Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimacy in Laos: The Past and Present of the Lao Nation 9789048550715

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Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimacy in Laos

Publications The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a research and exchange platform based in Leiden, the Netherlands. Its objective is to encourage the interdisciplinary and comparative study of Asia and to promote (inter)national cooperation. IIAS focuses on the humanities and social sciences and on their interaction with other sciences. It stimulates scholarship on Asia and is instrumental in forging research networks among Asia Scholars. Its main research interests are reflected in the three book series published with Amsterdam University Press: Global Asia, Asian Heritages and Asian Cities. IIAS acts as an international mediator, bringing together various parties in Asia and other parts of the world. The Institute works as a clearinghouse of knowledge and information. This entails activities such as providing information services, the construction and support of international networks and cooperative projects, and the organization of seminars and conferences. In this way, IIAS functions as a window on Europe for non-European scholars and contributes to the cultural rapprochement between Europe and Asia. IIAS Publications Officer: Paul van der Velde IIAS Assistant Publications Officer: Mary Lynn van Dijk

Asian Heritages The Asian Heritages series explores the notions of heritage as they have evolved from European based concepts, mainly associated with architecture and monumental archaeology, to incorporate a broader diversity of cultural forms and value. This includes a critical exploration of the politics of heritage and its categories, such as the contested distinction ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ heritages; the analysis of the conflicts triggered by competing agendas and interests in the heritage field; and the productive assessment of management measures in the context of Asia. Asian Heritages is a series published in cooperation with the International Institute for Asian Studies. Series Editors Adèle Esposito, CNRS-IRASEC, Bangkok, Thailand Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University, USA, and Leiden University, the Netherlands Editorial Board Sadiah Boonstra, 2019-2020 Asia Scholar, The University of Melbourne/Curator of Public Programs Asia TOPA Min-Chin CHIANG, Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan Yew-Foong HUI, Hong Kong Shue Yan University Aarti Kawlra, International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Netherlands Ronki Ram, Panjab University, India

Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimacy in Laos The Past and Present of the Lao Nation

Phill Wilcox

Amsterdam University Press

Publications Asian Heritages 7

Cover illustration: Revolutionary statue in Vieng Xai Source: Photo taken by the author, April 2019 Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 702 0 e-isbn 978 90 4855 071 5 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789463727020 nur 754 © Phill Wilcox / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2021 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

8

Author’s Note

9

Acknowledgements 11 1 Introduction – Heritage, State, and Politics Being Revolutionary, Being Lao Constructing the People’s Democratic Republic Socialist Ideology – Capitalist Politics Nation State Fragility Cultural Intimacy of/in Laos Heritage With an Agenda Future Building in Laos Rising China The Book Future Directions References

15 17 21 24 28 32 35 40 42 46 48 50

2 Making the Past (Dis)appear

55

Heritage as Legitimacy in (Re)creating Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang and the Creation of Nostalgia Dealing With ‘Difficult Pasts’ at the National Museum Heritage and Almsgiving ‘We Don’t Talk About It Openly’: Timelessness and Silence An Economy of Selective History A Suitably Idealized Past Conclusions: Heritages and Future Directions References 3 Hmong (Forever) on the Margins

Crypto-Separatism and the Making of Ethnic Difference

Ethnicity in Laos Dreams of Hmong Statehood and Zomia ‘We Are Hmong’ Difference as Belonging Zomia as a Persistent Alternative

61 65 68 73 77 80 84 87 91 94 98 102 106 109

Conclusions: Reproducing Societal Inequality? References 4 One World: One Dream

Voices of Pessimism, Strategies of Pragmatism and Facing the Rise of China

‘One World: One Dream’? ‘China Is Developed’ ‘We Will No Longer Have Jobs’ Pessimism With Ambivalence: The New ‘Things of the House’ Final Thoughts – One Belt: Multiple Paths? References

113 114 117 124 129 132 139 143 146

5 Conclusion – Long Live the Revolution? Royal and Revolutionary Heritage Essentializing the State The Dynamics of Authoritarianism Difficult Heritages Difference as (Not) Belonging On China and Changing Laos Final Reflections References

151 155 158 160 162 165 167 170 172

Bibliography

175

Index

187

List of Maps and Illustrations Figure 1 Map of Laos Reproduced with permission from Lonely Planet Figure 2 King Sisavang Vong Statue – National Museum, Luang Prabang Statue of King Sisavang Vong in the grounds of the National Museum (formerly the Royal Palace), Luang Prabang Photograph taken by the author, January 2014 Figure 3 Flag of Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) outside National Museum, Luang Prabang

14 18

66

Conclusions: Reproducing Societal Inequality? References 4 One World: One Dream

Voices of Pessimism, Strategies of Pragmatism and Facing the Rise of China

‘One World: One Dream’? ‘China Is Developed’ ‘We Will No Longer Have Jobs’ Pessimism With Ambivalence: The New ‘Things of the House’ Final Thoughts – One Belt: Multiple Paths? References

113 114 117 124 129 132 139 143 146

5 Conclusion – Long Live the Revolution? Royal and Revolutionary Heritage Essentializing the State The Dynamics of Authoritarianism Difficult Heritages Difference as (Not) Belonging On China and Changing Laos Final Reflections References

151 155 158 160 162 165 167 170 172

Bibliography

175

Index

187

List of Maps and Illustrations Figure 1 Map of Laos Reproduced with permission from Lonely Planet Figure 2 King Sisavang Vong Statue – National Museum, Luang Prabang Statue of King Sisavang Vong in the grounds of the National Museum (formerly the Royal Palace), Luang Prabang Photograph taken by the author, January 2014 Figure 3 Flag of Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) outside National Museum, Luang Prabang

14 18

66

Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10

The flag of the contemporary Lao PDR in front of the National Museum (Formerly Royal Palace) in Luang Prabang Photograph taken by the author, January 2014 Almsgiving, Luang Prabang 71 Numerous tourists, sometimes referred to as amateur paparazzi, photograph the daily almsgiving at dawn in central Luang Prabang Photograph taken by Amanda Silberling, May 2019 and reproduced with permission Royal Lao Government (RLG) Symbol for Sale on the Night Market, Luang Prabang 82 The symbol of the ousted Royal Lao Government traded as tourist souvenirs at Luang Prabang’s famous night market Photograph taken by the author, January 2014 Cultural Display for twentieth Anniversary of UNESCO Recognition Luang Prabang 84 Celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of Luang Prabang as a UNESCO Recognized World Heritage Site Photograph taken by the author, December 2015 Parade for twentieth Anniversary of UNESCO Recognition Luang Prabang 96 Figures representing ethnic diversity in Laos in the now officially abandoned tripartite system Photograph taken by the author, December 2015 Chinese Supermarket Front, Luang Prabang 138 The front of a Chinese shopping mall in Luang Prabang Photograph taken by Amanda Silberling, May 2019 and reproduced with permission Leaving Offerings at King Sisavang Vong’s Statue, Luang Prabang152 Leaving offerings at the statue of King Sisavang Vong in the grounds of the National Museum (formerly the Royal Palace) in Luang Prabang Photograph taken by the author, April 2016 Signage for Kaysone Phomvihane’s Cave, Vieng Xai Cave Complex156 Signage for Kaysone Phomvihane’s cave in Vieng Xai, Houaphanh Province on the Lao-Vietnamese border Photograph taken by the author, December 2013



List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

ASEAN BRI LAO PDR LDC LPRP NGO RLG UNESCO

Association of Southeast Asian Nations Belt and Road Initiative Lao People’s Democratic Republic Least Developed Country Lao People’s Revolutionary Party Non-Governmental Organization Royal Lao Government United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization



Author’s Note

Several variations of spellings exist in writing Lao words in Latin script as a consequence of several transcription systems. I have used the forms that, in my experience, are used most commonly. The material presented here was gathered in both Lao and English. All translations from Lao are my own, unless otherwise stated. Translations directly from Hmong came almost entirely from Hmong-speaking friends, who were often themselves interlocutors in this research. Where a conversation was translated from Hmong, this is stated within the text. All personal names of people in this book are pseudonyms, except for well-known people, such as Kaysone Phomvihane, for whom the real name and conventional spelling is used.

Acknowledgements I always read acknowledgements in other people’s work with interest. It always seems fascinating how despite the single author, the book is the culmination of support from so many different people. In my case, the list seems enormous and is very sincere. Given the Lao context, it is impossible to thank everyone individually and I hope that many know who they are and feel the depth of my appreciation. The genus of this project was, of course, my PhD study. This commenced at the University of Hull under the expert supervision of Mark Johnson and Vassos Argyrou. It was only due to the former relocating to Goldsmiths, University of London, that I relocated my PhD studies to London, where I benefited from several more years of the most supportive, patient, and valuable supervision that I could ever ask for. My project was examined by Michael Herzfeld and Rachel Harrison, both of whom took large amounts of time to consider my work and provide inspiring, encouraging feedback. I am also enormously grateful to Michael Herzfeld for his invaluable support, encouragement, and advice as I moved from thesis to book. This book would simply not have happened without you. I am beyond grateful to the Series Editors, Michael Herzfeld and Adele Esposito, and Paul van der Velde, IIAS Publications Officer, and Mary Lynn van Dijk, Assistant Publications Officer at the International Institute of Asia Studies and to Saskia Gieling, Commissioning Editor, and Jaap Wagenaar, Production Editor, at Amsterdam University Press. All have been with this book’s project throughout its ups and downs. Thank you for being so positive and supportive. I am also sincerely grateful to the two anonymous reviewers who commented on an earlier version of the manuscript. Your insights and observations led me to rethink and refine what is presented here. The PhD process took me on numerous visits to Laos, starting informally from 2002, although I had no idea then of where it would lead. I returned yearly from around 2007 and after I registered for my doctorate in 2013, stayed for a much longer concentrated period of research lasting around fifteen months. The PhD journey also allowed me time to study Lao at the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute, University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2014, for which I was offered a very generous scholarship. I am very grateful to Dr Samlong Inthaly and those who studied with me for making such an intense language experience also such an enjoyable one. For financial support during the PhD process, I offer my sincere thanks to the Royal Anthropological Institute for awarding me an Emslie Horniman

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Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimac y in L aos

Scholarship, which largely made the fieldwork on which this project is based possible. I was similarly very honoured to be awarded a Sutasoma Award in 2018, also administered by the RAI. Thanks, too, go to the Richard Stapley Trust and Federation for Women Graduates, without whose support this project would not have been possible. In the post-doctoral phase, I was very fortunate to move to a Research Associate position at Bielefeld University, Germany. I am grateful beyond words for this opportunity, which supported the writing of the manuscript and gave me much needed time and space to think about and rethink my material. I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Bielefeld Young Researchers Fund and the Association of Southeast Asian Studies UK, which allowed me to return to Laos during the writing process. While this was for a different project, it allowed me to take a fresh look at much of what is presented here. In Laos itself, I am very grateful to all at the École française d’ExtrêmeOrient (EFEO) for facilitating my aff iliation, which gave me a muchappreciated workspace in Vientiane. In Luang Prabang, thank you also to all at the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre for allowing me to work with you and for teaching me so much about ethnic diversity in Laos. Latterly, I must also say a big thank you to the Institut français in Luang Prabang for allowing me to work in your beautiful building. Another thank you goes to Carol Kresge and the team at My Library in Luang Prabang. Also, in and around Laos, I must pause to say thank you so very much to many people who shared time, impressions, and their stories with me. You remain anonymous but that does not diminish my immense gratitude. Thank you also to other Lao scholars for their very valuable insights. In conferences and casual conversations alike, your work has been a source of inspiration for my own. I must say a particular thanks to David Berliner, Elizabeth Elliot, Roy Huijsmans, Michael Kleinod, Patrice Ladwig, Clementine Leonard, Marie-Pierre Lissoir, Pierre Petit, Jonathan Rigg, Alessandro Rippa, Simon Rowedder, Guido Sprenger, and Oliver Tappe. I would like to record a special thank you here to my friend and fellow Laos researcher, Sonemany Nigole, for all her valuable insights and constant support over many years. More recently, thank you so much to those in Bielefeld where much of the writing of the book has happened. Bielefeld University has been a very collegial and inspiring place to rethink much of this material, to edit, and to write and I am immensely grateful to all my new friends and colleagues who continue to support me so thoroughly. Particular thanks to Minh Nguyen, Jake Lin, Ngoc Luong, Johanna Paul, Éva Rozalia Hölzle, Inka Stock, and Christian Ulbricht as well as all the other members of our working groups. Thank you also to my students at Bielefeld, for their insightful comments

Acknowledgements

13

and interest in my work. I’m also grateful to colleagues who attended ‘The Good Life in Late Socialist Asia’ in Bielefeld in September 2019 and colleagues in the Anthropology Department of Nanjing University for inviting me to a workshop in November 2019, which allowed me to present material on China in Laos within the context of China. Your feedback has been invaluable in sharpening my ideas on China in Laos. For their kind permission to reproduce a map, I send my sincere thanks to Lonely Planet. Thank you also to Amanda Silberling for allowing me to reproduce two of her photographs. Finally, I would also like to thank sincerely all those individuals here who supported me in the PhD process and beyond. To those who read drafts, offered listening ears, and/or practical support even when I disappeared to focus and work, I am truly grateful. I would like to say a special thank you to those of the PhD Writing up Seminar at Goldsmiths, London in 2017-2018. This project would also not be what it is without everyone who discussed ideas in corridors, around the kettle, or in pubs with me. At universities and beyond, I am grateful specifically but not exclusively to Kristy Best, Magda Biran-Taylor, Vanja Celebicic, Sarah Colley, Fee Anke De Hoog-Cius, Phil Devarenne, Charlotte Joy, Henrike Neuhaus, Diana Manesi, Sarah Moser, Rita Padawangi, Tiffany Pollock, Andrew Powell, Nola Pugh, Suvi Rautio, Claire and Georgie Tomsett-Rowe, Julia Wingate, and Martin Wilcox. Finally, a very special thank you to my parents, particularly my mother who sparked my interest in Laos in the first place. I am also particularly grateful to her for reading through this entire manuscript. Thank you also to all my family and extended family for being a great source of support and embracing the mobile nature of my life in the last two decades. I have met many wonderful people along this journey, all of whom in different ways have encouraged me to see the world differently, as multiple and remade, to think on and rethink the issues raised and material presented here. I am truly grateful. Any remaining errors in this manuscript are entirely my own.

Figure 1  Map of Laos

Reproduced with permission from the Lonely Planet website www.lonelyplanet.com © 2019, Lonely Planet

1

Introduction – Heritage, State, and Politics Abstract While the one-party state in Laos is nearly fifty years old, how is it possible for people to still revere the former Lao royal family? What does this mean for understandings of political legitimacy, heritage, and national identity in contemporary Laos? This chapter covers critical points of Herzfeld’s cultural intimacy model and shows that the Lao political system as it is today has become part of the fabric of Lao culture and society. The context of Luang Prabang, the former royal capital, is also introduced, as well as the justification for choosing Luang Prabang as an excellent place to consider how narratives of the past, present, and imagined futures intersect. Keywords: Luang Prabang, political legitimacy, one-party state, national identity, transition

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic celebrated its 45th birthday in December 2020. It is one of the very few surviving examples of a one-party socialist system left in the world. My aim in this book is to ask how the Lao political system, which I will refer to here as nominally socialist, has become part of everyday life in Laos. Several generations of the Lao population now live, work, and build futures under this system. In sum, I consider here how they live in and around the state.1 At the time of writing in 2021, Laos is a different place from the country that established one-party socialism in 1975. Collectivization and central planning have given way to a market-based economy since the mid-1980s, 1 The full title of the country is the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Here, I use Laos to refer to the country and Lao to refer to anyone who is a citizen of that country. This is important given the immense ethnic diversity in the country. When I refer to people who identify or are identified by the state as being from the lowland ethnic group, I use the term “lowland Lao” to distinguish them from citizens of the country but from the various ethnic minorities, such as the Hmong.

Wilcox, Phill, Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimacy in Laos. The Past and Present of the Lao Nation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463727020_ch01

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Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimac y in L aos

and the observation heard frequently from outsiders is that Laos, therefore, is no longer really socialist. Laos is now a country where growing inequality is very apparent. It is now a place where, as in much of the rest of the world, it is possible to become and be very rich but also very poor. In contrast to the days of strict socialism, it is possible to do things that would have been anathema to previous generations, for example, working and studying abroad in countries that epitomize capitalism. Yet for all that has changed – and the political rhetoric has changed over time – officially the country maintains socialism as a future political destination. According to the Lao government, Laos will arrive at socialism one day.2 As the system heads towards its fifth decade with no real indication of how, when, or even why, socialism is desirable now, this is worthy of investigation. To think through how people live in, live around, and perpetuate the one-party political system with its outward statements celebrating socialism on the one hand and market economics on the other, is to consider the question of political legitimacy in Laos head-on. The main focus of this investigation is Luang Prabang, the former royal capital of the country and the principal city of northern Laos. It is from here that the Lao royal family departed upon their deposition in 1975, to re-education camps on the Lao-Vietnamese border, never to return. A place of significant history, Luang Prabang is also referred to frequently by people all across the population as the centre of Lao culture. It is, therefore, an excellent place to get a flavour of ‘Laoness’, or what being Lao is about. The city’s historic centre has been recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a World Heritage site since 1995. Luang Prabang is a place where the recent history of French colonialism and the pre-revolutionary period is evident, which stands in stark contrast to other places in Laos, where this is largely sidelined, lambasted, or ignored. Luang Prabang as a contradictory space is not always clear to its many visitors, neither international or domestic ones, for whom Luang Prabang represents a splendid site of authentic Lao culture. Finally, the city is also a place of significant migration from the countryside, where most of the population still resides as subsistence rice farmers. This is a city people come to, and from where they move further still in pursuit of their aspirations for the future. I first went to Luang Prabang in 2002 and, since 2013, have conducted research there. I met large numbers of young Hmong migrants from rural areas in the surrounding provinces who moved to the city to pursue dreams 2

This is analysed in detail by High and Petit (2013).

Introduc tion – Heritage, State, and Politics

17

of better education, employment, or both. These are people whose parents have little direct memory of the revolution in 1975 and the civil war which preceded it. Consequently, they have never known any other political system first-hand, but as youth living in urban areas with increased and increasing access to technology far beyond what was possible in their villages, they are often very connected to the world outside Laos. Luang Prabang is where they dream of migrating further for employment or further education. They know that the political system in Laos is different from that of, for example, Thailand, and build their futures amid and around such a political landscape.

Being Revolutionary, Being Lao The garden of the former royal palace in Luang Prabang contains a large statue of the last crowned Lao monarch, King Sisavang Vong, who ruled Laos after independence from France in 1953 until his death in 1959. At this point, his son, Sisavang Vatthana succeeded him. Vatthana was never formally crowned, owing to the onset of the civil war that engulfed the country and led to the revolution in 1975, which ultimately deposed the Lao monarchy. At the time of his accession to the throne, King Sisavang Vatthana commented ruefully that he would be the last King of Laos, and his fears were not ill-founded. Following the revolution, the King abdicated. He, his wife, and the Crown Prince perished in a re-education camp in a remote part of northeast Laos around 1980. No public statement about the circumstances of their demise has ever been made in Laos itself.3 The last home of the Lao royal family today is a National Museum. Visitors buy a ticket and are then free to enter but must remove their shoes and wear appropriate dress within the main building. Sometimes guided by official guides, visitors will walk a prescribed route around the museum, learn briefly about each room’s uses, and see the King’s personal effects, including his bedroom. Simultaneously, they will learn nothing of his fate from either the signs or the guides. This information is entirely absent. In sum, visitors will learn that Laos had a monarchy until 1975, but what happened after that, and why it does not have a monarchy anymore, is conspicuously absent. There is no explicit reference to the political system that deposed the monarchy and remains in power today. 3 For a detailed overview of general Lao history, see Evans (2002). For a specific overview of the founding of the modern Lao state and the two decades since the revolution in 1975 and subsequent reinvention of itself, see – amongst others – Evans (1998) and Stuart-Fox (1998).

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Figure 2 Statue of King Sisavang Vong in the grounds of the National Museum (formerly the Royal Palace), Luang Prabang

Photograph taken by the author, January 2014

In what used to be his garden, King Sisavang Vong stands resplendent and alone. Following the revolution, the statue was spared destruction as it was a present from the Soviet Union and received during a particularly turbulent period of Lao history. It was then deemed insensitive to remove

Introduc tion – Heritage, State, and Politics

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it. 4 Today the statue is a focal point of any visit to the former palace and, when I visited Luang Prabang in December 2013, I too was drawn to the statue. What caught my attention were the fresh offerings of flowers and incense placed daily at the foot of the statue. At the time, I never found out who left these offerings and my enquiries, both in English and Lao, were smiled away politely by the local officials, a strategy particularly common in Laos for deflecting diff icult questions.5 I am aware that at least some of the off icials are likely to be members of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), although as party members are sometimes discouraged from disclosing this to foreigners, I will never know for certain.6 I only ever received one answer to my enquiry, when an official told me that the offerings were placed there ‘for respect’, but he looked decidedly uncomfortable and would say nothing further, even though the placing of offerings is actually commonplace in Laos. This incident was one of the first occasions on which I had seen anything of the pre-revolutionary period as something visible in Laos. I wondered at the time what was being articulated by smiling away those enquiries? Was the smiling an attempt to deal with something too difficult to explain, both in substance and in form, or something else entirely? Leaving an offering out of respect is not particularly controversial in and of itself, perhaps unworthy of further discussion, but the location and the wider context of whom the statue stands for and where it is located is worth pausing over. This research journey has led me to consider why these expressions of ‘respect’ to King Sisavang Vong were made anyway when so much time had passed since the founding of the contemporary Lao state. Why were these offerings permitted and to what end? I also wondered what was left unspoken here, and whether that had anything at all to do with Luang Prabang’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is an interesting dimension that raises implications about how people engage with their pre-revolutionary heritage in Luang Prabang, living and working around it while maintaining the dogmatic political legitimacy of one-party socialism. The official story of the modern Lao nation is that the current political regime represents the will of the Lao people, and anything contradictory 4 Statues are a common theme throughout this book and this one is particularly relevant because it is one of very few public commemorations of the final decades of the Lao monarchy. See Tappe (2013) for further details about this particular statue. 5 See Baird and Le Billon (2012) for a commentary on this as a deflection strategy for difficult or controversial questions. 6 See especially, Baird (2014) and Stuart-Fox (2007) for background on how the Party appears and influences public life and interactions such as this one.

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to this story is lambasted or ignored. Yet in Luang Prabang, the promotion of heritage conflicts with that narrative. Seemingly problematic parts of heritage are visible here, where they do not appear elsewhere in Laos. Browse the Luang Prabang night market, as most visitors do, and one will see the symbol of the ousted Royal Lao Government (RLG), traded openly on bags and other keepsakes sold as souvenirs to tourists. This symbol was on the national flag until 1975. Lao children who are learning the alphabet do so with each consonant assigned to a word, and ‘flag’ is one of these key words. Contemporary alphabet diagrams use the current flag. This is in contrast to diaspora communities abroad, who often use the RLG symbol instead, a potent reminder of the country they have lost. In Laos itself, I have never seen the RLG symbol outside this particular context of central, UNESCO-recognized Luang Prabang, and I have come to understand that its display here is possible in ways that would be frowned on elsewhere.7 Central Luang Prabang therefore assumes a paradoxical quality. I wanted to know how these contradictions play out in everyday life, and how discourses of heritage and political legitimacy intersect and diverge. This is an apt departure point for the research puzzle that took me to Laos again and again. When I asked some of those who would come to participate in this research about what I had seen, they told me that Luang Prabang is about heritage, or as it is termed in Lao, moladok, itself a new word to describe a process of doing heritage.8 In Luang Prabang, as the ultimate centre of Lao culture, actions such as the open veneration of the ousted royalist regime are possible in ways that they would not be allowed elsewhere, for example, in the national capital of Vientiane. This then, is a rare example of the previous regime being visible in a country that retains one-party socialism, and as an embedded part of the cultural landscape. I believe that investigating discourses of who present themselves as the guardians of traditional culture, and to what end, are entirely relevant for claims that take us to the heart of political legitimacy in Laos. In official terminology, the one-party regime in Laos is here to stay. This is why I reject the term post-socialist in relation to Laos and will not 7 Tappe (2013) examines this directly. I also return to this in the following chapter. 8 Berliner (2012) describes how his interlocutors in Luang Prabang largely viewed moladok as a process and something one is required to do by the authorities. This represents a top-down process of managing heritage, which is apparent in Luang Prabang as I will outline in the next chapter.

Introduc tion – Heritage, State, and Politics

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use it here. In contrast to most of the former USSR and Eastern European countries, Laos is, simply, not post-socialist. It may appear to be capitalist in all but name to outsiders, yet that is not what the state in Laos tells us about itself, and it is not accurate in describing the political landscape under which my interlocutors live. Instead, the official discourse maintains that socialism in Laos is still the intended political destination. No matter how curious that statement is to outsiders, my argument is that we must take what the Lao state says about itself seriously to be able to understand the political landscape. My aim was to get behind the public face of what is presented as Lao culture and legitimate politics by listening to what the state says about itself, and what people say about the state. Luang Prabang, with its visible pre-revolutionary heritage, is a perfect place to do this. I suggest that by allowing some open interaction with the pre-revolutionary heritage in Luang Prabang a space for the past to be visible and interacted with in ways that do not threaten the overall legitimacy of the system can be created. This can be applied in broader terms. As we will see here, by allowing for space for people to complain about things that are fairly uncontentious, that everyone knows already, the state also allows for people to interact with the state in ways where some forms of dissent are tolerated, but only in ways that do not threaten the overall political system.

Constructing the People’s Democratic Republic At this point, it is important to take a step back into the past. For much of the current Lao population, French colonialism in Laos is now several generations past. Most young Lao do not study French anymore, and many have told me that this is no longer important for their futures. It is important, however, to recognize the significance of France in creating the modern Lao state, in both its post- and pre-1975 forms. Laos was finally consolidated as a nation in 1899. The first time the Lao population came together within the new borders was under French colonialism. The French also preserved the Lao monarchy, and the traditional Buddhist sangha system, in which the Lao King formed the central body. Following independence from France in 1953, Laos, with a weak sense of national consciousness, increasingly became involved in the situation in neighbouring Vietnam. The RLG nominally retained control of the cities but had limited control of parts of the countryside, where a movement known

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as the Pathet Lao (literally ‘Lao state’) calling for socialism in Laos, was growing. The RLG was perceived increasingly as corrupt and propped up by external aid. This is not particularly surprising as the US, desperate to stop the spread of communism to South Vietnam, believed that this would lead to a domino effect of revolutions around the region. Accordingly, they consolidated their resources into air strikes, and later, ground troops in Vietnam. US support for the RLG increased dramatically from humanitarian to military aid to combat the Pathet Lao.9 Between 1965 and 1973, the US government sanctioned a massive aerial bombing campaign of much of the Lao countryside, particularly along the border with Vietnam, where the Ho Chi Minh trail ran through parts of Eastern Laos.10 Banned by the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and 1962 from direct involvement in Laos, the CIA recruited fighters particularly from the Hmong to fight for them and against the RLG army, and found a leader in General Vang Pao to take on this task. This is an aspect of Lao history with resounding consequences today and on which I focus in Chapter 3. Many Hmong hoped for an independent state after the conflict and feared increasing levels of adverse control over their lives should the Pathet Lao succeed. They sided with the RLG and stood behind Vang Pao. Vang Pao’s name continues to hold significant power both in Laos and around the world and is not spoken openly amongst lowland Lao, except in derogatory terms. Uncertainty gave way to coup after coup and by the early 1970s the RLG was incapable of continuing without US support, and its control over the rest of the country gradually weakened. In the countryside, people wished only for peace. When the US withdrew from Vietnam, its efforts in Laos also came to a close. This led to the Pathet Lao progressively taking a more prominent role in the political arena. Although the revolution in Laos was not particularly bloody, once US military support collapsed and neighbouring Phnom Penh and Saigon fell to the communists in April 1975, it was only a matter of time before events in Laos resolved similarly. Many Lao citizens, particularly those who had supported the RLG and/or American war efforts (including large numbers of Hmong, fearful of what would come next), fled across the Mekong River to Thailand, and were eventually resettled in third countries. The loss of these people, which included much of Laos’s educated population, made the eventual transfer to one-party socialism straightforward. King Vatthana wrote his letter of abdication at the start of 9 This is discussed at length by Phraxayavong (2009). 10 Laos is still dealing with a deadly legacy of this period, with large amounts of unexploded ordnance. See Russell (2013).

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December 1975, and the LPRP, the successors of the Pathet Lao, were now the only remaining political force. The Lao People’s Democratic Republic was founded on 2 December 1975. This date is celebrated each year as National Day in contemporary Laos.11 The revolutionary birth then gave way to repression. For those still in Laos, those considered dubiously loyal to the new regime often faced internment in re-education camps. Monks were denounced as parasites for living on alms they collected from the population and were restricted in doing so.12 Initially, the King, Queen, and the Crown Prince were allowed to remain behind in Luang Prabang, but were subsequently transported to a re-education camp in Houaphanh Province where they later starved to death.13 The Lao leadership remained notoriously tight-lipped about their fate for many years following the revolution, until much later when Kaysone Phomvihane, the first Prime Minister of socialist Laos, stated on a visit outside Laos that the King had died of old age sometime around 1980. No official statement has ever been made about the fate of the Queen and the Crown Prince, and the whereabouts of the remains of all three members of the Royal family are unknown. The last known photo of the King and Queen shows them kneeling in a re-education camp shortly before their deaths.14 Aside from political repression, there was also economic repression. The government began a programme of land collectivization, which proved deeply unpopular with the peasants.15 It took less than a decade before strict economic policy gave way to a loosening of the economic climate. Restrictions on private business were eased and the country began opening up to both foreign investment and tourism. This may look like a move away from socialism and was characterized as such in the title of a piece by Soukamneuth, who aptly terms this period a ‘central march to socialism’ and a ‘local retreat to capitalism’ (2006:47-50). Crucially, the regime retained socialist language. Yamada (2018) argues cogently that the relationship between economics and political ideology remains very tight in Laos, and that the change in economic direction could be marketed as something that 11 For more information about this very turbulent period in Lao history, see Evans (2002, 2009) and Baird (2015), amongst others. 12 See especially, Ladwig (2013) and two works from nearer the time period: Stuart-Fox (1983) and Stuart Fox and Bucknell (1982) 13 See Evans (2009). In relation to Luang Prabang specifically, Berliner notes that during this period it became ‘a damned place’ (2012: 778) because of its royalist associations. 14 This is addressed in more detail in the following chapter. 15 Detailed information about collectivization in Laos is available from Evans (1990).

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would benefit the eventual establishment of socialism in Laos. Arguably, as levels of Chinese influence in Laos are also on the rise, amid fanfare statements from the Lao authorities about how closer ties with China are positive for Laos, this process of leading change rather than being a recipient of it is being deployed again. As we will see throughout the chapters which follow, leading from the front, and showing active leadership, is fundamental to political legitimacy in Laos. It allows for the Lao authorities to be active in processes of change, rather than passive recipients. For the Lao political establishment, this has proved a vital strategy for avoiding making oneself redundant.

Socialist Ideology – Capitalist Politics This means, as High and Petit (2013) term it, Laos is not so much post-socialist as pre-socialist, at least in official discourse. The introduction and then rejection of certain tenets of strict socialism is couched mostly in terms of the Party doing what is best for the country. The rhetoric of hard work for developing the nation remains. Those who live outside this narrative, for example, the overseas Lao, are acknowledged for their economic power. Some now operate, or provide help to businesses in contemporary Laos, but the reasons they left remain largely unspoken. The flexible use of socialist ideology and rhetoric, as a driver of political legitimacy and as a tool, allows people to make sense of the present through this same ideological lens. While the country maintains one-party socialism, and an authoritarian system of governance that stands in line with its neighbours, Vietnam and China, the official commitment to represent the people under the banner of socialism continues. Of course, Laos is not a democracy represented by a multiparty system, yet ‘democratic’ continues to appear in the full title of the country, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. My point here is to highlight that the authorities continue to draw on claims of being the legitimate representatives of the population. High (2014) asks why – if the country is only socialist in a nominal sense – is there not more opposition to the current political regime in Laos? She argues that one powerful reason for this is because, although the state is feared, people still believe it can deliver on its promises to their population and that they can succeed under this regime. For High, the state represents a beast which people feed in its current incarnation and must feed because of their expectations. She also argues that it is an object both of ridicule and desire. By feeding the state in this form, they imagine it into being

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and make it an essential part of their own lives. For me, people resent it, complain about it, and resist it but simultaneously expect it to provide for them and complain when it does not. Perhaps this is because most of the population cannot conceive of an alternative for Laos itself at the present time. Their concerns are more mundane and immediate. Many people in Laos have told me of the need to reduce corruption and improve basic health care and education amenities. Nobody has expressed, in so many words, the need for radical political reform to do that. Laos has a small population and small urban centres. Luang Prabang remains the principal city for northern Laos, along with the national capital in Vientiane and smaller cities. Overall, the population is spread mainly around the river valleys with the rest in the more remote, mountainous areas. This makes meaningful interaction with officials possible and speaks volumes about the importance of viewing the state in Laos as, first and foremost, a set of social relations. These officials reproduce the state at its most basic level. Even if everyone knows that socialism in Laos seems eternally delayed and may never actually arrive, or is no longer meaningful, how one understands and interacts with the state every day is more important. The state becomes real on a straightforward level in how it is maintained, interacted with, or both. One of my main interlocutors is Kou, a Hmong who teaches English at different private language schools. Kou lives with his family just outside Luang Prabang and offered to teach two children of a local policeman for free because he felt that this would help him avoid future problems with the state, which to him was personified by this local figure of authority. In a way that reproduced my Lao friends’ behaviour, I also made strenuous attempts to make personal connections in my dealings with officials. To me, they were a literal personification of the state. This included being hyper-polite, apologizing profusely for my Lao, remembering their names, and enquiring after their families, health, and work. One has only to open a Lao newspaper to see all manner of stories about the state and its representatives involved in every aspect of life. I will talk more in Chapter 4 about how many people made very thoughtful and insightful observations, when discussing China and the Chinese in Laos. They also became assertively Lao at the same time, and expected their government to do something about what they saw as unwelcome levels of Chinese influence, thereby conferring legitimacy on the Lao government to exist in its current form. Here, they transfer their expectations and demands on the state, and express disappointment with it when it falls short. This shows that there is no retreat of the state or socialist rhetoric in Laos, and that those who

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set the state’s public faces continue to see an increasingly important role for the state and its narratives in Lao society. The authoritarian system in Laos has changed shape considerably over the last forty years, and how it is experienced on the ground is still very varied, but the nature of the authoritarianism has not changed. Whatever else is receding, these aspects of the political landscape are not. This means a renewed role for the state in all aspects of public life. Moreover, even as people blame the state, they do not reject it outright. I have found some genuine support for it, even amongst the criticisms. I pause here to recognize the diversity of Laos, which is particularly relevant for who represents whom. Laos is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world, with about half the population classified as lowland Lao. The remaining half comprises different ethnic groups, with the largest segments being the Hmong and the Khmu, comprising around 9% and 11% respectively.16 As with many other ethnic minorities, the Hmong remain disadvantaged at all levels in Lao society given their deemed adverse history of having opposed the establishment of Laos as a one-party state. While every citizen of Laos is, in theory, part of an ethnic group; in lived experience, ethnicity is defined as being in opposition to the lowland Lao majority. This has the effect that while everyone is part of the multi-ethnic peoples of Laos, not everyone has equal power of citizenship within the population. In relation to the Hmong of Laos, I would argue that their marginalization in Laos, and before that in China from where they migrated, has much to do with establishing contemporary nation-building and their resistance to these attempts by others to govern them. Scott (2009) termed this process as highlanders seeking Zomia, an upland region beyond state control. I will return to this in Chapter 3, arguing that this desire to live beyond what is often perceived or deemed the adverse control of the Lao state no longer exists as a physical place. Autonomy versus control is a recurrent theme in negotiating with and living in and around the Lao state. Crucially, it affects people differently. For the Hmong, having documents to show they are citizens of Laos is insufficient for ideas of separatism – which they are perceived to hold by much of the Lao population – to disappear entirely. The following chapters will look at specific dimensions of contemporary Laos. These include how the official political project rests on the population essentializing and accepting a specific narrative of the past; how this national story is experienced as part of life by Hmong migrants from the 16 See the 2015 Population and Housing Census. Molland (2017) rightly urges caution about the reliability of census data.

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surrounding countryside, and how the growing influence of China in Laos generally, has become a far more prominent concern than governmental legitimacy arising from history. Whatever else, the country remains poor. Poverty, malnourishment, and limited access to both education and health care remain significant problems, as well as rising inequality across Lao society. As of 2015, literacy rates were around 85 per cent but just over 13 per cent of the population never attended school. Life expectancy generally is now 65 years for women and slightly younger for men.17 Through the life trajectories of some of the research participants in this book, I will demonstrate that rural-urban migration forms the backdrop of life for many young Lao, many of whom are Hmong. Many Lao citizens migrate for employment to neighbouring countries to earn higher wages; and many of my research participants aspired to do the same. As we will see here, they also increasingly believe that knowledge of Mandarin, and/or experience of study in China, is very advantageous for building a future in Laos. In view of its level of poverty, Laos has continued to have the status of Least Developed Country (LDC) since 1971 and losing this status has been a long-standing cornerstone of government policy.18 The official discourse of ambitious plans to do this is marked by changing the country from its popular description of landlocked to land-linked. This means an integrated and well-connected country within Southeast Asia. Current plans are for Laos to exit the LDC Status by 2025 and reach a middle-income status by 2030. Large-scale developments, such as transport infrastructure and hydropower, are a major aspect of the strategy to do this.19 The extent to which leaving behind the LDC marker will make a meaningful difference to people living in poverty remains to be seen, however, because rates of inequality in Laos are increasing. This was articulated particularly effectively in March 2019 by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty in his summing up of a recent visit to Laos, when he questioned why so many people remain in poverty when the Lao economy is booming. He ventured a question to which much of the Lao population would like an answer, and to which I will return in Chapter 4 with reference to China in Laos: Who is really benefiting from development in Laos? 17 See the 2015 Population and Housing Census for these and further statistics about Laos. 18 Further information on the Least Developed Country Status and Laos is available here: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/least-developed-country-category-lao-peoplesdemocratic-republic.html (Accessed: 1 July 2018). 19 For an overview of policies relating to land use and development, see Dwyer (2017).

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Nation State Fragility Development means change, and as nothing is static, change is the default starting point for thinking about the state. This contrasts with states presenting themselves as eternal and everlasting. No state will admit that its lifespan is finite. They employ the rhetoric of being both unchanging and also relevant for all time, which is a stark example of self-perpetuation and preservation even if the actual meaning of those epithets is unclear. The language around this in-state building, extolling past glory and eternal memory, is not difficult to see. Laos is, of course, no exception to this. The words ‘peace’, ‘democracy’, and ‘unity’ appear on all official documents, useful rhetoric with relevance across time and space. In Luang Prabang, this process of place-making has led to the curious use of the word ‘timeless’, which appears in the city’s official marketing. In ‘Timeless Luang Prabang’,20 we are meant to consider that Luang Prabang is both untouched by the time pressures of the modern world but also that Luang Prabang is relevant for all time. Regardless of what is meant by this, national claims to eternity do not withstand scrutiny. Societies change and structures with them, or, as Migdal (2001) terms it, the state morphs constantly from one thing into another. States also claim to be legitimate and to represent the people they govern, whether democratically elected or not. This means that even in unelected societies, legitimacy matters and a need for it remains. My interest here is in how (or not) legitimacy becomes part of the social fabric of the nation, how and where it is contested. We have here an interesting paradox: states rely continuously on their populations for legitimacy. They must appear strong but, at the same time, as an entity with which people can interact, and with whom the population can have a meaningful relationship. State building is a continuous process and one that changes over time because change happens. Whether or not a state is elected, its task is to remain relevant and valid to its population.21 Here, I am interested in the relationship between people and politics: how people understand the one-party state in their lives, how they behave in public spaces vis-à-vis the state, and how this differs from private sentiments. I acknowledge that all societies have their contradictions, and that even 20 This is apparent on the city’s official tourism website: http://tourismluangprabang.org, where as a tourist, you are invited to ‘Lose yourself in the Timelessness of Luang Prabang’ (Accessed: 1 March 2019). 21 Legitimacy in authoritarian societies has been considered effectively by White (2005), Seo (2005), and Zheng and Lye (2005), amongst others.

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things that seem blatantly contradictory to outsiders, for example, socialist politics on the one hand and capitalist economics on the other, may not be so entirely paradoxical to those who live within such contexts, especially people who have never known any other form of governance. This requires taking notions of public and private forms of behaviour seriously. By this, I mean questioning what a nation presents as its own public face, to whom, and for whom, and how people perform that narrative in public. It also means asking the extent to which these narratives are internalized and practised in private. For example, do people really believe that socialism will actually come to Laos or is it more a matter of not really questioning the political rhetoric and just getting on with life? I suggest the latter here, especially for a population that lives largely at subsistence level. This makes the question of everyday politics more potent. Even then, the interaction between population and the state and vice versa is done with some awareness that the political system in Laos is different from those practised in neighbouring countries, particularly Thailand. This requires a rejection of the state as an abstract fixed entity and asks how the state is continually brought into being by a largely rural population.22 It also recognizes the state as an inalienable part of the people it claims to represent. Common parlance refers to the state and the population as distinct entities. This distinction is a constructed one. What that means to different people, and just how they understand the state in their lives, may incorporate contradictions, such as capitalist economics and socialist rhetoric, along the way. Herzfeld (2016 [1997]) terms this process of public and private forms of behaviour as one of cultural intimacy. That is, how public and private life spheres inform each other, and by so doing, how they become part of the social fabric of the nation. This means thinking about what people really believe and do in their private lives, and how these collective private sentiments keep the public face of the nation visible to outsiders but also how it changes over time. The question, therefore, is to ask how the political status quo is contested, maintained, and reproduced. The nation’s outward face is usually conceived as a singular one, but in presenting different faces to different audiences, it is actually far from just one face. In addition, any outward appearance can and does conceal multiple sentiments beneath.23 The challenge is to ask what legitimacy people give the state when they talk about the state as an ‘it’ and imagine it as an essential part of their lives. 22 I find Kerkvliet’s (2005) work on the power of everyday politics instructive for showing the lived experience of authoritarianism by a rural population. 23 This part of Herzfeld’s model has been analysed effectively by Shryock (2001).

