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part in Lao culture; arguments are the exception, and the sangha, or monastic community,<br />
fosters a strict moral code. Even the shortest visit to <strong>Laos</strong> <strong>of</strong>fers unique insight into Buddhist<br />
culture.<br />
<strong>Laos</strong> is a place to tread lightly, but foreign travelers are made quite welcome and<br />
encouraged to do their part to preserve and participate in cultural practices. <strong>The</strong> beauty<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>Laos</strong> exists not only along the Mekong at sunset, but also in smiles at the market or<br />
impromptu Lao lessons on the street corner, things that are easily missed if you’re in a<br />
hurry. It’s an enchanting land that demands you slow your pace to match its own, and<br />
even the shortest visit might add tranquillity to your travels.<br />
Despite its mineral resources, <strong>Laos</strong> is one<br />
<strong>of</strong> the least developed countries in Asia.<br />
<strong>The</strong> vast majority <strong>of</strong> Lao people, approximately<br />
75%, depend on subsistence agriculture.<br />
Traditionally there is only one rice<br />
harvest a year, compared to the three that<br />
one <strong>of</strong>ten sees in Vietnam. For most people<br />
life tends to be simple. It’s early to rise,<br />
planting or harvesting rice or fishing, then<br />
maybe a drop <strong>of</strong> rice whiskey and fairly<br />
basic food which will almost certainly<br />
center around sticky rice. Families tend<br />
the fields together. Men plow and prepare<br />
the ground, control the irrigation to the<br />
paddies, and thresh the crop; women perform<br />
the transplanting <strong>of</strong> the seedlings,<br />
weeding, and carry the harvested rice to be<br />
threshed.<br />
Villages consist <strong>of</strong> collections <strong>of</strong> basic<br />
wooden houses, stretched along one street.<br />
Education is very basic. In the evening,<br />
families will <strong>of</strong>ten gather around the communal<br />
TV to watch Thai soap operas or<br />
premier league football (that’s if the village<br />
has electricity, which many don’t).<br />
Buddhism and <strong>The</strong>ravada Buddhist<br />
ritual is central to life in <strong>Laos</strong>. <strong>The</strong> Communist<br />
Pathet Lao wisely never made any<br />
attempt to suppress the religion after taking<br />
power in 1975, and from the 1950s<br />
actually attempted to co-opt the Buddhist<br />
clergy to their cause. Almost every Lao<br />
male will spend some time as a monk at<br />
some point in his life. Monks remain<br />
1 LAOS TODAY<br />
revered and anywhere near a wat or temple<br />
you will see people making their early<br />
morning food donations as the monks go<br />
on their alms round. Unlike in neighboring<br />
countries, in Communist <strong>Laos</strong> monks<br />
are required to work, taking on the role <strong>of</strong><br />
physicians and teachers.<br />
<strong>Laos</strong> is very much a one-party state,<br />
ruled by an all-powerful and largely aging<br />
elite with absolute power to crush any dissent.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Lao People’s Revolutionary Party<br />
(LPRP) is led by President Chummaly<br />
Sayasone as the head <strong>of</strong> state, while Bouasone<br />
Bouphavanh is the prime minister<br />
and head <strong>of</strong> government presiding over the<br />
National Assembly, elected with no legal<br />
opposition in 2006. <strong>The</strong> real power is the<br />
10-member Politburo, and to some extent<br />
the 52-member Central Committee, all <strong>of</strong><br />
whom are appointed and operate behind<br />
firmly closed doors.<br />
Foreign aid, whether European, Japanese,<br />
or Chinese, is what funds development<br />
here. <strong>The</strong>re is no taxation since<br />
the country is too poor to afford it or<br />
implement it. <strong>The</strong> politics <strong>of</strong> donor countries<br />
and the concessions they try to<br />
wring out <strong>of</strong> the recalcitrant Politburo—<br />
be that trade, human rights, or future<br />
access to natural resources—remains a<br />
dance <strong>of</strong> competing agendas at which the<br />
Lao authorities have become very adept.<br />
<strong>The</strong> more they interact politically and<br />
commercially with the outside world,<br />
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LAOS TODAY