt.
but now it is just a history that no one could change it, let's go forward and think of the future ...

wall-e · Member

Many people think French colony empire brings bad things more than good things . I'm not saying which is right .

According to what I've known , under French colony era , South Vietnam was a developed country and Saigon was one of the richest cities in Asia . Phnom Penh was once called The Pearl of the East.
But after we kicked out the French , Indochina did get a better face . Vietnam nowadays is not as rich as it was before . Laos and Cambodia are even poorer than they were .
Think about it !

Lao Isan · Senior Member

Wall-e yes communist is the problem.

chiip · Guru

yes I think so, but it is our own fault to chose that kind of policy of selfish, in theory " the people come first, leader should help and serve its people but it practice, leaders come first people should serve leaders " which does not exist in any communism doctrines and priciples and if this policy continue, depite extracting all the gold of laos and running all the planining dams over all the country, lao people will remain poor and vientiane wouldn't go along with its counterparts ( always far away behind ). what kind of communists are we ???

DEATHEP · Senior Member

wall-e wrote:

Normally , the less population is , the easier to administrate and develope . Small population is a good condition to develope health care and education. But Vientiane health care and education are way too bad compared to Ho Chi Minh City.
Anyway , if you use population as an excuse , let's say : Ho Chi Minh City has 7000000 people , Laos has about 7000000 too. But Ho Chi Minh City GDP is 38 billions USD which is 6 times larger than the whole GDP of Laos and larger than Laos and Cambodia composed .

You think all those buildings were erected by Vietnamese businesses? Outside developers and investors come in to take advantage of a market of seven million people. Its about business and isn't any indication of work discipline of a race.

I can't believe you would be so niave to compare the quality of health care and education of a industrious financial capital to a very small city of an agricultural state. That is the case for any city, in any country.

As far as the economies of the city, your arguement makes no sense. New York city has a population similar to that of Ho Chi Minh, but has a GDP of 1.13 Trillion. Thats 12 times larger than Vietnam entirely. You think New Yorkers work that much harder and are that much more intelligent than those in Ho Chi Minh?

wall-e · Member

DEATHEP wrote:

wall-e wrote:

Normally , the less population is , the easier to administrate and develope . Small population is a good condition to develope health care and education. But Vientiane health care and education are way too bad compared to Ho Chi Minh City.
Anyway , if you use population as an excuse , let's say : Ho Chi Minh City has 7000000 people , Laos has about 7000000 too. But Ho Chi Minh City GDP is 38 billions USD which is 6 times larger than the whole GDP of Laos and larger than Laos and Cambodia composed .

You think all those buildings were erected by Vietnamese businesses? Outside developers and investors come in to take advantage of a market of seven million people. Its about business and isn't any indication of work discipline of a race.

I can't believe you would be so niave to compare the quality of health care and education of a industrious financial capital to a very small city of an agricultural state. That is the case for any city, in any country.

As far as the economies of the city, your arguement makes no sense. New York city has a population similar to that of Ho Chi Minh, but has a GDP of 1.13 Trillion. Thats 12 times larger than Vietnam entirely. You think New Yorkers work that much harder and are that much more intelligent than those in Ho Chi Minh?

LOL , are you kidding ? New York has a population that is similar to Ho Chi Minh ? You must study Geography again dear !

Anyway , I mentioned Ho Chi Minh City and Laos just to show that population is not a reason .

And don't compare Ho Chi Minh to New York , because New York didn't have any war and New York has a 300-year-old economy while Ho Chi Minh has a 20-year-old economy .

Laoser · Senior Member

jealous loa should worry about thier poor country before worrying about its neighbor! biggrin

Boonyean P · Veteran Member

French took many think from Lao.

Lao Isan · Senior Member

Laos are jealous because Thailand is number one sex industry in the world. And Thai use that money to build Bangkok.

Boonyean P · Veteran Member

Not too late to develop self, work hard, learn, read, not just criticize, blame or jealuos to orter much be better.

eye_sky · Guru

That's always how it goes, but history tells it like it is. Colonizers always consider their colony's people as inferior, and they keep looking down on them. The french looked down on Laos, as they did with the Khmers. The spaniards looked down on filipinos and called them "indios" yet, they thought of the filipinos and the philippines as backward and stayed for so many hundred years, which is a mystery to me. If you dont like a country, why stay and make the locals' lives miserable? Don't you just hate people who think so highly of themselves?

http://eye-in-the-blue-sky.blogspot.com/2010/10/intriguing-architect-national-assembly.html

Lao Isan · Senior Member

Colonization is about exploitation of the people, and plunder the country natural resource. That's what the French, Thai was doing in French Indochina. It's never good. If somebody is in charge of your household they not going to care about your family like you do.