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Perhaps the most fundamental aspect of the cultural intimacy model is that when people criticize the state or blame it for their misfortunes, they still recognize that the state has a fundamental right to exist. One can complain about what the state does, and wish it would do otherwise, but not criticize its existence in the first place. In relation to Laos specifically, High (2014) argues that by bestowing their desires on the state, people give it credence to exist. Here, I extend that by suggesting that this works in terms of both hopes and discontent as both are predicated on the state being present in people’s lives and more or less in its current form. By blaming the state, as well as investing in it their desires, people imagine it into existence. For those who set the nation’s political agenda, recognizing that people may be unhappy in private does not mean any loosening of the political landscape, but it does allow a nation state to change over time, often without much overt consultation on that change. The Lao government is made up of people who are also part of the population. The authorities wish to maintain legitimacy in the country, but to do so they must manage the expectations of the population. I will argue in the following chapters that as Laos is one of few examples of a state that combines capitalist economics with socialism, it is a good example of how a discord between actions and words is managed. The political sentiment maintains socialism, yet out on the street, capitalist economics seem here to stay. The task for the authorities is in managing this process and staying relevant to the population. I believe that we can trace the journey of change in Laos through considering how people understand the state as a force in their lives and how it is the target of their frustrations. I argue here that this accounts for much of why contemporary Laos has moved a long way but maintained its revolutionary nomenclature. My aim then is to consider how public and private forms of individual and collective sentiment inform and act on each other. Allowing limited spaces for people to express their frustrations at the state or to behave in seemingly new ways, may work to further legitimize the nation state in people’s everyday lives. Even when the state is the subject of ridicule, hate, and blame, people still give it legitimacy to exist. These are areas I will explore in detail throughout this book, considering how everyday negotiations with the state and its agents operate at an everyday level in Laos, and what nominal socialism means to its population. I have also found genuine support for the Party State in Laos, which may be constant or spontaneous and may change over time. This includes people who may have been previously critical of the state. This was demonstrated clearly in the aftermath of the collapse of the Xepian-Xe Nam Noy Dam in July 2018, which killed around forty people and made far larger numbers homeless. The Lao government argued strenuously that

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this was a natural disaster, a tragedy caused by a dam bursting its banks. This stands in contrast to the analysis of critics, who argue that this was an entirely preventable disaster, caused mainly by poor management.24 Within a few days of the dam collapsing, a Facebook fundraiser set up by the Lao diaspora in the US to support victims of the disaster boasted of using trusted local partners in Vientiane and passing no funds whatsoever through the Lao government. This was a promise clearly designed to assuage concerns about corruption and the funds not reaching survivors. At the same time, another fundraiser set up by Lao students in the UK promised to donate funds directly to the Lao Embassy. When I spoke to a Hmong friend in Laos about both of these efforts, he told me that if people want to donate money, then they should give the money directly to the Lao government. When I asked why, he told me that this was the best way for the government to help the people who needed it. This comment surprised me as previously, he had been one of the state’s most vehement critics but here, in times of need, he demonstrated that the state is the force to be called on and of whom to have expectations that have a reasonable chance of being fulfilled. Lao politics is marked by the relationship between the LPRP and the state. The indivisibility of these two forces is both metaphorical and literal, creating a one-party state (phak-lat). Given the secretive nature of the Party, the actual nuances of this relationship remain unclear as the Party is synonymous with authority and clearly the overlap is considerable.25 The role of the Party in Laos is institutionalized and is inalienable from everyday politics and much of the population talks of the government (lathaban) without distinguishing between the Party, the state, and so on. This may explain why one interlocutor assured me, in English and after much checking of the Lao-English dictionary, that he had an example of the word ‘loyal’ he would like to share with me. He then announced that in his opinion, ‘The Party is loyal to the country’. This is again a reference to the existence of the indivisible party state. This terminology is not a relic of a bygone era but is illustrative of the political furniture around which the population navigates. Finally, the political situation in Laos does not exist in isolation. Other nation states also have an interest in Lao political affairs. This includes other countries retaining the same political ideology with Vietnam and China as obvious examples. I will argue in the latter chapters of this book how that 24 For a more detailed overview of dams in Laos in general, see Blake and Barney, (2018). 25 For an overview of what is known about the Party and how it operates in Laos, see Rathie (2017).

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is relevant too, particularly as China’s rise in Laos has become increasingly visible and very fast in the last decade and more so since the start of the construction of the coming Laos-China Railway. My argument here is that how the Lao authorities manage what much of the population, especially in northern Laos, see as potentially unwelcome levels of Chinese influence in Laos, is a major issue for political legitimacy in Laos in the future.

Cultural Intimacy of/in Laos In December 2013, I found myself spending a day on an organized tour leaving from a village near Luang Prabang. As the only single traveller in the group and keen to speak as much Lao as possible, I spent the day talking to our guide, a young man named Sai. He had lived in the area all his life and his family had several small businesses connected with the increasing numbers of visitors. He took our group to a small Khmu village, which he told me had been connected to electricity the previous year. He pointed out the village water pump, telling me that this had been installed by a European non-governmental organization (NGO) and not by the government. I noticed that the village primary school was located opposite the pump and asked about levels of school attendance. I then asked about the number of children attending high school and whether it was likely that any child from this village would attend university. I did not consider this question to be contentious. Nor did I think through its possible implications. Sai’s reaction to this question was akin to pouring petrol on a fire. Despite the face-saving element of Lao culture, which discourages outward expressions of extreme emotions, he became very angry and agitated. He told me that the Lao government is awful, that they do not care about the local people and only look after themselves. He told me the Lao government is in the pockets of the Vietnamese and, particularly, of the Chinese, and what Laos needed to do was to get rid of these foreign interferences immediately. In his firm opinion, there were no opportunities for people, particularly Lao youth who are not from elite backgrounds. Pointing back to the water pump, he asked me why it was that NGOs help the people with basic amenities such as water pumps when it was surely the responsibility of the government? Finally, he spat that one must be in the government to ‘do well’ in Laos and that, when the government realized that there were huge numbers of frustrated young people, they would realize that this would be a problem for the future of the country. He left me in no doubt of his opinion that the government is corrupt and interested only in itself.

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At the time, I was very surprised to hear such open criticism of the government. I would hypothesize that Sai’s discontent had built up over a long period of time and, while I would like to think it was my skill as an interviewer that elicited this information, I suspect that his discussion with me merely provided an opportunity to let off steam in a safe environment, particularly through speaking to me largely in English. True, the Lao authorities may have been unhappy about Sai telling me this, were they to know about it. He was largely asking for development, which is not particularly contentious. Moreover, what was I, as a lone foreigner there and/or as a tourist, going to do with that information? Nevertheless, I became very aware that I was being shown something of the nation’s intimate spaces, of what people were really thinking. As a tour guide talking to an interested client, he was in a rather unique position to give me an alternative history. This is also in contrast to the official story of the legitimacy of the Lao state, and part of the collective consciousness or cultural intimacy of a society. Sai was demonstrating something of his own private self, which was significantly different from the official narrative, but even in his criticisms, he accepted the state in its current form as a fixed point in his life, despite his feelings of alienation and disappointment. Cultural intimacy is a useful way of thinking through questions of how people belong but also how feelings of unhappiness impact on belonging. This speaks directly to understandings of the nation that are both official and unofficial, which could be labelled public and private – and how these may well not match. They are not necessarily as inconsistent as they might first appear. Many people might consider themselves good citizens on the one hand but pursue seemingly contradictory agendas on the other. Someone might well consider themself a good citizen but cheat on their tax returns at the same time. Does this make that person any less of a good citizen or just much more human, particularly if the private behaviour merely confirms something that is common, if unspoken, knowledge anyway? I would argue for the latter. These collective sentiments about what people do in private, these things that everyone knows, are important for building collective consciousness. It is likely that Sai was repeating to me the sort of thing that many people grumble about in private. These sorts of collective grumbles bind people together through shared sentiment and collective, privileged knowledge. Of course, if something is private but everyone knows about it anyway, then this means that the distinction between what is private and what is public is not actually very distinct. My suggestion here is that this has a considerable amount to do with the political status quo in Laos. Socialist

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rhetoric might be something that one repeats in public because it has become an entrenched cultural norm. What this sort of everyday politics really means, and how it is understood in private is a different issue. The official political statements may mean very little, but this again requires people to scrutinize them critically. In this sense, political rhetoric becomes rather like furniture that people live around, sometimes without much detailed questioning as to why it is there. This also allows for political sentiment in Laos to mean very little beyond what is repeated out of duty in official settings. But even if it does, this does not mean the winds of change are blowing. The state needs to promote its legitimacy, and to promote it to those upon whom this legitimacy depends. It is also crucial that the state appears to care about much of its population, or at least to say that it does. The state presents itself in familial terms, as provider and protector and this is relevant for the state presenting itself as eternal and everlasting. This process binds state and population into a relationship of mutual dependence, where both sides require at least the superficial confirmation of legitimacy from the other. The outward faces of the nation and its national story omit problematic areas of the past in pursuit of a homogeneous physiognomy, which presents very specific versions of culture as the national story. What is included as much as what is omitted are often the subject of discontent and contestation in private. Nevertheless, even as the state changes over time, pushed by changing agendas on all sides, from unhappy members of the population to bureaucrats who are also members of the population, external audiences and so on, people continue to legitimize it, bringing it into existence by so doing. This is a fundamental point because this project is about how the state becomes and is present as an ‘it’ in people’s everyday lives. By an ‘it’ I mean a fixed point but also something that can and does change over time. The state is not immune to demands from its population and by allowing people to express their frustrations even in limited ways, the state continues to maintain its relevance. It also means that while the state becomes a fixed point, it does not always retain the same form. Nor does it mean that signs of dissent are really critical of the state and/or its ideology per se, more that they are critical of its practices. This is particularly so when it fails to meet that which members of the population see as legitimate expectations. This discontent allows for collective sentiments through which the nation changes over time. For those who set the state’s public face or faces, allowing people to have opportunities to express frustrations, even in private, acts as a sort of pressure valve and a means by which alternative viewpoints may be heard.

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All this points to an urgent need to consider how people engage with national rhetoric, particularly in private spaces or behind closed doors. The cultural intimacy model allows for considering that those who set the official agendas know full well that not everything they produce as a national policy will be followed. Similarly, members of the population know that they can pretend to engage with state directives and are unlikely to encounter serious problems by so doing, because this is what was ultimately expected. The example of Sai giving me an alternative narrative that I thought very surprising at first, but later unsurprising as it is not particularly controversial, is a good example of what happens in private appearing private but occurring with the tacit acceptance of the state. Crucially, in his unhappiness, Sai regarded the state, in this form, as an essential part of his life. From the state perspective, this demonstrates the importance of viewing essentialism as a strategy, and one that allows space for limited dissenting views to exist. I suggest here that this permits the state to manage at least some dissenting voices in service of those master narratives. If laying offerings at statues can be labelled as heritage and complaining about poverty subsumed into narratives about development as a national priority then cultural practices, tradition, and belief can become accepted as daily life or collective sentiment with which people can identify. These become integral in the fabric of society, and form ideas of unity and belonging which, in turn, build national consciousness. Belonging then is an essentialized nationalist strategy. This is a process that allows both state forces and populations to present certain areas of culture as homogeneous cultural norms, even if diversity exists elsewhere. This also means the outward omission or silencing of problematic aspects which threaten this image. The vital questions are how that image is achieved, whose interests it serves, and how it changes over time.

Heritage With an Agenda Change is not a particularly prominent feature of Luang Prabang. Travel literature notes that Luang Prabang ‘slows your pulse and awakens your imagination with its combination of world-class comfort and spiritual nourishment’.26 This demonstrates much of how Luang Prabang is viewed through an Orientalist gaze, advocating a sanitized image of the past as 26 For an example of this, see (amongst others) https://www.lonelyplanet.com/laos/northernlaos/luang-prabang (Accessed: 1 September 2020).

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beautiful and pure.27 Luang Prabang is also the premier tourist destination in Laos, and its economy depends largely on tourism. Chue, a research participant who is also Hmong and a migrant from the countryside, commented to me that he had little knowledge of the centre of Luang Prabang as he did not consider it a space for people like him, except as somewhere to meet and practise English. Although he had been employed recently as a receptionist in a guesthouse, he confessed that he had little knowledge of where different temples were located and found questions from tourists about how to visit particular sites difficult, suggesting instead that tourists consult the guidebooks they seemed to have with them or each other. Luang Prabang was established in the fourteenth century when King Fa Ngum established his Kingdom of Lane Xang on traditional Khmu territory and declared Luang Prabang his capital. He also accepted a statue of Buddha from one of the Khmer kings, thus adopting Buddhism and setting the tone for Luang Prabang to become a significant royal and religious centre throughout its history. The arrival of France in Laos led to much of the colonial architecture. Luang Prabang has remained an important cultural, administrative, and political centre throughout its history. The city is the capital of Luang Prabang province and is located at the confluence of two rivers: the Mekong and Nam Khan. The National Museum, formerly the Royal Palace, stands in the centre of the peninsula between those two rivers and is also in the centre of the UNESCO World Heritage Zone. Luang Prabang continues to host numerous working Buddhist temples. There is significant ethnic diversity in the city with lowland Lao living alongside the Khmu, the majority ethnic group of Luang Prabang Province.28 There is also a large population of Hmong and smaller groups of other minorities. Luang Prabang was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 and part of the justification for its inclusion reads: The World Heritage designation celebrates the city’s ‘successful fusion of the traditional architectural and urban structures and those of the 27 According to the 2018 Statistical Report on Tourism for the Lao PDR published by the Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism, tourist numbers for 2018 are around four million, which generates revenue of about 800 million dollars for the country. Actual numbers of tourists have fluctuated in the previous five years, reflecting perhaps how Laos changes in its attraction for different tourist markets. 28 According to the Results of the 2015 Population and Housing Census, the entire population of Laos is just under 6.5 million. Buddhism is practised by 65% of the population. The population of Luang Prabang Province is just over 400,000 with around 30 per cent considered to live in urban areas.

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European colonial rulers of the 19th and 20th centuries […] [with a] unique townscape […] remarkably well preserved, illustrating a key stage in the blending of two distinct cultural traditions. (UNESCO, 1995, p. 46, cited in Dearborn and Stallmeyer 2009: 252)

I will argue in the following chapter that the wording of this statement is revealing as much as for what it says as what it does not. Every sign that welcomes visitors to Luang Prabang refers to the city as a place of World Heritage, and it is hard to miss at least a cursory connection between Luang Prabang and heritage. Somewhat ironically though, most of what is celebrated as heritage is more colonial than Lao. Luang Prabang celebrated twenty years’ inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in December 2015. Rather less mystical and much more practical is the massive infrastructure that this has created in and around the heritage zone to cater for very large numbers of visitors. In 1997, Luang Prabang hosted 87 tourism-related businesses. In 2009, the number was 363 and it has continued to rise. Budget air travel is now possible between Luang Prabang and Bangkok. It is also not difficult to see how deriving income from tourism has become the driving force behind the rapid growth of construction in Luang Prabang. This includes several buildings which transgress the UNESCO regulations, although many building owners believe themselves to be compliant. Heritage professionals have raised concerns about these building practices, stating that if this continues, Luang Prabang could well be placed on the list of Endangered World Heritage.29 This growth in tourism has led to complaints that Luang Prabang is too expensive for both visitors and locals, and locals are often quick to rent out their homes in the heritage zone to those who want them and relocate to cheaper accommodation in the suburbs. Likewise, the dichotomy of the city centre (within the heritage zone) as a place for tourists first, and its surrounding environs a space for locals, appears real when we consider how many locals have become wealthy from fulfilling other people’s desire to live in the historic buildings in the heritage zone, whilst at the same time meeting their own desire to live elsewhere, in areas with better amenities and which are better designed for the daily grind of life rather than the transitory. Many of the most active participants in this book made conscious 29 See Suntikul (2011) for 2009 figures on numbers of tourist businesses. Some of this material has been updated by Leong et al. (2016) who argue that there is considerable confusion over UNESCO’s regulations, with some businesses being criticized as not following rules but business owners believing they are compliant.

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decisions to live outside of the city, where land was much cheaper. They utilized the city centre as a space for economic improvement, whist utilizing the space external to it as a better place to live. The centre of Luang Prabang as ‘a place for the tourists’ is a description made by tourists and locals. I propose that despite its location as the provincial capital of an ethnically diverse province, and that in a country with numerous different ethnic groups, Luang Prabang is also largely a place for narratives of the lowland Lao, the majority ethnic group. Ethnic minorities provide local colour, particularly around the material culture of ethnic diversity (for example, the sale of handicrafts) but their own versions of history are largely silent. I will return to this further in Chapter 3. The sumptuous splendour of the past has led to nostalgia and selling an idealized and politically sanitized version of the heritage of Luang Prabang. After all, it is the stunning architecture representative of a sumptuous past that fuses together local and colonizing traditions, and the cultural centre that contributed to building, which attracts people to Luang Prabang in the f irst place. To no small extent, Luang Prabang represents an exercise in recreating the past without its negative aspects. As a former royal centre, the immediate aftermath of the revolution in 1975 brought considerable challenges with its royal heritage disparaged and the royal family exiled. Marketing the city of Luang Prabang requires the Lao authorities to confront and engage with the regime they ousted in ways that are different from elsewhere in Laos. The city’s existence presents the current government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) with a dilemma: how to promote Luang Prabang without appearing to endorse or engage with the monarchy they ousted? In other words, how to talk about it without talking about it? How to promote Lao culture without explicit reference to something that is not discussed vis-à-vis the population? Laos, as anywhere else, would want to create a national story based on its past, particularly around overcoming the colonial period and presenting its own journey to its present-day state of being. Heritage is a major aspect of this, even if that means that what is presented as heritage includes the veneration of the colonial and pre-revolutionary pasts. Given the narrative of the birth of Laos in 1975 and the common phenomenon of socialist regimes attempting to place distance between recent revolutionary history and whatever went before, this is somewhat problematic when applied to Luang Prabang. The city is the one place in Laos where the previous political system is visible, given it is such an integral part of the city and its UNESCO World Heritage Status. In other places, notably in

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Vientiane, the pre-1975 regimes are either lambasted or ignored altogether.30 But in Luang Prabang with its abundant colonial and pre-revolutionary architecture this does not happen, even if the very things for which Luang Prabang is renowned are, or would be, considered problematic elsewhere. My argument is that it cannot happen because it is the cornerstone of heritage and is subject to particular forms of traditions or in the terms of Hobsbawm and Ranger (2012 [1983]) ‘invented traditions’ which may or may not have a long history but can be utilized to further different agendas.31 It is actually very helpful for the Lao authorities to place the historic centre of Luang Prabang under the umbrella of heritage, as this puts the more contentious parts of history into a category that is worthy of protection but does not require very much detailed explanation. After all, Luang Prabang is also a place where people obtain a sense of their own national history, identity, and culture, and this was referred to me repeatedly as being the centre of Lao culture. As for what this means, as we have seen, it is at the point of asking detailed questions that the intersections between heritage, history, politics, and legitimacy in Laos reveal their complexity. For example, consider the morning almsgiving, in which hundreds of monks walk in a procession through the streets of Luang Prabang collecting food offerings from local people and a larger number of tourists who come to photograph and participate in this image of Lao culture. That this practice was severely restricted in the early years of the revolution is not emphasized. It could well be argued that having failed to destroy the population’s faith in Buddhism, the Lao government set out to appropriate that space for themselves. Buddhism has, after all, a very long history in Laos. When Kaysone Phomvihane died in 1992, despite his contributing to much of the architecture that had repressed the Buddhism outlined above, he was given a full Buddhist funeral. Buddhist symbolism also appears on every Lao banknote, along with an image of Kaysone. In the words of one of my interlocutors in Laos: ‘Kaysone is still alive in the Lao money!’ Putting politics and the promotion of Lao cultural practices together is no accident. 30 The National Museum in Vientiane closed during the writing of this project to move to a new location and has not yet reopened. The prevailing narrative of contemporary Laos beginning with the revolution in 1975 remains available at other state museums throughout Vientiane and Laos generally. 31 For Hobsbawm and Ranger (2012 [1983]), all traditions are invented. Nor are they neutral. Instead, they are produced and promoted, sometimes over time, to further different agendas. Buddhism in Luang Prabang is presented as an inalienable part of the city’s culture. The Lao authorities have reinvented themselves as the legitimate guardians and omitted any mention of their previous repression of Buddhism.

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There are few places better to make this connection than in Luang Prabang. This makes it an excellent place to think about the past and the future of the country, even if the city is a unique place to think about how this transpires on the ground. In Luang Prabang, presenting the past as nostalgia while offering a vision of the future seems fraught with contradiction. Whether a place can simultaneously embody timelessness and development is an interesting question, especially about directions of change. Luang Prabang is then a particularly good case study to consider how multiple agendas around heritage and development can coexist. A key part of that preservation of heritage, and agendas of the same, is the royal heritage and history. Arguably, this is problematic for the nominally socialist government which seeks to retain strict controls over the daily lives of its population. Heritage then, while always a politically loaded term, is particularly so in Laos and in Luang Prabang. This does not cease with actual questions of heritage, but also of how the national story is told, to whom, how, and why. Here, I make a final suggestion which is relevant to the political legitimacy of Laos. Nearly fifty years on from the revolution and with the Lao political system showing no sign of imminent collapse overnight: Are these questions of political legitimacy and selective versions of the past really fundamental, especially to young people who have more pressing concerns?

Future Building in Laos Laos is a country with a young population, and for much of its population, the story of the country’s revolutionary birth is something of which they have no direct memory. Most of my closest interlocutors in Luang Prabang considered themselves youth. These are people born shortly before the millennium and for whom future options and opportunities are arguably more open than they have ever been at any time in the history of the country. Many are migrants from surrounding provinces living in Luang Prabang to obtain an education and working part-time in the tourism business, often as guesthouse receptionists or night staff. Those working in guesthouses in 2015, would earn around 1 million Lao Kip (about USD 100) a month and people with better jobs or nicer employers, slightly more. Most, but not all, received a day off each week. These young people have greater access to material goods and consumer products. Many own personal mobile phones for which they have saved money and are enthusiastic users and consumers of material on Facebook. Most would buy a mobile phone and a personal motorbike as soon as they had acquired the means to do so. They see an aspiring middle class who can afford

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to eat out and/or buy food instead of cooking it themselves. Several research participants commented at length on my personal possessions including my choice of mobile phone, clothes, and lack of make-up. While I was very keen to wear the traditional Lao skirt or sinh often, very few women of my age or younger would wear it outside of school or work. This is perhaps partly because many were not ethnically lowland Lao, and have no tradition of wearing this garment, but when I asked, most told me that they enjoyed wearing modern clothing, such as trousers.32 Participants in this research also questioned why I was so keen on cycling around Luang Prabang, when I could afford an alternative. Through the use of the internet, they were also able to remain in contact with me quite easily, even after I had completed the conventional phase of fieldwork for this project and returned to university life in Europe. This is at odds with the lifestyles their parents had when they were of a similar age, and of the lives their family members in the countryside continue to live. In the words of one of my interlocutors, who had himself migrated from the countryside to study and work in the city: I know that I will have a life different from my parents’. I came from our village in the countryside to the city to study, and now I have a good job. At university [in China] the teachers told us that in the future, we can be rich. I want to have my own business one day and make enough money to support my parents.

These things were simply not possible in the early days of the revolution. This trajectory of rural-urban migration is an increasingly common one for young people, who seek to build futures in and around Lao cities and no longer depend entirely on the subsistence farming that remains the reality of daily life for much of the population. For some, this also involves migration to study or work in neighbouring countries (including China) as part of a process of future building. 32 For information on the sinh-skirt, see Vallard (2011) and Nanthavongdouangsy (2006). I personally wore it often in an attempt to show that I took Lao cultural norms seriously. Vallard notes that this garment is a potent one in Laos, and while it is uniform in schools and workplaces, one faces a very real risk of having civic requests denied by not wearing it when required. However, as some ethnic minority women have no tradition of wearing this garment, I often questioned to what extent I was contributing to the promotion of a lowland Lao hegemonic landscape by wearing it even if, when I asked, some Hmong women, especially older women, commented that they much preferred it to women wearing trousers. My younger Hmong friends were careful in avoiding some garments they considered their parents would not appreciate (for example ripped jeans), when they returned to visit their families in villages.

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But while future possibilities seem more open, other factors influencing life changes do not show the same signs of change. For those who are not ethnically lowland Lao, discrimination and marginalization remain an endemic part of everyday life, with several of my interlocutors in Luang Prabang reporting that they worked particularly hard in order to address what they saw as their own marginalization. As one part of the Lao multiethnic people, they are also expected to be visibly different in certain settings but not in others. In Luang Prabang, this means that the material culture of their heritage is encouraged and offers them the opportunities to promote visits to minority villages to tourists. At the same time, their labour in local businesses is attractive to business owners as migrants from the countryside need employment. As I will demonstrate in Chapters 2 and 3, this integration into the local economy does not overcome more systemic discrimination. The Hmong occupy a unique and bounded position in Laos, and despite the war period now being several generations past, suspicions about their loyalty to the Lao state remain. This means that no matter how hard the young Hmong people work, it is unlikely that they will ever overcome assumptions held by much of the lowland Lao population that they [the Hmong] would prefer to live in an independent Hmong state. This leads to a relationship of what I will term ‘crypto-separatism’; in that the Hmong occupy a subordinate position, the parameters of which are set by the dominant ethnic group and which the Hmong are, for now at least, unable to escape. My suggestion here is that the young people (often Hmong) who contributed to my research were far more preoccupied with the everyday business of life to think overtly about political legitimacy head on, especially when the political status quo preceded their generation, and sometimes that of their parents too. They were, however, aware of their own marginalization and many of the reasons behind it. As we will see in Chapter 3, some Hmong reacted to their disadvantaged situation with violence. For most, discrimination in Laos was an inevitable, if very unwelcome, part of life. I venture to suggest that one reason they were interested in exploring opportunities to learn Mandarin and to go to China or partner with Chinese businesses has much to do with feeling that they have little to lose given their position of disadvantage in Laos anyway.

Rising China When I embarked on this research on how the political system in Laos is understood, I noticed that in presenting myself as a student of Lao language

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and culture, people would politely submit to my questions even though I was frequently informed that they had little knowledge of history. While some of this is undoubtedly due to awkwardness, insensitive questioning on my part, language barriers and so on, I noticed a stark contrast when the conversation turned to talking about China, and especially China in Laos. It seemed that when people were asked about China and China in Laos, it became difficult for them to stop talking. China in the developing world is nothing new. Nor are allegations of China as a neocolonizing force seeking to consolidate its influence worldwide, particularly through its actions in the global South. This is particularly pronounced in a country such as Laos, which has an immediate border with China and where China’s influence has become very visible over a short span of time. The Lao government is ambitious in its plans to develop the country and partnering with Chinese companies to realize mega-infrastructure schemes is a very visible illustration of its development strategy. At the same time, many Chinese have moved to Laos to open businesses there. Many visit Laos as tourists, search for Lao wives or come for other reasons. The picture of China in Laos is complex and multi-faceted. It is, however, something on which everyone seemingly has an opinion. In the time that I have been doing research in Laos, discourse about China has grown significantly. While Laos has had people of Chinese heritage for generations, the speed and volume of Chinese influence, the number of Chinese people coming in and by proxy, a connection between rising Chinese influence in Laos and the Chinese state in Laos has increased dramatically. For many Lao people, this means becoming far more aware of China and its immediacy in ways that did not happen until relatively recently. When I first went to Laos for research in 2013, Chinese influence was confined largely to the Special Economic Zones on the Lao-China border, and stories of a golden casino built with Chinese money in Boten circulated but were limited to that place. In contrast, while Chinese influence in Laos is not felt in ways that are the same universally, it is increasingly apparent throughout the country, away from the Laos-China border, and is particularly obvious in Lao cities. This is particularly so since the Laos-China Railway has moved from the planning stage to a tangible reality. Luang Prabang will have its own station on the railway and be a major stopping point between Vientiane and the Chinese border. I first heard about this in any detail in 2013, at which point friends assured me that it was just an idea and probably would not come to anything. Over the following years, friends and associates talked about this more prominently, and ground for the railway was eventually broken in

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late 2016. By this point, I heard much about how China would come to Laos more quickly and more immediately, and about how this would change the country. Expatriates and elite Lao shared their horror at how this would connect Laos with a China that they often viewed in negative terms. The railway is now set to open in late 2021. This will, quite literally, bring China to Laos and with far-reaching consequences as huge amounts of Chinese money, influence, and people move into Laos.33 It will cut transport time between major cities dramatically. Vientiane to Luang Prabang currently takes in excess of ten hours by bus. Once the railway is open, this will be reduced to just under an hour. In the official Lao media, sentiment about a closer relationship with China is uniformly positive. On the ground, I found that people were far more ambivalent and pragmatic, but I was struck overwhelmingly by how far China now features in the literal and metaphorical landscape of Laos, and how my younger associates in Luang Prabang talked increasingly of studying Chinese, going to university in China and working for Chinese businesses. Several assured me that as China was becoming part of the landscape in their lives, it made sense to be as prepared as possible, in order to maximize their own potential for future building in a landscape in which China features prominently. As I wondered what this meant for Laos politically, I asked how my interlocutors in Luang Prabang understood this. Several were vocal in their criticisms of China in Laos arguing that the Lao government should stop this from happening and that Chinese influence is rising too high. But at the same time, they would express desires to go to China and/or buy Chinese products. From this, I argue that the presence of China in Laos is significant and something on which a range of people hold very strong views. Furthermore, these are not as categorically positive as the official Lao media wishes to portray. I argue here that many people I met in Luang Prabang, who often occupy very marginalized positions in Laos on account of their ethnicity, poverty, or both, are becoming increasingly aware that they are Lao citizens and give legitimacy to the Lao government to do something about what is happening in Laos with regard to China and perceived unwelcome levels of Chinese influence. I will return to this in Chapter 4. Whom maintaining the one-party system is for, and whether that goes beyond the authorities themselves, is a question worth pausing over. This means taking seriously the issue of why the dynamics of nationalism are what they are, why they change, and why they do not. In Laos, concerns 33 For introductory literature on this, see Lim (2015), Anderlini (2015), and Yu (2017).

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about China often invoke the language of neocolonialism. I have argued above for the usefulness of thinking through what happens in the intimate spaces of nations. It is also worth thinking how populations understand their position in respect of other countries. Herzfeld (2016 [1997]) has argued for what he terms crypto-colonialism, where a nation state that has never been formally colonized nevertheless assumes a submissive relationship with a more dominant state which exercises large amounts of control over it, often through economic means. This does not fit the situation in Laos, once colonized by France, and arguably controlled ever more closely through economic means by China. The notion of external control through economic and political means is an important one. Keeping up appearances to be attractive to more powerful outsiders even if that means a relationship of dependency is not new in Laos. China would not be impressed by the Lao government terminating the favourable conditions under which many Chinese live in Laos, but in private Lao people say openly that they fear an invasion from China. They argue that Laos will, essentially, become either a client state of China or even a colony. Consider, for example, the joke a Lao bus passenger shared with me about the Chinese man in the neighbouring seat. The Lao man assumed, rightly, that the Chinese man would not understand Lao and could therefore share a collective sentiment about the Chinese being linguistically challenged in Laos. By acting so, he vocalized what many hold internally: a collective sentiment that is critical of the Chinese and something that everyone knows, even if it is unspoken as part of national discourse. Herein lies the start of the complexity: the Lao population voices concerns about China on the one hand but buys Chinese products on the other. The question of whether Laos is in a neocolonial relationship or whether the crypto-colonial label could apply to Laos and China could hardly be more topical. The above suggests a distinct parallel between China and colonialism, and this is what my participants described. China does not perceive its role in developing countries in colonial terms and is very resistant to that comparison, insisting instead that this is solely about economic development. In Laos too, the situation is not described officially in colonial terms but amongst my research participants, it was mostly viewed as colonialism via the backdoor. My argument here is that the situation is fast becoming that the position of Laos as an independent country could easily become dictated through its economic relationship with China. This is what my interlocutors were describing. It is not a relationship of blatant colonialism but is one that is affecting how Laos presents itself by virtue of its relationship with China, and the parameters through which it can do so.

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The issue of China in Laos places the question of political legitimacy firmly back into view. In my perspective, it is no longer a question of who is and is not included in the national story that is determinative for political legitimacy in Laos. Nor is the question of discrimination against ethnic minorities likely to bring about political change. I am not arguing that the question of China necessarily will either. I am suggesting here that how the Lao government is deemed to manage the rise of China is important for how the Lao population understands political legitimacy and the remit of the authorities to govern. In Laos, much as in many other places around the world, people grapple individually and collectively with the rise of China, their perceptions and fears of this, and wonder what this means for the future. Its significance, in reality but particularly in perception, matters.

The Book I was born in 1983, and in many ways, the relationship between communism and capitalism would seem to be the preoccupation of a previous generation. By the time I embarked on this research, global concern had focused more on Islamic fundamentalism than on the realization of the domino theory. Yet the regime in Laos has proved itself to be surprisingly durable, and also a master at reinventing itself and leading change from the front rather than being swept along as a consequence of a changing world. This is a very unusual political system, and a fascinating one to consider within a context of development and change, especially with the world’s emerging superpower just over the border. This book is the realization of a long association with Laos. Since 2007, I have returned almost every year, culminating in a long period of doctoral research between 2015 and 2016. During this time, I lived and worked in the heritage zone of Luang Prabang and conducted much of the research on which this book is based through ethnography. I have returned for shorter periods of research in Laos since and taken advantage of friends’ enthusiasm for digital communication in the intervening period. The long-term nature of this work, along with the long-term acquaintance with my research participants here, has allowed for the opportunity to reconsider these questions over many years. Even now, as I write this, I sometimes receive helpful information and messages from them as they know the topics that interest me the most. In some ways, they also take a more active role in the research by being able to communicate with me via digital media. I believe, and hope, that these relationships will continue for as long as possible.

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Many of the research participants who contributed to this project are Hmong. Some were born and brought up near Luang Prabang. Others are migrants from the countryside who came either individually or as a result of their families relocating to urban areas. While all speak Lao, and most of the interviews for this book were conducted in Lao, some acted as translators for interviews and data gathering with other Hmong through acting as translators from Hmong into Lao or from Hmong into English. It is no accident that most of the people who contributed to this project are male. Although women can and do migrate from the countryside to work and study in Luang Prabang, they are outnumbered by men. As with many ethnographic projects, this one also developed from people to whom I had access most easily. I came to know Neng, one of my first research participants, simply because he worked very long hours as a receptionist for my landlord in Luang Prabang, who had several businesses in tourism in Luang Prabang. In the early days when I had fewer contacts in the city, we spent long periods of time talking. As a young Hmong migrant from the countryside, he kindly introduced me to several of his friends, also young men living in similar circumstances. After a few months, I had built up more connections with different people in the city, including people from different ethnic groups, such as Lao and Khmu, as well as people living and working in different situations. All contributed in many different ways to my understanding of these questions of politics and everyday life in Laos. The following chapter picks up on the theme of Luang Prabang and its culture and looks at the contested nature of heritage in Laos and how this contributes to narratives of legitimacy. I argue here that aspects of Lao history, which are usually lambasted or ignored, are acknowledged in Luang Prabang only as part of a distant rather than actual past. The marketing of Luang Prabang as ancient and beautiful, rather than a place of contested history is very relevant here. People visit Luang Prabang to see an ancient, beautiful city that offers a serene public face of Laos. The more problematic, contested and contentious aspects of history are neither necessary nor helpful to this narrative of timeless beauty. Chapter 3 considers the place of ethnic minorities in Laos amidst the Lao multi-ethnic people. This chapter focuses on the Hmong and argues that the Hmong are in a difficult place vis-à-vis the Lao state. On the one hand, their difference is needed and encouraged as part of that multi-ethnic narrative. At other times, it is rejected and reviled. This pushes the Hmong into a state of crypto-separatism,34 in that they can never escape ideas from others that 34 This is a term I borrow from Herzfeld’s (2016 [1997]) cultural intimacy.

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they would prefer to live in a separate state given the opportunity. That is, of course, a problem that has historical roots largely in the circumstances that led to the birth of the Lao PDR in its contemporary form. While I have suggested above that historical context is less important to the priorities of current, lived experience, the past still has very real, immediate consequences. I also believe that, however Laos changes as the political system reaches its half century anniversary, these existing inequalities between the Hmong and lowland Lao are unlikely to change in any meaningful way. Chapter 4 looks at the rise of China in Laos. I argue that while sentiments towards China seem one-directional, the situation is more complex than it might first appear. People may express serious concerns about China but they may also wish to go there and/or buy Chinese products and wish for the benefits of Chinese forms of development, such as increased infrastructure. I argue that the rise of China in Laos actually contributes to a renewed sense of Lao identity as people become more aware that they are citizens of Laos, and that China is a different place making its presence increasingly felt in Laos. Whether this will, however, lead to anything tangible in the face of concerns about China, especially those held by Lao citizens who are already marginalized is, of course, another issue, and one that may become more prominent as the Laos-China Railway becomes a reality. Whatever questions I asked about my other research interests, for example about heritage, China is the one thing about which everyone seemingly had an opinion. I believe that the potential for Laos to change as the influence of China rises is the most significant concern for much of the Lao population. Chapter 5 attempts to draw the dynamics of all this together. I argue that the situation in Laos is multi-faceted and raises valuable questions about how political legitimacy is negotiated and maintained, what drives that legitimacy and how the political landscape remains nominally as it is. This conclusion is valid for Laos at this specific point in time. I do not argue that the situation will remain the same and it is important to realize that it has the potential to change very quickly. I conclude that one driver for significant change in Laos is the rising presence of China. Of course, rising China is important much further afield than Laos, but this demonstrates that the potential for change in Laos from increasing Chinese influence is immense.

Future Directions I have outlined in the sections above how the current political status quo in Laos has come about and become an essential part of everyday life;

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something to be lived around and lived through. One dreams within and around the landscape of the one-party system of Laos. I also suggested above that Luang Prabang is understood as the apparent centre of Lao culture, even if it is also the city most closely aligned culturally to many of the practices of the former regime. Luang Prabang is the place that aligns contemporary Laos with its pre-revolutionary past, and in so doing points to the turbulent history that has informed much of the path to where the country is today. Overall, I want to suggest that Laos is in transition, although the destination of that transition does not show any meaningful signs of being a capitalist multiparty democracy. For scholars who argued as the USSR collapsed that the endpoint of political transition would be a linear journey to some sort of multiparty democracy, Laos is a powerful case study that shows that this is not a one-way process.35 That the socialist political system remains at least nominally in Laos demonstrates that political transition is not a singular journey from communism to capitalism. That the political system has proved itself both remarkably durable, but, also with an immense ability to reinvent itself, is worthy of investigation. High (2014) argues that one reason why there is so little outward opposition to the prevailing political culture in Laos is that people still believe that the state can meet their expectations and provide for them. In my view, this has a considerable amount to do with political legitimacy residing in multiple places. High’s point requires an assumption that people really would choose something else given the opportunity. I do not consider this point made out entirely. Finally, by allowing aspirations and permitting some – albeit limited – possibilities for people to complain about certain things – state practices rather than ideology – and sometimes making small changes accordingly, the state can manage this process of dissent, and use it to advance its own legitimacy. Moreover, as Chatterjee (2004) points out, it is in making demands on the state that people actually become visible to state authorities and their concerns and priorities registered by policymakers. This works particularly well for the state if people’s complaints are largely common knowledge anyway. For now, to understand this political system of nominally socialist politics, capitalist economics, a globalizing world, and with China’s power and influence in ascendancy, it is necessary to take a step back to questions of the past. To understand the political situation as part of everyday life, I propose the value of beginning in the city that formed 35 Carothers (2002a, 2002b) was one of the fiercest critics of viewing political transition as a linear process.

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the pre-revolutionary centre. Much can be learned about the current state of Lao politics through considering the recent journey of the place now presented as the centre of Lao culture, which was celebrated, then reviled in the early revolutionary days, and is now prized again. This means looking at just what is presented as history in Laos, what is labelled and included in heritage and what is not. A journey to the sumptuous splendour of ‘timeless’ Luang Prabang is a journey to the lived experience of the politics of contemporary Laos.

References Anderlini, J. (2015) ‘China to Become One of World’s Biggest Overseas Investors by 2020’, Financial Times. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/5136953a1b3d-11e5-8201-cbdb03d71480 (Accessed: 23 May 2019). Baird, I. (2014) ‘Political Memories of Conflict, Economic Land Concessions and Political Landscapes in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic’, Geoforum, 52(2014), pp. 61–69. Baird, I.G. (2015) ‘1975: Rescaling Our Understanding of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Establishment of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic’, Geopolitics 20(4), pp 754-758. On https://wisc.academia.edu/IanBaird/CurriculumVitae” Ian G Baird | University of Wisconsin-Madison - Academia.edu Baird, I. and Le Billon, P. (2012) ‘Landscapes of Political Memories: War Legacies and Land Negotiations’, Political Geography, 31(5), pp. 290–300. Berliner, D. (2012) ‘Multiple Nostalgias: the Fabric of Heritage in Luang Prabang (Lao PDR)’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18, pp. 769–786. Blake, D.J.H. and Barney, K. (2018) ‘Structural Injustice, Slow Violence? The Political Ecology of a “Best Practice” Hydropower Dam in Lao PDR’, Journal of Contemporary Asia 48(5), pp. 808-834. Carothers, T. (2002a) ‘A Reply to my Critics’, Journal of Democracy, 13(3), pp. 33–38. Carothers, T. (2002b) ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’, Journal of Democracy, 13(1), pp. 5–21. Chatterjee, P. (2004) The politics of the governed: reflections on popular politics in most of the world. New York: Columbia University Press. Dearborn, L. and Stallmeyer, J. (2009) ‘Revisiting Luang Prabang: Transformations Under the Influence of World Heritage Designation’, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 7(4), pp. 249–269. Dwyer, M.B. (2017) ‘The New “New Battlef ield”: Capitalizing Security in Laos’ Agribusiness Landscape’, in Bouté, V. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Changing Lives in Laos: Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-socialist State. Singapore: NUS Press.

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Evans, G. (1990) Lao Peasants Under Socialism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Evans, G. (1998) The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos since 1975. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. Evans, G. (2002) A Short History of Laos: the Land in Between. Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Evans, G. (2009) The Last Century of Lao Royalty: a Documentary History. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. Herzfeld, M. (2016) Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics and the Real Life of States, Societies and Institutions. New York, NY: Routledge. High, H. (2014) Fields of Desire: Poverty and Policy in Laos. Singapore: NUS Press. High, H. and Petit, P. (2013) ‘Introduction: the Study of the State in Laos’, Asian Studies Review, 37(4), pp. 417–432. Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (2012) The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kerkvliet, B.J.T. (2005) The Power of Everyday Politics: How Vietnamese Peasants Transformed National Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Ladwig, P. (2013) ‘Haunting the State: Rumours, Spectral Apparitions and the Longing for Buddhist Charisma in Laos’, Asian Studies Review, 37(4), pp. 509–526. Lao Population and Housing Census (2015) Results of Population and Housing Census. Vientiane, Laos: Lao Statistics Bureau. Leong, C., Takada, J. and Yamaguchi, S. (2016) ‘Analysis of the Changing Landscape of a World Heritage Site: Case of Luang Prabang, Lao PDR’, Sustainability, 8(8), pp. 1–23. Lim, Alvin C.-H. (2015) ‘Laos and the Silk Road Economic Belt – Analysis’, Eurasia Review. Available at: https://www.eurasiareview.com/30072015-laos-and-thesilk-road-economic-belt-analysis/ (Accessed: 28 February 2019). Migdal, J.S. (2001) State in Society: Studying how States and Societies Transform and Constitute one Another. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism (2018) Statistical Report on Tourism. Vientiane, Lao PDR: Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, Tourism Development Department, Tourism Research Division. Available at: https:// www.tourismlaos.org/files/files/Statistical%20Report%20on%20Tourism%20 in%20Laos/2018%20Statistical%20Report%20on%20Tourism.pdf (Accessed: 15 January 2019). Molland, S. (2017) ‘Migration and Mobility in Laos’, in Bouté, V. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Changing Lives in Laos: Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-Socialist State. Singapore: NUS Press, pp. 327–349. Nanthavongdouangsy, V. (2006) Sinh and Lao Women. Vientiane, Laos: Phaeng Mai Gallery. Phraxayavong, V. (2009) History of Aid to Laos: Motivations and Impacts. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Mekong Press.

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Rathie, M. (2017) ‘The History and Evolution of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party’, in Bouté, V. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Changing Lives in Laos: Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-Socialist State. Singapore: NUS Press, pp. 19–55. Russell, E. (2013) ‘Laos – Living with Unexploded Ordnance: Past Memories and Present Realities’, in Tappe, O. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Interactions with a Violent Past: Reading Post-Conflict Landscapes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Singapore: NUS Press, pp. 96–134. Scott, J.C. (2009) The Art of Not Being Governed: an Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Seo, J. (2005) ‘Nationalism and the Problem of Political Legitimacy in China’, in White, L. (ed.) Legitimacy: Ambiguities of Political Success or Failure in East and Southeast Asia. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 141-182. Shryock, A. (2004) ‘Other Conscious/Self Aware: First Thoughts on Cultural Intimacy and Mass Mediation’, in Shryock, A. (ed.) Off Stage, on Display: Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 3–30. Soukamneuth, B.J. (2006) The Political Economy of Transition in Laos: From Peripheral Socialism to the Margins of Global Capital. PhD thesis. Cornell University. Stuart-Fox, M. (1983) ‘Marxism and Theravada Buddhism: the Legitimation of Political Authority in Laos’, Pacific Affairs, 56(3), pp. 428–454. Stuart-Fox, M. (1998) Buddhist Kingdom: Marxist State. Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus. Stuart-Fox, M. (2007) ‘Laos: Politics in a Single-Party State’, Southeast Asian Affairs, 2007, pp. 161–180. Stuart-Fox, M. and Bucknell, R. (1982) ‘Politicization of the Buddhist Sangha in Laos’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 13(01), pp. 60–80. Suntikul, W. (2011) ‘Linkages Between Heritage Policy, Tourism and Business Enterprises in Luang Prabang’. International Council on Monuments and Sites 17th General Assembly and Scientific Symposium, ‘Heritage, Driver of Development’, Paris, 27 November 2011- 2 December 2011. Tappe, O. (2013) ‘Faces and Facets of the Kantosou Kou Xat – the Lao “National Liberation Struggle” in State Commemoration and Historiography’, Asian Studies Review, 37(4), pp. 433–450. United Nations Economic Analysis and Policy Division (2018) Least Developed Country: Lao People’s Democratic Republic Profile. Available at: https://www. un.org/development/desa/dpad/least-developed-country-category-lao-peoplesdemocratic-republic.html (Accessed: 1 July 2018). Vallard, A. (2011) ‘Laotian Textiles in Between Markets and the Politics of Culture’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 42(2), pp. 233–252.

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White, L. (2005) ‘Dimensions of Legitimacy’, in White, L. (ed.) Legitimacy: Ambiguities of Political Success or Failure in East and Southeast Asia. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 1–28. Yamada, N. (2018) ‘Legitimation of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party: Socialism, Chintanakan Mai (New Thinking) and Reform’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 48(5), pp. 717–738. Yu, H. (2017) ‘Motivation Behind China’s “One Belt, One Road” Initiatives and Establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’, Journal of Contemporary China, 26(105), pp. 353–368. Zheng, Y. and Lye, L.F. (2005) ‘Political Legitimacy in Reform China: Between Economic Performance and Democratization’, in White, L. (ed.) Legitimacy: Ambiguities of Political Success or Failure in East and Southeast Asia. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 183–214.

2

Making the Past (Dis)appear Heritage as Legitimacy in (Re)creating Luang Prabang Abstract Selective readings of the past and how these contribute to ideas of legitimacy and heritage are considered in this chapter. Certain aspects of the past are emphasized while others are marginalized. The Lao authorities present themselves as the entirely legitimate guardians of what is presented as traditional Lao culture, while simultaneously marginalizing dissenting voices, although ideally without direct conflict. This fits with the agenda of UNESCO. Luang Prabang, portrayed as an ancient and timeless city, is an anomaly in wider agendas of development in Laos, amidst the prevailing narrative of ambitious development in the country. This raises questions about aspirations for modernity and imaginaries for the future of Laos. Keywords: memory, performativity, tourism, UNESCO World Heritage, selective representations of history

On 3 December 2015, my alarm woke me at 4 a.m. Hurrying out of bed, I dressed in a blue silk Lao sinh and a white blouse I had bought the day before specifically for this occasion. I placed a blue scarf woven in a traditional pattern over one shoulder and headed out to meet Neng, the Hmong man who had migrated from the countryside to work and study in Luang Prabang. Neng worked as a guesthouse receptionist and night guard when not studying for his college degree. Neng had been told that he must wake up early as he was being designated by Ek, his employer and my landlord, as Ek’s representative in the city’s National Day celebration parade rehearsal, taking place in the Luang Prabang stadium that morning. National Day is actually 2 December but in Luang Prabang the celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) were combined with the twentieth anniversary of Luang Prabang becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This celebration was to culminate in street parades and

Wilcox, Phill, Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimacy in Laos. The Past and Present of the Lao Nation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463727020_ch02

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other festivities, including the arrival of the procession termed the Elephant Caravan, which was due to arrive in Luang Prabang from Sayaboury.1 The previous day, I had found myself sitting outside a rather westernized café facing the main square in Luang Prabang, which I understood was to be the focal point of the celebrations. National Day is a public holiday in Laos, but details of exactly what would happen were very sketchy. Away from the officialdom, friends and colleagues told me that they intended to celebrate having a free day by spending time with friends or family, or in the case of one person, assisting with digging a toilet. Unlike them, I wanted to see something of the official events but with little information about what would happen, I joined Neng in visiting some extended family outside the city. On our return, Ek told us about the rehearsal for the parade the following morning and that Neng would be attending. Ek owned several tourism businesses in Luang Prabang and was expected to represent this business sector at official events, or to arrange a representative to attend. I asked Ek if I could attend this event too, given my interest in political culture. He was somewhat surprised at my enthusiasm for such things, because he didn’t think people would attend such events unless they had to. But then he was seemingly often bemused by much of what I did and obliged by making the necessary introduction to the local authorities. He told them that he had a Western friend (helpfully not stressing the long-term nature of my interest in this) who was very interested in Lao history and culture, and would it be possible for me to attend the rehearsals the following day with Neng, who was to be his representative? I would be welcome to attend, but I had to be suitably attired. ‘Suitably dressed’ is a loaded term because as I noted in the previous chapter, it involves traditional lowland Lao clothing norms, even though many citizens are not lowland Lao. This instruction sent me on an emergency trip to the market to source a suitable new blouse 1 Billed as ‘a living, breathing, walking message’, the Elephant Caravan (http://www.theelephantcaravan.org) involved twelve elephants and their mahouts walking from the traditional heartland of elephants in Laos, Sayaboury Province, to Luang Prabang and culminated in a street procession through the heritage zone in Luang Prabang. Official publicity around this event focused on the importance of conserving habitat and urging people to ask what had happened to the wild elephant population in Laos, once known as Lan Xang – the Land of a Million Elephants. In Luang Prabang, there were several public theatre events around these themes aimed at raising awareness for the plight of elephants in Laos, but as Lao friends observed, nobody was particularly keen to address what many saw as the real problem: poaching and the illegal sale of ivory driven largely by Chinese customers. Ivory trading continues in Laos and according to the WWF, continues to grow. This is outlined in the report by Vigne and Martin (2017). Although sometimes partially concealed, in 2015-2016 ivory trading was visible in central Luang Prabang itself.

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for the occasion. This was not entirely straightforward, as Lao blouses are not typically sold in sizes large enough to accommodate Western or falang body sizes.2 Dressed in what I hoped was suitable attire, I was ready to go. As it was still so early, the vendors who sell offerings for tourists to donate to the monks during the daily morning almsgiving were not even on the streets yet. With me balanced somewhat precariously on the back of Neng’s motorbike, we set off. When we arrived at the stadium, Neng made sure to register our presence as proof that we were really there and secondly to avoid Ek’s incurring a fine for failing to send anyone to this event, which was clearly considered very important by the authorities. For the same reason, I suggested taking a selfie of us. Ek, a lowland Lao, and an unashamed member of the new Lao middle class, clearly did not believe that Neng would attend if he did not have to, perhaps a projection of his own lack of enthusiasm for attending or perhaps realizing that few people have an appetite for these sorts of events. We went into the stadium and watched military exercises taking place on the running track to the accompaniment of marching music. Realizing then that we were probably in the wrong place, we went back outside and asked the officials where we should go. We assembled behind the float representing Ek’s business area in Luang Prabang, passing people in different uniforms representing various institutions and other people representing various ethnic groups, which is common at official events in Laos. The idea of official presentations of ethnic heritage within prescribed contexts is an area to which I will return in the following chapter. An official then distributed flags. I gained a hammer-and-sickle flag while Neng received a Lao national flag. We were given very strict instructions on how to wave these and then waited outside the stadium for several hours while other preparations took place inside the stadium. Everyone else was of course able to squat on the roadside with ease. This did not come so easily to me, even less so in a silk sinh. To pass the time I counted photos of revolutionary leaders carried by other attendees. While we were waiting, we noticed a group representing the local hospital, which led me to comment that if one were to have an accident, now would not be such a bad time given the abundance of medical staff available. Neng laughed, while pointing out that it was unlikely that they were carrying medication along with their flags. We could hear revolutionary music emanating from the stadium itself, 2 The word falang literally means foreigner. It is typically applied to people from the global North. I heard some disagreement about whether this term can also be applied to people from East Asia, who make up growing numbers of foreigners in Laos.

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which prompted Neng to observe with an ironic smile that were he staying in one of the surrounding hotels as a paying guest, he would be sure to ask for a refund. In the seemingly interminable waiting period, various other attendees came to chat with me, mostly to ask me where I was from and if I liked Laos, which I attributed to both politeness and curiosity about why I was there. This feeling of being intensely out of place only increased when some tourists walking to the bus station just up the road began to film us. Finally, we were required to stand and Neng removed his flag from where he had casually stowed it in his shirt pocket. We marched forward, once around the stadium and were then allowed to leave, after being told to return the following morning for the actual parade. We left gratefully, having done our bit to demonstrate the official physiognomy of the nation for one day and proved sufficiently that we were unlikely to disgrace ourselves during the forthcoming formal parade. Ultimately, I decided it was better for me not to attend the actual event in the procession itself for fear of attracting unwelcome attention from the authorities, particularly as the event was to be televised live. Neng, too, managed to evade the parade the following day given that it was pouring with rain and Ek allowed him to stay behind. Instead, clutching our hot drinks, we watched the festivities on TV and saw the performers sinking into the mud as they performed in front of the VIPs. It is easy to conclude that what I witnessed on National Day – perhaps the most public of public displays of national identity – contained a significant element of people ‘going through the motions’, participating in a ritual that was an integral part of the landscape of public life but for many done through duty rather than choice. This was the case with Ek. Why would he want to get up early and spend hours on the road when he could send one of his staff to do it for him? To him, if I wanted to spend my time in this space, then that was up to me and more fool me. This was not the only reaction of this nature that I encountered. For Neng too, this event was, first and foremost, duty. Clearly this version of nationalism relies on very specific events and mediums and in so doing, omits details of alternative events and people who have contributed to the national story in other ways. In Laos, as elsewhere, the public face of national identity is a formal one, which requires the appropriation of various traditions and the omission of others with people demonstrating a range of attachments and engagements with this depending on duty, patriotism, and personal feelings.3 This contains large elements of Goffman’s (1959) self-presentation, as people are socialized 3 See the classic arguments by Hobsbawn and Ranger (2012 [1983]) on how traditions are invented, but how that does not render them any less valuable.

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to respond in acceptable ways to official narratives, with differing levels of enthusiasm. It also functions as a sort of binding, a public event that brings the nation together and a representation of what Edensor (2002) has termed a symbolic staging of the nation. How this public face is arrived at, and what it presents as binding, is what this chapter is all about. It is also about how this intersects with what is presented (or not) as heritage in Luang Prabang. In the previous chapter I argued for the prominence of the ideological components that form such a key part of constructions of Lao history. Here, I contend that the management of the presentation of the pre-revolutionary history is an essential part of the fabric of Luang Prabang and that heritage provides their stature as a town of such world heritage. At the same time, the authorities are required to negotiate a difficult path of working with the troublesome parts of history which cannot be avoided altogether because doing so would undermine the basis for which Luang Prabang was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the first place. Luang Prabang is perhaps the one place in Laos where the Lao authorities are forced to interact with their pre-revolutionary past in ways that could be deemed contradictory to their own ends and accordingly, requires very careful presentation and management. Thus, this history is made visible in Luang Prabang, but only within certain parameters, and managed through a process of making the past both visible and invisible, and simultaneously both real and unreal. That something could be contradictory does not necessarily mean that it is. I propose that this is done by making the more sensitive aspects of history into something far more distant and fuzzier and by employing silence on difficult aspects of Lao history. In so doing, these cultural practices are used very much in the service of a master narrative of political legitimacy in Laos. This has the effect of downplaying the apparent contradiction between the type of government Laos says it has and what that government actually does. As Yamada (2018) argues, changes in direction do not mean any loosening of Party control over Laos, but the overt use of ideology to justify new strategies for politics and economics which, as he rightly notes, always go together in Laos. This is demonstrative of the lack of the state disappearing from public life. Although this is widely expected as a nation embraces capitalism, this does not occur in countries that maintain a nominally socialist system of governance (High and Petit 2013). 4 The authorities in Luang Prabang promote a visible role for themselves as guardians of the city’s heritage, and the aspects they particularly wish to promote. This again demonstrates that 4

See also, Gainsborough (2010) Zhang (2001), and Zhang and Ong (2008).

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process of leading change rather than being swept along by it and meeting potentially unwelcome consequences rather than trying to head them off. People know that there is more than what is apparent on the surface, and in this chapter, I will demonstrate various ways in which different people expressed that to me, either through approaching official nationalism as a duty or through the outright rejection of the official narratives. Importantly, people still engage in myriad ways with the state and its official narratives and in so doing, develop a personal relationship with the imagined state and/ or its representatives. This is the underlying feature of the cultural intimacy of Laos, or how stuff becomes part of the fabric of daily life. I would add here that so too is silence, and in particular the two different kinds of silence argued for by Vinizky-Seroussi and Teeger (2010): silence by omission and silence by alternative information. In this chapter I will show that the public face of nationalism in Laos is comprised as much by what is presented as such as what isn’t, and how things that are problematic dissolve into fuzziness. In much of this chapter, I focus on the presentation of the National Museum, formerly the Royal Palace, in Luang Prabang, which forms a fundamental part of the landscape of the city, as well as on ideas about heritage more generally. To visit the museum is to undertake a very interesting journey into what is said and left unsaid about the recent past in Laos. The Royal Palace in Luang Prabang was the residence of the Lao monarchy until they were deposed in the 1975 revolution. The King, Queen, and the Crown Prince then died in a re-education camp.5 Today, visitors are welcome to visit their former home, but nothing is said about what happened to them after 1975. This is borne out by the curious statue in the garden that is the subject of offerings and with which I started this book. Thus, the museum remains an excellent illustration of the past being concurrently visible and invisible or to put this in other words: having the past appear and disappear simultaneously. First, I will show how this is done in official presentations and then how people are aware of what is missed by official narratives and how this becomes apparent, contributing to the central argument of this book: concerns about the future are reframing and reshaping practices of the past and attitudes towards narratives of heritage and history. It also means that the national story has become embedded sufficiently for legitimacy about the Lao political regime to be subservient to greater concerns, one of which I will argue for later, being the rising levels of Chinese influence in Laos. This affects the country, and as we will see here, is also apparent in Luang Prabang itself. 5

See the previous chapter, and Evans (2002, 2009) for an overview of this period.

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Luang Prabang and the Creation of Nostalgia By the time of the revolution in 1975, the things that brought renown to Luang Prabang had fallen largely out of favour, as the official public face of Laos changed dramatically, orientating itself away from its royal heritage and towards socialism. The anniversary celebrations that Neng and I attended were held specifically to commemorate the founding of the country in its contemporary form, even if it later underwent the significant changes in economic policy that I outlined in Chapter 1. After the revolution in 1975, Luang Prabang entered a very difficult phase in its history, as the country’s royal and religious associations did not sit comfortably with the new People’s Democratic Republic. The Royal Palace in Luang Prabang was closed in 1975 and then reopened as the National Museum the following year. Luang Prabang is a particularly interesting case study through which to view the changing nature and faces of political culture in Laos. In official state discourse, the revolution in 1975 delivered the will of the population and established their own legitimate, chosen government. This is why in all official museums anything pre-1975 is portrayed as: negative, for example, the National Museum in Vientiane in which those who fought against the establishment of the one-party socialist system were referred to as imperialist puppets, or distant, with the same museum having an expansive if basic collection of ancient artefacts showing the territory of Laos several centuries earlier, or silent as in the National Museum in Luang Prabang where there is nothing about what happened to the monarchy. Notably, the approach taken by museum staff and guides in welcoming international visitors to museums throughout Laos is often much at odds with the inflammatory rhetoric towards ‘imperialists’ given out by the displays. This is something I have noted myself and of which I have been repeatedly assured. But in Luang Prabang it is not so simple. Long and Sweet (2006) argue that Luang Prabang presents the authorities with something of a dilemma, namely, how to promote its appeal but downplay the more controversial aspects of its history. I would argue that this dilemma remains the case today and that it is still apparent in daily life, not least in what is and is not presented as heritage in Laos generally, and particularly, in Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1995, and the justification for this is focused mainly on its architecture and urban landscape. While UNESCO recognition in itself increases tourism numbers and makes an explicit connection between heritage and Luang Prabang, writers on Luang Prabang note significance in the aspects of the

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town recognized as important by UNESCO. First, only the positive aspects of colonialism and history are generally emphasized. The colonial period is reduced to being something that produced the beautiful architecture for which the city is now famous and any negativity surrounding the colonial, royalist, or any other historical period is either sidelined or considered unworthy of lengthy consideration. At face value, Luang Prabang appears to have little cultural value today as its cultural value lies solely in its preserved past. This also serves the purpose of making the past entirely subordinate to the present. By this, I mean that it was the past that produced the things for which Luang Prabang is valued by popular discourse, including UNESCO. Crucially, the past cannot speak for itself, but is used in different narratives of the present.6 Luang Prabang’s cultural value was recognized solely – officially – for its buildings and their historical value. Cultural value is therefore couched in official terms of aestheticism rather than in anything else, although I would argue that strenuous efforts now exist to expand from this. I would argue that the lived experience of heritage in Luang Prabang is far broader than this concept and now encompasses both living cultural and ethnic heritages. This adds to the other worldliness that is such a marketing point for the city. It is entirely relevant for discussions of how the past and present intersect in Luang Prabang. I will return to this point with reference to ethnic heritage in the following chapter. Berliner (2011, 2012) takes this point further, arguing that Luang Prabang is presented as a place of immense nostalgia and that this looms large in the expectations of the city’s many visitors, some of whom identify Luang Prabang as a sort of ‘Indochinese Oxford’ (2012, 777). One visitor told me that he felt Luang Prabang was a paradise, in comparison to Paris where he lived, which he termed ‘a concrete jungle’. Such a sentiment is as Orientalist as it is reductionist but demonstrates some considerable success of the attempts to promote Luang Prabang as beautiful, serene, other-worldly and rooted in an idealized past. Again, this is not entirely straightforward and there needs to be the right kind of nostalgia. Nostalgia requires manufacture and shape if it is to be used in service of the national project. This does not mean that the population has no agency, but nostalgia for the acceptable, reified past is important for establishing the nation’s history and the Lao state is happy to drive particular versions of this. The past is a very potent resource to be drawn upon, rejected, and rewritten as required by various actors in 6 For ethnographic examples of this, see Johnson (2001) and Mookherjee (1998) amongst many others.

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Luang Prabang. The past – in different forms – is definitely the business of the present. From there, another series of questions emerges about what aspects of the past are to be emphasized and what are to be downplayed. Luang Prabang is in a very singular position in Laos, given that UNESCO recognized it as being a site of exceptional cultural value largely based on its architecture, which in turn forces the local authorities into confronting its pre-revolutionary past in ways that do not exist elsewhere in Laos. Dealing with this awkward legacy and managing its influence in both its presence and silences within the present, is therefore an important practice of what I term ‘past management’. This has resulted in an idealized version of Luang Prabang in which visitors come to seek or at least to participate in some sort of bygone golden era. In a more realistic version, locals are quick to capitalize upon this desire by renting out their homes in the heritage zone and relocating to the suburbs. I observed this during my fieldwork. In Luang Prabang, nostalgia has spawned an enormous amount of commercial activity as tourism professionals attempt to capitalize upon the desires of visitors for the past but also on a notion articulated by many simultaneously of a need to witness culture now, before it is lost forever.7 This includes period cars sent by boutique hotels to transport guests and supposed antiques for sale in the shops and markets. Nostalgia here is something one consumes. These are excellent examples of things that are apparently traditional, but which are often utilized to further a specific agenda. In Luang Prabang, the fact that these are reproductions rather than real artefacts misses the point because nostalgia as a project has considerably more to do with the present than the past. It is the experience of an idealized past that is attractive to visitors rather than an actual experience of the past or the more contentious aspects of the present. Within the context of Luang Prabang, with its splendid architecture and blend of different cultural styles which UNESCO recognizes as being so valuable, there is also the sense that even lowland Lao are sometimes othered within the context of fusion and fusion cultures and architecture.8 This extends to cuisine and gastronomic practices, with Lao food relegated largely to areas outside the heritage zone. Staiff and Bushell (2013b) argue that one of the few noodle shops within the heritage zone is more a site of tourist photography for those attempting to document an apparently authentic streetscape than a place where visitors to Luang Prabang would 7 Berliner (2020) explores this further in his book about losing culture, part of which draws on Luang Prabang specifically. 8 For the full, insightful article, see Dearborn and Stallmeyer (2009).

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be encouraged to choose to eat. They argue that this serves to promote a hierarchy of cuisine in Luang Prabang, with local people’s preferred options being placed near the bottom. Fusion food, that is, the combination of Lao food blended with European traditional fare, is more celebrated, much like the UNESCO declaration celebrates the blending of these traditions in the city’s architecture. During the time that I lived in the heritage zone, I often encountered tourists at the morning food market, which takes place in the heritage zone until around 9 am, and several times found my breakfast being photographed as I attempted to buy it. I was once asked to step aside during a photography moment, presumably so as not to spoil an apparently authentic Lao market transaction with my un-Lao body. Basic sustenance becomes a novelty, and an opportunity for food tourism, and as Sengel et al. (2015) note, the ability to share it via Instagram. Tourists in the heritage zone are encouraged into wanting apparently sophisticated food. There are very few places in the area where the local population would eat with any regularity, save for takeaway stalls. Many of my research participants worked in the businesses around the heritage zone and utilized these. There is then a significant disconnect between the official marketing of Luang Prabang as a beautiful, awe-inspiring paradise, and the everyday existence of many people who live and work there.9 Lao friends did not consider it money well spent to eat in places frequented by tourists when better quality food is available to take away far more cheaply in the markets, which, in fact, supply many of the restaurants that tourists frequent, should they order Lao dishes. One young person working in a restaurant told me that when a customer orders a Lao dish, he would take his motorbike and buy it from the market. It would then be put on a plate and served to the customer at a much higher price. Interlocutors often talked about how little they had visited the museums and temples frequented by tourists, except when they wished to encounter tourists for a specific reason, such as to practise their English. Several young Hmong students told me of how they frequented Phousi Hill, opposite the National Museum, at sunset, as this was a place where tourists congregate and where the chances of finding someone with whom to practise English is high. A novice monk shared that he enjoys the interest of tourists in his life within the temple and was happy to answer questions from visitors. He then asked me for money as payment for his time in sharing these experiences with me. These encounters of trying to meet foreigners demonstrate an active agenda to gain something from visitor interest. 9

This is also true of other heritage sites. See, for example Joy (2012) and Avieli (2015).

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This brings the immediate and the financial into close contrast with the splendour of the past that is the basis of the UNESCO listing and the reason given by many visitors for their visit to the city, with many bemoaning that they did not come earlier. While Luang Prabang and similar sites may aspire to the tourist gaze, several tourists told me that they felt Luang Prabang was in danger of becoming too much like Chiang Mai, which they considered to have been ‘ruined by tourism’. Others told me that Luang Prabang has become too sanitized, too expensive, insufficiently ‘third world’ and/or ‘communist’. Few tourists have any meaningful attachment to Luang Prabang for any length of time. Many never venture out of the heritage zone and are unlikely to question the official narratives critically. Nevertheless, some do realize there is more to what they are told, with one tourist reflecting insightfully that he felt that he had learned rather more about Lao history from Wikipedia than he had from the information at the National Museum.

Dealing With ‘Difficult Pasts’ at the National Museum The UNESCO zone includes much of the centre of Luang Prabang and features most of the town’s main attractions. It covers the city’s most emblematic temples and the National Museum, which is located almost in the centre. The building design of the National Museum is a mix of Lao and colonial styles and fits neatly into the definition of fusion architecture that is recognized by UNESCO as valuable. Above its main entrance one can see the symbol of the ousted Royal Lao Government (RLG), which featured on the flag of the RLG until its demise.10 Interestingly, and in contrast with the National Museum in Vientiane, visitors are required to remove their shoes before entering the museum, and to dress respectfully, and to walk a prescribed route around the museum. Many visitors have commented to me on the over-zealous nature of many of the museum guards and complained about the necessity of the rules because after all, the museum is not a temple. One tourist told me he found the insistence he pull his shorts lower towards his knees farcical, as the official enforcing the dress code seemed far more concerned about an exposed knee than his bottom making an unwelcome appearance. This need to make the museum into something more religious than factual is no accident and is 10 Lao children learn that each consonant of the Lao alphabet has an associated word. The word for one consonant is flag. Lao alphabet posters in Laos feature the current flag of Laos, yet those used in the diaspora often feature the old RLG flag.

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Figure 3 The flag of the contemporary Lao PDR in front of the National Museum (Formerly Royal Palace) in Luang Prabang

Photograph taken by the author, January 2014

an excellent example of the parallel between religion and nationalism that often forms such a prominent aspect of nationalist discourse.11 Crucially, inside the museum there is no reference at all to the fate of the Lao royal family. Over many years of visiting Luang Prabang, and by a combination of direct questions and eavesdropping on tours both inside and outside the museum grounds, I have heard many different versions of this aspect of Lao history. These ranged from the King having died of natural causes to him having gone to Vientiane and dying there, to him still being alive today. Whether these stories have arisen from genuine ignorance, embarrassment, and/or a need to give out the ‘right’ answer is debatable. I am of the view that it comes from a combination of all these factors. A further demonstration of this is found in the garage behind the palace where visitors can take in the King’s car collection. There are portraits of the royal drivers which record the positions of each until 1975, yet there is no information about what happened to them subsequently. As with the royal family, there is only silence. Detailed analysis forms part of the nation’s intimate history, 11 For a detailed analysis of this, see especially, Kapferer (1998).

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but in Luang Prabang is not part of the public face. This also explains why difficult questions are often smiled away rather than answered. The interests of the Lao government and UNESCO are not necessarily at odds as both allow for the nation to be built and portrayed in specific ways. Keeping in mind that the focus is on the architecture – fusion or otherwise – the attention to the preservation of historical buildings does not encourage any difficult historical questions. Nor does it encourage enquiries about how the past really intersects with the present, or any lengthy consideration as to how or from where the present developed. This has the advantage of downplaying difficult questions about the present and the recent past. Notably, it does not encourage any critical examination of the revolution in 1975 and the subsequent deposition of the Lao monarchy. Therefore, the past can be portrayed as something more distant than detailed and recent.12 But Luang Prabang is perhaps the only place in Laos where the authorities can neither ignore nor lambast the country’s royal heritage. By way of comparison, when I visited in late 2015, the National Museum in Vientiane had scant information on the Lao who fought against the communists, merely labelling them puppets of the American imperialists, a label used also for the Lao monarchy. In contrast, in Luang Prabang, such a label would surely not fit with the image of the town that the authorities are keen to portray, and which UNESCO remains happy to recognize as being of such fundamental importance for all humanity. In the concluding chapter of this book I propose that the statue that appears on this book’s cover is not part of the narrative presented in Luang Prabang, largely because it just does not fit with the overall story Luang Prabang presents. My point is that in Luang Prabang, pre-revolutionary history cannot be used so explicitly in the service of the dominant ideology and the official narratives as it can in other places in the country. A conundrum then: what to do? The matter may be unimportant for many international visitors but is a serious question for those setting the master narrative. My suggestion is that the Lao authorities have employed a dual approach in this regard. The first aspect of this is largely that of silence, whilst the second is the employment of timelessness to make detail into something more fuzzy than real. This is why visitors to the museum are expected to remove their shoes, dress, and behave 12 Long and Sweet (2006) note this in relation specifically to the royal drivers from the pre-1975 period. They note that in the garage behind the museum, the drivers’ photographs stand next to the former royal cars, but each photo records that the driver was employed until 1975, with no information about what happened after. As with the National Museum itself, this is a use of overt silence that does not invite questions about what is not being said.

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‘respectfully’, akin to visiting a temple. The intersection between religion and fact remains fuzzy and undefined, which suits official purposes very well. It also does not invite any scrutiny of where many of the ethnic minorities, in an already ethnically diverse country, fit into what is presented as Lao national culture. What is presented as ethnic diversity in Laos perpetuates an unequal hegemonic landscape of lowland Lao domination, as can be seen in the following chapter.

Heritage and Almsgiving Giving alms to monks (takbaat) is an excellent example of lowland Lao Buddhist culture and its presentation as an inalienable part of public discourses of nationalism in Laos. This is presented as a classic image of Luang Prabang, which is ironic given the prohibitions on this practice in the early days following the revolution. While this practice happens across Laos, the practice of it in the heritage zone in Luang Prabang is particularly popular as the large concentration of temples draws many monks who assemble at dawn each day and walk through the streets, collecting offerings from the lay people along the route. When I used to live in the heritage zone, during the period of my research, I would often get up before dawn to take a short walk to Sisavangvong Road, which runs right through the centre of the heritage zone. I wanted to understand the actors in this daily ritual better. Without exception, I always found that within five minutes of opening my door in the morning, a street vendor would approach me asking if I wanted to buy food offerings to donate to the monks. Anyone attending is offered the opportunity to buy rice and packaged biscuits from local vendors along the route and when they buy something, will often be escorted to a spot on the pavement from where they can then participate in the ceremony. I understand why the vendors would approach me: why else would someone so obviously foreign be on the streets at that time unless they are interested in almsgiving, regardless of whether I spoke to them in Lao and wore a traditional Lao sinh skirt? These vendors are also patronized by tour guides. I would then wait on the opposite side of the road to where people make their offerings, standing behind the vendors and their tables and watch as the tour groups came, got out of their minibuses, and took their places on the small stools set up for them. Sometimes they would be dressed with a scarf over one shoulder, customary dress for attending temples. I noticed only a few groups received instructions about what to do. Finally, around 6 a.m. waves of

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monks from different temples would start to walk down the street collecting offerings. Those people who had bought from the street vendors would offer the monks balls of sticky rice and prepacked biscuits. The monks would be followed by other tourists waving cameras as they walked down the streets in a procession and when the last group had come through, the tourists would return to their minivans. The road would reopen, and the daily morning routines of getting and eating breakfast, going to the market, and work would commence. In all the months that I watched this ritual I only participated once with Leng, a Hmong interlocutor from the northeast who grew up largely in a temple near Vientiane as a means to attend high school. He disrobed on graduation and continued his education at a university in Luang Prabang. He viewed this very much as a legitimate move for social mobility.13 He asked me to participate with him at Lao New Year as, although he did not consider himself Buddhist, it was meaningful to him and he told me that he does this once every year out of respect. Having spent so much time observing other foreigners participating in this ritual and seen so much criticism of bad tourist behaviour around almsgiving I was somewhat reluctant to join him but reasoned that I could at least follow his lead. This did not, however, dispel a feeling of being intensely out of place, particularly as despite dressing carefully, and preparing my own offerings, the street vendors still viewed me as a potential customer, and called out to me repeatedly in English to buy their products. To them, I was quite simply out of place.14 This is actually not very surprising. Many of those presenting offerings are tourists, who often come in as part of tour groups. Large numbers of participating tourists lead to widespread complaints, from both the local population and the tourists themselves, that the ritual has become little more than a tourist spectacle with visitors behaving like amateur paparazzi, pushing cameras right into the monks’ faces and cheapening a religious and meaningful experience. There is considerable evidence for this, and among my research participants, both monks and local people complained about undesirable tourist behaviour including inappropriate dress and taking photos with flash. They further complained that the poor-quality rice 13 This strategy of young men ordaining as novice monks as a means to obtain education is not uncommon in Laos. See Holt (2009) and Ladwig (2015). I have also heard of a variation on this and met several young people during 2019 who told me they had become Christians in the hope of being sponsored by overseas Christian organizations to study abroad. Further research is needed on this. 14 Here, I am thinking of Douglas (2002) and the notion of how anything representing disorder is arguably a threat and requires careful management

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donated to the monks is inedible and causes gastric problems. I enquired with novice monks I met in and around the literacy project about the extent to which temples actually rely on these donations, as a diet of rice and biscuits can hardly be said to be particularly nutritious. I found that many donations are now made directly to the temples. This leads some of the monks to donate at least part of the rice that they receive from tourists back to the donation baskets placed along the route. I heard from the novice monks I interviewed that the rice they received as alms is either donated to those in need or are returned to vendors for resale the following day. Secondly, some monks, particularly the novice monks, complained about not wishing to go on with almsgiving because of tourist behaviour and because, despite it being cold at dawn in Luang Prabang for several months of the year, they were forbidden from wearing blankets with their robes to appear more aesthetically pleasing in tourist photos. As with Luang Prabang itself, outward appearances of serenity matter, which is why I observed large numbers of tourists trying to take selfies with the monks as background. Luang Prabang, the serene and ancient, is the stuff of good holiday photography. Almsgiving in Luang Prabang is contested because its perceived commercialization threatens that which is marketed as timeless. Timeless beauty is the nation’s public face, but beneath that public face, nothing is so simple. Moreover, although the practice is presented as an inalienable part of Lao culture, in the early days of the revolution it was banned and then gradually reintroduced and emphasized as important heritage under the government’s attempts to reinvent itself.15 When people, both expatriate and local, talk about cultural change in Luang Prabang, they often mentioned the behaviour around morning almsgiving.16 Buddhism is presented as inalienable to Lao cultural life, especially in Luang Prabang but I argue that while this is correct, it also projects an image that obscures a complexity. Neng, the young person I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, worked as a guesthouse receptionist in Luang Prabang, and was happy to explain to tourists how to attend almsgiving. He had no interest in attending it himself, 15 See Berliner (2012); Evans (1998); Suntikul (2008), Suntikul and Jachna (2013) for further discussion. The effect of tourism on the monks of Luang Prabang is a subject many people (both local and foreign) talk about at length. Surprisingly, it has produced very little literature since Berliner in 2012. Here I am attempting in part to update some of Berliner’s work. 16 When people talk of cultural change in Luang Prabang they often use one of two cultural indices. The first relates to the decline of women, especially young women, wearing the traditional Lao sinh, as I described in Chapter 1. The second relates to bad behaviour around almsgiving, a topical point for Luang Prabang. Here I argue that a third possible index of cultural change in Luang Prabang is the growing Chinese influence.

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Figure 4 Numerous tourists, sometimes referred to as amateur paparazzi, photograph the daily almsgiving at dawn in central Luang Prabang

Photograph taken by Amanda Silberling, May 2019 and reproduced with permission

given that as a Hmong he did not practise Buddhism himself. It was not his own belief system but one practised and performed by others. To be a good Lao citizen, one must appear to support Buddhism. Laying the blame on tourists for undesirable behaviours is not the whole picture. Novice monks have told me that they understand tourist interest in this ritual, and often exploit tourist interest in them for their own advantage, in order to gain donations, either financial or otherwise. Many of the strongest criticisms of practices around almsgiving, particularly tourist behaviour, came either from expatriates or elite Lao. This means that those most interested in how Luang Prabang is preserved and presented are not necessarily those with any personal stake in its past. Some expatriates have resorted to making their own signs in attempts to educate visitors about what they deem proper behaviour, but this again comes from people who are often not local themselves or who would consider themselves elite.17 There is agency at other levels here, not least from tour guides. The 17 Berliner (2012) argues for a distinction between people with exo-nostalgia and endo-nostalgia. He suggests that people who have a personal connection with Luang Prabang’s past practise endo-nostalgia, whereas those who do not experience exo-nostalgia. This distinction is helpful and I argue here that much of Luang Prabang’s heritage agenda is driven by exo-nostalgia.

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commercialization of this ritual is blamed on the tourists. Tour guides and those selling food for offerings to would-be tourist almsgivers are themselves Lao. In addition, thanks to the rise of tourism in central Luang Prabang many people choose to live outside the centre and make money from renting out their former homes. They also live closer to the amenities of daily life, without the significant costs for the upkeep of traditional homes. Some expatriates or elite Lao issue their own warnings to tourists about how they feel tourists should behave at almsgiving.18 I asked friends in Luang Prabang, both foreign and Lao, whose responsibility they thought it was to educate tourists about proper behaviour and, while many said it was the responsibility of guides, some said such posters are useful because local people may seek to avoid confrontation rather than criticize tourists. Others commented that the expatriate reaction to bad behaviour by tourists is overblown, and the UNESCO certification is good for Luang Prabang as the locals simply do not know how to look after the place. While walking along the Sisavangvong Road one night I heard a staggeringly apt display of doing one thing in private and upholding different standards in public: an expatriate guesthouse manager, who had also freely admitted to not following UNESCO’s building rules in a previous interview with me, announced: ‘The Lao people just do not know how to look after this town. UNESCO is the best thing to have ever happened here!’ Almsgiving also demonstrates some interesting inner dynamics of the relationship between the government and Buddhism, or collective private and collective public sentiments. I would also argue that it is a very good illustration of the state relying on Buddhism for its legitimacy and using its more powerful force as the state in setting the public agenda. If we accept Evans (1998) and his arguments on the re-legitimization project that helped the Lao government reinvent itself in the early 1990s, then Buddhism is a major part of that. Hence the state sponsors and promotes this practice as a sacred tradition. Similarly, keeping up appearances is important, even if that means very practical problems for the novice monks who collect the alms, such as enduring cold weather with inadequate clothing, and facing inappropriate visitor behaviour. Ideas about the future of changing Laos are making significant changes in how people feel about the past and ideas of timelessness and how Laos can and must change for the future as it seeks development. Ensuring that these outsiders, particularly those from countries with new and rising levels of influence (including China), have a positive and picturesque experience in Laos is more important 18 See again, Berliner (2012) and for an example of this from a different context, see Joy (2012).

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than genuinely keeping the ritual unchanged. But then as no culture is static, this is clearly a misnomer anyway. It is interesting to see that there is a real divergence of opinions and agendas around almsgiving and the roles it occupies, both within Lao culture and Lao culture as performed for outsiders, by whom and for what.