DEATHEP · Senior Member

wall-e wrote:
LOL , are you kidding ? New York has a population that is similar to Ho Chi Minh ? You must study Geography again dear !

Anyway , I mentioned Ho Chi Minh City and Laos just to show that population is not a reason .
And don't compare Ho Chi Minh to New York , because New York didn't have any war and New York has a 300-year-old economy while Ho Chi Minh has a 20-year-old economy .

New york city has a population of 8.4 million, while Ho chi minh has a population of 7.2 million. Similar enough to get the point accross.

Are you unable to comprehend that population is exactly the reason? If you were a business owner, explain why you would rather do business in a small city instead of a large.

You bring up the war, and yet you still can't understand that everything happens as a matter of consequence. Everything is in the condition that it is in for a purpose, and yet you use your racism, and foolish nationalism to justify that. If you took the time to analyze the history of Laos without having to compare it to other countries, perhaps you will realize why Laos is the way it is today.

wall-e · Member

DEATHEP wrote:

wall-e wrote:
LOL , are you kidding ? New York has a population that is similar to Ho Chi Minh ? You must study Geography again dear !

Anyway , I mentioned Ho Chi Minh City and Laos just to show that population is not a reason .
And don't compare Ho Chi Minh to New York , because New York didn't have any war and New York has a 300-year-old economy while Ho Chi Minh has a 20-year-old economy .

New york city has a population of 8.4 million, while Ho chi minh has a population of 7.2 million. Similar enough to get the point accross.

Are you unable to comprehend that population is exactly the reason? If you were a business owner, explain why you would rather do business in a small city instead of a large.

You bring up the war, and yet you still can't understand that everything happens as a matter of consequence. Everything is in the condition that it is in for a purpose, and yet you use your racism, and foolish nationalism to justify that. If you took the time to analyze the history of Laos without having to compare it to other countries, perhaps you will realize why Laos is the way it is today.

okay , u seem hard to accept ! I don't push u

NangDarling · Senior Member

wall-e wrote:

"In French eyes the Lao were credulous, mendicant, and incapable of either initiative or hard word. As a consequence, therefore, the French believed they could never depend on the Lao either to administer the country effectively, or to develop its resources in the best interests of France. For that they turned to the Vietnamese, who from the beginning staffed much of the middle level of the French administration."

A quote from "History of Laos"

ในสายตาของฝรั่งเศส คนลาวเป็นคนงมงาย เชื่อคนง่าย ยากจน ขัดสน ไม่มีความคิดริเริ่ม และไม่ยอมทำงานหนัก. ดังนั้นฝรั่งเศสจึงเชื่อว่าคนลาวจะไม่สามารถบริหารประเทศได้อย่างมี ประสิทธิภาพ หรือพัฒนาทรัพยากรเพื่อประโยชน์สูงสุดแก่ฝรั่งเศสได้. ฝรั่งเศสเลยหันไปเลือกคนเวียดนาม มาบริหารประเทศลาว ซึ่งคนเวียดนามก็เป็นพวกที่อยู่ในฝ่ายบริหารระดับกลางในคณะปกครองของ ฝรั่งเศสในลาวอยู่แล้ว.

Is it true ? Is that why Laos is for ever poor ?

Vietnam 35 years after war.

Laos 35 years after war

Its not even "Duck egg! Chicken egg"

Lao is not "poor" forever. thats how you want to see and beleived. I see peaceful, clean and not over populated....and who does not want to live in a place like that?

wall-e? why not compare Vietnam to your own country? "Thailand"

paris_vientiane · Guru

Vientiane is certainly less "impressive" than Vientnam big cities, but it's certainly a much better "enjoyable life" city.

Laos have few people, so laos have absolutly no need of high density capital (with all the drawbacks and problems caused by a too dense architecture and urbanism).

On the contrary, this is a good point for Laos.

footballer · Senior Member

yes.. Paris

wall-e · Member

paris_vientiane wrote:

Vientiane is certainly less "impressive" than Vientnam big cities, but it's certainly a much better "enjoyable life" city.

Laos have few people, so laos have absolutly no need of high density capital (with all the drawbacks and problems caused by a too dense architecture and urbanism).

On the contrary, this is a good point for Laos.

How could life be enjoyable at a place where people are too poor , there are only a few hospitals and universities.