‘We Don’t Talk About It Openly’: Timelessness and Silence My participants recognized the importance of tourism in Luang Prabang but were often unable to define exactly why and how tourism was important. I asked about their perceptions of UNESCO, tourism, and development in Luang Prabang. All were very aware that Luang Prabang was a World Heritage Site. Several commented that the inclusion of Luang Prabang on the World Heritage List brought the city money and large numbers of visitors. They remarked on this positively, perhaps because they had profited from the employment yield of visitors. What is particularly striking is the extent to which most were unable to talk in any depth about what UNESCO does, or what heritage in Luang Prabang really means. In Lao it is more common to talk about ‘heritage’ (moladok) rather than UNESCO per se but even so, heritage remains undefined with many commenting that it is a new word to use in the current context in Luang Prabang (Berliner 2011, 2012). Several interviewees apologized for this, and one told me he felt reassured when I responded to his concerns about a lack of knowledge of UNESCO by saying that this was useful to me too. When I asked my research participants in Luang Prabang why they thought tourists came, one told me that he felt that Luang Prabang was attractive to visitors as tourists want to see how ‘stuff has been preserved’, that people came to see ‘nature and old stuff’. I noted that very few of my interviewees had visited the city’s museums. Regarding the National Museum, several even told me that they did not want to spend their money on visiting or that they felt that they had this information already. Despite the museums being largely free for Lao citizens, very few had visited or said they had any inclination to do so. Two friends, both educated, middle-class lowland Lao who had travelled overseas, decided to visit the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre while I was in Luang Prabang but far more out of a desire to see where I spent my time than out of any genuine curiosity to visit the actual museum. They told me they thought that they had learned very little from this experience even though, as Lao citizens, they received free entry. Some young people did visit on organized trips, but overall,

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Lao visitors were unusual. Presentations of off icial discourses like the celebrations for National Day are not considered important to attend unless they are obligatory. Others alluded to many spaces in Luang Prabang being more for tourists than for locals, which is eerily ironic of a point made by some visitors. Chue, a Hmong student who had migrated from a neighbouring province for both education and employment in Luang Prabang, told me that he found it hard when tourists asked him where such and such a tourism site was, as he often did not know. All my interlocutors emphasized that tourism is extremely important for Luang Prabang, my landlord Ek going so far as to ask me to censor anything I might write in the event that could harm tourism numbers to the city but being unable to explain what he meant by this. He complained with some regularity about the meetings with the provincial officials that he was required to attend, and how he saw little return for their frequent requests for money. At the same time, he wanted tourists to come and worried that Luang Prabang needed preservation in its current form to ensure that they would continue to do so. He further talked about his concerns about the rising Chinese influence in Luang Prabang and how the Chinese would not respect the things that other visitors to Luang Prabang prize so much. I will return to this in Chapter 4. I have argued above for official discourse setting considerable store on the importance of official narratives and giving out the ‘correct’ messages. Even if people such as Ek criticized the officialdom for some of the rhetoric and practices around these, it is not the same as criticizing the ideology per se. Among locals, of course people have their own perceptions and ideas about history, heritage, and the world around them.19 They know that other people and groups have different histories. The Hmong are placed in a unique position in view of the history of their ethnic group. Many of my research participants – particularly the Hmong – understood they were heirs to alternative versions of history and that these readings of history were not to be found in any official textbook. They told me about finding alternative information about Laos on the internet, but it was not readily available, and that even this was only accessible to those who were willing to think critically, with both the means and inclination to look beyond what 19 One organization aiming to increase the number of books published in Lao has published a book on the ethnic groups of Laos, which aims to introduce Lao readers to their different traditions. See Big Brother Mouse (2011). The same organization published another book by a Hmong author, who describes growing up Hmong in contemporary Laos and is written entirely in Lao. See Xiong (2015). Neither of these books include any controversial aspect of history.

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they had been told. Even the process of doing this recruits people into the idea of heritage and heritages as a project and a contributor to nationalisms, something in which they can participate. In looking at textbooks, I noticed that there is very little to deviate from the narrative given at the National Museum, which is unsurprising as its purpose is to support that narrative of the legitimacy of the government.20 Unless one can learn from elsewhere, official sources yield mostly silence about controversial aspects of history. Alternatively, they give large amounts of information about other aspects of history, particularly more ancient historical events. This is why there is a plethora of information about the past entity that has become contemporary Laos, for example, in statues and events relating to the kingdom of Lane Xang, which existed in part of the territory of contemporary Laos, but a more limited and more focused version of the country’s revolutionary birth.21 One interviewee, a Khmu young woman named Lah, told me with an air of some secrecy one day when we were alone together that Laos had previously had a different political system. When I asked her to tell me more about that, both in Lao and English, she simply repeated that she did not know why Laos is as it is now politically. In the cases of those interviewees who stated that they were aware of alternative narratives of history, they did not discuss these candidly, telling me that they were aware of their past histories from family or media but that ‘you cannot talk about that openly here’. This is an unwritten rule created and maintained by its cultural context. Lah only disclosed this after a few months when we had become friends. Her workplace in central Luang Prabang was often quiet, so I would drop by, drink tea, and chat. She told me that her boss viewed this as work as her speaking English with me allowed her to communicate more confidently with customers. Yet on this topic, she refused to say anything more than she already had. I witnessed this reticence f irst-hand in my f ieldwork when late one evening in Kou’s house, with an air of extreme secrecy, he and I were discussing Hmong emigration to the United States following the Secret War. Kou was a long-standing Hmong research participant and over the months that we spent time together, he would progressively talk more openly about how he understood himself, his life in Laos, and the 20 A good example of this is a book titled Pavatsat Lao or Lao History, published by the Ministry of Information and Culture (2000). This particular book has been analysed in detail by Lockhart (2006). 21 See Evans (2002) for an overview of Lao history. The notion of a dual approach to controversial aspects of history, combining silence on the one hand and large amounts of sometimes inconsistent information on the other was proposed by Vinitzky-Seroussi and Teeger (2010).

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life of his family and village, which had been relocated within the last ten years. Over dinner sitting on the kitchen floor, I mentioned to him, in English, that my mother was a British Council teacher in the 1970s and had taught General Vang Pao’s daughter. Kou responded immediately by telling me not to discuss that openly. He had previously expressed an interest in studying abroad and in talking about the UK, had found me laughing at a parody video of a British politician. In response, he told me that to make such a video in Laos would be illegal and people are scared of being arrested.22 Regarding the King, he told me insistently with a tone of voice which suggested this was something he felt strongly, that ‘they [the Lao government] say he died, but we [the Hmong] know that’s not true, and that they killed him!’ The air with which this was first disclosed to me suggests a very dramatic statement, an inroad into what Herdt (1990) terms the initiation process of inducting outsiders into material that is secret or considered to hold power to knowledge bearers. Clearly, this is the private face of history in the sense of cultural intimacy, but I would argue that it is one that is unlikely to surprise the authorities. As long as that statement is expressed in private then what of it? Merely allowing people to vocalize it in private is not in itself problematic. Longing for a different political culture and doing something about it is quite another issue. Kou was asking a valid question, but who was really listening to him other than me and what of it? Our shared knowledge and beliefs did not threaten the master narrative and he confided this to me in a private space, telling me not to discuss it openly. This occurred again more recently when via Facebook, I received a link to a video of a memorial ceremony marking the passing of one of the Lao royals who had died in France.23 He told me that given my interests, this was probably something that would be of interest to me. Even though I was by that time back in England with no immediate plans to return to Laos, it carried the same warning not to talk about this in Laos. A Hmong friend and university student joined a pro-democracy group on Facebook but never referred to it when I asked him about how he used Facebook. I have no idea if he really understood the implications of the group he had joined, but to me its aims

22 Singh (2012) reports a similar incident of being reminded about the level of authoritarianism in Laos when making a comparison with politics in her own country. 23 This is Prince Sauryavong Savang, who died in Paris in January 2018. The ceremony, footage of which can be found freely available on YouTube, contains visible symbolism (for example, the flags) from the Royal Lao Government time.

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were clear. I also have no idea if he really understood that that action was visible to his Facebook friends.24

An Economy of Selective History I suggest here that what is said and left unsaid and their limits is known by those who set the nation’s official discourse. Complaining about poverty per se is not necessarily controversial. Alternative histories of the creation of Laos are potentially more so. Yet merely knowing something is not in itself problematic for a master narrative of Lao nationalism. Wishing for an alternative and actually doing something about it is different. In these glimpses of people’s intimate understandings of Lao politics, I saw words and many everyday worries, but fewer overtly political actions. This means that negotiating with the state at an everyday level, and the everyday politics of life, are a far more enlightening area for considering how people build futures in Laos. The nation’s public face tells a specific story – of independence from colonialism and the subsequent struggle to establish the chosen form of government of the Lao population. The Hmong are in a problematic position vis-à-vis this narrative. So, too, is anyone with an alternative history, such as the large numbers of Lao who went into exile abroad in the aftermath of the revolution. The public face of the nation builds an image that relies largely on not talking about these things publicly. It also builds solidarity between those who know there is more than what is immediately apparent and know there is more to it than that. This speaks directly to ideas of collective consciousness and how they are important for getting beneath outward presentations that I argued for in the previous chapter. What is included and celebrated as heritage is important not only for creating that public face, but also allows, as in Luang Prabang, potentially contentious aspects of history to make an appearance precisely through the labelling of them as heritage. These are again the things that everyone knows and the landscape that people live around but are part of the unspoken language of everyday life.25 For some of the diaspora, this looks different, with one Lao24 Facebook is a very common source of information sharing in Laos from official sources, as well as a popular social network. There are increasing reports of consequences for people engaging in apparently bad behaviour on social media. See, for example, https://www.aljazeera. com/features/2018/10/3/overcoming-a-government-crackdown-on-social-media-in-laos (Accessed: 1 November 2018). 25 I am speaking again of Herzfeld’s (2016 [1997]) cultural intimacy model here. See also its application by Shryock (2004) and Özyürek (2004).

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American telling me that he did not recognize the current Lao government or flag, and would not return until some sort of democracy is established. For the Lao authorities, this is not only about managing the past or knowing one’s own individual or collective story. It is about heritages as acceptable connectors, and how even multiple heritages recruit people into ideas of the histories of their own ethnic group and how that contributes (or not) to ideas of national stories. If we consider this through ideas of intimate national spaces and that theoretical lens, the private sphere of social life may or may not be supportive of the public one, but it would be an error to assume that this is necessarily problematic for discourses of nationalism per se. If the public face can manage its backstage carefully, then the knowledge that not everyone is supportive of official statements is unlikely to be particularly problematic.26 Luang Prabang is an excellent example of how the state manages its public face(s) for different audiences: the local population, the countries that are the recipients of diplomatic relations, and different international visitors. The grittier aspects of history are not the city’s main assets and so, whilst they may well exist, they are excluded officially from the master narrative of both Lao history and Luang Prabang as a timeless city. In the official narratives, Luang Prabang is portrayed as transcending time, but at the same time is clearly influenced enormously by it. It is also portrayed instead as a charming town. Charm, and the grittier bits of history and revolution, do not go together. This is why they are unspoken. This is not always inconsistent. Luang Prabang is consistent with the promotion of lowland Lao culture and traditions as the prevailing cultural norms. The incorporation of ethnic minorities as merely a part rather than a central element further sustains and reproduces this, and I will focus on this squarely in the next chapter. Luang Prabang as being able to transcend time, as well as being beyond time, also appears as a prominent theme in the city’s official marketing. The Luang Prabang Tourism Office offers visitors the following invitation: Lose yourself in the timelessness of Luang Prabang. Stroll narrow lanes that wind between beautifully restored Buddhist temples, traditional timber homes, and French colonial structures. Experience for yourself the legendary Lao hospitality. Engage in the daily rhythms of a place and a people shaped by a thousand years of ritual. (Tourism Luang Prabang: n-d)

26 See Vinitzky-Seroussi and Teeger (2010) for discussion on silence and controversial aspects of history.

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Timelessness and representations of timelessness are important aspects of the nation’s public face, which people are expected to recognize and support as important aspects of national heritage. It is relevant to ask how timelessness and development can coexist in practical terms, and a concept not one of my interlocutors could explain beyond stating firmly that certain things, such as education, needed to be developed and improved. On an abstract level, the concept of there being somehow a great distance between the past and the present is an important one in presentations of the history in Luang Prabang. In Luang Prabang it is recognized that its visitor appeal and power as a marketing tool lies in its exoticism and cultural past.27 Attempts to preserve spaces are all very well, but an inevitable product of this is the transformation of those spaces, which is of course subject to various agendas which may or may not conflict. I contend like Long and Sweet (2006) eventually do, that the agendas of UNESCO and the authorities are similar in emphasizing beauty and downplaying difficult pasts, and neither UNESCO nor the authorities encourage much critical reflection on the more difficult aspects of history. The reconstruction of spaces does not mean building the past as it was, but more often as it is thought that it should have been. This is relevant because narratives of Luang Prabang are all about the past, and preservation of idealized and sanitized versions of the past. The Luang Prabang tourism office invites visitors to engage with the city as a place of timelessness and to engage with people who have been shaped by history. There are several points worth contemplating here. On the one hand, we have a place apparently untouched by time but which is concurrently defined by the ‘thousand years of ritual’. What is particularly interesting about this description of Luang Prabang by the tourist office is, in my view, the last sentence which encourages visitors to engage with ‘people shaped by a thousand years of history’. This ascribes a rather passive role to the people’.28 In other words, what happened in the past is not the ‘fault’ of anyone alive today, that the general population has had no bearing on the future destiny of the city. I argue that, in constructing the official narratives of nationalism, that this is no accident. The overriding feature of the past is that it is past and that there is no need to dwell on the parts that are unhelpful. The past can be used to impact upon the present but has no agency of its own and so, there is no need to dwell on the parts that are difficult and unhelpful. 27 For a discussion on this, see especially Reeves and Long (2011) and Staiff and Bushell (2013a). 28 Academic literature is not exempt from prescribing passivity rather than agency either, as I argued in Chapter 1. See, for example, Jerndal and Rigg (1998) whose title describes Laos as a ‘forgotten country’. As I argue here, this is a description particularly common to travel literature.

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This is done through leaving things said and left unsaid; which is visible clearly in Luang Prabang. It also has a considerable amount to do with issues that are potentially problematic becoming visible only within very limited parameters and even then, off limits for discussion in particular contexts. It is worth repeating that in the aftermath of the revolution Luang Prabang was a shunned place in view of its pre-revolutionary history, which was at odds with the political climate of the day. Now, however, certain parts of history are emphasized, save for its controversial aspects. About these, there is only silence, largely by omission or by featuring other information, designed to push the problematic aspects of history into a fuzzy, distant past. For my Hmong interlocutors, doing Luang Prabang’s heritage is for other people to do. Doing their own is fine, subject to limits of what is acceptable in Laos. I will return to this in the next chapter. The ambiguous position of the Hmong, as people who do not fit the master narrative and how they are present but also absent is mirrored by why there is such ambivalence about the Lao royal family in official discourse in Luang Prabang. This is surely why the royal family are present in the sense that their former home is visible and open for visitors, but that discussions of their fate remain decidedly off-limits. For the same reason, the royal symbol of the three-headed elephant below a parasol is acceptable in connection with tourism and marketing Luang Prabang as an ancient, timeless city, but it is not tolerated as a symbol of politics (Tappe 2013). This symbol is traded openly on the city’s Night Market, an integral part of the heritage zone where I also saw amulets of King Sisavang Vong being traded, particularly during Lao New Year. When I asked about these, they told me that they are considered auspicious. These symbols have been rendered powerless in terms of political legitimacy and are used to symbolize a heritage untouched by the controversial aspects of time. This act could be extended as a more generalized metaphor for Luang Prabang, wherein we are encouraged to see and consume the city as a symbol of culture and beauty, not contested politics or historical divisions. This builds on an observation in Chapter 2 about the importance of Luang Prabang, the so-called centre of Lao culture, to Lao national discourse generally. We could also read it as an attempt by the authorities for Luang Prabang to meet the expectations of tourists and the tourist gaze.

A Suitably Idealized Past The question of ‘correct’ or idealized versions of history remains and again may vary depending on the audience. The issue of the Lao monarchy is a

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particularly interesting one and as outlined in the previous chapter, one on which there is silence. While this issue is very sensitive in Laos, it is not entirely off limits, but only within very prescribed boundaries and these are largely around tourists seeking nostalgia in Luang Prabang. The Lao monarchy appears in Laos itself only amidst very specific parameters and within limits that are carefully managed.29 I observed in the previous chapter that the Lao King, Queen, and Crown Prince were exiled to be re-educated in the Lao northeast, from which they never returned. A final photo of the King and Queen in a re-education camp appears in a rather journalistic book by Kremmer (2003). Kremmer is extremely critical of the current Lao government. What is particularly interesting is that I bought this book, which is entirely in English, within the grounds of the National Museum (formerly the Royal Palace) in Luang Prabang itself in December 2013, and copies are available throughout sites frequented by English speakers in Laos. Granted, the vendor told me that the majority of his customers are tourists, and it is most likely that a Lao person would attract the adverse attention of the authorities if they bought the book, which is doubtful. The photo confirms what most people already know. My point here is that public forms of social life are setting the boundaries for what can and cannot happen in private and vice versa. Similarly, customers can buy the royal symbols without hindrance, for example, on bags and textiles. I bought one myself many years before beginning this research and wondered at the time if this was really allowed. But there, and in that context of heritage of Luang Prabang and the heritage-scape there, in a city that thrives on heritage and nostalgia, it was perfectly acceptable. Giving certain meanings to these items is forbidden, not least the longing for the return of the political discourse associated with that symbol. For the Lao population, it is a negotiated process with the state. This varies depending on one’s own profile and how, individually or collectively, one is positioned. But by negotiating this position with the state, one essentializes the state as an entity, a point we can recognize as being a key aspect of cultural intimacy. What people emphasize in their identities will also vary as they move between unofficial and official forums, which I will examine in detail in the following chapter. These symbols of the past are excellent illustrations of the nation’s past, and the fact that their usage provides important information in some settings and not in others illustrates volumes about the status quo of Laos. Are these the allowed expressions of 29 This is explored in detail by Tappe (2013a).

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Figure 5 The symbol of the ousted Royal Lao Government traded as tourist souvenirs at Luang Prabang’s famous night market

Photograph taken by the author, January 2014

cultural intimacy? Do these once unofficial and now sanctioned religious practices assist in the construction of nationhood? For me, yes. I believe the offerings give certain members of the Lao population a link to the past that they believe to be valuable. These practices did not come from nowhere and

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there is surely a reason why, in a bid to gain further legitimacy in the early 1990s, the Lao authorities tapped into sentiments that were meaningful to the population; for example, the associations and respect for Buddhism. Marketing these as heritage allows them to be made safe, and to downplay difficult questions. When looking at this against a backdrop of supposed timelessness and very selective information marked by silence on specific aspects, ideas about legitimacy and national identify, as well as nation-building, demonstrates that timelessness is a notoriously vague term, and one overlaid with fuzziness with regard to tradition, time, and myth. One advantageous feature of fuzziness is that it is low on historical fact. After all, timelessness is a very abstract concept which makes it difficult to ask very detailed historical questions. It allows for something to have happened in the more distant past, one for which there is not always detailed information. The official versions of meaning that are given to the different audiences are available for consumption and these official versions are marked by silence in some areas, and fuzziness – visibility and yet invisibility – in others. This means that expressions of heritage in Luang Prabang, as elsewhere in Laos, must be done ‘right’. The authorities can manage the experiences of both visitors and locals by calculating that, in private, there will be differences of opinion. As long as the public face functions and a certain fuzziness exists over the less flattering aspects of history, the legitimacy of this physiognomy is not particularly threatened. This argument is illustrated with the photo below. At the twentieth anniversary of Luang Prabang as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, traditional lowland Lao dancers in cultural dress were escorted onto the stage by people holding the current Lao national flag and the international flag of communism. The authorities therefore assumed the role of guardians of the traditional heritage. We could read Luang Prabang as being a place where the legitimacy of the Lao socialist government is threatened. I stated in the introduction to this chapter that Luang Prabang is perhaps the sole city where the authorities are forced to interact with the pre-revolutionary past in ways that could be deemed to be contradictory to their own ends. I do not intend the words ‘could be deemed to be contradictory’ to be understood as ‘are contradictory’ for I would argue that this is an over-simplification. Although alternative aspects of the past are visible, they are concurrently invisible as they are not open for discussion. In this way, dissenting voices and symbols of the pre-revolutionary past exist, but they can also be rendered largely powerless to the official master narratives. Consider the picture above, in which the flags of the Lao PDR and communism are both the guides and guardians of traditional culture. This is a pictorial representation of this

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Figure 6 Celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of Luang Prabang as a UNESCO Recognized World Heritage Site

Photograph taken by the author, December 2015

argument: the public face of the nation decides what to include and what to disregard, transforming both the physical and conceptual space in the process. Members of the population may disagree and this is not to say that what is expressed in private is worthless but, should the state wish to maintain its legitimacy then one must be aware of and listen to what is said out of public view. In this way, the past becomes a resource to appear and disappear in the national story, ideally without an outright collision. This process also creates a peaceful public face comprising the nation’s heritage, which masks the complexities and tensions beneath but is subject to challenge and change over time. The issue of rising China is very relevant here, and more so than selective readings of the past in the sense of what people are concerned about on an everyday basis.

Conclusions: Heritages and Future Directions It is not without challenges to talk about the political situation in Laos and I found comparisons with Thailand particularly illuminating, as all my

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research participants were aware that their own political establishment was very different to that of their Thai counterpart. All Lao people can speak and read Thai, and often friends would prefer Thai dictionaries over their Lao equivalents in translating certain words and concepts. One day, I watched Kou go from the Hmong dictionary to the Lao dictionary to the Thai dictionary in an attempt to translate a concept. He told me that Thai dictionaries are normally much more comprehensive than their Hmong and Lao counterparts. Once he had the definition, he translated it back into Hmong or Lao. It is somewhat ironic that Vietnam may view itself as the older brother nation in its relationship with Laos, yet the Thai language is closer. With Vietnam, the familial connection comes from politics. With Thailand, it is more a shared culture. Thailand then was a very real presence in their lives and a representation of a very different political establishment. One evening, while sitting with me around a table outside Neng’s workplace discussing the Thai royal family, Neng and Chue were divided on whether the Thai monarchy was a good thing or not. Chue argued passionately that the Thai King was a force for good and was accessible to the people on an everyday level in ways that the Lao leaders are generally not. He spoke passionately about how he had seen the Thai royal family going out into the countryside, caring about the daily lives of poor people. Neng argued that that was all very well, but why should Thais have to revere their royal family per se? Why should people treat them with more respect than they would show anyone else?30 But as Thai television has become increasingly prominent in Laos, this means greater exposure to Thai culture. Whatever the dynamics of this though, Hmong youth, Neng and Chue, recognized that for all the apparent modernity of Thailand, it would be impossible to have the conversation in the country itself given that it involved some critical comments on the Thai royal family. For me, this conversation is indicative of how people felt about Thailand generally, as a place of immense ambivalence where difference 30 The timing is particularly interesting here. At this point, King Bhumibol Adulyadej was in the last six months of his life (he died in October 2016) and had not been seen publicly for many years, although Thai television, readily accessible in Laos showed regular footage of his previous public appearances. Interestingly, when he died, Lao friends alternated between saying that they felt empathy for the grieving Thai given that they felt some ‘brotherhood’ towards them and complaining that, because Thailand was in mourning, there was nothing to watch on television. Thai TV channels are greatly preferred over their Lao counterparts and thought to be far more sophisticated. Creak (2011) notes one exception to this was around the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games hosted by Laos in 2009, which was remarkable partly because it was one of the few times when Lao people watched Lao television channels.

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and ideas of perceived modernity are both desired and rejected. This again speaks to ideas of external stakeholders having a very real and persistent role in influencing local and national policy in Laos. This demonstrates the importance of looking to the future, because it is ideas of the future which are shaping how people consider the past in Laos. December 2015 marked twenty years of Luang Prabang as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It also marked forty years since the founding of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. In Luang Prabang, those celebrations were very closely aligned and nothing impinged on the narrative of legitimacy I argued for above that cultural heritage in Luang Prabang does not happen in the abstract. Rather its continuing existence, and the messages associated with it, represent a very conscious effort to maintain legitimacy on the part of the Lao government who further wish to portray the current Lao regime as the legitimate guardians of the attractive World Heritage City, one that has such abundant cultural and architectural beauty and is so attractive to visitors from inside Laos and all over the world. It is this that people come to see, and it is this that is marketed to them, as well as to domestic Lao visitors, for their consumption. The nuances of the past are decreasing, as the political system has become embedded long enough for the population to be more concerned about the future than about narratives of the past. It is difficult to disagree with Long and Sweet’s (2006) argument that Luang Prabang presents the Lao government with a dilemma of how to embrace, present, and market the pre-revolutionary history in such a way that does not interfere with their own legitimacy. The local population know that this is not the whole picture, the authorities know this, and discerning visitors all know this, but that is not in itself insurmountable for ideas of legitimacy. Luang Prabang is a good illustration of the cultural intimacy model. There are multiple private faces that interact, support, and challenge the nation’s public face. What people do and say in public and private may be contradictory and inconsistent, and how they negotiate, interact, and perform the past is likewise complicated, which is demonstrated clearly in Luang Prabang. The National Museum in Luang Prabang is consistent with ambivalence generally about the pre-revolutionary period of the city. The past cannot be ignored but it can be managed carefully. It is also central to projects and discourses of legitimacy. The preservation of the image of Luang Prabang as a place of peace, serenity, and beauty is of utmost importance. The parts of history in which Luang Prabang was once a damned town in view of its history, or that the royal family were persecuted in the name of the same ideology that remains in power today, do not sit well with this message.

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These voices must therefore be marginalized. The beautiful, idealized past should be visible. The troublesome or negative aspects of the past should not be so. Where they cannot vanish, they become part of the distant past, and far removed from the present. In short, I have sought to show in this chapter that the past can be made to appear when it is appropriate for it to do so. In respect of the negative elements, attempts can be made to make them disappear from official public discourse. Overall, the past can be rendered distant, fuzzy, lost in the mists of timelessness and, ultimately, irrelevant to the contemporary official narratives. This remains a potent topic in Luang Prabang, in Laos, and particularly in the diaspora. At the same time, there are other more controversial and pressing issues increasing in importance. Of those I interviewed for this research, most people argued – often strenuously – that the most pressing issues facing Laos are corruption, the need to improve education, and managing growing Chinese immigration and influence throughout the country as the Laos-China Railway becomes a reality. I am not arguing that the issue of whether or not the aspects of heritage management that I have outlined here are accepted by the population or deemed unimportant. Nor am I saying that the question of China is the only pressing concern. I am arguing that the concerns of the population are focused increasingly on other directions, and the extent to which the Lao government can manage these challenges are likely to be their biggest challenge in the immediate future. Concerns about the future are therefore reframing ideas about the past and how that coexists with both the present and the future. In the next chapter, I consider how the situation in contemporary Laos impacts people differently, and then return to ask what the question of the rising influence of China will mean for Laos.

References Avieli, N. (2015) ‘The Rise and Fall (?) of Hội An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Vietnam’, Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 30(1), pp. 35–71. Berliner, D. (2011) ‘The Politics of Loss and Nostalgia in Luang Prabang (Lao PDR)’, in Daly, P. and Winter, T. (eds) Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 234–246. Berliner, D. (2012) ‘Multiple Nostalgias: the Fabric of Heritage in Luang Prabang (Lao PDR)’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18(4), pp. 769–786. Berliner, D. (2020) Losing Culture: Nostalgia, Heritage and our Accelerated Times. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

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Big Brother Mouse 2011. ວັ ດທະນະທໍ າແລະຮີ ດຄອງປະເພນີ ຂອງຊົ ນເຜົ່າໃນລາວວິ ຖີ ການດໍາລົ ງຊີ ວດ ິ Ethnic groups of Laos: cultures and traditions. Luang Prabang, Laos: Big Brother Mouse. Creak, S. (2011) ‘Sport as Politics and History: the 25th SEA Games in Laos’, Anthropology Today, 27(1), pp. 14–19. Dearborn, L. and Stallmeyer, J. (2009) ‘Revisiting Luang Prabang: Transformations Under the Influence of World Heritage Designation’, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 7(4), pp. 249–269. Douglas, M. (2002) Purity and Danger: an Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London, UK: Routledge Classics. Edensor, T. (2002) National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life. Oxford, UK: Berg. Evans, G. (1998) The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos since 1975. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. Evans, G. (2002) A Short History of Laos: the Land in Between. Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Gainsborough, M. (2010) Vietnam: Rethinking the State. London, UK: Zed Books. Goffman, E. (1959) The presentation of self in everyday life. London, UK: Penguin Books. Herdt, G. (1990) ‘Secret Societies and Secret Collectives’, Oceania, 60(4), pp. 360–381. Herzfeld, M. (2016) Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics and the Real Life of States, Societies and Institutions. New York, NY: Routledge. High, H. and Petit, P. (2013) ‘Introduction: the Study of the State in Laos’, Asian Studies Review, 37(4), pp. 417–432. Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (2012) The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Holt, J. (2009) Spirits of the Place: Buddhism and Lao Religious Culture. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Jerndal, R. and Rigg, J. (1998) ‘Making Space in Laos: Constructing a National Identity in a “Forgotten” Country’, Political Geography, 17(7), pp. 809–831. Johnson, M. (2001) ‘Reinventing Hué (Vietnam): Authenticating Destruction, Reconstructing Authenticity’, in Layton, R., Stone, P., and Thomas, J. (eds) Destruction and Conservation of Cultural Property. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 75–92. Joy, C. (2012) The Politics of Heritage Management in Mali: from UNESCO to Djenne. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Kapferer, B. (1988) Legends of People, Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

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Kremmer, C. (2003) Bamboo Palace: Discovering the Lost Dynasty of Laos. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. Ladwig, P. (2015) ‘Worshipping Relics and Animating Statues. Transformations of Buddhist Statecraft in Contemporary Laos’, Modern Asian Studies, 49(6), pp. 1875-1902. Long, C. and Sweet, J. (2006) ‘Globalization, Nationalism and World Heritage: Interpreting Luang Prabang’, Southeast Asia Research, 14(3), pp. 445–469. Ministry for Information and Culture 2000. ປະຫວັ ດສາດລາວ Lao History. Vientiane, Lao PDR: National Printing Office. Mookherjee, N. (2007) ‘The “Dead and their Double Duties”: Mourning, Melancholia and the Martyred Intellectual Memorials in Bangladesh’, Space and Culture, 10(2), pp. 271–291. Özyürek, E. (2004) ‘Wedded to the Republic: Public Intellectuals and IntimacyOriented Publics in Turkey’, in Shryock, A. (ed.) Off Stage, on Display: Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 101-130. Reeves, K. and Long, C. (2011) ‘Unbearable Pressures on Paradise: Tourism and Management in Luang Prabang, a World Heritage Site’, Critical Asian Studies, 43(1), pp. 3–22. Sengel, T., A. Karagoz, G. Cetin, et al. (2015) ‘Tourists’ Approach to Local Food’, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015), 429–437. Shryock, A. (2004) ‘Other Conscious/Self Aware: First Thoughts on Cultural Intimacy and Mass Mediation’, in Shryock, A. (ed.) Off Stage, on Display: Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 3–30. Staiff, R. and Bushell, R. (2013) ‘Mobility and Modernity in Luang Prabang: Rethinking Heritage and Tourism’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 19(1), pp. 98–113. Suntikul, W. and Jachna, T. (2013) ‘Contestation and Negotiation of Heritage Conservation in Luang Prabang, Laos’, Tourism Management, 38, pp. 57–68. Tappe, O. (2013) ‘Faces and Facets of the Kantosou Kou Xat – the Lao “National Liberation Struggle” in State Commemoration and Historiography’, Asian Studies Review, 37(4), pp. 433–450. Tourism Luang Prabang (n-d) Welcome to Luang Prabang. Available at: https:// tourismluangprabang.org (Accessed: 1 September 2018). Vigne, L. and Martin, E. (2017) The Ivory Trade of Laos: Now the Fastest Growing Trade in the World. Save the Elephants. Available at: https://www.savetheelephants.org/ wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-Vigne-Lao-Ivory-Report-web.pdf (Accessed: 1 September 2018).

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Vinitzky-Seroussi, V. and Teeger, C. (2010) ‘Unpacking the Unspoken: Silence in Collective Memory and Forgetting’, Social Forces, 88(3), pp. 1103–1122. Yamada, N. (2018) ‘Legitimation of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party: Socialism, Chintanakan Mai (New Thinking) and Reform’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 48(5), pp. 717–738. Zhang, L. (2001) ‘Migration and Privatization of Space and Power in Late Socialist China’, American Ethnologist, 28(1), pp. 179–205. Zhang, L. and Ong, A. (2008) Privatizing China: Socialism from Afar. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ເຈມສ ຊົ່ງ (Xiong, J). (2015) ຊີ ວດ ິ ເທິ ງພູຫລວງ Growing up on the Mountain. Luang Prabang, Laos: Big Brother Mouse.

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Hmong (Forever) on the Margins Crypto-Separatism and the Making of Ethnic Difference Abstract Ethnic minorities in Laos form a key part of narratives of the Lao population as the ‘Lao multi-ethnic people’. This involves the creation and clear delineation of ethnic difference in which ethnic difference is celebrated within a framework of lowland Lao hegemony. With specific reference to the Hmong, I argue that the Hmong can never really escape assumptions from the lowland Lao that, were they able to choose, that they would choose to live in an independent state. By making use of Scott’s ideas of Zomia I argue further that the idea of Zomia as an alternative to living in the Lao state may exist in the minds of some Hmong, an idea widely assumed by the Lao state and many lowland Lao to be held by all Hmong. Ethnic minorities continue to have an ambiguous relationship vis-à-vis the Lao state to which they belong, but at the same time, are considered outsiders. Keywords: ethnicity, politics of ethnic difference, discrimination, material culture, national identity, separatism

In August 2015, Neng and I were travelling by motorbike on a main road through his home province, accompanied by several other Hmong from his village. The day before we had noted the presence of police on the road and as such, we were all wearing crash helmets. The lack of a helmet is a favourite reason for the police to stop motorcyclists. Nevertheless, as we approached the police roadblock, we were all pulled over.1 After a thorough inspection of the bikes, the police levied a fine of 20,000 kip against each motorbike 1 Wearing a crash helmet on a motorbike is supposed to be law in Laos and police can fine those who do not. However, knowledge of a police location was often well known and circulated, thus making it easy for people to evade the problem by just wearing a helmet at that specific time when passing that specific place. In addition, the police would generally only check helmets during working hours, and outside of this, people would ignore this law.

Wilcox, Phill, Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimacy in Laos. The Past and Present of the Lao Nation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463727020_ch03

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for – apparently – not having a required registration document. Neng’s older brother managed to negotiate a small discount on the requested amount and paid 50,000 kip in total. Later, when we reached his house, I asked Neng why he thought we had been stopped while the other drivers were waved through. He responded without hesitation that we were stopped because he and the others are Hmong and clearly the police wanted money to drink that day. He told me: ‘You cannot say this to the police but you know inside they stopped you because you are Hmong’.2 By saying this, Neng confirmed that he felt he was targeted because of his ethnicity, or his actual and assumed difference from the majority lowland Lao. Real and imagined difference is a significant feature of the societal landscape in Laos, one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. Ethnicity in Laos is both present but also created simultaneously.3 This constitutes a paradox of a multi-ethnic people under an umbrella of Laoness or, in official terms, the Lao multi-ethnic people, which, in turn, requires people to emphasize ethnic difference in certain situations and downplay it in others. When people talk of ethnic minorities in Laos, they refer to anyone who is not lowland Lao. While everyone in Laos belongs to an ethnic group (sonphao), questions of ethnicity in Laos are described in broad binary terms with the minorities placed in opposition to the majority lowland Lao. Tour agents in Luang Prabang sell trekking tours to ethnic villages, which means visiting people who are not lowland Lao. One’s ethnicity matters both to one’s sense of personal identity but also to the authorities. Yet it is not experienced the same by everyone. One can be Lao, meaning a citizen of Laos, a definition that covers the ethnic minorities yet also refers to people of the dominant ethnic group, referred to as lowland Lao. Much of this chapter will focus specifically on the Hmong who, by virtue of their history and culture, occupy a unique position in Laos. I will argue that, however the Hmong population of Laos perceive their uniqueness and their own position in relation to the majority lowland Lao, they cannot escape this persistent label of being different. This presumed difference together with frequent assumptions of having a wish for separatism forms an important part of the ambivalent relationship between Hmong and lowland Lao. 2 This area is populated predominantly by Hmong. It is not clear to me whether the police recognized conclusively that our group was Hmong until they stopped us, but as we were travelling by motorbike in a group, plus the demography of the area, this would be a reasonable assumption. 3 For an overview of ethnic diversity, its history, and the paradox it creates and sustains, see Goudineau (2015); Pholsena (2002); Schlemmer (2017).

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There are times when Hmong seek to emphasize their difference and live up to ideas of their being different from the majority. This may also come at the express invitation or expectation of largely lowland Lao authorities who hold hegemony in the balance of power. For example, this happens very overtly at Hmong New Year, which is emphasized in Luang Prabang as part of a master narrative of multi-ethnic people. This is demonstrated when the Hmong are expected to wear Hmong traditional dress as they take a visible part in the fortieth anniversary celebrations marking the founding of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). At other times, difference is neither emphasized nor encouraged, for example, in an everyday context such as at school or at a workplace. Ultimately, it is these assumptions about difference that create a particular paradox for the Hmong in Laos. That the Hmong are different but that they belong as one part of the Lao multi-ethnic people, is a signif icant part of the national discourse. Conversely, this difference also contributes to the Hmong lack of belonging, precisely because they are different and are unable to escape assumptions being made about the nature of that difference. This means that the idea of the Lao population as a multi-ethnic people is the official public face of Laos or the exterior of cultural intimacy in Laos. Behind this are multiple and competing assumptions and sentiments, which make up the interior and keeps the external face functioning. Herzfeld (2002) argues for what he terms a crypto-colonial relationship between a nation that was never formally colonized and more powerful national forces that maintain the independence of the colonized group through economic dependency. This is a useful concept although as I noted in Chapter 1, many Lao perceive China as a neo-colonizer above anything else. Here, I intend to borrow from this term and to suggest that there is almost a forced relationship, which I will term crypto-separatism, between Hmong and Lao. I mean here that the Hmong are dependent largely on living alongside the lowland Lao, and are undoubtedly distinct, but are also made to be different to fit prevailing narratives of ethnic difference. This leads to a relationship of ambivalence between the Hmong and the Lao state, which assumes that the Hmong would choose separatism, or an alternative if possible. The notion of crypto-separatism shapes how the Hmong interact with the state but crucially, how the state interacts with them. This results in a unique position for the Hmong in Laos, and forms a significant element of discourse of belonging and not belonging, keeping the Hmong caught between both. This is further complicated when tensions beneath the nation’s public faces around ethnicity are entangled by the

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widely perceived neo-colonial relationship between China and Laos, with China occupying such a significant place in Hmong history. I begin with an overview of official discourses around ethnic difference in Laos. Then with reference to three key interlocutors, I will demonstrate how at times they moved between emphasizing being overtly different as Hmong and at other times, of being the same as everyone else. I will argue that this question of difference and imagined difference matters very much and forms the basis of the paradox around ethnicity: ethnic difference is visible at times but downplayed at others. This is all with the health warning that Laos is undoubtedly changing and changing fast, particularly with the rise of China making its presence felt throughout the country, albeit unevenly in different places. As noted in previous chapters, many Hmong are keen to take advantage of opportunities that their parents did not have, like completing their education, going to university, or studying abroad. Many migrate to Lao cities to gain employment. Some have gone to study in China, a decision which was influenced by ideas about China being a significant place of origin for the Hmong. My research participants, who appear particularly in this chapter, conveyed a wish for a Hmong state but also planned for a future in Laos. I am not arguing that a changing Laos means that the balance of power for many Hmong will change radically, rather that it is possible that a changing Laos will reproduce largely the same existing societal inequalities in substance, even if in slightly different forms. I further believe that this could occur in spite of many of my participants working tirelessly to overcome the marginalization, poverty and discrimination that are everyday features of life.

Ethnicity in Laos In the aftermath of the revolution in 1975, the new Lao government communists faced a considerable task in unifying the country as one single population which today stands at just under six and a half million. Given the immense ethnic diversity in Laos, it is not difficult to see how ethnic classif ication contributed to this process. 4 In contrast to the Cultural Revolution in China, no real attempts were made by the new authorities to destroy altogether ethnic minority cultures in Laos, which can be attributed variously to a lack of state resources, the different roles that 4 For the history of this classification system, see Pholsena (2002) and Pholsena and Lockhart (2006).

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many ethnic minorities had played in the civil war, and most importantly, the demographic weight of the minorities when considered together.5 It also demonstrates the desire of the authorities to oscillate between both authoritarianism and some attempt at conciliation and working together. Initial attempts to classify ethnic minorities in Laos produced a system of three categories which identified people as highland, midland, or lowland dwellers.6 The lowland Lao who are Buddhist and lived traditionally along the river valleys formed the majority ethnic group. The midland people were those of the middle areas, such as the Khmu. Finally, the highlanders were the Hmong, the Akha, and the Yao, all of whom resided in the high mountains. Although this system has now been officially abandoned, on the basis that it no longer represents the reality of where many ethnic minorities now live, the system remains in common usage and is the subject of reference in normal conversations. This is illustrated on the one-thousand-kip banknote. On the note, the lowland Lao figure always appears in the middle and is flanked by the representatives of the midland and highlands peoples. The same three figures also appear as a common feature of many street parades, always in the same formation with the lowland Lao, represented by a woman, in the middle.7 This sets up the official lowland Lao versus ethnic minorities dichotomy. This system originates in Soviet theory of ethnic difference and was inherited by the Lao via the Vietnamese. It also demonstrates the clear desire to catalogue and classify ethnic difference and to establish a sense of order over it. This is illustrative of how the nation state thinks about these groups more than the groups necessarily do about themselves. Ethnic origin is defined and added onto one’s household documents at birth by local officials. According to the 2015 Population and Housing Census for Laos, the single largest ethnic group is lowland Lao at 55 per cent of the population, with the Khmu at 11 per cent, the Hmong numbering 9 per cent, and other ethnic minorities combined, make up the remaining 27 per cent. This is an interesting system and performance of nomenclature in that it creates stereotypes in opposition to the prevailing norms of the dominant lowland Lao (Schlemmer: 2017). Goudineau (2015) argues convincingly that ethnic diversity in Laos is inherently contradictory. He suggests that on the 5 This is considered in further detail by Petit (2013). 6 This process is outlined via a clear overview given by Schlemmer (2017). Batson (1991) also gives further details as to the post-war situation. 7 Given the apparent association of women as traditional keepers of culture and with more visual traditional dress than men, I suggest it is also unsurprising that the population of Laos is represented by women rather than men.

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Figure 7 Figures representing ethnic diversity in Laos in the now officially abandoned tripartite system

Photograph taken by the author, December 2015

one hand, the Lao authorities seek to celebrate the diversity of the Lao multiethnic people but at the same time, the official narrative wishes to present a cohesive narrative of Laoness, which seeks to break down difference. He argues that it is no coincidence that ethnic difference is articulated as part of a cohesive nation. An important consequence of mapping ethnic difference is that for some, this meant the clear establishment of that difference where it did not otherwise exist. After all, how can one ethnic group be recognized as different without some boundaries distinguishing it from other ethnic groups? Where groups genuinely presented themselves as different and separate, there is no problem. This is the case with the Hmong. But this does not apply to other ethnic groups for whom boundaries of ethnic distinction may be very blurred or ambiguous, or just less easy to categorize.8 This leads to a pervasive existence of stereotypes about ethnic minorities, as well as a confluence of ideas about how these minority citizens live more 8 Goudineau (2015) notes that during fieldwork in Southern Laos in the 1990s, he encountered people who had been told by officials that they were Katu, yet had no sense of this themselves and had hitherto understood Katu people to be other people.

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‘traditional’ lives in more remote areas of the country. Writers have noted the conflation of ethnic issues with folklore and reification of the countryside that is common in official Lao discourse about ethnic minorities.9 In official terms, tradition regarding the ethnic minorities is useful should it fit, or be made to fit, state agendas, and ethnicity is then very much official business. It is also used to further the legitimacy of lowland Lao cultural hegemony.10 Crucially, rhetoric around ethnicity in Laos and elsewhere largely requires the use of a central assumption: that all members of the same ethnic group are primarily the same with a broadly recognizable and unifying culture, customs and so on.11 Proschan’s (1997) article ‘We are all Kmhmu, just the same’ demonstrates that claims of collective unity obscure a diverse range of people who may be connected by language, shared history, place of residence, cultural traditions, and more. The authorities may generalize, as may the Hmong themselves, but not all members of an ethnic group are the same and it would be a misconception to think so. Clearly, no one single system exists but they often overlap, contradict, and collide with each other. In Proschan’s research, an obsession with who was and was not Khmu is far too easily simplified, which denies the very real levels of complexity. I managed to join a Facebook group for the Hmong diaspora called simply ‘I am Hmong’ by completing a simple form in Hmong to do so. This is probably not an inaccurate description of most of the people who do join. Yet despite basic linguistic ability, I am not Hmong, so how useful then is language as the marker of difference? It is far more helpful to consider the question of how classification systems come about and how they are utilized, by whom, and to what ends. The idea of ethnicity purely based on mere blithe membership of an ethnic group is very problematic. Taking the Hmong as an example, not all Hmong are the same and, despite a strong sense of their own history in Laos, not all Hmong clans have the same history plus there are a number of 9 See Evrard and Goudineau (2017) for a detailed overview of this, especially vis-à-vis relationships between upland and lowland. 10 See the book published by Lao organization, Big Brother Mouse (2011) as an example of a book written in Lao (and English), in an engaging style, but which perpetuates the description of ethnic minorities as clearly distinctive and different as part of the multi-ethnic population of Laos. 11 For a detailed overview of this idea, see Anderson’s (2006 [1983]) work on how the community is an imagined entity. Most members of a community, which he applies to the nation state, will never meet but imagine that they all have certain things in common, which form a bonded sense of identity. This theory is picked up well by Proschan (1997). Brubaker (2002) then problematizes this concept further, asking if it is possible to understand ethnicity without rigid classifications of ethnic groups.

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subgroups.12 If we think of the Hmong of China, on the basis of research done on the Hmong elsewhere, we would assume the same bounded, distinctive identity. China is given by the Hmong as the place from which they migrated before they settled in Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam around the nineteenth century. Many of my research participants in Laos would introduce this topic by saying that ‘my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather came from China’. This apparent place of nostalgia makes the relationship between Laos and China complicated for many Hmong and I will return to this in the next chapter. Yet Tapp’s (2001) important work, which is one of a few studies on the Hmong within China itself suggests a far more complex and nuanced picture. He argues that the Hmong he encountered were far more bicultural and rooted in both Hmong and Chinese cultures. They could easily pass for Han Chinese and moved easily between both Hmong language and Mandarin. My argument here is that even if assumptions are not accurate, escaping them and their labels often constitute an almost insurmountable challenge. This also shows the limits of usefulness of rigid cataloguing approaches: Is it useful to draw neat boundaries around ethnic groups if people can pass between different categories? Of course not. Such a task is as frustrating as it is impossible. But as we will see here, making assumptions about what it is to be Hmong in Laos happens, and with very real consequences.

Dreams of Hmong Statehood and Zomia Even if some of the population of Laos are ambivalent about ethnic difference this does not apply to the Hmong who, in Laos at least, have a far more bonded sense of difference.13 This is apparent when we consider Hmong involvement in the Secret War. In general, the Hmong were suspicious of the communist ideology promoted by the Lao revolutionaries in the Civil War period leading to the revolution in 1975. Many Hmong feared that they would be subject to far greater scrutiny and control from the authorities were the Lao monarchy to fall. They were also afraid that they would be relocated far from their traditional homelands and punished for participating in the war. 12 Most Hmong in Laos identify as Hmong Der (White Hmong) and I refer to them here. 13 The Hmong generally have a clear sense of identity and distinction from other ethnic groups. This is founded on a combination of language, appearance, cultural norms, societal organization, etc. In Thailand and Laos, Hmong argue that they are different from lowland Lao and other ethnic groups. For background on Hmong identity both in Laos and overseas, see Baird (2010); Lee (2010) and Michaud and Culas (2000).

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Under the leadership of General Vang Pao, the Hmong general recruited by the United States, most Hmong supported the war hoping to realize their dream of an independent Hmong state at its conclusion.14 These events caused enormous upheaval, massive losses, and huge displacements of people from their traditional homes and livelihoods. When the United States left Southeast Asia, large numbers of Hmong fled into exile, fearing reprisals from the Lao government were they to remain behind.15 Today, Hmong who fled Laos during this period live in significant diasporas around the world, along with their descendants, and substantial concentrations of them are to be found in the United States, Australia, and France. Vang Pao himself fled into exile in the United States. Several years before his death he was arrested in the US and charged with attempting to overthrow the government of Laos. The charges against Vang Pao and the other defendants were later dropped. Vang Pao died in the United States in 2011.16 For those Hmong who remained in Laos after the war, many continued their attempts to leave Laos in the years after the war ended, including the parents and grandparents of several interlocutors. Several reported that their parents were very young in the mid-1970s and while they hoped to join extended family who had left Laos, they were unable to do so. Many highland ethnic groups were relocated from their upland areas to lower-lying areas.17 Traditional farming practices were also disrupted and many groups who had conventionally relied upon opium growth were no longer permitted to do so. Levels of poverty amongst the Hmong remain disproportionately high, particularly in rural areas, and a significant rural-urban migration continues. Today the Hmong are represented in the Lao authorities at different levels, yet the Hmong continue to experience marginalization throughout all levels of Lao society. 14 See especially, Lee (2004). For insightful papers on Hmong identity in the diaspora and their associations with imagined homelands in Asia, see Lee (2010) and Vang (2011). 15 For an overview of the war period in Laos and beyond, see Castle (1993); Kurlantzick (2016a); Warner (1997). 16 For further information about Hmong veterans in the United States, see Vang (2011) and more recently, Baird and Hillmer (2020). 17 This practice of relocation in line with government priorities continues and is worth considering in the overall context of development and its perceived advantages and disadvantages, as well as who has agency in the relocation process. See especially, Bouté (2017), Evrard and Baird (2017). This has also been the subject of contention in academic writing on Laos, with High (2008) contending that some people subject to relocation are far more likely to go along with this willingly than others. In a response to High’s piece, Baird et al. (2009) contend that relocation is far more coerced than voluntary, and such statements that some people engage with it willingly should be taken very cautiously. This is also discussed by Cohen and Lyttleton (2008).

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Clearly, any consideration of upland Southeast Asia must include The Art of Not Being Governed, in which Scott (2009) argues for the existence of a region he terms Zomia, an upland region of Southeast Asia. He argues that this is a region where people took refuge from the state control that existed in the lowland areas. He contends that people relocated to these areas precisely to evade state control and live beyond its grasp. In other words, they use their agency as part of the process of being marginalized by forces of governance that are deemed unwanted and/or adversarial. Far from the highlands being the last refuge of the primitive, Scott’s argument is that relocating to the highlands for ethnic groups such as the Hmong was a very conscious choice upon their arrival in Laos but that Zomia as a region now is largely disappearing as state control into the highlands comes closer. He contends that this is a useful medium through which to consider a group’s relationship with the state, and how this reflects their willingness to engage with the state and its representatives. This idea of movement to evade unwelcome interference is one that resonates strongly with Hmong history, from movement to Laos from China, and for many Hmong, onwards to elsewhere. This is why, despite its faults, Zomia remains a useful idea. Having a reputation for being difficult to administer and of avoiding authority remains a key aspect of how outsiders view Hmong even now, and many Hmong continue to respond to perceived difficulties through migration. Scott’s idea that relocation to the upland areas happened out of a desire to live outside state control per se is problematic. It promotes a rather idealistic view of the highlands and is told without any voices of actual highlanders. For the Hmong, the question is how the desire to live outside state control can be reconciled with the desires of the Hmong – some of which were reiterated to me throughout my research – for a Hmong state? Zomia is a region that is intentionally stateless, yet Hmong communities do not live entirely without rules. Hmong clan structure is an enduring social construct that provides governance and guides decisionmaking. The claim that the Hmong wish to live entirely without state-like structures is therefore difficult to maintain, given that these structures of governance have proved both mobile and resilient. They are also a prominent feature of Hmong communities throughout the diaspora. The idea of an upland place of refuge is a notion that is clearly passing in an interconnected world. The idea of Hmong desires that somewhere else or something else would be preferable is worth thinking about. This looms large in the minds of the lowland Lao in their attitudes towards the Hmong. Many Hmong live at some distance from the lowland Lao and have limited interaction, whether by choice, or design or both. Such practices

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allow many Hmong to continue to live with an ambivalent relationship to the external authorities. In the four decades since the end of the war, life for many Hmong has changed very much and the narratives of the multiethnic Lao people expect them to live as a separate ethnic group within a framework of a multi-ethnic people. Even so, many may have limited interaction beyond other Hmong. It is also important to note that even for the Hmong who still live in more remote areas, this does not mean that they are entirely isolated from ideas of modernity and material goods. Contrary to the disappointment of those looking for an Orientalist Southeast Asia or static traditional cultures in Laos, many highlanders express conscious desires for development, material goods, and so on. My argument is that it is unlikely that the Hmong will escape ideas of Zomia and presumptions of Hmong separatism as a desired alternative. If we view this through the cultural intimacy model for which I argued in previous chapters, of how things became part of everyday life and Lao culture and society, ethnic difference forms an important part of the Lao nation’s physiognomy. But ethnic difference requires careful management. It entails navigation of a fraught path between difference as part of the Lao prevailing narrative of ethnicity, and difference intersecting too closely with outright dissent, an idea whose ghost is presumed to walk amongst the Hmong in the view of the lowland Lao. If one is Hmong from the Vang clan, and therefore has Vang as one’s surname, several participants shared with me that in view of its association with Vang Pao, one is deemed to have a particular adverse history. In terms of cultural intimacy, the public face of Laos is that of a heterogeneous, happy population, which conceals but also produces and relies upon appropriate ways of articulating underlying tensions and grievances. Meaningful redress of this is simply not an allowable part of cultural intimacy in Laos. The idea of separatism may never be actualized or pursued. Its potency lies in separatism as an idea or at least the concept of something else as a presumed preferred alternative. This shapes how people interact with the state and produces the ambivalence that marks this relationship on both sides. I have argued above that Zomia is not an actual place, more an idea. I am suggesting here that the situation of the Hmong in Laos is no longer about an outright refusal to be governed by the Lao state, but a persistent possibility of being or embracing something else that not only does not fit with master narratives of ethnicity in Laos, but which never seems to go away completely. This means that the intimate aspects of Hmong collective belonging in Laos are unique and different from that of other ethnic groups but are marked by this notion of a forced crypto-separatist relationship. The

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relationship of cultural intimacy between the Hmong and Lao is unique for how it is constituted, and how it is maintained.

‘We Are Hmong’ Neng, Kou, and Leng are all young Hmong men under the age of 25. All grew up in different provinces in northern Laos and migrated for better opportunities to study and work which they felt were not available in their respective home areas. Kou and Leng both have Lao first names, which they use for official interactions. Even so, it is easy to tell that someone is Hmong from their surnames. Neng has only a Hmong name and told me that this is because his name is easy to write and say, and his parents saw no need to also give him a Lao name.18 In the past, Neng and Kou were subjected to forced relocation by the Lao authorities. In Neng’s case, his village was relocated from their home in the highlands to a lowland area alongside a hard road when he was still very young. For Kou, this was about relocating for a new infrastructure project that required the land upon which his village was located. Both described the process of relocation as difficult and were keen to point out to me where they had lived previously. In Neng’s case this led to his family living far from their farmlands in the highlands, and people needing to be away for several days at a time to work in the fields. When describing this process of relocation to me, he would gesture at some far hills and explain that his family farmland was still there, with a temporary structure where people could stay while working in the fields, but that it was very far away. People in his village felt that their relocation had more to do with the state wanting to be able to gain access to them rather than their gaining better access to state services. They often asked why Hmong villages were moved more often than Lao villages? Kou had a similar experience of being relocated but also being separated from farmlands. Both Neng and Kou’s communities raised concerns about inadequate compensation, a story familiar to many people who have faced relocation in Laos.19 Kou was also feeling the impact of another infrastructure project in the form of the Laos-China Railway, that was to pass under his family’s farmland and had already reduced their access to water and for which he expected they would receive no redress. 18 I reiterate here that the names listed here are all pseudonyms. 19 This has been examined specifically by High (2008) and High et al. (2009).

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As with numerous other young Hmong migrants that I met in Luang Prabang, Leng, Kou, and Neng all moved considerable distances to complete their education, with Neng and Leng moving to different provinces. In Leng’s case, he became a novice monk in Vientiane in order to complete high school as his family could otherwise not afford to send him to high school. He disrobed upon graduation and passed the entrance exams for university in Luang Prabang. Upon graduation, he migrated from Luang Prabang to Vientiane in the hope of finding work with the Lao government or a large company. His search for a graduate level job continues. Neng migrated to Luang Prabang as a young teenager and finished high school there, studying while working on jobs in guesthouses and tourism. Neither Neng nor Leng returned to their home areas often although both were dependent on rice from home, and often lived with extended family networks in their new areas. Kou moved to extended family in another part of the same province and then finished high school in Luang Prabang, going to university there and taking on part-time work while studying. From his early teens, he worked to support himself and to contribute to his family’s financial situation. Now a recent graduate, he is also searching for a job. All told me that their Lao classmates did not have to work so hard either to find work or to acquire skills that made them attractive prospects for employment, as it appears that fewer lowland Lao have to work and study at the same time. Leng is the f irst person in his family to attend university, and Neng and Kou are both the second. All stressed repeatedly that they wanted a different life from that of their parents who are subsistence rice farmers. None saw a desirable future in their home areas and hoped to work in or establish businesses in either Luang Prabang or Vientiane. All reported that as Hmong they had experienced discrimination in Luang Prabang and elsewhere. Sometimes, employers were keen to hire them, given the stereotype that Hmong students are very hardworking, but all said that they had also experienced employers making derogatory comments about their ethnic group and/or talking down to them. Neng graduated from university in China. He told me that China’s being so significant for the Hmong factored heavily in his decision-making and that he was genuinely interested to go to China as the place from where previous generations of Hmong had migrated. He was then disappointed by the Hmong he met in China and the difficulties of communicating with them, as he found that the Hmong spoken there is not the same as in Laos and that they used Mandarin instead as a lingua franca. They recognized each other as Hmong, but not quite the same Hmong.

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All three devote large amounts of time to the practice of being Hmong. For Kou, this means promoting and participating in Hmong songs and films, whilst Leng spends time photographing Hmong traditional lives and cultural practices around the countryside. Kou referred to both Lao and Hmong cultures variously as his own but never at the same time. Celebrating Lao New Year with him and some of his extended family, Kou led a toast with the words: ‘This is not our New Year but we’ll celebrate it too!’ whilst holding his beer bottle aloft. Later, when I celebrated Hmong New Year with him, he told me that it is their [Hmong] festival and placed a heavy emphasis on being Hmong and being seen as Hmong through appearing at the festival in traditional clothing and participating in cultural performances. This included music and dance performances for that particular festival. Leng expressed feelings of patriotism towards the Lao government, which is reflected in his statement ‘The party is loyal to the country’, which he checked vociferously in Lao and English before announcing this to me. He was particularly angry about tourists making transactions in Laos in foreign currencies. He told me that paying with Lao currency is a matter of patriotism, and more foreigners should respect Lao culture by doing so.20 He is particularly interested in how Hmong culture is changing, and how more and more Hmong people are abandoning traditional animist beliefs, sometimes in favour of Christianity. Leng attributed this to several things: that Christianity was somehow easier to believe in than the traditional animism and allowed for some possibility of social mobility, that both men and women could practice it equally, and, most of all, that this was due to the missionary efforts of Hmong-Americans who had themselves converted and were now keen to share their new religion with people from their own homelands. He felt that animism amongst the Hmong is likely to decline further in the coming years and worried about what this would mean for what he saw as traditional Hmong culture. In contrast, Kou told me that he was proud that many Hmong in the countryside were shedding some of what he saw as harmful traditional practices, for example, an initial reluctance to engage with Western medicine when someone is ill or to do so quickly enough. He too had been the subject of proselytizing by American missionaries, to which he listened politely, donating the money 20 In the past, under Lao law all purchases had to be made in Lao currency. Now however, it is possible to pay for goods in US dollars, Thai baht and increasingly, Chinese yuan in many situations. Limited and ageing signage (for example a faded sign in Oudomxai’s older bus station) encourages visitors to pay in kip only. On a recent trip to Luang Nam Tha in April 2019, I also saw a similar sign there, that was just as faded.

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the missionaries offered him to his mother, and deciding that he personally had no use for a new religion. Neng also told me of being approached by a Hmong-American who was keen to talk to him about Jesus, but he had little interest. At times, their distinctiveness in Laos as Hmong was an advantage. Kou’s sisters, and many women in the village near Luang Prabang where Leng lived, made money by sewing traditional Hmong textiles, which are in demand on the Luang Prabang Night Market and for sale to tourists throughout Luang Prabang. The women were proud of their traditional skills, but also happy that they could apply these to making new products such as slippers and bedding, which commanded high prices from tourists and were easy to sew. In their places of education, apart from on official occasions where they were sometimes required to wear traditional dress, these Hmong students were indistinguishable from other students, and Neng told me that many of his high school teachers did not appreciate Hmong being spoken between Hmong students and would sometimes become angry when they heard it. This was underlined to me once when Neng took a call on his mobile from his high school teacher, who began the call by telling him immediately to speak Lao and only Lao. Here, in official discourse, they are one part of the Lao multi-ethnic people. They are not, however, an equal part, as they are not able to determine the rules of these interactions. That does not mean that everyone accepted that their nationality was Lao and their ethnic group, Hmong. Kou and others told me repeatedly that he hoped that, one day, Hmong people might have their own state and that Lao people would allow them to do this. On a visit to Neng’s home, sitting with his family one evening and recounting the incident of being stopped by the police, one of Neng’s younger brothers told me without hesitation that his ethnic group [sonphao] was Hmong as was his nationality [sansaad]. At the time, I wondered if I understood him correctly. Relatively new in this area and speaking in Lao rather than Hmong, I asked him to repeat this to me. Did he mean that his nationality was Lao? He responded that his country was Laos, but his nationality was Hmong. Another Hmong friend, Teng, responded to a message from me in the Hmong language by saying that it is good that I am learning to speak Hmong because in his words: ‘Hmong people have a dream that they will have a country and if it is real we will speak Hmong as our national language. I really need that dream to come true’. Even if it is only a dream and one not held universally, aspirations of a Hmong homeland remain and result in a relationship on both sides of ambiguity and ambivalence between the Hmong and the Lao state.

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Difference as Belonging The idea of a Lao multi-ethnic population requires multiple ethnicities that are distinctive but are united under one common narrative in this framework. One’s ethnicity, in this case Hmong, is an important marker of belonging in Laos. It is also a significant part of the public face of cultural intimacy or an outward expression of national identity. Laos portrays itself as a multi-ethnic population, yet this is subject to a significant power imbalance where the minorities are portrayed as being in need of development. Lowland Lao friends repeatedly told me that going to visit the families of Hmong friends in the countryside would be too difficult for me, that their living conditions would be too basic and that their food would be inedible for me and used this as a reason not to go themselves. Though they showed interest in the traditional cultures, customs, and beliefs of the Hmong, this use of stereotypes also demonstrates the ongoing marginalization of the Hmong. In Chatterjee’s (2004) terms, people embodying that difference is also an example of people becoming visible to the state, and ethnicity is an important issue for the state in terms of population interaction. This is particularly expected of major events, and traditional handicrafts made by different ethnic groups are a key aspect of attempts to portray Luang Prabang as a place of living multi-ethnic heritage. Here, they are literally visible as being different in terms of dress, textiles, handicrafts, all very visual markers of difference. The idea that material culture is an important resource for tourism and consumption is unsurprising, particularly if it is available for tourists to experience as part of the nostalgia that forms such an important aspect of Luang Prabang. Products available include items such as duvet covers sized appropriately for foreign bed sizes allows for an intersection between the traditional and the cultural, as well as an opportunity for people at different levels to make money from such encounters. The famous Luang Prabang night market originally began with Hmong handicrafts.21Now, each evening, large numbers of Hmong vendors sell crafts they have either produced or procured, including a substantial variety of traditional techniques juxtaposed with modern designs. Hmong women can be seen stitching small pieces of embroidery behind their stalls, which adds ambience to the space, in ways products that require either weaving looms or that are not actually local cannot. A large amount of official literature in Luang Prabang invites visitors to ‘discover Laos through 21 For further background, and the background to the Luang Prabang Night Market, see Vallard (2015).

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crafts’22 and across the heritage zone, visitors can learn Hmong embroidery, traditional weaving, Hmong batik, Khmu basket weaving, and many others. Such schemes are usually led by artisan teachers from the relevant ethnic group and clearly require a distinctive product.23 Distinction also means something unique or separate and that was demonstrated clearly around the twentieth-anniversary celebrations of Luang Prabang being a UNESCO World Heritage Site with different ethnic groups invited to partake in traditional cultural performances. These performances rarely featured different ethnic groups on stage at the same time and in the rare occasions they did, it was as representatives of a larger ethnic landscape. Such performances always featured men and women dressed in representative traditional costume. That does not, however, mean that this is a genuine display of ethnic minorities showcasing their visual heritage, more the idea of ethnic difference in Laos as something of interest to visitors and to be paraded. Hudson (2014) notes the long running ‘ethnic fashion show’ that was a main tourist attraction at one of the tourist bars in Luang Prabang, which featured Lao women dressing in ethnic costumes for the entertainment of tourists. Although this particular bar has since closed, as the expatriate owner has left Luang Prabang, this is another example of the reification of the imagined traditional lifestyles of minorities, presented in cookie cutter ways that are clearly understandable to different audiences, even if those who performed had no connection with those minority cultures themselves. Even at this level of disadvantage, difference can constitute a positive factor. Several tourism business owners in Luang Prabang told me that they were keen to appoint Hmong staff, given their reputation for hard work and their need for employment. Hmong employees sometimes use this stereotype to their advantage in gaining employment, something Kou, Leng, and Neng were all familiar with. In late 2017, one lowland Lao guesthouse manager in Luang Prabang told me that he was struggling to recruit any staff, given that the Hmong students who had worked for him had resigned shortly 22 This slogan comes from Ock Pop Tok https://ockpoptok.com (this translates literally as East Meets West), one of the major Fairtrade craft initiatives in Luang Prabang. Similar initiatives are run by the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre www.taeclaos.com (Accessed: 1 September 2016). 23 One particularly awkward example of this occurred during a handicraft session when an American tourist utilized the session (which I was also attending) to interrogate the Hmong teacher about the practice of bride capture in Hmong culture. While this practice occurs, her questions became judgmental and made both the official Lao translator and me increasingly uncomfortable. The tourist told me that she just wanted to use the opportunity to ask as the Hmong are ‘just so different’, which is demonstrative of Cohen’s (2001) arguments that authenticity is a key aspect of the appeal of representations of ethnic minorities, who are still referred to frequently as hill tribes despite many now living in urban areas.

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before Hmong New Year and returned to their villages for the festival, and he was unable to find anyone else to fill the vacancies. He bemoaned that they needed the work but would only work when it suited them and then put their own needs first. In establishing the idea of the Lao population as a multi-ethnic people, we have the embodied paradox of difference being emphasized in certain contexts and downplayed in others. Many of my interlocutors worked in guesthouses selling ‘hill tribes’ tours to visitors, and tourists were often surprised to learn that they could also learn a lot about Hmong culture by asking their guesthouse receptionists in addition to the tours. They were also surprised to learn that many of these hill tribe villagers have not lived in the hills for decades. I asked Kim, a Hmong man who worked in a travel agency in Luang Prabang about this and he cautioned against viewing tourist interest in minorities as entirely contradictory. Many Hmong move to the city to leave behind the traditional village lifestyle that tourists wish to visit. Yet he said that some Hmong may view the desire of tourists to visit the villages they left behind simply as a business opportunity, without seeing much apparent contradiction. What is more interesting is the use of ethnic difference again to refer only to ethnic minorities, even in an officially pluralistic ethnic landscape. In the previous chapters, I argued that official discourse about Luang Prabang’s history is carefully managed, with a particular emphasis on the uncontentious areas of history that stress narratives of beauty and splendour. This is why there is such an emphasis placed on Buddhism and traditional religious practices. In Luang Prabang particularly, Buddhism is marketed as a major element of national identity, which has the effect of promoting lowland Lao culture as the national culture with the ethnic minorities reduced to providing local colour. The national authorities therefore portray themselves as protectors and patrons of these traditional cultures, and allow these to flourish within a limited set of parameters. Consequently, Laos is not egalitarian in its ethnic plurality. This also explains why certain forms of religious activity are acceptable in Laos as long as they support the master narratives. Alternative practices that exist outside the official sanction of the Lao government are not acceptable, which also explains why the growth of evangelical Protestant Christianity in Laos is also a cause for official concern. This may be an alternative path to development but is one that is particularly unwelcomed by the authorities.24 24 For a fascinating discussion into this new and emerging phenomenon in Vietnam, see Ngo (2015). I heard of several unofficial churches around Luang Prabang, and as raised in the previous chapter, I came across several testimonies of people who had converted to either Buddhism or

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The Hmong are caught between being different enough to support this narrative and yet it is precisely their uniqueness that makes them part of this official project of the multi-ethnic peoples of Laos. This draws the Hmong into the social fabric of the nation and its sense of belonging. Difference though has its limits, and this requires a difficult navigation of being different, but without difference becoming seen as outright dissent. An aspect of cultural intimacy would be to cross the line between acceptable grumbling about everyday life in Laos and the forbidden space of calling for a separate state. In private, the Hmong are fully aware of their shared history, which is at odds with what is presented as the public face of the Lao nation. There are limits to what can be said in public and the story of the Hmong and the revolutionary birth of Laos are off-limits for public consumption as part of the public face of Lao culture.

Zomia as a Persistent Alternative Difference can be utilized to negotiate with the state on occasion. Continuing interest in minorities allows these minorities to make demands of the state that might otherwise not be possible. In an article focused on the creation of an apparently authentic Khmu festival, Petit (2013) demonstrates that the authorities demanded that the local Khmu make this festival distinctive, and the Khmu responded by using their ethnic difference to do that, with the public attention being a welcome by-product. At the same time, the Khmu utilized this to pass off traditional practices which are otherwise discouraged, as being important for traditional aspects of the ritual and making it worthy of state support. This argument draws heavily on ideas of invented traditions, but note also that these inventions come with agendas and are not neutral.25 Difference only has its appeal if it is, after all, visibly different. The Hmong sellers in the Luang Prabang Night market are able to participate in public space making as Hmong, precisely because of their difference and that difference made visible through their handicrafts. They can be overtly Hmong in this arena. This connects being Hmong with ideas of more traditional lifestyles lived by the ethnic minorities, which Christianity to access education. While I do not discount the possibility of genuine conversion in Laos, particularly among the ethnic minorities, I suggest that religious conversion has a considerable amount to do with material gain but that further research is needed. 25 I draw here heavily on the ideas of invented traditions and their uses by Hobsbawm and Ranger (2012 [1983]).

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underpins much of the official discourse towards ethnic minorities in Laos. Crucially, this power balance is not within parameters that they can largely set themselves. Ethnic ‘traditions’ of the recently invented type cannot be understood if we do not consider both the way national policies frame them, and the various ways people engage with them and crucially, the associated power relations. Ethnic catalogues, TV shows, and declarations from officials all exert a powerful and effective ‘state effect’ (Petit 2013, 481) on the local expression of ethnic identity. In other words, one’s ethnicity is appropriated by the state as official property, with no realistic possibility of selfidentification. But simultaneously, those labelled as different are given a licence to make demands from those who label them in that way, as long as those demands can be linked directly to that difference. This does not mean all is fine. These demands are still made from a position of considerable disadvantage and do not address the underlying power structure of that disadvantage in any meaningful way. Difference is utilized here as an asset to facilitate belonging. That these apparently authentic traditions are invented, imported, or a combination thereof does not matter. They can be utilized as bargaining chips to negotiate with the state at a local level by branding them as part of a state agenda. They can also be used to reject state agendas, which is representative of discourses of nationalism changing over time. This can be read usefully through the idea of cultural intimacy and discourses of everyday politics. Over time, these can make significant changes possible well beyond the immediate local level. It is important to keep sight of the power scales in place here and who is subordinate to whom and what. Agency can also be utilized in surprising ways, with both Ducourtieux (2013) and Bouté (2017) noting that for many marginalized minorities, their solution to dealing with adverse attention from the state was not the classic Zomian response of moving further into the mountains. Instead, it was to move closer to the centre, to become even more visible to the state and in so doing, rendering the state’s control over their former land meaningless as its population relocated elsewhere, often to cities. Here, Zomia is being reproduced in the cities. People go towards the centre to salvage something of the autonomy they had in their former homes precisely because this is no longer possible in the highland areas. If there is anything to be said for Zomia in 2021, it is that it no longer refers to a particular place of refuge beyond state control. Instead, it is a notion or idea that people carry with them. Neng, Kou, and Leng, all were proud of their own trajectories to become educated people, which had involved migration to urban areas. Several

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enjoyed returning home to visit their families and villages from where they had migrated, especially as they were able to show off goods purchased in the cities or to bring friends they had made there to visit their families. Their departures from their villages had been clearly marked by well wishes for them to do well in the cities. No matter how hard they worked at maintaining their networks and ties to their places of origin, none saw returning to the countryside as a reasonable option. Going back would be seen as a sign of immense failure primarily by themselves, but also disappointing the aspirations of those who had helped them to migrate in the first place.26 For the Hmong, the situation of being different and that difference in the perceptions of others having very real consequences are particularly acute. This remains so in contemporary Laos. For the Hmong, mass exit and exile from China was a viable way to continue being Hmong in the face of contemporary state building in the nineteenth century. The Hmong who remained in Laos after 1975, are a particularly good example of difference leading to non-belonging. As perceived by many lowland Lao, the idea of separatism or at least presumed sympathy with separatism amongst the Hmong, endures. The Secret War is within living memory. Vang Pao was arrested just over a mere decade ago on charges relating to political change in Laos at the highest level: an attempt to overthrow the Lao government. Even if his surviving contemporaries in the diaspora are by now very old, this has not yet killed off the ghost of a Hmong state or of Hmong in Laos striving for a different political landscape. This idea of separatism, or at least lingering suspicions about one’s loyalties precisely because one comes from a culture of actual or perceived difference, is an enduring one. That concept of a separate state, whether held universally or not, is the most important marker of difference and imagined difference. Political legitimacy in Laos is negotiated between government and people, and occasionally, shows its fragility. If the political establishment cannot convince the population of its legitimacy and that it will provide for the population, then it is at risk. In Laos, this remains a very potent and topical issue and can become overt. Violence and reports of violence between discontented Hmong and the Lao authorities remained an intermittent feature of life from 1975 until about 2000, and have reappeared very recently.27 In late 2015 and early 2016, several shooting incidents along one of the main roads between Vientiane and Luang Prabang, with several fatalities, caused widespread concern 26 This is an additional hardship for those forced to return to their rural homes due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 27 This is a point raised by Vang (2011) and more recently by Kurlantzick (2016b).

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and the authorities imposed a curfew as a result. It was understood widely that the shooting happened because the Hmong had become angry with the authorities over the failure of a public works scheme. Though this was understood and talked about in private, it was not spoken of openly at all. In Laos, rumour is far more widespread than fact, and it is unlikely that actual details of these incidents will ever become known. A lowland Lao friend privately disclosed his suspicions to me that the Hmong were behind the shootings but told me that he did not wish to discuss it openly given that he had a Hmong person working for him. Although that person had worked for him for several years and was a good employee, he did not quite trust this person. In his understanding, the Hmong were doing the shooting because they were unhappy with the government, and he had a Hmong employee about whose loyalties he was not entirely sure. He believed that the Hmong hold an ambivalent attitude towards the Lao state and would choose separatism or Zomia, if given the opportunity. One could consider this an isolated case, but it is useful for demonstrating my Lao friend’s assumptions about a Hmong person with whom he had a perceived close relationship. That idea of Zomia as a desired alternative explains much about HmongLao relations and vice versa. This is stereotyping, which serves the interests of those in power but are useful for what they reveal about power relations. Many Hmong may even recognize as being accurate what the Lao say about them in private. For those who set the national discourses, saying next to nothing about the Secret War and the role of the Hmong is a strategy because states that are somewhat fragile have a considerable amount to lose through seemingly errant citizens telling stories to the outside world that deviate in any way from the prevailing norm. The danger is simply too great that many people might actually listen. The presumption of Zomia as an imagined and preferred alternative is an important aspect of cultural intimacy in Laos. I noted at the outset of this chapter how Herzfeld’s (2002) idea of crypto-colonialism shapes how a dominated nation may be a colony in all but name if its independence is determined by economic dependence on outsiders. Here, I have extended this further and label the relationship between Hmong and Lao one of forced crypto-separatism. Even if ideas of separatism are not universal amongst the Hmong, the idea that they might be endures. In extending Scott (2009), Zomia is not a place anymore but an imagined alternative and one that has shown considerable longevity and potency. The Lao state attempts to keep the Hmong as an inalienable part of the multi-ethnic population and a relationship of ambivalence towards their level of difference continues. Ghosts of presumed separatism or Zomia remain and show no sign of disappearing yet.

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Conclusions: Reproducing Societal Inequality? Goudineau’s (2015) useful work on ethnic difference in Laos presents ethnicity as being paradoxical. Minorities are expected to be different but to also conform to the norm. I have attempted here to expand this with reference to the Hmong, in arguing that difference is both a marker of belonging and not belonging simultaneously. It is precisely that difference that earns the Hmong their place as members of the multi-ethnic peoples of Laos. Ethnic diversity is celebrated as a strong element of living heritage in Luang Prabang, yet push that difference too far towards dissent, and the Hmong no longer belong. This makes for a difficult path to navigate, and one that means that in the main, marginalization and discrimination will continue to be a feature of daily life for the Hmong. From the perspective of lowland Lao, difference is acceptable as long as it does not challenge the existing balance of power. Hmong textiles have their place in the Luang Prabang Night Market and this is a key way through which many Hmong are considered by the authorities to belong to the city. In keeping with prevailing narratives of ethnic discourse in Laos, being different allows minorities to make limited demands of the authorities through the insistence of both the right and possibility to embody the difference that is expected by the official narratives. But entrenched marginalization continues. Engagement with the Lao state is done in Lao and through Lao cultural norms. The Hmong language is unwelcome in institutions, which expect everyone to speak Lao. Aspirations for a Hmong state remain, and in my experience, this is talked of by Hmong themselves, some of whom were very open with me that they would like their own state. It is also talked about by others for whom the Hmong are not merely different in a traditional sense, but in ways that conflate difference with separatism. Difference becomes extremely problematic when it is seen as aligned with dissent. The relationship is a thorny one and is a key marker of Hmong-Lao relations; one can be different, but just how different is too different? I have argued here that difference as embodied folklore is welcome, but difference as a precursor to separatism or a deviation from the prevailing narrative is not. This is apparent in the violence that dogged the highway between Vientiane and Luang Prabang in 2015-2016, the consequences can be lethal and are unlikely to address grievances. Ideas of separatism cannot be allowed to become an essentialized part of the landscape around ethnic minorities in Laos or part of the cultural intimacy of Laos. I have argued that Zomia should now be understood as less of a place and more of an idea, an imagined preferred alternative. Of course, people do

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not refer to it as Zomia, but the term represents Scott’s notion for different peoples in Southeast Asia. The persistence of that idea, and the assumption of its persistence, stalk Hmong-Lao relations and vice versa. Laos is changing, and in the following chapter, I will argue that this is particularly so as Chinese influence in Laos becomes more prominent. Neng, Kou, and Leng are all building lives different from those experienced by their parents. Neng went as far as studying in China in a bid to secure better opportunities in the future and on graduation secured a salary three times as much as he had earned as a guesthouse receptionist through employment as a Mandarin-Lao translator for a Chinese company. This adds an extra layer to Hmong-Lao relations given that China is not understood or experienced universally among different groups in Laos. Everyone holds aspirations for the future and modernity. One cannot say that modernity does not apply to highlanders just because they come from highland areas. This means living in an interconnected world and navigating new landscapes.28 But even in attempting to address their apparent ongoing marginalization, this does not mean that future generations of Lao and Hmong will avoid reproducing different societal inequalities, in substance or in different forms. For the Hmong, the situation of being caught between the poles of ‘different but not too different’ continues to shape their cultural and social landscapes. How the rise of China will impact this is the subject of the following chapter.

References Anderson, B. (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London, UK: Verso. Baird, I. (2010) ‘The Hmong Come to Southern Laos: Local Responses and the Creation of Racialized Boundaries’, Hmong Studies Journal, 11, pp. 1–38. Baird, I. and Hillmer, P. (2020) ‘Veterans from Laos: War, Remembrance, Ritual, Rank, Racism, and the Making of Hmong and Lao America’, Hmong Studies Journal, 21(2020), pp. 1–37. Batson, W. (1991) After the Revolution: Ethnic Minorities and the New Lao State. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: MacMillan. Big Brother Mouse 2011. ວັ ດທະນະທໍ າແລະຮີ ດຄອງປະເພນີ ຂອງຊົ ນເຜົ່າໃນລາວວິ ຖີ ການດໍາລົ ງຊີ ວດ ິ Ethnic groups of Laos: cultures and traditions. Luang Prabang, Laos: Big Brother Mouse. 28 For a discussion of this, specifically regarding relocation in Laos, see High (2014).

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Bouté, V. (2017) ‘Reaching the Cities: New Forms of Network and Social Differentiation in Northern Laos’, in Bouté, V. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Changing Lives in Laos: Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-Socialist State. Singapore: NUS Press. Brubaker, R. (2002) ‘Ethnicity Without Groups’, European Journal of Sociology, 43(2), pp. 163–189. Castle, T. (1993) A War in the Shadow of Vietnam. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Chatterjee, P. (2004) The politics of the governed: reflections on popular politics in most of the world. New York: Columbia University Press. Cohen, E. (2001) Thai Tourism: Hill Tribes, Islands and Open-Ended Prostitution. Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus Press. Cohen, P.T. and Lyttleton, C. (2008) ‘The Akha of Northwest Laos: Modernity and Social Suffering’, in Leepreecha, P., McCaskill, D., and Buadaeng, K. (eds) Challenging the Limits: Indigenous Peoples of the Mekong Region. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Mekong Press, pp. 117–142. Ducourtieux, O. (2013) ‘Lao State Formation in Phôngsali Villages: Rising Intervention in the Daily Household and Phounoy Reaction’, Asian Studies Review, 37(4), pp. 451–470. Evrard, O. and Baird, I. G. (2017) ‘The Political Ecology of Upland/Lowland Relationships in Laos since 1975’, in Bouté, V. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Changing Lives in Laos: Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-Socialist State. Singapore: NUS Press. Evrard, O. and Goudineau, Y. (2004) ‘Planned Resettlement, Unexpected Migrations and Cultural Trauma in Laos’, Development and Change, 35(5), pp. 937–962. Goudineau, Y. (2015) ‘The Ongoing Invention of a Multi-Ethnic Heritage in Laos’, The Journal of Lao Studies, (Special Issue 2), pp. 33–53. Herzfeld, M. (2002) ‘The Absence Presence: Discourses of Crypto-Colonialism’, The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(4), pp. 899–926. Herzfeld, M. (2016) Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics and the Real Life of States, Societies and Institutions. New York, NY: Routledge. High, H. (2008) ‘The Implications of Aspirations’, Critical Asian Studies, 40(4), pp. 531–550. High, H. et al. (2009) ‘Internal Resettlement in Laos’, Critical Asian Studies, 41(4), pp. 605–620. High, H. (2014) Fields of Desire: Poverty and Policy in Laos. Singapore: NUS Press. Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (2012) The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hudson, T. (2014) ‘Traditions, Tourists, Trends’. Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Available at: http://digitalcommons. unl.edu/tsaconf/912 (Accessed: 1 October 2016).

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Kurlantzick, J. (2016a) A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Kurlantzick, J. (2016b) ‘Violence Flares in Laos: Hmong-Government Violence Appears to Have Flared up Again’, The Diplomat. Available at: https://thediplomat. com/2016/01/violence-flares-in-laos/ (Accessed: 1 November 2017). Lao Population and Housing Census (2015) Results of Population and Housing Census. Vientiane, Laos: Lao Statistics Bureau. Lee, G.Y. (2004) ‘Transnational Adaptation: an Overview of the Hmong of Laos’, in Tapp, N. et al. (eds) Hmong/Miao in Asia. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, pp. 441–456. Lee, S. (2010) ‘Searching for the Hmong People’s Ethnic Homeland and Multiple Dimensions of Transnational Longing: from the Viewpoint of the Hmong in Laos’, Hmong Studies Journal, 10, pp. 1–18. Michaud, J. and Culas, C. (2000) ‘The Hmong of the Southeast Asia Massig: Their Recent History of Migration’, in Evans, G., Hutton, C., and Kuah, K.E. (eds) Where China Meets Southeast Asia: Social and Cultural Change in the Border Regions. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Ngo, T.T.T. (2015) ‘Protestant Conversion and Social Conflict: the Case of the Hmong in Contemporary Vietnam’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 46(02), pp. 274–292. Petit, P. (2013) ‘Ethnic Performance and the State in Laos: The Boun Greh Annual Festival of the Khmou’, Asian Studies Review, 2013 37(4), pp. 471–490. Pholsena, V. (2002) ‘Nation/Representation: Ethnic Classification and Mapping Nationhood in Contemporary Laos’, Asian Ethnicity, 3(2), pp. 175–197. Pholsena, V. and Lockhart, B. (2006) ‘The Politics of History and National Identity in Contemporary Laos’, South East Asia Research, 14(3), pp. 333–338. Proschan, F. (1997) ‘“We Are all Kmhmu, just the Same”: Ethnonyms, Ethnic Identities, and Ethnic Groups’, American Ethnologist, 24(1), pp. 91–113. Schlemmer, G. (2017) ‘Ethnic Belonging in Laos: a Politico-Historical Perspective’, in Bouté, V. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Changing Lives in Laos: Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-Socialist State. Singapore: NUS Press, pp. 251–280. Scott, J.C. (2009) The Art of Not Being Governed: an Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Vallard, A. (2015) ‘Heritage Sites, Emerging Markets: the Case of the Textile Industry in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR’, in King, V.T. (ed.) UNESCO in Southeast Asia, World Heritage Sites in Comparative Perspective. Brunei Darussalam: Springer Publishers. Vang, N. (2011) ‘Political Transmigrants: Rethinking Hmong Political Activism in America’, Hmong Studies Journal, 12(1), pp. 1–46.

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One World: One Dream Voices of Pessimism, Strategies of Pragmatism and Facing the Rise of China Abstract In this chapter, I consider the growing influence of China and growing numbers of Chinese in Laos and argue that managing this relationship may well be the biggest challenge facing the Lao authorities and is the most likely cause of any legitimacy crisis in Laos. Lao people are making life decisions with increasing reference to China and responding in ways that are marked by pragmatism as Chinese influence increases. Fundamentally, the rise of China in Laos is leading to a renewed sense of Laos and Laoness. This provides the Lao authorities with a renewed sense of legitimacy, as they are expected to do something for the population in response to rising adverse influences from China. Whether they will do anything meaningful to address these concerns is another question. Keywords: national identity, (neo)-colonialism, political legitimacy, hegemony

On 9 November 2018, an article appeared in the English language stateowned Vientiane Times, commonly recognized as the mouthpiece of the Lao government and a source of communication from the government to foreign businesses and expatriates in Laos. The article was entitled ‘Lao – People’s Dream: Laos-China Railway takes away Poverty’. The article extolled the advantages of the railway project and interviewed apparently happy Lao citizens about how they thought it would improve their lives. Rebutting Western concerns about the railway by stating that Laos has sufficiently strong legislation and governance in place, the article ended with the words: ‘Thanks to the Laos-China Railway, all things will be better, wherever in China or Laos’.1 The official view on the railway is very clear: the railway has official support and the population must support that, whatever the cost. 1 The article (now behind a paywall) can be accessed via this link: http://www.vientianetimes. org.la/sub-new/Business/Business_Laos_263.php (Accessed: 1 December 2018). Interestingly

Wilcox, Phill, Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimacy in Laos. The Past and Present of the Lao Nation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463727020_ch04

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There is likely to be a heavy cost, with people being relocated and concerns rising about compensation for lost land and livelihoods. Many Lao have articulated to me repeatedly that they fear that the Chinese presence will be felt increasingly in Laos, and that Laos will become increasingly Chinese. It is not difficult to see why. In March 2019 and on a break from a bus trip from Luang Prabang to Sam Neua, I wandered into a shop to buy phone credit. Several minutes later, I walked out again having been unable to communicate with the owners, who were not Lao and spoke to me only in Mandarin, in which my linguistic ability is zero. Since I began research in Laos, these encounters have become increasingly commonplace and when I recounted these to Lao friends they were neither surprised nor happy at this state of affairs. The more I expressed interest in this level of Chinese influence in Lao cities, the more I heard about it. Repeatedly, research participants have told me that Chinese influence, Chinese presence, or simply the issue of China in Laos, is the most important issue facing the country. They told me of their fears that, in the future, Lao people would be working for the Chinese as China asserted ever greater control over Laos. The rhetoric has become almost a mirror image of sentiments made about the colonial period in Lao history. Sharing expressions amongst Lao of China in Laos now forms an important part of the backstage of Lao cultural and social life and was demonstrated to me clearly several years earlier on a bus journey in early 2016. The journey from Phongsali to Oudomxai is a long one and several hours south of Phongsali a man got on the bus and took the seat next to me. He seemingly had no other luggage than the plastic carrier bag he had with him. With no other evidence I concluded from observation that he must live in Laos. During the journey, he leaned over me repeatedly to eject cigarette ash through the open window and tried to frequently engage me in conversation. He appeared to speak no Lao or English but only Mandarin. On this occasion, my requests in both English and Lao to my neighbour to please speak in Lao because I do not understand Mandarin attracted the attention of the Lao man on the bus seat in front of us, who turned around and told me (in Lao) not to bother as the Chinese do not learn Lao when they come to live in about a month later, an article by a journalist named Zeng Ren appeared in the Chiang Rai times entitled ‘Defaming Laos-China Railway is Ignoring Lao People’s Future’. Its final three paragraphs are an exact copy of the wording that appeared in the Vientiane Times although a final sentence has been added: https://www.chiangraitimes.com/learning/defaming-laoschina-railway-is-ignoring-lao-peoples-future/ (Accessed: 1 April 2019).

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Laos. The more I asked people about China in Laos, the more it seemed that China in Laos was an issue on which everyone had an opinion. From rising numbers of Chinese people, to the growing proliferation of Chinese products, this topic was one that was commented on by interviewees across economic, social, and ethnic boundaries. From Hmong students from the countryside studying in Luang Prabang, to middle-class Lao in the boutique businesses in Luang Prabang, this was something about which people both held opinions and seemed willing to discuss, often without specif ic invitation. Since 2015, I have noticed a large growth in Chinese-operated businesses. Previously there had been one, then two, Chinese supermarkets in Luang Prabang. In mid-2019, there were f ive and there was also a branch of the Chinese store, Miniso. 2 I have been told repeatedly that the numbers of Chinese are rising throughout Laos and not only near the Laos-China border. In the previous chapters, I have argued that discourses of heritage and selective representations of the past are critical in how the Lao state represents itself. Those debates are important and remain so as Laos orientates itself to different audiences. In this chapter, I suggest that another factor is at play, one that has been largely sidelined by existing literature on Laos, namely, the growing influence of China in Laos, away from the Special Economic Zones and within Lao cities. I believe that the importance of this issue is difficult to overstate and that its future consequences for Laos have only recently started to become apparent. This is not surprising, given that Chinese initiatives such as the building of the Laos-China Railway under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are only just starting to come to fruition. Managing expectations around this will present significant challenges for the Lao political establishment. The presence of people of Chinese origin in Laos is not new. Vientiane has long had an area known as Chinatown. Recent immigration to Laos from China is widely understood as a different phenomenon, thanks to the increasingly close relationship between a person of Chinese origin and the territory of contemporary China.3 Newer Chinese immigrants migrate primarily for business reasons and this is in addition to the rising numbers of Chinese tourists. 2019 was billed as a year for China-Laos 2 Miniso is a Chinese brand that describes itself as aiming ‘to become a brand that is even better in tune with today’s youth, more clearly understanding their attitudes and behaviours in order to bring them the most enjoyable shopping experience possible’ https://www.miniso. com/EN/Brand/Intro (Accessed: 1 November 2019). 3 This argument is made very well by Nyiri and Tan (2017) in their recent edited volume on China in Southeast Asia.

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tourism. Together, the sheer volume of people in these two groups is far larger than anything seen previously. China is also attached increasingly to various infrastructure projects in Laos under the BRI, which makes for an increasingly close relationship between China and Laos through increased movement to and from both countries through infrastructure and development initiatives. Critics of these schemes also point out that this also leads to close relationships of debt and dependency. 4 One obvious example of this, and one that is remarked on frequently in Luang Prabang, is the establishment of the Laos-China Railway, a key aspect of the BRI. It will link Kunming in Yunnan with the existing six kilometres of railway line in Laos at Vientiane which will connect across the Mekong River Nong Khai in Thailand. For the first time, this means that there will be a rail link between China and Singapore. Its impact on Laos will be considerable, with relocations of people necessary for the line and its stations. Luang Prabang will be one of the key stations on the route and the coming railway was something people talked about at length. Several of my research participants had been forcibly relocated previously, one recently for an infrastructure project. Some told me of the need for development in Laos, but they and others also told me of concerns over this project and its implications. On a bus journey from Vientiane to Luang Prabang in mid-2019, I observed massive amounts of railway construction and on both sides of the highway. While the LaosChina Railway is the most visible of these Chinese-backed infrastructure projects, it is not the only one, and interlocutors were quick to connect their opinions about China with other Chinese activities, including Chinese businesses and some of the hydropower projects. One asked me why I am so interested in the railway, when he was more interested in hydropower. This is perhaps topical, as the Xepian-Xe Nam Noy Dam had collapsed the previous year, which had brought hydropower in Laos into popular discourse very prominently. This conversation happened in Luang Prabang, which will be impacted directly by the railway. This is in contrast with Western media coverage, which focuses heavily on the new train line. 4 In a recent policy paper for the Centre for Global Development, Morris (2019) argues that an increase in debt is a major risk to Laos because of the coming railway. Morris is not the first one to raise these concerns. Since 2018, Radio Free Asia (https://www.rfa.org/english/news/ special/laoschinarailway/) (Accessed: 25 May 2019) has referred to the railway as China’s fast track to influence in Laos, but for Laos it also means a signif icant accumulation of debt to China.

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The consequences of this and other infrastructure and commercial activities are likely to be both multiple and contradictory.5 In a study of road building in Laos, Trankell (1993) notes that people make statements that are publicly supportive of such projects: taking the official line that these are a good idea, whilst privately holding reservations. Priorities may also vary, particularly amongst the poorest in society for whom meeting immediate needs is more of a pressing concern than that which benefits the country overall. Talking about a village that had been relocated, a Hmong interlocutor told me that he understood a forthcoming hydropower project was good for the country, but that he did not expect to feel any benefits from this development in his village. Such projects engage the cultural intimacy model directly, with public statements and private feelings often showing significant divergence. Infrastructure projects are not mere projects in themselves but are symbolic of something much deeper. Here, I join other scholars who argue for the transformative qualities of not only people but also goods across borders.6 In the face of such interest in the topic of China in Laos, I concluded that, if this issue really was one of the most important to my interlocutors in talking about the future of Laos, then it should be similarly central to my work. I hope to demonstrate how and why this issue of Chinese influence in Laos was, and still is, several years on, so important to them. On the one hand, China was perceived by many of my participants as a country that is both modern and developed in comparison with Laos. At the same time, they also considered that rising China was likely to be negative for Laos. It is important for me to demonstrate the levels of pragmatism in this relationship. By pragmatism I do not mean optimism; instead, I mean an awareness that if changes were to happen, it made sense for them to be as prepared for these as much as possible. Many of my research participants, associates, and friends were either learning Chinese or intended to do so, as they felt that this was important for the future. One close participant went to study in China, believing that fluency in the Chinese language and knowledge of Chinese culture would be invaluable in doing business in Laos, particularly if Laos continued to change in the anticipated fashion. 5 For studies on transport infrastructure for Laos, see Trankell (1993) and High (2009) for studies on road building. I also find material from another context particularly useful here, including Dalakoglou and Harvey (2012); Harvey and Knox (2015). This is not a transport issue only, which is illustrated by Elinoff (2016). 6 See Hannam, Sheller, and Urry (2006); Sheller and Urry (2006). Reeves (2017) argues for what she terms the hope of infrastructure, in which people individually and collectively invest desires into new infrastructures, even if these are contradictory.

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The relationship is therefore complex, multi-faceted, and, in many respects, contradictory. It also shows that considerations of individual agency are vital, but it is important similarly to question where the limits of that agency are located. In this chapter I suggest that the issue of China in Laos is paradoxical. My research participants told me that they were negative about China in Laos. They feared for the future of their country in the face of what several talked about in terms of an invasion, and repeatedly told me that they wanted to see action from their government on this matter. At the same time, they became more conscious of their own identities as Lao, Hmong, and so on, in the face of the growing influence of China. This appears to consolidate a sense of identity by marginalizing it at the same time. Many of my interlocutors were from ethnic minorities, identified as being from poor backgrounds and felt marginalized by the Lao state. The issue of China was one that impacted on people across the Lao population. It is arguable that the rhetoric concerning China serves to centralize much of the rural population who are otherwise very marginalized. In sum, China in Laos appears to both marginalize and affirm a sense of Lao national identity at the same time. It is also a matter behind which the population is – to varying extents – united, which is in turn, paradoxical. A feeling of being let down by the state, especially over China, does not mean outward rejection of the state. Arguably at least, not yet. This paradox has a direct impact on how the Lao government manages its front and back stages. I believe that while the situation in Laos generally is applicable to the cultural intimacy model, in this chapter I aim to demonstrate how that works in relation to Chinese influence, as China is experienced simultaneously as a source of desire and concern. I believe that the gravity of the issue of China is something of which the Lao authorities are well aware, even if there is little outward discussion of this.7 I will argue here that such actions can be interpreted usefully through the cultural intimacy model of private actions having a direct impact on the physiognomy of the nation. I also do not wish to imply here that China is the only foreign influence in Laos, or to downplay the vitally important relationship between Laos and Vietnam. In my experience in and around Luang Prabang, when people talked about foreign influence, they would talk about China over and above any other country. Whether this actually reflects the situation is another issue, and one for another discussion. 7 Soulatha and Creak (2017) note the demotion of a Lao government minister, arguably because he was deemed too close to China.

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Leading from that point, it is very important for me to say here that, whilst this chapter is about perceptions of China in Laos, it is not about China in Laos per se. What follows will include some very negative views of China and, while I have some supporting literature and data for these viewpoints, I do not have the data to make convincing and comprehensive arguments about the nature of Chinese involvement in Laos. Second, I will talk here about strategies of pragmatism as my Lao research participants encountered China on various levels. I do not wish to suggest that by utilizing these strategies, there are no issues with the growth of Chinese involvement in Laos. Writers both in the Lao context and beyond have made convincing arguments about the worrying nature of Chinese involvement. Recent commentary on the BRI in particular has pointed out that its ramifications are even more extensive than they may first appear.8 Naturally, I have opinions on this issue too and, at face value, share many of the concerns outlined by my interlocutors. This chapter is not about what the situation is, but what they understood it to be and how they perceived their identities in relation to that. This is also about the situation in Northern Laos as I understand it. I am uneasy about applying the material in this chapter universally, especially to the south of the country. I must also point out a further challenge with this issue. In my experience, when Lao people talked about China and the Chinese people, they often employed general terms. One evening, while sitting with mostly Hmong friends and talking about whatever topics people wished to discuss that night, someone asked me what I did not like about Luang Prabang. Tired of my usual answers about not getting on with some of the other expats, who were often unduly critical of Luang Prabang, I responded rashly by saying ‘Chinese drivers’, as a Chinese registered car had nearly run my bike off the road at a roundabout on the way to the meeting. It did not occur to me when I made this statement that I was touching a very raw issue. Initially, I regretted expressing this for as soon as I said it, as it led to a communal moan about how the Chinese cannot drive and are commonly arrogant, general statements which made me extremely uneasy. I wondered at the time if I should challenge my research participants on this and ask them why they spoke with such generalizations about an entire nation of people, and a very populous nation at that, or whether I should just suspend judgement and listen. Studying stereotypes is not necessarily a direct endorsement of 8 Rigg (2012) provides a helpful overview of Laos at a key transitional time in its history. For literature specifically on China’s impact in Laos, see Fujimura (2010); Lyttleton and Nyíri (2011); Morris (2019).

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them and it is useful to think through why stereotypes become persistent. It is important to consider how these are realized in practice as well as in rhetoric, and whose interests they may serve. In one of my research periods in Luang Prabang, I lived near a bridge that was only open to pedestrians, cyclists, and motorbikes. With some regularity, a car driver would miss the signage and attempt to drive across it. My Lao neighbours found these incidents very funny, but the first question they would generally ask is whether the driver was Chinese. I now appreciate these statements as an access point into something fascinating. If stereotypes are an access point into something else, they are not useless and lead to further questions. Amongst these: why is it that people seemed more concerned about the Chinese than about most other things? Why did the figure of the Chinese invader loom so large? Whose interests does that serve? What are people trying to communicate by appearing so concerned about this issue? How can the issue of China in Laos be utilized to consider how my participants understood contemporary Laos? What do my participants really think of the current situation with China? What does that have to do with the situation in Laos? All these questions are very relevant for understanding contemporary Laos and I will interrogate these below. In the main, I went for a strategy of allowing people to talk on the basis that I was there to understand their worldview. I attempt here to present what my interlocutors told me in the terms that they used themselves or as close as is possible and then to question what this means. This leads me back to the question of understanding perceptions, even if that entails engaging with difficult questions over contentious issues.

‘One World: One Dream’? Writers on China in the developing world agree on one thing: that China’s impact is signif icant.9 They may disagree on how, why, and where it is significant, as well as whether this is generally positive or negative, but it is an issue that has become increasingly prominent. The picture is that of developing countries receiving high levels of Chinese influence, which transpires as a mixture of aid, business, diplomacy, and so forth. Chinese business enterprises in the developing world are literal examples of entrepreneurs 9 For literature on Laos specifically, see note 4. For more global reflections, see especially, Brautigam (2009); Ferdinand (2016); Jauch (2011). Lee (2018) argues persuasively for the deemed close connection between Chinese capital and Chinese state.

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leaving China and developing abroad economically.10 Scholars have observed that almost all Chinese investment has a business or profit-making aspect to it and, as Taylor (2007) points out, often appears in higher concentrations in countries that have greater natural resources.11 It is therefore not abstract. He argues that if this relationship is to become one that is genuinely helpful to both parties then whole populations, rather than elites of countries which receive Chinese attention, must become more vocal in setting the rules. The question here is who has the agency to inform that relationship, and how that is exercised. For Golley and Song (2011) this is about how China can manage its growing presence in ways that are palatable to the international community. A further question might be to look at more of the extent to which China can now determine the rules of what is palatable and what is not, and this is gaining traction as an important issue.12 This is important because, as Lee (2018) makes painfully clear, the point about China in the developing world is the perceived close relationship between Chinese presence and the Chinese state. China’s involvement in the developing world, especially around developing infrastructure in poorer countries allows, in Chinese perception, poorer countries to develop in the image of China. The dream of a prosperous world along Chinese lines can be seen in the ‘One World: One Dream’ slogan of the 2008 Beijing Olympics: that there is one unifying dream that China has a large role in defining for the future, a concept that reappears again in the era of The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Laungaramsri (2014) notes that what is at stake here is the sacrifice of large amounts of land to which the Lao government has sovereign right in a bid to reach some form of national prosperity. In other words, in Laos and other countries targeted by Chinese projects under the BRI, land must be turned into capital for these profit-making initiatives and any negative consequences are either ill thought through or considered to be collateral damage.13 There are a variety of reasons for this, ranging from giving genuine assistance to a poorer 10 Chinese discourse to encourage citizens to aspire success abroad is a point raised by Gill and Reilly (2007). 11 See Lee (2018) and Anderlini (2015), amongst others for further information about China’s activities abroad. 12 Yu (2017) argues that since the BRI began, China has embarked on a charm offensive towards recipient countries as China tries to sell itself as a friend, and a significant new driver in development. 13 For helpful background including the Lao government policy of ‘Turning Land into Capital’, see Lim (2015). This has also been analysed in relation to the coming railway and its costs by Rowedder (2019).

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neighbour, to trade, and to an effort to bring much needed ‘civilization’ to a backward country which can be utilized for business ventures. So far then, largely predictable, yet scholarship on China in Southeast Asia recognizes that nobody foresaw the speed or implications of China’s increasing presence.14 Laos is a good example of this. Chinese investments in Laos are now far greater than the country’s GDP. Chinese influence is now increasing throughout Laos away from the traditional border areas and Special Economic Zones. This is unsurprising as under the BRI, China seeks new markets for its goods. In Luang Prabang, this can also be witnessed at a very small scale, as handicraft producers warn against the sale of imitation products to tourists, many of which they allege are not local and come from China. Clearly, ideas of mobility are key to understanding modernity, not only in terms of people but for goods too, and that the mobility of goods is transformative of societies and their infrastructures. This speaks to what Lao people fear most: changing Laos from the inside as China and Chinese-backed infrastructures become increasingly embedded in different aspects of social life. I prefer to view mobility and transition as given, in contrast to viewing state and society as static entities. This chapter is largely about whether these increased mobilities and their qualities will lead to what Alden terms ‘values-friction’ (2005:157), how and why these manifest themselves, and the infrastructures that allow them to do so. Away from grand theories about what China says it is doing in the developing world, it is far more insightful to investigate how these are experienced, understood, and navigated on the ground by local populations.15 The situation in Laos demonstrates why different understandings of what constitutes investment and development are by no means universal.16 This is not as simple as arguing that Western discourses of development generally express various levels of concern about the preservation of culture, community participation, ethnic balance, the promotion of democracy, often done on a non-profit basis, while Chinese discourse around development is 14 The speed of China’s rise in Southeast Asia is noted by Fujimura (2010), Tan (2017) and Nyíri and Tan (2017). 15 See Lee (2018) for an overall look at how ‘global China’ is perceived. Also, Driessen’s (2019) work demonstrates that there is no coherent strategy among Chinese workers in the developing world. 16 Development, and what development means is increasingly recognized as a contested area, particularly as China takes an increasingly prominent role as a new donor and driver of development. For an overview of how development is complex, particularly with the rise of China, see Nyíri (2006).

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not marked by these factors. It is hard to say that the question of profit does not loom large in most discourses on aid and development. This may explain why Chinese development projects often include the exportation of a very large number of workers who are often used to harsh working conditions which would be unpalatable in many conventional discourses of international aid and development. I have heard concerns from many Lao people about the conditions for workers on the Laos-China Railway, with one restating a rumour that they are actually Chinese convicts as if it were factual. When I questioned why he believed this, he told me that the working conditions were very tough and that surely nobody would endure that out of choice. What constitutes development is by no means understood universally. Walking along Sisavangvong Road in Luang Prabang in late 2015, I overheard one East Asian tourist – most probably Chinese – remark to her Lao tour guide: ‘It’s nice here but it’s so under-developed. Where are all the high-rise buildings?’ When I recounted this to expatriates from the global North, many of whom spent considerable time trying to make their businesses attractive to tourists from Europe, the Antipodes, and North America, they were horrified and became extremely critical of China and the Chinese. One model of development is then a perfect vision of someone else’s worst nightmare. This question by the East Asian tourist might well be about the increased desire for perceived modernity on the part of the local population, for consumer goods and for apparently rising living standards. If a desire for ‘the good life’ is becoming more prevalent, along with a growing plethora of Chinese products, then it is crucial to think about how people interact with the growing everyday presence of China in their lives, particularly as the urban population of developing countries – including Laos – continues to rise. This was a point that has been made to me repeatedly in Laos. People recognized the poor quality of many Chinese goods but realized that they bought them largely because they are cheap and readily accessible. Over the following few years, people began to recognize that not all Chinese goods are equal in quality terms, with brands such as Huawei now representing a new level of luxury product. Laos is not unique in this and the situation shows many similarities with Chinese influence in other developing-country contexts, but also certain differences. For a start, China is just next door, very close by, and this closeness will be felt more strongly as the railway becomes a reality and travel by train commences. Alden (2005) argues that other Asian states may have immediate competing economic and political interests with China in ways that many African states with high levels of Chinese influence do not. The same nominally socialist political system remains in place and Laos believes

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strongly, at least officially, that it will benefit from Chinese-backed forms of development. Both Laos and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries generally practise both balancing and appeasement in their relationships with China.17 The perceived advantages to China of the Laos-China relationship are concerned principally with benefiting in symbolic political terms from Laos, new markets for goods, and showing that the BRI’s success will challenge conventional discourse that is marked by hegemony of Western countries. China claims that economic development is not connected to politics, but it is difficult to understand how they can be so entirely divorced from each other.18 Clearly, there are aspects of Chinese investment which may be attractive to the Lao government: promises of development in a country that remains poor are important. It is also easy to see there are concerns about losing control over the country. My argument here is that these are played out on both an individual and national level within Laos. I will outline various viewpoints from Laos that form around two poles: one that the Chinese are breaking up Lao society and the other arguing that by bringing development they are almost saving it. On both individual and collective levels, the Lao government is caught between these poles. While this chapter is about Lao, not Chinese, perceptions, the following illustrates the clash of expectations. In the course of their work with the Akha in Northwest Laos, Lyttleton and Li (2017) observed that while many Chinese were sympathetic to the concerns of many Lao people amidst rising Chinese influence, they also considered that many Lao needed to be more realistic about what they could obtain from the Lao government, and thus did not see any validity in charges that their actions in Laos constitute exploitation. They note how ‘the Chinese viewed villagers’ dissatisfaction with their attempts at land-grabbing as lack of economic commitment, simply confirming their “ignorance” and moral reticence to be “developed”’ (2017: 322). In many ways, this notion of needing to be brought out of under-development mirrors the discourse of the lowland Lao towards minorities, which I raised in the previous chapter. My interlocutor, Neng, who went to university in China and later worked as a translator for a Chinese business operating in Laos, told me that he felt that the Chinese looked down on the Lao as under-developed, yet it made economic sense for him to work for them as his language skills were sufficient for him to obtain a salary higher than what he would have received working for a Lao business. This demonstrates that even if some members 17 This has been argued by Ba (2003); Roy (2005); Soong (2016), amongst others. 18 This is a point argued by Ferdinand (2016); Yu (2017).

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of the population are willing to see opportunities from rising numbers of Chinese in Laos, their concerns remain. Laos is a good example of the divergence of opinions over the effects of Chinese influence outlined at the start of this section. While accepting the significance of China in the developing world, there is considerable disparity about the consequences of that influence and most crucially, whether it weakens or strengthens the Lao government. Tan (2017) contends that the growing presence of the Chinese strengthens the Lao government because it promotes greater Lao government authority in remote areas of the country.19 She contends further that, at the national level, worries about increasing Chinese influence are largely misplaced. This is not a viewpoint shared universally and many in Laos shared with me their concerns about a weak government growing more powerless to stop the perceived negative effects of increasing Chinese influence. I will demonstrate that the situation is far more complex than either of these stances and that there is a valid question about who has agency here and how this is exercised. To downplay people’s concerns about China is to fail to recognize the gravity of their concerns. My argument is that, regardless of whether people consider that they partner with the Chinese willingly or not, the overriding sentiment is that China’s interest in Laos is not benign, even if individual Chinese people do not express it in these terms. The attitude of my research participants, particularly of the Hmong who are already marginalized by Lao national discourse, is pragmatism. This, plus ambivalence, is something I have encountered repeatedly in Laos in how people perceive and interact with China. To them, China is modern and developed, but it is also a threat. This again raises the necessity of considering agency, and how people are not mere passive subjects in this process of societal change, even if they do not all participate equally.20

‘China Is Developed’ Neng is a young migrant to Luang Prabang who, at the time when I first met him, was in his last year of high school and working part-time to support 19 This is also explored by Rippa (2019). 20 My argument is in line with Lyttleton and Li (2017). Their article on Chinese rubber farms and Akha villagers is that the Akha were aware of one overriding sentiment – whatever else they wanted from a relationship with China, they felt that their land was being taken away by the Chinese. While some partnered with the Chinese largely out of a desire for perceived modernity, they became angry when these desires were not met. For an analysis of China in the global south generally, see Mohan and Lampert (2013), Tan-Mullins, Mohan, and Power (2010).

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himself, whilst considering his options for university. Faced with the difficulties of university admission in Laos, largely around the small number of institutions and the large number of applicants, he began to talk to me about going to university in China. Lao students are invited to sit entrance exams for universities in China each year. He took the entrance exams, passed, and was accepted, and took up language studies in Yunnan, later moving to study at a university located further north, near Shanghai, for bachelor studies. At the time, I asked why he wanted to consider China, given that he did not speak Mandarin and considering the poor reputation of China in Laos. During one of our evening conversations at the guesthouse in Luang Prabang at which Neng worked, we witnessed a Chinese tourist making a large mess by vomiting in the outside area and leaving Neng (and presumably myself) to clean it up. This promptly terminated our conversation as we had nowhere to sit. Fearing that my landlord and Neng’s manager, Ek, would be angry with him, Neng asked me to tell Ek what had happened, which I did. Ek’s reaction was to say that the tourist was Chinese, so of course she would not apologize. On a visit to Neng’s village in a neighbouring province, Neng told me about people from his village selling their labour as farmers to the Chinese to make money. Several research participants from that area told me that they had worked as labourers on Chinese farms, earning very little in return. One of them, Ja, had done this work frequently, and told me that the work included crouching down on the ground to spray the plants while holding one’s breath to avoid breathing in the fumes. All workers worried about having to spray chemicals on plants, and worried about health effects in the long-term future after having done this. They commented that the fruit produced were unnatural looking and overly large. This work meant earning some extra money but given that the chemicals pose a considerable risk to oneself, it was hazardous work. Ja told me that he felt that Chinesebacked development, which would employ Lao people, was a good thing but conceded that he would have little use for development if he died from exposure to Chinese chemicals. He, like the others I met who did this work, did so because they had a fairly limited range of options. They were largely critical of the presence of Chinese employers in Laos and saw little benefit for ordinary Lao people and were concerned about what the land leased to Chinese farms would be like when returned. None of these concerns about China in Laos were sufficient to deter Neng from considering China as a possible study destination as he felt Chinese education and becoming fluent in the Chinese language would be helpful for him. As Chinese influence is growing in Laos, he felt this would enhance his prospects of obtaining a good job in the future. This also indicates a willingness to migrate where

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necessary, to vote with one’s feet in pursuit of better opportunities, as well as a willingness to collaborate with a power about whose intentions one had at best ambiguous views, even when one participates with limited social and political capital in an attempt to do something about it. Neng left for China and while he found life there difficult initially, he swiftly learned to speak Mandarin. Although he complained about the unhealthiness of Chinese food while he longed to cook for himself, he also complained about other aspects of the Chinese lifestyle. He told me repeatedly that China is much more ‘developed’ and ‘modern’ than Laos. I asked him at the time and subsequently whether Hmong people having migrated to Laos from China had any bearing on his enthusiasm to go there and he told me that it had: ‘China is absolutely where we came from’, but their nostalgic longing did not transpire into anything particularly tangible once they were there. He told me that he had met Chinese Hmong in Yunnan and that although they had similarities in culture, there were also differences. Any fraternal bond of shared Hmong identity is therefore presented via the shared history but complicated by reality and geographical and societal difference.21 But for negatives there are also positives. Because things were cheaper to buy there, it was more sensible to buy Chinese things in China rather than Chinese products in Laos itself. Neng referred to this as ‘buying slightly better rubbish quality from China in China’. Neng chose to study business and hoped that a degree in business from China would be a good basis for his future in Laos and would earn him a good income. This has been largely realized, as he is now working in Laos for a Chinese company. He told me that having come from a poor background in Laos he decided he wanted a life different from that of his parents. This was important to him. These sentiments were echoed by Shong, a fellow Hmong from a different province whom Neng met in China and to whom he introduced me. Both said that while studying so far away was difficult, they felt it was an important step for the future. Shong was accepted to study media in Yunnan, where he felt his language skills would be advantageous. Both told me that while they found the Chinese to not always understand or appreciate Lao culture, overall, they felt that they were benefiting from education in China. These feelings were echoed when I visited Neng at university in China. I asked him and some of his friends about their impressions of studying there and they 21 This is demonstrative of work done with Hmong in Thailand and China by Tapp (2001) who found that contrary to expectations and previous knowledge, the Hmong identity in China itself was far more equivocal than he had been told by Hmong in Thailand.

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told me that the Chinese students were not particularly friendly, did not mix easily, and criticized the Lao students – or in this case, the Hmong – for eating raw food which they told me is associated with uncultured people in China.22 They told me that they understood nobody from Laos could visit them and that they only had each other. For me these impressions are worth mentioning as it demonstrates a micro version of something that China is attempting on a much wider scale: weaker or more marginalized nation states are expected to accept the Chinese terms rather than vice versa. In mid-2019, at the Luang Prabang bus station, I asked Neng again about how he would compare Laos and China, given that he had been studying in China for several years. Neng told me that in his opinion, China can do anything it wants in Laos because it has the money and the means to work around Lao law. These feelings increased when he graduated and returned to Laos and began working for a Chinese company. Short of moving there, other research participants engaged with China and Chinese forms of development on different levels. Several told me that they felt Lao people would gain jobs from Chinese business interests. They told me that developing Laos is itself a good thing given that the country is very under-developed, which again is a reflection of what the Lao government says about the country’s urgent need for development. Several interlocutors in Luang Prabang who had become close friends were enthusiastic attenders of a free Chinese language class, which coincidentally clashed with my informal discussion group, and for which I was asked to amend the time of my session. I agreed but at the same time asked everyone why they wanted to study Chinese. I asked repeatedly why people, if they were really so concerned about China, were so interested in the country, language, and culture. Without exception, they said that it was important for the future. Kou told me that he felt people studied the Chinese language for the same reasons people in Laos had once learned French: Chinese influence was growing and few Chinese speak Lao. Other research participants bought Chinese products at the Chinese market, and although they recognized that the quality was often substandard, the price was low enough to be attractive.

‘We Will No Longer Have Jobs’ Amongst my Hmong interlocutors, some saw China far more negative than positive. Tou and his friend Doua, both Hmong and both at teacher training 22 This is confirmed by Tapp (2001).

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college in Luang Prabang while living in dormitories, told me that the problem is that Laos is not China, yet the Chinese behave like it is their country. I asked about Chinese involvement in Laos, and both became very expansive. I met them through the literacy charity and as they were good friends, we often talked as a small group and I let them know that I was interested in China in Laos. As I got to know them better, it was a topic we returned to often and both expressed their opinions vehemently. Tou comes from further south and told me how he loved nature, a prominent feature of his home area. It is therefore unsurprising that he chose to talk about the future of Laos and of China in terms of natural surroundings. Given that he was studying to become a teacher, he told me that he also thought of the future in terms of education. Tou gave his ideas in the form of a tree analogy and added to his words by drawing this for me. He explained: I think the future is like a tree with two branches. One branch is rich people and one is poor people. The poor people can’t get to the rich side, but they want to believe they can. And the rich people want the poor people to believe they can, even though it’s impossible. Even when the rich people build a school, they do it for themselves because they know the poor people will eventually come and work for them. It’s better for the poor people to get some education but everything will always go to the rich people. And the Chinese are very smart […] They are very good at getting what they want. They know Lao people want money so they give Lao people what they want and in return, the Chinese get what they want.

Getting what one wants is a persistent theme underpinning Tou’s statement and this speaks to ideas of achieving modernity or aspirations for the good life. He also saw that in achieving this, or in a desperate bid to believe in that idea, there was a potential for unpleasant and perhaps unforeseen consequences. As more people came to believe in a dream of prosperity, they gave up access to their only real asset – land – in pursuit of this dream. Once the land was gone, it was gone for good. For Tou, this was frightening and not one to consider lightly. Doua comes from a province further north, one that has seen very large amounts of Chinese investment. He talked at length about the importance of access to land, and how the Chinese will lease land from the Lao for very long periods of time, something he told me that he had witnessed in his home area. He felt that making quick money would be attractive to many Lao, but in return they would end up with nowhere to live. During one of our longest conversations, he commented:

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I am worried about the Chinese too. They know the Lao people are poor and poor people don’t know how important the land is. In the future, the Lao people will work for the Chinese and they [the Lao people] will have nowhere to live. They [the Chinese] want land and they know that the Lao people want money.

The key aspect here is the idea of China being an access point for money and modernity. One of my main research participants, a Khmu man named Chanh, told me repeatedly that he felt that Laos needed to develop and that the railway was a good way to do this for Lao people would use it too. He conceded though, in several meetings, that the relocation of people would be immense. At the same time, he worried that this would make Laos much more accessible to China and that China was unlikely to export the best of itself. He was far more unequivocally worried about the hydropower projects because he said that Laos sees no benefit from these at all.23 Others have aired similar concerns. My landlord, Ek, told me without reservation about the new Chinese supermarkets in Luang Prabang. Like many, Kou has told me repeatedly that Chinese influence in Laos is good and bad, but more the latter than the former. While more jobs for Lao people is not a bad thing, he talked about how Chinese people would come, spend money in Chinese-owned businesses, eat in Chinese restaurants, stay in Chinese-run hotels and guesthouses, or rent houses from other Chinese. Even if they stayed long-term, their investment would not benefit Laos in anything other than a superficial way, as all the money would go back to China. He asked me with a sense of real urgency: ‘Phill, do you see? They just want to use us to make money. They get rich and we don’t.’ When I mentioned a few days later to another friend that Chinese influence in Laos had been described to me in such terms, he replied, this time in English, by saying without hesitation that he agreed 100 per cent with this gloomy description, even checking the dictionary for the word colonialism.24 Others talked about being priced out of typical Lao spaces and away from what they saw as traditionally Lao activities. The idea of agricultural Laos is perhaps exemplified by its abundant markets of fresh produce. Increasingly though, I was warned against buying certain products because of the unsafe 23 Chanh is not alone in questioning the benefit of the hydropower projects to the Lao population. See especially, Shoemaker and Robichaud (2018) and Zeller (2015). 24 The dynamics of this situation are not unique to Laos. Knight (2015) analyses how, faced with crisis in Greece, many Greeks regarded countries such as Germany negatively, as the effects of the economic crisis unfolded.

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farming practices I mentioned earlier. Friends told me not to buy particular vegetables, or types of meat, particularly if they seemed abnormally large or in the case of fruit, too shiny and overly beautiful; I was told that these were ‘not Lao’ and had been grown on Chinese farms. Grown using a large amount of pesticides, they were deemed to be unhealthy, echoing the situation outlined by Ja who had been involved in the chemical spraying process. Better still, I was told to buy Lao products directly from the growers, even if they were not as pleasing aesthetically. China was not only taking over the land, I was told, but also the marketplaces where traditional produce was sold, even though it was still being sold by Lao traders. One day in 2016, Leng came to see me and we got to talking about the Chinese in Laos. Like Neng, Tou, and Doua, Leng is Hmong and a migrant to Luang Prabang. He told me extensively about how there are too many Chinese buying land in Laos. He is a mild-mannered polite person, and the vehemence in his answers surprised me. I asked him several times to slow down so that I would be better able to follow the conversation. He would then use this as an opportunity to give more information about the issues on which he was speaking, moving between Lao and limited amounts of English at the same time. He told me that too many Chinese people buy businesses and land in Laos, and that they should not be allowed to do this because it ultimately meant that the Lao people would just work for the Chinese and no longer have jobs of their own. He then went on to say that there is nothing local people can do about what the government does. Given that he was so patriotic in other areas and supportive of the party, this is an area about which he felt very strongly. After talking about something else, Leng then returned to this topic. He told me that the Lao government sold land in Bokeo, Luang Nam Tha, and Oudomxai Provinces to the Chinese, and that the Lao government did not think enough about the future. I asked him directly how big a problem he felt this was and he answered categorically that, in his opinion, this was the biggest problem for Laos. In the future, Laos will just become Chinese and everyone will speak Chinese. This was an interesting departure from his position in previous discussions of very intense patriotism. Clearly though, this support had its limits and in thinking about China, these limits had been reached. I believe now that Leng, Kou, and the others were merely saying what many people are thinking. Sometime following this conversation, Leng went for an interview at a hotel near the heritage zone and told me that he left frustrated at not being able to communicate with the Chinese manager. Despite Leng’s fluency in several languages, Chinese was not yet one of them, nor did he show any interest in learning it. A Khmu interlocutor,

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Chanh, agreed, telling me he did not wish to learn Chinese himself, but he understood that Laos was changing as a result of China and Chinese influence. Another Hmong man, Kou, told me that he wished he had learned it, and that his employment prospects would probably be better if he had. These feelings about the Chinese were not limited to my Hmong interlocutors. Nor are they limited to those most likely to suffer very directly from the adverse effects of Chinese infrastructure projects, such as those facing forcible relocation to make way for the Laos-China Railway. Instead, I found them to be held by a cross section of the people I spoke to in Laos, and something for which everyone seemingly had an opinion. In early 2016, I witnessed an interesting exchange developing in a Facebook group I had joined. The group is largely designed for expats living in Luang Prabang, although several elite Lao business owners in the city also joined. In this exchange, a Chinese businessman posted some very critical comments about local Lao people, and he became the subject of virulent abuse by other expatriates and particularly by Lao group members who told him that if he did not like Laos, he should consider returning home as there were too many Chinese anyway. I have since seen several similar exchanges, which usually revolve around one person complaining about what they see as unwelcome or unpleasant Chinese behaviour, and others jumping on the bandwagon of ‘bad China’. These voices represent concerns about being caught between power versus powerlessness, and concern versus pragmatism. I find the idea of being caught between priorities an insightful one. These people viewed China as a threat, but desired elements of what China represents. They also recognized that Laos is poor, but worried about paying for the price of development. In this, they represent Laos as being vulnerable and their own position weak, but strikingly, that this entire situation is not binary. Some embraced the opportunities offered by a rising China, but with critical eyes.25 My research participants agreed that questions about China in Laos involve advantages and disadvantages and are questions that are both difficult and complicated. That is not to downplay the strong feelings people hold on this issue. Rather less zealously, Chit, a lowland Lao interlocutor working in and around the heritage zone in Luang Prabang told me that there are many Chinese in both Laos and specifically in Luang Prabang now. For him, the idea of building a railway was in his words (in English) 25 My focus here is on how China is perceived in Laos and the dynamics of these encounters. However, for an insight in how Chinese nationals experience life in developing countries and the assumptions they encounter, see Driessen (2019).

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‘crazy’, and he felt sad for those who would be forcibly relocated. He feared that any compensation would be completely insufficient and that local people would remain poor. This is in keeping with the views of other local people who told me that they felt powerless in the face of such huge changes for Laos, and that they felt that its implications would have far-reaching and negative influences on Lao culture. Chit was keen to pick up on this in talking about changing Luang Prabang. There are so many Chinese here. Not only in Luang Prabang, especially near the border. Ten years ago, there were not many Chinese here but now there are so many. Dara Market has so many Chinese now. You know the mini-mart there? That’s Chinese. The Chinese have their shopping mall here now too.26

Chit told me he understood that Laos was changing and that there were more cars and motorbikes in Luang Prabang; he himself needed these things. He talked to me at length about wanting his children (both under ten) to learn about traditional cultures in Laos as he felt it important to safeguard these for the future. In one of our conversations about China, I asked him if he wanted his children to learn Chinese, given that so many of my research participants were keen to do so. He told me in response that he did not consider it essential that they did, but that they may choose to do so if they, like others, came to believe that it would be advantageous in the future. He felt that Chinese influence in Laos would stretch further into Luang Prabang’s heritage zone itself and told me of the importance of collective action in response to this, if anything were to change for the better. While some of my interlocutors also told me that UNESCO might assist with this process of tempering creeping Chinese influence, others were less optimistic. Looking around the heritage zone, Chit told me ‘it really doesn’t matter what UNESCO does, because in thirty years this will be Chinese anyway.’ One cannot be much more pessimistic than Chit was in that moment thinking of Luang Prabang becoming entirely Chinese, or Kou when he talked of China using Laos to make money and the Lao people receiving so little in return. This is apparent in the fears of Laos becoming a client state 26 Dara Market is a small covered market inside the heritage zone in Luang Prabang which now contains a Chinese supermarket. The shopping mall referred to here relates to a complex housing another Chinese supermarket outside the city centre. Please see Figure 8 for an image of the Chinese supermarket.

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Figure 8  The front of a Chinese shopping mall in Luang Prabang

Photograph taken by Amanda Silberling, May 2019 and reproduced with permission

of China and that ‘we will no longer have jobs’ (Tou and Doua) or that ‘in the future, we will just work for the Chinese’ (Chit). ‘China is becoming rich from exploiting Laos’ (Kou). Even those who studied the Chinese language and obtained a higher education in China by studying there (Neng and Shong), told me that, as Chinese influence in Laos was growing, it seemed a good strategy for better job prospects in the future. Those more willing to engage with China by learning to speak Mandarin and learning more about Chinese culture are Hmong, and this seemed more as a general strategy to make progress in everyday life given the marginalization they may face otherwise, an argument made in the previous chapter. Chit, a lowland Lao, was not as willing, and his pessimism very apparent. The degrees of pragmatism demonstrated here are indicative of how people felt about power relations in everyday life more generally. This is becoming more of an issue as China expands outwards under the BRI, which marks a significant change of direction in China’s foreign policy as China attempts to make its voice heard increasingly on the world stage. In the Lao case, the Lao government receives investments from China which, despite a considerable disparity in the size of both economies, has key advantages for both sides. For Laos, this has been in the form of several Chinese-backed infrastructure projects, none more apparent than the coming Laos-China Railway. The Lao government desires these as a way

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to develop the country but may worry privately about the costs, a pattern replicated throughout the developing world. In substance if not in actual articulated theory, these are concerns further mirrored by my research participants. Kou told me in a recent conversation that he believed one reason for mass Chinese immigration to countries such as Laos is simply because there is no more room for so many people in China anymore. Consequently, they are encouraged to leave China and seek opportunities abroad. I suggested that this might not be the whole picture, and that the Chinese who do migrate may have multiple reasons, but he found the idea pervasive.27

Pessimism With Ambivalence: The New ‘Things of the House’ Amidst the pessimism identified by my interlocutors, ambivalence and pragmatism are also relevant. My research participants recognized that Laos is poor and that China is more developed. They speak of the need for development in Laos and identified this as a key area on which they thought the Lao President should focus his attention. They speak concurrently of their fears that Chinese influence will change the country in ways they do not want. For some, engaging with China and the Chinese language were steps that were reasonable and advantageous for the future. I have argued in previous chapters for the application of the cultural intimacy advanced by Herzfeld to the Lao context, and the importance of the collective sentiments that make up the nation’s core sentiments and which citizens recognize. These elements of ‘dirty laundry’ or as Herzfeld goes on to term it via a traditional Greek expression the ‘things of the house’ (2016 [1997]: 191) are the backstage of the nation and the key to keeping the nation together as a bonded entity. It is a model that permits people to feel that they belong to the nation, but also allows for them to feel discontented and express their frustrations. This explains why citizens may be both critical and patriotic at the same time and is not inherently contradictory, for it is in these collective discontents that the state acquires its social fabric. Having argued above for the existence of a relationship akin to neo-colonialism between Laos and China, I argue here that discourses around China are becoming more central in Laos than they were previously. The actual official approach to China is one that is more ambivalent and cautious, given a 27 The notion of migrating for better opportunities is actually not incorrect amongst the Chinese who work abroad, a point researched in Driessen’s (2019) ethnography.

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period of very bad relations in the 1980s, which the Lao authorities likely remember. Nevertheless, this does not change the actual perceptions of Chinese influence. I noted in Chapter 1 that states claim to be everlasting, and relevant for all time.28 A key part of that image is in its claims to eternity, but within those claims lies a fallacy: eternal cannot mean unchanging, despite claims to timelessness in Luang Prabang’s official marketing. After all, the state is not an abstract entity but is made up of people with human agendas which change over time. Laos has changed in many significant ways since the revolution in 1975. If we accept that the Lao government has reinvented itself as the authentic guardians of Lao culture, and as such, appealed to these collective cultural traditions and downplayed the areas of history that are problematic. Clearly the current Lao government has travelled far from its original revolutionary roots. This is in no small part down to the collective private sentiments of the population. This social fabric has influence over the nation’s outward faces. As Evans (1998) puts it, for the Lao political establishment attempting to continue to be relevant to the population as communism fast became yesterday’s news, its attempts to reinvent itself claiming to be representative and the protector of a population under an umbrella of Laoness has worked well for the regime in the past. I would argue that, largely, they continue to do so. This speaks to unifying sentiments that produce a sense of common ground between Lao people, essentially the ‘imagined community’ of multiethnic people. That imagined community is grounded in the past and is perceived as a strong basis for the future. The changes in Laos since the economic reform in the mid-1980s occurred due to external changes on the world stage, but also as a response to discontent at home with many of the government’s restrictions on, amongst other things, economic activities, and religious and cultural practices. These collective private sentiments have a key role in the production of social change, which would surely come as no surprise to those setting the public face given that they too are people and citizens. With the state adopting the language of family protector towards its population, there is also an opportunity for people to demand change from within. By reifying the state, and accepting its rhetoric of being a common group, people can also make demands of it. 28 I see an overlap here between the arguments of Herzfeld (2016 [1997]) and those of Migdal (2001) in his work on the role of the state in society and how the state becomes part of society. Unfortunately, Migdal does not consider the role of the state as inalienable from society, made and remade by it.

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Concerns about China are, I believe, increasing as Chinese influence grows, hence the growth of discontent and concern about what the government is and is not doing to promote and protect Lao interests. The situation of China in Laos is an excellent example of Herzfeld’s model in action. If cultural intimacy is a model of both belonging and discontent, then there is a strong role for both here. My research participants told me that the Chinese do not belong, and they experienced discontent about the presence of China in their country. In other words, China is seen increasingly as a threat to the notion of Laoness. Collective discontent, ambivalence, and pragmatism are becoming central in how my research participants viewed Laos itself. Moreover, they expected, or hoped, that their government would do something about it. Scholars have argued convincingly for an entrenchment of identities in the face of a perceived external threat.29 I am arguing here that in these private sentiments about China and awareness of it as a changing force, there was also a growing sense of being Lao. This is of course the basis of a paradox: in fearing the country will cease to exist as an independent entity amidst growing Chinese influence, ironically people become more aware that it is their country. This includes people such as my Hmong interlocutors, who were already marginalized by the Lao political establishment, as well as people across the population who shared their views on China in Laos. This latter point is particularly important, as some of those who were critical of the Chinese worked in and around the state bureaucracy in Laos. Under the cultural intimacy model, such people both help to create and sustain the societies they claim to serve, but shared frustrations towards the Lao state. They, like other citizens, bestow the state with their expectations and give it authority even while they blamed it, and expressed discontent about China in public or private. In more direct situations, as in refusing to engage with Chinese customers, making it not entirely straightforward for China to operate in Laos through criticizing China on social media. Regarding the Chinese casino developments near the Laos-China border, both Neng and Kou told me that one can earn a higher salary working in these places, but that they did not want to do that sort of work. Both also expressed concerns about these developments and expected the state to do something about them. Again, this is indicative of people bestowing their hopes on the Lao state to do something about China, and to acknowledge their concerns. By sanctioning discontent with the Chinese becoming part of the fabric of Lao social life, the Lao government encourages support for itself as the 29 For two examples of this, see Anderson (2006 [1983]) and Winichakul (2011).

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entity that apparently can – and should – be dealing with this problem. By criticizing the Lao state for its perceived failings of dealing effectively with the ‘Chinese problem’, my research participants are legitimizing the Lao state. By expecting the state to do something about this perceived problem, my interlocutors legitimized the state’s existence as a legitimate authority. They, like Leng, became frustrated and unhappy at the state’s inability to respond effectively to what he and many saw as a serious problem. Chit worked in heritage in Luang Prabang and arguably had one of the closer relationships with local power structures. He expressed disappointment that they were not meeting his expectations of what he considered local authorities should do in allowing Chinese influence to creep closer and closer. Interestingly, my landlord Ek considered that Luang Prabang would be fine as long as the certification from UNESCO remained in place. Chit did not agree with this position when he stated that the Chinese would eventually take control of the heritage zone itself. The heritage zone of Luang Prabang appears as a sort of UNESCO-sanctuary, while locals report – not always unhappily – that the everyday stuff of life relocates in greater volume elsewhere. How this will change in the future remains to be seen. Clearly, situations of responding to perceived discontent place the local and national authorities in a difficult position. Ignoring private sentiments of discontent can undermine the state’s own credibility. Acknowledging a problem openly can do the same. Nor does it seem that the Lao government is entirely deaf to this, which underlines why statements that are overtly supportive of Chinese infrastructure projects, such as that with which this chapter opened, tell us a considerable amount about the political landscape in Laos and demonstrates a response to collective private sentiment. In her work on China in Laos, Tan (2017) argued that fears about the growth of Chinese businesses in Laos are misplaced because, rather than weakening the Lao government, the rise of China assists with the establishment of Lao government control, particularly in remote areas.30 On one level, her argument is logical, on another, it is easy to dismiss it as overlooking the extent to which my research participants were unhappy at what they saw as the rise of China weakening the Lao government, a position that they felt acutely. Recognizing the political landscape does not mean that people’s perceptions are any less sincere. I believe Tan may well be correct in her analysis that rising Chinese development in Laos is a very conscious choice by the Lao authorities. I would argue that the picture is more nuanced because 30 This is a position Tan has held for a long time and is apparent in her earlier scholarship (2012, 2014) too. This has also been examined fruitfully by Rippa (2019).

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even as I recognize that the state’s role is not absent, the concerns of people on the ground need to be taken seriously in considering how they understand this situation. I have shown above that my research participants considered it their government and their country. While they saw the Lao government as being weakened by China, they also expected things of it as an entity in ways that they might not otherwise have done. To clarify, I am not saying that my Hmong research participants were no longer marginalized by the Lao government. I am, however, saying that they saw a direct connection between themselves and the government that might not have existed were it not for the China issue. My research participants have expectations of the state, and in criticizing it, legitimize it at the same time. In fairness to Tan, the BRI was not a prominent part of the landscape at the time she was writing, and the full implications of the BRI are only now becoming clear. Similarly, it is worth remembering that not only is the BRI a significant change in foreign policy direction for China and perhaps alters China’s own cultural intimacy, but also that relations between China and Laos have not always been amicable either, particularly in the early days of the revolution, when it was largely centred around China’s often fraught relationship with Vietnam.31 The social fabric of a nation can and does shift over time in response to changing external and internal conditions. I have observed that states and their citizens may behave in contradictory and ambiguous ways – a term that could well be attributed to Neng and Shong, and to Chit’s attitude towards his children studying Mandarin. Ambivalence and pragmatism towards China can therefore be seen on both an individual and national level. Concerns about China are becoming part of that inner fabric of daily life and, for much of the population, far more important than memories of the past and how these inform what is presented as national culture today.

Final Thoughts – One Belt: Multiple Paths? Interpretations of the past and cultural heritage remain very live issues in Laos. The selective versions of history mean that certain sections of the 31 Vietnam has long seen itself as the older brother in its relationship with Laos, and its role in helping to establish Laos as a one-party state is very significant. Vietnamese influence remains strong throughout Laos. It is definitely arguable that the increasingly close relationship between Laos and China is at some cost of its historically close relationship with Vietnam. This is not, however, a simple matter of one cancelling out the other, more symptomatic of how both join a long line of other foreign influences in Laos.

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population, such as the Hmong and anyone else who fought against the communists, have disappeared. The previous two chapters considered the contested nature of heritage and how ethnic difference in Laos is both present and constructed. The role of other outsiders is also important, not least the complicated relationship between Laos and Thailand and Laos and Vietnam, the latter of which is diminishing largely because of the rise of China in Laos. By focusing on China and Chinese influence in Laos, I do not mean to imply that these issues have gone away. The political status quo has remained in existence for over forty years. Laos under the current regime has navigated the fall of communism elsewhere in the world, negotiated economic liberalization, and joined ASEAN. It is safe to argue that the regime is not in imminent danger of collapsing because of its selective renderings of history. People are now more concerned about the issue of China and the Chinese in Laos. This has resulted in an interesting paradox: people find common ground and become aware of what is happening to Laos just as they feel at the same time that Laos is itself in danger. When they desire the state to do something about China’s rising influence in Laos, they give legitimacy to the Lao political establishment itself. Perhaps this legitimizing the state through a common grievance, or through the exercise of cultural intimacy, will only last so long. In a perceptive essay recently published, Rathie (2017) argued that the Lao population will need to decide how far and how long they will accept what was once a revolutionary government riding on private business. I would add to this that they will also need to consider how far they are willing to accept apparently state-sanctioned Chinese influence, and how far their expectations of how the government responds are realized. In his statements about the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) being loyal to the country, even my most outwardly patriotic research participant, Leng, grew frustrated at the government’s response to the Chinese issue. What will happen to his belief in the rightness of the current government if he comes to believe that the government has failed in this most important issue? For Chanh, the government needs to stop Chinese migrating to Laos on a long-term basis. Will his expectation, which echoes those of others, be met? Will anything happen to address Chit’s, Chanh’s, and other people’s concerns that the local and national authorities are not doing enough about this? This is a good moment to once again recall the famous essay by Carothers (2002a) in which he argues that democracy is not necessarily the linear end point of political transition. Questions about the direction

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of transition of political change, or transition in Laos are very relevant. Transition to what? Carothers’s point is that it is an error to assume that a society in transition will adopt at least some form of capitalist democracy. In the follow-up piece to that essay, Carothers (2002b) contended that he was not arguing that this is a good state of affairs, but that the evidence for his position is mounting. Fifteen years on, he is still correct. The assumption that Laos will cease to have a one-party system and move to something else is precisely that, an assumption. It is not a given. Direct patronage by China may have a considerable amount to do with holding the current political system in place. How efficiently the Lao government can manage what looks very much like a neo-colonial relationship and the demands of the population, may prove determinative for the political establishment, particularly at a time when the Laos-China Railway becomes a tangible reality. But this does not mean the one-party system will go away, and a belief that the natural order of things is that it will is misconceived. I advance the argument that political legitimacy in Laos is increasingly bound up with how the Lao government navigates its relationship with China, with a note of caution. People experience China in multiple different ways. Some cheer on Chinese involvement, and many do not necessarily want the same things from the Lao government. It is also possible that the same societal inequalities in Laos will remain largely unaddressed, regardless of what happens about China. While it is clear that many Lao people express concern about China, this is not their only concern. People also do not always behave consistently. That China and discontent about China are prominent in Lao national consciousness at the present time is one thing. Yet this is not the only private sentiment that drives societal change in Laos. Finally, I propose that the issue of unwelcome Chinese influence becoming part of the fabric of society is an issue not unique to Laos. While I have little data to present for this, I am confident in extending this argument and suggesting that this is an issue the Vietnamese government should at least take seriously in their considerations of how to work with/deal with the rise of China in Southeast Asia. Shortly after I left Laos in 2016, I found myself sitting on a park bench in Hue, Vietnam, when two young Vietnamese students aged nineteen and twenty asked if they could practise their English with me. At the end of listening to and answering their carefully prepared questions, I asked them what they thought about the future of Vietnam. Both volunteered immediately that the Vietnamese government should kick out the Chinese. The Lao state, Vietnamese state, and ASEAN generally, must

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look carefully at what is an effective strategy for dealing with rising China in Southeast Asia in the coming years.32

References Alden, C. (2005) ‘China in Africa’, Survival, 47(3), pp. 147–164. Anderlini, J. (2015) China to Become One of World’s Biggest Overseas Investors by 2020, Financial Times. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/5136953a-1b3d-11e58201-cbdb03d71480 (Accessed: 23 May 2019). Anderson, B. (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London, UK: Verso. Ba, A. (2003) ‘China and ASEAN: Renavigating Relations for a 21st Century Asia’, Asian Survey, 43(4), pp. 622–647. Brautigam, D. (2009) The Dragon’s Gift: the Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Carothers, T. (2002a) ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’, Journal of Democracy, 13(1), pp. 5–21. Carothers, T. (2002b) ‘A Reply to my Critics’, Journal of Democracy, 13(3), pp. 33–38. Dalakoglou, D. and Harvey, P. (2012) ‘Roads and Anthropology: Ethnographic Perspectives on Space, Time and (Im)Mobility’, Mobilities, 7(4), pp. 459–465. Driessen, M. (2019) Tales of Hope, Tastes of Bitterness: Chinese Road Builders in Ethiopia. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Elinoff, E. (2016) ‘A House is More than a House: Aesthetic Politics in a Northeastern Thai Railway Settlement’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 22, pp. 602–632. Ferdinand, P. (2016) ‘Westward Ho – the China Dream and “One Belt, One Road”: Chinese Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping’, International affairs, 92(4), pp. 941–957. Fujimura, K. (2010) ‘The Increasing Presence of China in Laos: a Report on Fixed Point Observation of Local Newspapers from March 2007 to February 2009’, Ritsumeikan Journal of Asian Pacific Studies. Gill, B. and Reilly, J. (2007) ‘The Tenuous Hold of China Inc. in Africa’, Washington Quarterly, 30(3), pp. 37–52. Golley, J. and Song, L. (2011) ‘China’s Rise in a Changing World’, in Golley, J. and Song, L. (eds) Rising China: Global Challenges and Opportunities. Canberra, Australia: ANU E Press, pp. 1–8. 32 The question of a weaker state managing the influence of a more powerful one extends well beyond the situation described here. Knight (2015) considers how Greece negotiated the increasing presence of Germany in its landscape.

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Hannam, K., Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006) ‘Mobilities, Immobilities and Moorings’, Mobilities, 1(1), pp. 1–22. Harvey, P. and Knox, H. (2015) Roads: an Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Herzfeld, M. (2016) Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics and the Real Life of States, Societies and Institutions. New York, NY: Routledge. High, H. (2009) ‘The Road to Nowhere: Poverty and Policy in the South of Laos’, European Journal of Anthropology, 53(Spring 2009), pp. 75–88. High, H. (2014) Fields of Desire: Poverty and Policy in Laos. Singapore: NUS Press. Jauch, H. (2011) ‘Chinese Investment in Africa: Twenty-First Century Colonialism?’, New Labor Forum, 20(2), pp. 49–55. Knight, D. (2015) History, Time, and Economic Crisis in Central Greece. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. Laungaramsri, P. (2014) ‘Commodifying Sovereignty: Special Economic Zones and the Neoliberalization of the Lao Frontier’, The Journal of Lao Studies, 3(1), pp. 29–56. Lee, C.K. (2018) The Scepter of Global China. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lim, Alvin C.H. (2015) ‘Laos and the Silk Road Economic Belt – Analysis’, Eurasia Review. Available at: https://www.eurasiareview.com/30072015-laos-and-thesilk-road-economic-belt-analysis/ (Accessed: 28 February 2019). Lyttleton, C. (2017) ‘Stimulating Circuits: Chinese Desires and Transnational Affective Economies in Southeast Asia’, in Nyíri, P. and Tan, D. (eds) Chinese Encounters in Southeast Asia: How People, Money and Ideas from China are Changing a Region. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, pp. 214–234. Lyttleton, C. and Li, Y. (2017) ‘Rubber’s Affective Economies: Seeding a Social Landscape in Northwest Laos’, in Bouté, V. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Changing Lives in Laos: Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-Socialist State. Singapore: NUS Press, pp. 301–326. Lyttleton, C. and Nyíri, P. (2011) ‘Dams Casinos and Concessions: Chinese Megaprojects in Laos and Cambodia’, in Brunn, S. (ed.) Engineering Earth. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, pp. 1243–1265. Migdal, J.S. (2001) State in Society: Studying how States and Societies Transform and Constitute one Another. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Mohan, G. and Lampert, B. (2013) ‘Negotiating China: Reinserting African Agency into China-Africa Relations’, African Affairs, 112(446), pp. 92–110. Morris, S. (2019) The Kunming-Vientiane Railway: The Economic, Procurement, Labor, and Safeguards Dimensions of a Chinese Belt and Road Project CDG Policy Paper 142 Available at: https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/kunming-vientianerailway-economic-procurement-labor-and-safeguards-dimensions-chinese.pdf (Accessed: 15 July 2020).

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Nyíri, P. (2006) ‘The Yellow Man’s Burden: Chinese Migrants on a Civilizing Mission’, The China Journal, 56, pp. 83–106. Nyíri, P. and Tan, D. (eds) (2017) Chinese Encounters in Southeast Asia: How People, Money and Ideas from China are Changing a Region. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Radio Free Asia (2018) China’s Fast Track to Influence: Building a Railway in Laos. Available at: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/special/laoschinarailway/ (Accessed: 25 May 2019). Rathie, M. (2017) ‘The History and Evolution of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party’, in Bouté, V. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Changing Lives in Laos: Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-Socialist State. Singapore: NUS Press, pp. 19–55. Reeves, M. (2017) ‘Infrastructural Hope: Anticipating “Independent Roads” and Territorial Integrity in Southern Kyrgyzstan’, Ethnos, 82(4), pp. 711–737. Rigg, J. (2012) Living with Transition in Laos: Market Integration in Southeast Asia. London, UK: Routledge. Rippa, A. (2019) ‘Zomia 2.0: Branding Remoteness and Neoliberal Connectivity in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, Laos’, Social Anthropology, 27(2), pp. 253–269. Rowedder, S. (2019) ‘Railroading Land-Linked Laos: China’s Regional Profits, Laos’ Domestic Costs?’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 61(2), pp. 152–161. Roy, D. (2005) ‘Southeast Asia and China: Balancing or Bandwagoning’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 27(2), pp. 305–22. Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006) ‘The New Mobilities Paradigm’, Environment and Planning A, 28(2), pp. 207–226. Shoemaker, B. and Robichaud, W. (2018) Dead in the Water: Global Lessons from the World Bank’s Model Hydropower Project in Laos. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Soong, J.-J. (2016) ‘The Political Economy of Development Between China and the ASEAN States: Opportunity and Challenge’, The Chinese Economy, 49(6), pp. 395–399. Soulatha, S. and Creak, S. (2017) ‘Regime Renewal in Laos: the Tenth Congress of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party’, Southeast Asian Affairs 2017, Volume 2017, pp. 179–200. Tan, D. (2012) ‘“Small Is Beautiful”: Lessons from Laos for the Study of Chinese Overseas’, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 41(2), pp. 61–94. Tan, D. (2014) ‘China in Laos: Is there Cause for Worry?’, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 31(2014), pp. 1–16. Tan, D. (2017) ‘Chinese Enclaves in the Golden Triangle Borderlands: an Alternative Account of State Formation in Laos’, in Nyíri, P. and Tan, D. (eds) Chinese Encounters in Southeast Asia: How People, Money and Ideas from China are Changing a Region. Seattle, WA: University of Washington, pp. 136–156.

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Tan‐Mullins, M., Mohan, G. and Power, M. (2010) ‘Redefining “Aid” in the China– Africa Context’, Development and Change, 41(5), pp. 857–881. Tapp, N. (2001) The Hmong of China: Context, Agency and the Imaginary. Boston, MA: Brill Academic Publishers, Inc. Taylor, I. (2007) ‘Unpacking China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa’, Current African Issues, 33, pp. 10–25. Trankell, I.-B. (1993) On the Road in Laos: an Anthropological Study of Road Construction and Rural Communities. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University. Winichakul, T. (2011) ‘Coming to Terms with the West: Intellectual Strategies of Bifurcation and Post-Westernism in Siam’, in Harrison, R. and Jackson, P. (eds) The Ambiguous Allure of the West: Traces of the Colonial in Thailand. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Yu, H. (2017) ‘Motivation Behind China’s “One Belt, One Road” Initiatives and Establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’, Journal of Contemporary China, 26(105), pp. 353–368. Zeller, N. (2015) ‘Doing a Dam Better? Understanding the World Bank’s Eco- governmentality in Lao hydropower development’, The Journal of Lao Studies, (Special Issue), pp. 161–180.

5

Conclusion – Long Live the Revolution? Abstract This chapter argues that while the political system in Laos has shown resilience and an ability to reinvent itself as necessary, it is not entirely unassailable. Even in authoritarian systems, legitimacy remains important. It suggests that if there is to be a flash point over legitimacy, that may come with rising inequality and particularly, as the rise of Chinese influence continues. It concludes by suggesting that as long as a sense of Laoness remains, the political system may remain in place as the authorities present themselves as the guardians of Lao culture and identity. Should that become threatened, questions of political legitimacy will reopen. It includes a final paragraph questioning how the Covid-19 situation will impact Laos. Keywords: Lao politics, political legitimacy, national identity, China

The cover of this book contains an image of a statue of revolutionary heroes on the Lao-Vietnam border. This project also began with a statue; and a different one. This is the statue of King Sisavang Vong in the grounds of the National Museum in Luang Prabang, a picture of which appears at the very beginning of the book. Though he died in 1959, he now stands as a solitary figure in the gardens of the former home of the Lao royal family. For his successor, King Sisavang Vatthana, who foresaw that he would be the last King of Laos, his wife, the Crown Prince, and several others, their final home was a re-education camp on the Lao-Vietnamese border not far from where the statue on the cover is located and from which they never returned. For almost seven years, I have watched people leave offerings at the base of King Sisavang Vong’s statue. Each time I passed the National Museum, I would attempt to document numbers of offerings and there were few occasions where there were none there at all. At festival times when the

Wilcox, Phill, Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimacy in Laos. The Past and Present of the Lao Nation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463727020_ch05

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Figure 9 Leaving offerings at the statue of King Sisavang Vong in the grounds of the National Museum (formerly the Royal Palace) in Luang Prabang

Photograph taken by the author, April 2016

road was busier, or simply to obtain a better view, I would climb the base of Phousi Hill opposite the museum. If I were in the right place at the right time, I would see people, usually lone women, approach the statue and remove their shoes. Without exception, the women would be dressed in the

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traditional Lao sinh skirt, usually of silk but occasionally of cotton, with a traditional scarf over one shoulder. This is customary and the appropriate dress for entering a temple. The women would leave the offerings, prostrate themselves at the base of the statue, wait for a few minutes in prayer or supplication, and then depart. Of course, this could be labelled as superstition, and something along the lines of people who are not very religious asking for good fortune in a life event, such as an exam or before a journey. But to dismiss it merely as that is to miss a key point: why they do it is secondary to that they can and do do it and are encouraged to do so. I began this book with the suggestion that the power dynamics around this practice are worth investigating as an access point into Lao culture, what is promoted as good culture and particularly, Lao political culture. To reiterate those questions here briefly: in contemporary Laos, what does it mean to be openly leaving offerings at a statue of a departed Lao monarch in the gardens of the former royal palace in an off icial context of nominal one-party socialism? What are the discourses of history and the power relations involved? I have demonstrated here that political legitimacy in Laos, and political culture generally, is complex and multi-faceted. This is clearly demonstrated by these offerings and the power relations that surround them. What then does this mean for national memory, and the management of that heritage? If the parameters of these questions have changed since the establishment of the current political order, how has this happened, and what does this mean and what does it mean for people seeking to build futures in Laos? I begin here to put all this together by reiterating that this is not just all about ancient history. Over 40 years have now passed since the establishment of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in December 1975. Today, King Sisavang Vong’s statue stands, seemingly frozen in time, in the grounds of a landscape that was the setting for some of the most turbulent times of the revolution. His power is not merely political but also cultural, symbolic, and traditional. This statue is a focal point where people make offerings and show respect to a figure of the past, and one that has a singular position in Lao history. What is remarkable about this statue is that it is still there at all; standing, since its casting, as a silent witness to some of the most controversial political upheaval in Laos. As outlined in Chapters 1 and 2, the years following the revolution led to the strict application of socialist principles, austerity, collective farming, and repression of Buddhism along with many traditional practices. These then changed from the introduction of new economic policies in 1986, when the country reopened to outsiders

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from capitalist countries, and many cultural traditions and practices were introduced as the government sought to address its own fragile legitimacy. How successful its reinvention has been is central to the question of why the political system in Laos is marked by an outward, even if nominal, commitment to socialism. Officially, this has not been abandoned and any overt contradiction between capitalist economics and socialist politics is unsaid. For all that has changed then, it is notable what remains the same, at least in nominal terms. Laos retains – at least in name – that same oneparty socialist system introduced in 1975. The reckoning of the past and its representations remain live issues and what is presented as national culture is particularly interesting. King Sisavang Vong’s statue is therefore remarkable for what it could be seen to represent, what it can be made to represent, and what it does and does not say. This is a statue representing what I see as possibly the most turbulent period in Lao history; a statue that requires careful management in terms of the associations people can and cannot make with it; a statue about which less explanation might be considered by some to be a living example of the cliché ‘less is more’. It says nothing yet something at the same time. Any controversies associated with it can be made safe with the label of ‘heritage’. By leading change head-on from the front rather than allowing change to happen all around, the Lao political establishment has also shown itself remarkably successful in not making itself redundant. The same applies in relation to the question of China: by presenting itself as an active party to this process of change, the state argues that there is still a role for itself. I have argued in the previous chapters that Luang Prabang is in a unique place in Laos. Official discourse presents the current political status quo as the outcome of the Lao population finally establishing their chosen form of government. In references to past regimes, particularly those of the more recent past, colonial and pre-revolutionary, these are either lambasted or ignored altogether. In Luang Prabang, with its splendid architecture which UNESCO recognizes as being of such intrinsic cultural value, these normal strategies do not work. The National Museum/former Royal Palace stands in the very heart of the zone which UNESCO recognizes as being important for all humanity. Thus, these normal strategies for dealing with the pre-revolutionary past simply do not apply here because they cannot: inflammatory rhetoric simply does not f it with the images of timeless serenity that the authorities work so hard to present in Luang Prabang. This is also why Luang Prabang holds such a singular place in Laos and why it is an important case study to consider the private sentiments

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that go into constructing and negotiating the public faces of the nation. Luang Prabang is where discourses of things said and unsaid, visible and invisible are most apparent. Luang Prabang is reckoned by so many actors, both off icial and informal, to be the centre of Lao culture. What the centre of Lao culture means though is a contested term. As the former royal capital of Laos, the city has long associations with Buddhism and with national identity and is an excellent place to consider how Lao culture and society have changed over time, particularly in the years since the revolution in 1975. Furthermore, it is an excellent place to see how the label of nominal socialism remains yet lives uneasily alongside the more diff icult aspects of the past. Finally, in considering how local people interact with and live around that heritage, it is also important to realize that many of them are more concerned about the future than they are about the past.

Royal and Revolutionary Heritage Moving across the country, the landscape of heritage and memory takes on a far more overtly revolutionary appearance. Vieng Xai (Victory Town), the birthplace of the contemporary Lao state, stands on the Lao-Vietnamese border. At f irst glance at a map of Laos, Vieng Xai appears to be located in a remote corner of the Northeast. Yet while the location may appear peripheral, the signif icance of this place in contemporary Lao history is anything but. This is a place of high karst mountains, subsistence agriculture that is typical of the region, and not easily accessible or well connected by road to other places. Vieng Xai is accessed off the main highway between the provincial capital, Sam Neua, and the Vietnamese border and it is common to need to walk the f inal few kilometres from the main road as few buses enter Vieng Xai directly. Sam Neua itself is a bus journey of around twelve hours from Luang Prabang. Buses heading in the direction of Vieng Xai depart from Sam Neua’s older bus station, around 4 km east of the city. The vehicles making this route are also quite old, and often extremely crowded with people heading to and from their villages and the provincial centre. Visitors with greater economic capital either travel by private vehicle and/or in organized groups. For Lao tourists, Vieng Xai is billed as a place of pilgrimage for organized tours and increasingly, a place for the population to learn first-hand about the revolution. As I noted in Chapter 1, this is the event that birthed the

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Figure 10 Signage for Kaysone Phomvihane’s cave in Vieng Xai, Houaphanh Province on the Lao-Vietnamese border

Photograph taken by the author, December 2013

contemporary Lao nation. When I made my second visit there in late 2013, walking from the bus stop, I began talking with a Lao man visiting from Vientiane who had alighted from the same bus. He told me he was a salesman and that he wanted to visit the place he had heard so much about. Equally,

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he did not think it would hold his interest for very long and volunteered that he did not plan to stay more than one night. He then told me casually that he intended to build a pizza oven in his garden on his return to the capital, pizza now being increasingly popular with middle-class Lao, and was seemingly incredulous that I am indifferent to pizza. This demonstrates an old and new Laos succinctly. This man was visiting a place that was a significant part of the current political landscape and a cornerstone of the national story, but at the same time, he was also preoccupied with what he saw as modern consumer practices. If pizza and revolutionary history appear incongruous then it is worth asking if this is as strange in Laos as it may f irst appear. When I arrived at the cave visitor centre on the same occasion, I found an old sign for Kaysone Phomvihane’s cave propped up in the garden. The same sign advertised Pepsi. While it is possible that it was the only billboard available, I would argue that an apparent contradiction of putting icons of socialist revolutions and American consumer culture together is not necessarily inconsistent in Laos. When I returned in mid-2019, the sign for the cave complex entry shared a board advertising new models of mobile phones. What this shows is that the relationship between consumer goods, politics, and modernity is multifaceted and rests on the population accepting recent ideas that there is no actual contradiction in the context of desires for consumer goods alongside socialist politics. Socialism is still the direction of the future in at least name, even if it comes with a side order of pizza. In April 2019, I travelled to Vieng Xai from Sam Neua again. Again, this was by old public bus and the Hmong man sharing a bus seat with me was unsurprised when I got off at the turning for Vieng Xai. The sign board with Pepsi had gone. But I noted that the revolutionary hero statue was still there and appeared recently repainted. Somebody obviously foreign photographing the statue passed with little comment from those who saw me. An interest in war history is the reason why foreigners visit Vieng Xai, in fact it is actually the only reason as there is no other real reason to stop there. But this is not merely a story told to foreigners. Heritage here is more immediate, relevant but still selective. Vieng Xai occupies a special and unique place in the front face of history told to and retold by Lao people. This is where the narrative of the liberation and founding of the Lao state began: victory over oppression and the establishment of the people’s chosen form of government. It is totally fitting that such a message would accompany the statue that appears on the cover of this book. The figures stand victorious in gold, standing atop the bomb emblazoned with

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the marking USA. Three victorious figures, representing different heroic figures central to Lao social and cultural life: the soldier, the woman, and the farmer. While the national capital has long since returned to Vientiane, Vieng Xai has nonetheless not been forgotten. This will not happen because the narrative here is of events that are still relevant to the entire population. Every Lao citizen is told, and reminded of, the importance of the liberation story and how Vieng Xai was central to the narrative of the current Lao leadership resisting mighty forces from caves on the Lao-Vietnamese border and of this place as one of resistance and victory. Visitors are guided around the cave site and given an audio tour available in Lao or English. Through audio and visual representation, visitors are told a story of the liberation of Laos and the establishment of the country as a one-party system. On the English version of the tour at the very least, this is articulated in terms of how despite all the hardships of war, the Lao people were ultimately successful in establishing their chosen form of governance, namely that of the system in place today. This is the story told in Lao, to Lao people, often in very great detail.1 That notion of authoritarianism as the ongoing will of the people is crucial because elected or not, legitimacy matters. This sort of tacit legitimacy also explains why political change is unlikely, if enough of the population are willing and continue to be willing to accept this form of governance.

Essentializing the State I have argued throughout this project for the importance of collective private sentiment. These are the feelings everyone knows, but do not always talk about openly although they are known between people who hold the same sentiment. Taking this as a starting point, it is not problematic to think that how people act in private and public will not necessarily be consistent and can change and develop over time. Further, that what is said in private and what is said in public are all important factors to consider when thinking through both what constitutes the different faces of a nation state and how that is informed, challenged, and contested over time. Lao officials are themselves part of society and are part of these private sentiments. This explains why a society may 1 For examples of this, see the analysis by Pholsena (2006), Tappe and Pholsena (2013), and Grabowsky and Tappe (2011).

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change over time but without very overt discussion. It also demonstrates the crucial importance and transformative potential of everyday politics. But in recognizing that the state is part of society and vice versa, this also renders an analysis of the Lao state as either top-down or bottom-up redundant as both are part of the same thing with each informing the other. 2 No culture is static. Nor is any nation state fixed in time and completely unchanging. Despite the claims to eternity that are made by nation states which are ingested and internalized as being self-evident, this process does not happen by itself and is subject to very human agendas. I have previously emphasized the importance of considering agency, who has agency, and the parameters of this. This also means thinking carefully about what dissent looks like in such a context. This might take the form of local variations of national policies, doing things slowly, narrating alternative histories in private, and so on. This means that the public and private spheres of social life are more interconnected than they first appear and that private actions have the means to transform national policy and the outward face of nationalist discourse. This is formed, reformed, developed, and acted on by members of society, including those who work for the state. It is also important to recognize that whatever attempts are made by national discourse, on the ground the state actually has many different faces and is not experienced consistently across the country.3 I have argued throughout this book that the state is personified by local officials, and one’s relationships with them really matters. State bureaucrats at all levels are still members of the population themselves. They may interpret or shape national policy differently. They are also subject to pressure from those they claim to serve, both in terms of the population and those within officialdom. Recipients of these initiatives can and will interpret them differently, which can lead to change on a much larger scale. Those working in and around officialdom are in a unique position in both influencing national policy and being the recipients of the complaints about it. When people complain about the state, or criticize its practices, they are vocalizing and negotiating an ongoing relationship with this entity. I doubt 2 This is why I have argued throughout for Herzfeld’s (2016 [1997]) cultural intimacy model as being instructive for thinking through the dynamics of why the political status quo in Laos remains what it is, who drives that, and how. 3 This is a point made by Migdal (2001) when he argues that the state has many seams. As Kerkvliet (2005) demonstrates, this also allows for everyday actions to have a much bigger impact than at the local or immediate level.

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that many of the complaints that I heard in Laos, particularly about the need for development or this issue of corruption, would surprise anyone in authority, and many officials would agree, sharing the same values as much of the population. This all goes to an argument that dissent can and does exist, even in a context that does not tolerate open dissent, but that not all forms of dissent are the same. By allowing people to express these criticisms, these are vocalized as part of the private and social fabric of the nation, which all shape the outward faces. Even in complaining about the state, people still moan about something they have essentialised, an ‘it’. By treating it as an ‘it’ people give this entity legitimacy and therefore power. Even in unelected political systems, by claiming to be the genuine and legitimate representatives of the people, states still set expectations of what the population can demand and expect from them. People express what is common knowledge and hope for those things to improve. We see this in Laos, where people are unhappy about things the authorities do, yet do not express the need for radical political change for that situation to improve. I suggested in Chapter 3 that the violence perpetuated in Laos in 2016, which was considered to be the work of discontented Hmong, is an illustration of the state deemed not to be living up to its promises to the population. Here, authoritarianism was no longer accepted with this as the result. I have also argued here that in trying to understand the Lao political system, it is crucial to ask whom it is trying to service, which is arguably itself (and by extension at least some of the population), as well as other stakeholders including external relations. I have suggested here that this can veer dangerously close to criticism of the state’s relationship with China and it is here that overt dissent is perhaps most visible, and people who are otherwise often marginalized become more aware of a sense of Laoness in the face of rising China.

The Dynamics of Authoritarianism Throughout this book I have shown that even in an authoritarian system such as Laos, alternative histories and stories exist. Consider, for example, Kou, my Hmong interlocutor, who was keen to talk to me about the different history of the Hmong people (in Chapter 2). Lao national historiography is fixed on presenting its current rulers as the legitimate governance. Allowing for the possibility of someone to leave offerings at a statue of a deceased royal in Luang Prabang would therefore seem to transgress this narrative. But in casting these alternative narratives as heritage in Luang Prabang,

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they are made safe, impotent to the prevailing narratives of Lao national identity and national culture. In allowing a space where it is possible to place offerings at the statue of King Sisavang Vong, the political establishment is not in fact showing a sign of weakness but attempting to consolidate further its own position. By allowing this space but retaining control of it, a more open political climate, an attractive one, is created, even though this, too, is an exercise in state control. It is also an important exercise in legitimacy by showing the authorities as the genuine representatives of the people. People may make demands on the state by demanding such a space, which is an important part of the political landscape. It would be an error to see this as the Lao government loosening control per se. I am reluctant to label change as a softening of control, and see it more as the authoritarianism itself changing shape. Changing shape, or morphing, as a response to private sentiment and attempting to stay ahead of its discontent is very relevant here. As Tappe (2017) argues convincingly, political power in Laos resides in a number of places, authoritarianism being only one of these. There is some support for the political establishment, which has now endured over four decades, and it is important to recognize that politics in Laos has changed in that time. This is why it is crucial not to refer to Laos as post-socialist, because that is not what it says about itself. I accept High’s (2014) argument that one feeds the Lao state, in this case with one’s desires and aspirations, in order to receive what it offers in return, which may be very immediate and personal. In these everyday actions, people have the possibility to influence something much larger than the local. Again, everyday politics and everyday sentiment matter here. 4 Overall, I support the idea that people will bestow legitimacy on the state, as long as living standards continue to rise and it appears possible to achieve aspirations of modernity. These desires are potent. As Berlant (2011) recognizes, optimism may be cruel in that desires are unlikely to be realized, but as a concept it is a surprisingly durable one.5 I have found genuine support for the one-party system in Laos, but I am also aware that very few people in Laos have lived experience of anything different. In an interconnected world, my interlocutors are aware that their 4 In making this argument, I am supporting the sentiments put forward by Herzfeld (2016 [1997]) and Kerkvliet (2005). 5 See also Jackson (2011), who notes that desire is almost universal, and it is rare to meet someone without hope or desire at all. These arguments are demonstrated on the ground in Laos by High (2014) who argues for the durability of desire as a driver of political legitimacy.

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system functions differently, particularly from that of Thailand. Several talked or alluded to there being far more than the official narratives show, particularly around the fate of the Lao monarchy and the Hmong having an alternative history to that which is shown as the public face of the nation. But I have also argued that the political system in Laos has proved itself to be surprisingly durable. It has managed to reinvent itself in the aftermath of the fall of the USSR, and to remain relevant in the everyday lives of the population. I have suggested throughout that it is entrenched enough not to be in imminent danger of collapsing overnight and that enough of the population believes they can build futures in such a landscape. Even if people do know of the possibility of a different system, authoritarianism is embedded sufficiently in their lives for it not to be a pressing concern. For those who told me so earnestly that they wanted better educational opportunities as a primary objective of development, this is nothing contentious. For others, such as Sai (in Chapter 1) expressing his frustrations at the regime to me in private, and Hmong youth, Neng, Kou, and Leng (in Chapter 3) telling me about how they perceived being Hmong in Laos today, there are important sentiments that can be interpreted in different ways, the most explosive of which is a direct challenge to the political establishment. This process of forming collective sentiments and state responses is apparent on the ground in Laos, visible through the abandonment of collective farming in the early days of the revolution, the revival of symbols from the ousted royalist regime, and official insistence that closer ties with China will be positive. That such things are now possible, when previously they were not, is a sign of social change and reordering of the national landscape. People may also dream of leaving offerings at a statue of a once loved and then officially despised Lao monarch. Allowing people to do these things is symptomatic of the state responding to the expectations of the population that, as the legitimate guardians of Lao culture and society, they would now permit as acceptable practices. It also demonstrates that whatever unease, trauma, or unhappiness continues to exist about narratives of the Lao past, most people have far more immediate and pressing concerns.

Difficult Heritages In late 2017, during a conversation about sustainability and recycling for a university project, I asked Kou in a mixture of Lao and English how he thought the landscape and climate in Laos were changing. He responded with a long narrative beginning with a reference to 1975. I asked him why

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he had chosen this date, given that he was born in 1995. In response, he repeated something I have been told all along. Stories about contemporary Laos begin with this date. In structuring his answer this way, he reflected the official narratives. In officialdom, post-1975 is recent history, pre-1975 is a different time period. The Hmong story of the revolution is also different, but largely invisible from the national story. That alternative narrative matters very much but only in private. Kou believed at least outwardly that the contemporary period started in 1975, referring to this repeatedly in telling me about how things are in the country. This may be simplistic and manufactured but that does not render it any less meaningful, or powerful. I have written extensively in Chapter 2 about past management, arguing that certain aspects of the past disappear into the haziness of ‘timeless’ Luang Prabang. Unlike in much of the rest of Laos, the official strategy in Luang Prabang is to either ignore or lambast the problematic aspects of the past in relation to the official narrative, for to do so would deny much of the basis upon which the UNESCO World Heritage Status in Luang Prabang is based. Instead, the strategy is more one of very selective representations of the past. By allowing some limited veneration of the past, particularly around the monarchy, the authorities create a space that allows people to interact with the past in ways that the authorities can manage carefully. By so doing, the population can push the authorities on aspects of the national story. This is an illustration of how culture is not static, instead, it is informed on and changed by different actors. This does not mean that the importance of this part of the national story is diminishing. Even now, full details of the fate of the Lao royal family remain shrouded in mystery. Nor does this stop with the monarchy. For all the opportunities to leave offerings at the statue, large numbers of people continue to be absent from the historical record if any potency remains that cannot be managed carefully. This is manifest in openly selling images of the RLG symbol at the Luang Prabang Night Market, but simultaneously maintaining silence about that image’s associations. Understanding the intricacies of this relationship is important for understanding where Laos is politically, and why this is, through things said openly or left unsaid.6 6 This is why Khamkeo’s (2006) account of going from communist bureaucrat to prisoner in a re-education camp does not appear anywhere in the official narratives in Laos. It would not support accounts of national unity or of the great struggle of the Lao people against the might of imperialism that forms the basis of the story of the Revolution and liberation struggle. More recently, it also explains why the disappearance of development worker Sombath Somphone (see Sims 2013) remains such a closed issue without any official statement. This is an example of an overt silence, expressing official hopes that the issue will disappear with time.

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The liberation story does not have a universal place in or sits easily in Luang Prabang, where the official focus is on the beautiful buildings, the living heritage, and a place of serene, uncontested beauty. UNESCO’s focus on the architecture is helpful to the Lao authorities in deflecting difficult questions about history. In Vieng Xai, and elsewhere in Laos, the official history is personified in the picture on the cover in which three newly painted figures stand proud in their victory over US imperialists. These discussions remain important, but less so as more concerns arise about the future than about presentations of the past. My research participants told me that Laos faces bigger challenges, and that this is framing how people feel about these presentations of the past. The story of how Laos came into being meets potentially awkward bits of heritage in Luang Prabang and what is promoted by UNESCO, the local authorities themselves, and embraced by many visitors as heritage. There is a good reason why this statue of the three heroic figures in Vieng Xai does not appear in Luang Prabang. It would not fit the narratives of uncontested, serene beauty that the authorities are keen to promote there. Statues tell stories about what the nation off icially commemorates and Laos is no exception to this. As Anderson (2006 [1983]) terms it, they allow for certain aspects of public memory to become part of national belonging and to allow the past to be appropriated as its own. This narrative of the revolution and liberation of the country is absolutely fundamental in contemporary Laos and until relatively recently, aspects of history that largely predated this were not considered important. In Laos, where scholars still do not agree whether the contemporary Lao state is a colonial invention or whether claims to earlier state-like entities hold traction, this strategy is visible.7 The National Museum in Vientiane started life as the Revolutionary Museum and underwent a rebranding in 2000, following the shedding of strict socialist austerity and the addition of exhibits about pre-revolutionary Laos.8 In Vientiane, a statue to Chou Anouvong was erected in a park that now also bears his name. This is another example of a historical figure whose purpose in the national story is again making a claim to a more distant past and establishing a link to the present.9 Moreover, starting from the present and projecting backwards to appropriate earlier history is a strategy not 7 For an in-depth analysis of this, see Evans (1999). 8 The National Museum in Vientiane occupied a prime city centre site and closed in 2016 to be relocated to the suburbs. At the time of writing it has not yet reopened and it remains unclear if and when it does, whether its exhibits will be revised or updated. 9 The use of historical figures to further current political agendas has a long history beyond Laos. For an analysis of this under the Chinese one-party system, see Denton 2014.

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uncommon to regimes especially keen to emphasize and re-emphasize their claims to legitimacy. Any contentious aspects of the past can be protected within a master narrative of present-day legitimacy. The past is a resource to be drawn on for legitimizing purposes. In this way the past is made uncontentious but also made safe by labelling it as heritage. The Lao government strategy with very recent history has proved fairly successful, given that those who contributed to this project imagine building futures in and around the current Lao state, rather than think much about a radical shifting of the political landscape.

Difference as (Not) Belonging Ethnic diversity is a lived experience in Laos, after all, Laos is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. While certain ethnic groups recognize their ethnic identity as inalienable, for some, this classification is problematic. Ethnic groups have assumed the role of ‘the other’ as assigned by the state against the majority lowland Lao.10 Ethnic diversity is subject to very careful management by the Lao government, with minorities experiencing social life, Lao culture, and Lao politics differently. In Luang Prabang, ethnic diversity can be emphasized, and the colourful presence of minorities as part of the Lao multi-ethnic people is important. This is of particular relevance to discourses of, and official messages around, tourism, the creation of nostalgia, and the expectations of visitors. This has had the effect of Luang Prabang becoming a lowland-Lao town, with ethnic minorities pushed into a supporting role. Lived experience of heritage in Luang Prabang is not a matter for the architecture alone. The heritage zone is one where people from across the Lao population are involved in presenting the apparent public face of the ultimate expression of Lao culture, which presents lowland Lao culture as the national norm and the minorities providing local colour at the periphery. Luang Prabang’s night market is one example of where being ethnically different is acceptable, particularly in the material culture around heritage. In Chapter 3, I showed that many Hmong talked overtly about discrimination and the need to work very hard to compensate for barriers they perceived to exist in view of their ethnicity, language, places of origin, and so forth. They realized that they had a very different heritage to that taught in schools or talked about openly. As with problematic areas of 10 For an overview of ethnic diversity in Laos, see Chapter 3.

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history, alternative histories on the part of ethnic minorities are also not emphasized. A classic example of this is the Hmong ethnic group’s involvement in the Secret War and their subsequent mass exit from Laos. To speak publicly about this would be to acknowledge that many Lao citizens did not support the revolution, with many fighting on the opposing side. Their existence is, however, problematic to the national story of freedom from oppression and thus their stories have disappeared from the official records. While armed struggle may have gone away and the political status quo as it is becomes further embedded, this does not mean that dreams (or the perceptions thereof) of an independent future have necessarily disappeared altogether. In Chapter 4, I showed that the Hmong walk an often fraught path between accepted distinction and suspected difference. Their belonging as part of the Lao multi-ethnic people comes from their being different. Their distinctiveness in being a different ethnic group creates a space for them in the discourse of the Lao population comprising different ethnicities. At the same time, difference as too close to dissent makes the Hmong not belong. I contended that the arguments by Scott (2009) for Zomia, the upland region to which highlanders fled to escape state control, now exists as an important, if unspoken, element of discourse around ethnic minorities in Laos. Many lowland Lao assume that, given the opportunity, the Hmong would choose separatism, that is, Zomia, as an alternative. This is reflected in the discrimination and marginalization that many Hmong experience as part of daily life and became particularly apparent during the 2015-2016 shootings, after which many lowland Lao questioned the attitudes of the Hmong, even Hmong they knew well, towards these incidents.11 The ghost of the recent past, and question marks over whether many Hmong would actually prefer an alternative system of governance, keep the Hmong in a state of belonging and also not belonging in contemporary Laos. I ventured to argue that, much as Laos is in a state of crypto-colonialism or even neo-colonialism with China, it could be argued similarly that the Hmong in Laos are in a state of assumed crypto-separatism in that the lowland Lao are the ethnic majority and have a strong interest in keeping the Hmong in a marginalized position. Beliefs in Hmong aspirations for Zomia as an imagined alternative are a major component of this discourse. In other words, stereotyping is a potent strategy for essentializing, in this case, essentializing the Hmong into a subjugated position. 11 This is addressed directly in Chapter 3.

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On China and Changing Laos In late 2017, I took the bus from Kunming in Yunnan to Oudomxai in northern Laos, a journey of around eighteen hours. I was amused to see some of the Chinese passengers having their photos taken while posing next to the bus doors in Kunming, as if they were explorers off to a distant land, rather than embarking on a lengthy, even if now smoother, journey down a new road to a neighbouring country. As I had bought my ticket late, I ended up sharing the space at the back with room for several people to sleep side by side. I found myself sharing this space with two lowland Lao and one Hmong student, all studying in Yunnan and on their way to visit their families in Laos. They were very friendly to me, particularly in translating the driver’s announcements from Mandarin to Lao but bemused that, as a teacher, I would choose to take the bus instead of going by plane. They were similarly incredulous that I was making this journey out of interest. It is undeniable that this route will change enormously with the construction of the Laos-China Railway and I utilized this journey to ask them what they thought about this. They told me that they thought it would be a much more comfortable and quicker way to travel between China and Laos. These are logical and uncontentious statements about how Laos will change but as I was continually told by my other interlocutors, opinion on the railway is far more divided, and focused more widely on China having greater access to Laos than on Laos having greater access to China. The upshot of this is that whatever grievances people may have about the past, they are considerably more concerned about the effects of a rising China in their lives. Managing how China is perceived in Laos is a far greater challenge for the Lao authorities than any debates about legitimacy arising from the revolutionary past. The Laos-China Railway, like other initiatives under The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has serious implications for Laos and how Laos will change in the future. It is not only about a railway, but the meanings people attribute to it.12 For some it is not all negative, as the railway may provide new opportunities for employment. For others, it is not all positive and its price too high. The number of Chinese businesses and commercial activities, of Chinese people in Laos and in Luang Prabang, is significant and growing. The importance of the BRI succeeding does not stop at countries that receive these projects, but with China too. It is important for all sides that 12 I have argued here that infrastructure is about far more than the physical object. This has already been considered by scholars. See especially, the arguments on infrastructural hope by Reeves (2017) and Anand et al. (2018).

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these infrastructure projects are a success and are seen to be a success.13 China needs to succeed in its aims under the BRI to alter power relations internationally. Neng still believes that being able to speak Chinese has secured him employment in Laos as he has learned to speak fluent Mandarin in China and gained an understanding of Chinese culture. This has happened even though he was sometimes critical of parts of Chinese culture. He recognizes that Laos will change in the future, and that China is a major part of that change. Kou and other interlocutors (from Chapter 4) in talking about the Chinese used language that fitted almost entirely with that of colonialism under the French. People told me that the Lao government should act with respect to concerns about China and were disappointed that it was not doing so. Here again, people essentialized the state as an ‘it’ and had strong ideas about what ‘it’ should be doing. When I asked why they wanted to learn Chinese when they were clearly so concerned about China, several said that very few Chinese will learn Lao, and fewer still Hmong or Khmu. The increased visibility of the Mandarin language in Luang Prabang is just one very visual marker of change. The population generally will have to consider the extent to which it is willing to tolerate the rising presence of China in Laos and what this means for legitimacy in Laos. This was pointed out to me repeatedly as the biggest issue Laos faces in the future. Taking my interviewees at their word, I argued in Chapter 4 that this is an under-researched area in Laos, particularly away from the Special Economic Zones amid growing numbers of Chinese tourists in Laos, where currently Chinese influence is most visible. People talked to me of the increasing Chinese presence throughout Laos, the growing amounts of Chinese products, and the rising numbers of Chinese immigrants, from those remaining on a permanent basis to larger numbers who are more temporary, and how they were concerned about this. This is no longer simply a border issue. 2019 was designated an official Laos-China tourism year, and there were many posters and banners for this in and around Luang Prabang. The presence of China is undoubtedly both political and economic, and while it may help the Lao authorities show that they are taking ideas of 13 Herzfeld (2013) made a similar argument in relation to the European Union project needing to appear successful in relation to the financial crisis in Greece. Arguably, one consequence of events such as Brexit is that they threaten the overall appearance of success of grand initiatives. The BRI is an exercise in establishing a particular political order, and while this is not my focus here, its success or failure has implications for China too.

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development seriously, whether this will be a fruitful relationship in the long run remains to be seen. With Laos keen to exit the status of being a Least Developed Country, mass infrastructure projects are seen as a way of both quick and visible development. But they are not without consequence. There is considerable concern on the ground about China in Laos and Chinese people being able to live in Laos on preferential terms. Many admitted that they were scared that Lao people would sell land in a misguided attempt to obtain a lifestyle of modernity and/or material goods and that, once the land was gone, the people would have nowhere to go and no further means to earn an income. Of course, there is no reason why these Hmong or Lao interlocutors are any less interested in material goods than anyone else in the world, and so the issue of China in Laos raises questions about aspirations to what sort of future. My interlocutors told me that while they wanted Laos to change and become less corrupt and more egalitarian, they were worried about the growing Chinese influence changing the country beyond recognition. As with the SEZs, the railway involves leases of land in return for the infrastructure. Some responded to their concerns about this with immense pragmatism, with several going to China or desiring to do so, despite their concerns. Many others are studying the Chinese language in the hope that this will improve their chances of better employment. The question is not merely that of the Lao government becoming stronger or weaker but recognizing that the China question is impacting Laos in different ways, even contradictory ways, and that this will increase as the Laos-China Railway becomes a tangible reality. China is quite literally arriving in Laos and through hydropower and transport projects, carving its influence into the landscape. While this may increase legitimacy for the Lao government by meeting the long-term goal of development, this will be predicated on an expectation that the Lao government will do something about concerns voiced by the population about China in Laos. If the Lao authorities do not take this seriously, then I would expect discontent to rise. But in recognizing these concerns, the question of political transition remains a live one. Very few members of the current Lao population have direct life experience of living under a different political regime. Even now, Laos is still an ethnically disparate entity. The notion that if given a free choice, the population of Laos would vote to radically alter their political system is debatable at best. This means that Laos is a good case study to illustrate what Carothers (2002a and 2002b) posed as the transition paradigm: political transition to some sort of multi-party democracy is not inevitable. The Lao political establishment has survived for over forty years without moving in any meaningful way towards democracy. Should the Lao

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government face popular discontent as a result of China or anything else, then it is simply unclear to me what this would mean for the Lao political project. Certainly, as with the cultural intimacy model, sentiments expressed in private have an important impact upon what is then said and done in public, and discontent about China is nothing particularly controversial or surprising in Laos unless it intersects too strongly with dissent from government ideology. It sets expectations on the ‘it’, the essentialized state, to do something. It is unclear what will happen if these expectations are not met. This means that the events of the next decade, as the railway is constructed and starts operating, are crucial. States claim to be everlasting, yet this ethnography of Laos demonstrates that they are not, at least not in the same form. They can, and do, change over time. They also change shape, and the Lao political establishment has a good track record of reinventing itself or changing the shape of its authoritarianism.

Final Reflections All these questions are relevant to my initial query about what messages statues of old Lao monarchs give and which stories they tell, and the associated power relations, ideas about agency, and politics in contemporary Laos. While statues may appear to speak for themselves, they can be made to speak for a bewildering range of purposes, and to unpick that process can tell us much about the dynamics of Lao politics, heritage, and authoritarian systems of government. Things are not what they seem and are themselves subject to very human agendas. To reiterate, I am not saying that discourses of the past are no longer important in Laos, but that the parameters of debates around legitimacy have changed and are still changing further as people focus their priorities in different ways. Official discourse both shapes these and is shaped in response. Perceptions about the future are changing how people feel about the past. One of the most useful features of the cultural intimacy model is that it views collective sentiments as creating collective space where people both belong and do not belong. Perceptions of the future are shaping these different collective spaces and the priorities of the population. I will finish by returning to the statue of King Sisavang Vong and the offerings that appeared at its base. I have several possible final observations to make as to what was happening there. The f irst is that revering the deceased king and leaving those offerings causes neither open nor direct conflict with the authorities and is therefore uncontentious. Despite this

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not always having been part of the practices per se of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), what of it? Societies change over time and there is no immediate or presumed threat from such practices. Second, displays of reverence and leaving offerings fit with the overall messages of timelessness and respect for ancient cultures. This does not conflict with official narratives. This would also fit with the government’s reinvention of itself as the guardians of authentic Lao culture in the contemporary world. Nostalgia is an important part of nation-building, yet only the right kind of nostalgia is helpful and must fit the prevailing agenda. I can think of few better symbols of either heritage or perceived authentic Laoness than a sign of Buddhist devotion to a departed ancestor, particularly as I have argued for attitudes towards the Lao multi-ethnic people continuing to favour the hegemony of the lowland Lao. By any reckoning, this is not just about an old statue in Luang Prabang, nor do these interactions with aspects of the past stop with the deceased Lao monarch (or the deposed monarchy). But it does illustrate a process of change in Laos, from its revolutionary birth to the present day. There is far more here than a homogeneous outward face and that this physiognomy is simply a veneer for private behaviour. My argument here has been that it is more complicated: what people know and do in private varies greatly. The secrets of collective sentiments are inherently multiple; outward faces are formed by inner dynamics and further shaped by public discourse. This is why even in blaming the state, people legitimize it and can make it the target of their expectations. Power and legitimacy in Laos reside in multiple places in the imagination and in tangible reality. This involves ideas of history and modernity, but it is also about how people accept the state’s narratives, what they accept of state rhetoric, and how they essentialize this into their lives. In so doing, people expect the state to act in relation to how they want the future to be, which impacts on how they want to remember and commemorate the past. To understand this, we need to look very carefully at what different members of the Lao multi-ethnic people do and say in public and private, and to ask why, what expectations they have and how they essentialize the state. These things are informed by assumptions about how the Lao multi-ethnic people fit together, and the place of Laos in an interconnected world. Here, new and entrenched collective sentiments of national identity are negotiated. People may once again rally intensively behind a state that stands for something that they have reason to believe in and further believe that it will provide for them. In short, the state needs to remain relevant to enough of the population. But should a point come where enough people are

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no longer willing to give the state legitimacy even in their frustrations and their expectations, then the process of quiet change over time will cease, and the question of legitimacy of the system could open. As the Lao PDR reaches its fiftieth birthday in 2025 – the same year that Laos is currently hoping to shed its status as one of the world’s least developed countries – the issue of China in Laos may prove to be the ultimate test. It is necessary to add an afterword about the state of the world, which has changed since the research for this book was concluded. At the time of writing in 2020, Laos, like the rest of the world, was dealing with the COVID-19 crisis and of course, feeling its consequences. While closing the borders proved relatively effective in managing the spread of the disease, the resulting economic downturn affected people more seriously, as large numbers of people lost their businesses and employment. Several of my interlocutors who are now struggling to find work, or no longer see working in tourism in Luang Prabang as a viable option, have returned to the countryside. Economically, the signs are that the impact of the current situation is dire, as borders remain largely closed and the tourism economy declines. But in applying a longer-term political lens to the situation, COVID may prove fruitful in the long run for establishing claims to political legitimacy. In times of crisis, strong leadership is sometimes particularly attractive and as people focus more on everyday survival, they think less of the long term, especially in an already disparate society. In doing a reasonable job of managing the problem, the Lao authorities may gain considerable credibility with the population. Overall, I suggest that where, how, and why COVID-19 will make a long-term impact on the political situation of Laos remains to be seen and is a question that must be revisited in the coming years. Perhaps the COVID crisis will lead to the continuation, and even a strengthening, of authoritarian rule in the country.

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Tapp, N. (2001) The Hmong of China: Context, Agency and the Imaginary. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, Inc. Tappe, O. (2013) ‘Faces and Facets of the Kantosou Kou Xat – the Lao “National Liberation Struggle” in State Commemoration and Historiography’, Asian Studies Review, 37(4), pp. 433–450. Tappe, O. (2017) ‘Shaping the National Topography: the Party State, National Imageries, and Questions of Political Authority in Lao PDR’, in Bouté, V. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Changing Lives in Laos: Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-Socialist State. Singapore: NUS Press, pp. 56–80. Tappe, O. and Pholsena, V. (2013) ‘The “American War”: Post-Conflict Landscapes and Violent Memories’, in Tappe, O. and Pholsena, V. (eds) Interactions with a Violent Past: Reading Post-Conflict Landscapes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, pp. 1–18. Taylor, I. (2007) ‘Unpacking China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa’, Current African Issues, 33, pp. 10–25. Tourism Luang Prabang (n-d) Welcome to Luang Prabang. Available at: https:// tourismluangprabang.org (Accessed: 1 September 2018). Trankell, I.-B. (1993) On the Road in Laos: an Anthropological Study of Road Construction and Rural Communities. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University. United Nations Economic Analysis and Policy Division (2018) Least Developed Country: Lao People’s Democratic Republic Profile. Available at: https://www. un.org/development/desa/dpad/least-developed-country-category-lao-peoplesdemocratic-republic.html (Accessed: 1 July 2018). Vallard, A. (2011) ‘Laotian Textiles in Between Markets and the Politics of Culture’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 42(2), pp. 233–252. Vallard, A. (2015) ‘Heritage Sites, Emerging Markets: the Case of the Textile Industry in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR’, in King, V. T. (ed.) UNESCO in Southeast Asia, World Heritage Sites in Comparative Perspective. Brunei Darussalam: Springer Publishers. Vang, N. (2011) ‘Political Transmigrants: Rethinking Hmong Political Activism in America’, Hmong Studies Journal, (12)1, pp. 1–46. Vigne, L. and Martin, E. (2017) The Ivory Trade of Laos: now the Fastest Growing Trade in the World. Save the Elephants. Available at: https://www.savetheelephants.org/ wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-Vigne-Lao-Ivory-Report-web.pdf (Accessed: 1 September 2018). Vinitzky-Seroussi, V. and Teeger, C. (2010) ‘Unpacking the Unspoken: Silence in Collective Memory and Forgetting’, Social Forces, 88(3), pp. 1103–1122.

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White, L. (2005) ‘Dimensions of Legitimacy’, in White, L. (ed.) Legitimacy: Ambiguities of Political Success or Failure in East and Southeast Asia. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 1–28. Winichakul, T. (2011) ‘Coming to Terms with the West: Intellectual Strategies of Bifurcation and Post-Westernism in Siam’, in Harrison, R. and Jackson, P. (eds) The Ambiguous Allure of the West: Traces of the Colonial in Thailand. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Yamada, N. (2018) ‘Legitimation of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party: Socialism, Chintanakan Mai (New Thinking) and Reform’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 48(5), pp. 717–738. Yu, H. (2017) ‘Motivation Behind China’s “One Belt, One Road” Initiatives and Establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’, Journal of Contemporary China, 26(105), pp. 353–368. Zeller, N. (2015) ‘Doing a Dam Better? Understanding the World Bank’s EcoGovernmentality in Lao Hydropower Development’, The Journal of Lao Studies, (Special Issue), pp. 161–180. Zhang, L. (2001) ‘Migration and Privatization of Space and Power in Late Socialist China’, American Ethnologist, 28(1), pp. 179–205. Zhang, L. and Ong, A. (2008) Privatizing China: Socialism from Afar. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Zheng, Y. and Lye, L.F. (2005) ‘Political Legitimacy in Reform China: Between Economic Performance and Democratization’, in White, L. (ed.) Legitimacy: Ambiguities of Political Success or Failure in East and Southeast Asia. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 183–214. ເຈມສ ຊົ່ງ (Xiong, J). (2015) ຊີ ວດ ິ ເທິ ງພູຫລວງ Growing up on the Mountain. Luang Prabang, Laos: Big Brother Mouse.

Index Africa 127 Akha 95, 128-129 Alden, Chris 126-127 architecture 36, 38-39, 61-67, 86, 154, 164-165 ASEAN 128, 144-145 authoritarianism 24, 26, 28-29, 76, 95, 151, 158, 160-162, 170, 172 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) impact in Laos 32, 119-120, 123, 125-126, 128 importance for China 125-126, 128, 138, 143 see also China in Laos; infrastructure Berliner, David 20n8, 23n13, 62, 63n7, 70n15, 71n17, 72n18, 73 borders Lao-China 43, 46, 119, 126-127, 137, 141, 168 Lao-Vietnam 16, 22, 151, 155-156, 158 Bouté, Vanina 99n17, 110 Buddhism almsgiving (tak-baat) 39, 57, 68-72 as source of legitimacy 36, 39, 66n1170, 71-72, 83, 108 establishment in Laos 36 in Luang Prabang 36, 39, 68-73, 108, 155 novice monks 64, 69-72, 103 repression after revolution 39, 153 see also heritage; Lao national identity Carothers, Thomas 49n35, 144-145, 169 Chanh (Khmu man) 134, 136, 144 Chatterjee, Partha 49, 106 China as destination for migration 27, 41-43, 48, 94, 103, 114, 121, 128, 130-132, 169 as neo-coloniser see neo-colonialism Beijing 125 Cultural Revolution 94 Hmong in China see Hmong in Africa 127 in Laos see China in Laos Kunming 120, 167 Mandarin see language Olympic Games 125 politics 24, 31, 125n10-13, 139n27 role in infrastructure building see infrastructure Shanghai 130 see also China in Laos China in Laos agriculture 135 as driver of development see development business activities 42-44, 119, 124n19, 128, 135 Chinatowns 119 China-Lao marriage 43

Chinese goods 43-45, 131 investment in Laos 24, 32, 87; see also rising influence in Laos Lao people of Chinese heritage 43 perceived connection with contemporary Chinese state 27, 43-46, 48, 119-120, 124-125 rising influence in Laos 24-25, 27, 42-46, 48, 72, 84, 87, 118-119, 122-139, 141-146, 154, 160, 162, 166-170, 170 tourism see tourism see also China; infrastructure; Lao state Chit (lowland Lao heritage professional) 136138, 142-143, 145 Chou Anouvong 164 christianity activities by missionaries 104, 108-109 as social advancement 69n13, 109 Chue (Hmong student) 36, 74, 85 collectivisation 15, 23n15 colonialism by France see Laos history neo colonialism see neo-colonialism see also crypto-colonialism Covid-19 111n26, 151, 172 crypto-colonialism 45, 93, 112, 166; see also Herzfeld, Michael; Lao national identity; neo-colonialism crypto-separatism 42, 47, 91, 93, 101, 112, 166; see also Herzfeld, Michael; Hmong; Lao national identity cultural intimacy 15, 29-30, 32-35, 47n34, 81-82, 86, 93, 101-102, 106, 109-110, 112-113, 121122, 139, 141, 143-144, 170; see also heritage; Herzfeld, Michael; Lao national identity democracy 24, 28, 49, 76, 126, 144-145, 169 desire 24, 26, 30, 37, 44, 63, 73, 86, 95, 100-101, 108, 112, 121n6, 122, 127, 129n20, 136, 138, 144, 157, 161 development China as a driver of 27, 32, 43, 45-48, 117-118, 120, 126-127, 130, 132, 141-142; see also infrastructure in local perceptions 27, 33, 73, 101, 108-109, 120-121, 127-128, 130-132, 136, 139, 141, 160, 162, 169 in official narratives 33, 35, 40, 43, 45-46, 55, 72-73, 79, 106, 108, 126-128, 132, 169 least developed country 27, 169, 172 role of NGOs 32 diaspora alternative memories among 20, 24, 76, 87 overseas Hmong 20, 97, 99-100, 111 overseas Lao 20, 24, 31, 76, 87, 99

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dissent 21, 34-35, 39, 55, 83, 101, 109, 113, 159-160, 166, 170; see also Lao national identity; legitimacy Doua (Hmong student) 132-133, 135, 138 Ducourtieux, Olivier 110 Eastern Europe 21 economics 15-16, 23, 27, 29-30, 36, 49, 59, 61, 93, 112, 119, 125-128, 140, 144, 153-154, 168, 172 Edensor, Tim 59 Ek (lowland Lao businessman) 55-58, 74, 130, 134, 142 elephants as historical symbol 80 elephant caravan 56 wildlife trading 56 ethnic diversity as folklore 97, 113 tourism activity in Luang Prabang 36, 38, 104, 107, 113; see also handicrafts classification systems of 94-95 difference as narrative of belonging 68, 94-96, 113, 165-166 Luang Prabang as lowland Lao town 165 performance of ethnic diversity 38, 95-96, 104-107 relocations of ethnic minorities 99-100, 102, 114, 120, 136 Europe 21, 32, 37, 41, 64, 127, 168 Evans, Grant 17n3, 23n11, 23n15, 60n5, 70n15, 72, 75n21, 140, 164n7 Facebook 31, 40, 76, 77, 97, 136 flags hammer and sickle 57-58, 83 of contemporary Laos 57-58, 78, 83 of RLG 20, 65 fusion 36, 63-65, 67 Goffmann, Erving 58 Golley, Jane and Song, Ligang 125 Goudineau, Yves 92n3, 95, 96n8, 97n9, 113 handicrafts as culture 38, 106, 107 ethnic fashion show 107 sale of in Luang Prabang 38, 81, 105-106, 107n22-n23, 109, 113 Sinh see Sinh see also textiles Herdt, Gilbert 76 heritage as imported tradition 20n8, 58n364, 109-110 as national story 15, 19-21, 35-40, 47-48, 50, 55, 57, 59-62, 67, 70, 72-73, 75, 77-84, 86-87, 106-107, 113, 119, 137, 142-144, 153-158, 160, 162-165, 170-171 definition of in Luang Prabang 36

in Luang Prabang 16-21, 35-40, 42, 46, 55, 59-65, 67-68, 70, 73, 75, 77, 80-81, 86, 107, 113, 135-136, 157, 142, 151-155, 160, 163-165 local actors in 17, 35, 37, 63-64, 72-75, 80, 106-107, 113, 135-137, 142, 151-153, 155, 165 nostalgia as part of heritage 61-65, 71-72 timelessness as part of heritage 28, 40, 67, 72-79, 83, 87, 140, 171 see also Buddhism; Lao national identity; museums; tourism, UNESCO Herzfeld, Michael 15, 29, 45, 47n34, 77n25, 93, 112, 139, 140n28, 141, 159n2, 161n4, 168n13; see also crypto-colonialism; crypto-separatism; cultural intimacy High, Holly 24, 30, 49, 99n17, 102n19, 114n28, 121n5, 161 High, Holly and Petit, Pierre 16n2, 24, 59 Hmong belief systems 71, 104 clans 101 clothing 106-107, 113; see also textiles culture 92, 97-98, 104, 106, 107 desires for an independent state 22, 42, 47-48, 100, 105, 111, 113-114 diaspora see diaspora discrimination against 26, 47, 92, 99, 111-112, 114, 165-166 history in Laos 26, 42, 74-77, 80, 92-94, 98n12, 98n13100, 101, 141, 143-144, 160, 162-163, 166 in China 26, 41, 94, 98-100, 103, 111, 131-132, 167; see also Hmong, migration from China in Luang Prabang 16, 26-27, 36, 47, 55, 64, 74, 103, 105-107, 109, 113, 119, 131n21, 132-134, 136, 138 language see language migration from China 26, 93-94, 100, 103, 111, 131 new year 108 violence attributed to 42, 111-112, 160, 166 see also crypto-separatism; cultural intimacy, Lao history, Lao national identity, Vang Pao Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terrence 39, 109n25 Houaphanh Province 23, 156 hydropower see also infrastructure realisation of in Laos 27, 31n4120, 121, 134, 169 Xe Pian Xe Nam Noy collapse 30, 120 infrastructure Chinese involvement in 43, 48, 120, 125, 136, 138, 142, 168 development of in Laos 27, 37, 120-121, 125, 136, 138, 142, 168 hydropower see hydropower promises of 27, 43, 48, 121, 125, 168-169

Index

transport 27, 102, 120-121, 136, 169; see also Laos-China Railway relocations for see relocations of ethnic minorities see also crypto-colonialism; development; Belt and Road Initiative Ja (Hmong student) 130, 135 Katu 96 Kerkvliet, Benedict 23n12, 69n13, 159, 161 Khmu 26, 32, 36, 47, 75, 95, 97, 107, 109, 134-135, 168 Kou (Hmong teacher) 25, 75-76, 85, 102-105, 107, 110, 114, 132, 134-139, 141, 160, 162-163, 168 Ladwig, Patrice 69 Lah (Khmu woman) 75 language dictionaries 31, 85, 134 English 19, 25, 31, 33, 36, 47, 64, 69, 75-76, 81, 97, 104, 117-118, 120, 134-136, 145, 158, 162 French 21, 132, 168 Hmong 47, 85, 97, 103, 165 Lao 42, 47, 97, 105, 113, 132, 165 Mandarin 118, 121, 125, 130, 132, 138-139, 168-169 Lao embassy in UK 31 Lao middle class 40, 57, 71, 119, 157 Lao monarchy deposition and exile of 17, 38, 61, 67, 80-81, 98, 162, 171 in Luang Prabang 17, 60-61, 67, 69, 81-83, 163, 171 in France 76 King Sisavang Vatthana 17, 151 King Sisavang Vong 17-19, 80, 151-154, 161, 170 Lao national identity 15, 55, 58, 91, 106, 108, 117, 122, 151, 161, 171 Lao New year 69, 80, 104 Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) 19, 23, 31, 144; see also Lao state Lao Population 15n1, 16, 21-27, 29-42, 45-46, 48, 61-62, 64, 67, 77-79, 81-84, 86-87, 91-95, 98, 101, 106, 108, 110-112, 117, 122, 125-127, 129, 140-141, 143-145, 154-155; see also Lao state; Lao national identity Lao state as Party State 15, 19n6, 26, 28, 30-31; see also Lao People’s Revolutionary Party as social relations 25 combining capitalism and socialism 16, 21, 23-27, 29-30, 49, 59, 154; see also economics corruption 22, 25, 31-32, 87, 160, 169 dissent 21, 34-35, 49, 58, 83, 101, 109, 113, 159-160, 166, 170

189 engagement with China see China in Laos nominally socialist 15, 19, 40, 48-49, 59, 127, 153-155 Laos China Railway as part of BRI see BRI construction of 32, 43, 102, 119-120, 127, 136 perceptions of 43-44, 48, 87, 117, 119, 127, 134, 136-138, 145, 167, 170 route 43, 120, 167 travel time 44 use of land for 102, 120, 136, 169 see also development; infrastructure Laos GDP 126 Laos history development see development colonialism by France 16, 17n321, 36-39, 45, 62, 65, 77, 118, 154, 164, 168 establishment of socialism 15-16, 19-25, 29-30, 61, 153-155, 157 Fa Ngum 36 Lane Xang 36, 75 move to market economy see economics monarchy see Lao monarchy Pathet Lao 22-23 revolution 23, 30, 38-41, 49-50, 57, 59-61, 63, 67-68, 70, 75, 77-78, 80, 83, 86, 94, 98, 109, 140, 143-144, 151, 153-155, 159, 162-164, 166-167, 171 Royal Lao Government 20-22, 65, 163 Secret War 22n10, 75, 98, 111-112, 166; see also Hmong legitimacy heritage as a driver of 15-16, 20-21, 24, 27, 39-40, 47, 55, 59-60, 72, 75, 70, 83, 86, 153-154, 161, 167; see also heritage in authoritarian states 19, 24, 28, 30, 34, 46, 48-49, 151, 158, 160-161, 165 through essentialising the state 25, 28-30, 33, 40, 42, 44, 48-49, 84, 97, 111, 117, 144-145, 151, 158, 161, 168, 170-172 see also Lao state; China in Laos Leng (Hmong student) 69, 102-105, 107, 110, 114, 135, 137, 142, 144, 162 Long, Colin and Sweet, Jonathan 61, 79, 86 Luang Nam Tha 104, 135 Lyttleton, Chris and Li, Yunxia 128, 129n20 Mekong River 22, 36, 120 memory as national story 17, 28, 40, 55, 62n6, 75n20, 111, 153, 155, 164 fuzziness as part of 60, 83 selective history 38, 40, 55, 59-61, 63, 66, 73-78, 80-84, 119, 143-144, 153, 157, 163 see also cultural intimacy; heritage; Hmong; Lao national identity; museums Migdal, Joel 28, 140n28, 159n3

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museums see also Lao national identity; memory; heritage in Luang Prabang 17-18, 36, 60-61, 64-66, 73, 75, 81, 86, 151-152, 154 in Vieng Xai 155-158 in Vientiane 39, 65, 67, 164 see also cultural intimacy; heritage; Hmong; memory; Lao national identity Nam Khan River 36 National Day 23, 55-56, 58, 74 Neng (Hmong student) 47, 55-59, 61, 70, 85, 91-92, 102-103, 105, 107, 110, 114, 128-129, 132, 135, 138, 141, 143, 162, 168 neo-colonialism 43-45, 93-94, 118, 166, 168 orientalism 35, 62, 101 Oudomxai 104, 118, 135, 167 pessimism 117, 138-139 Petit, Pierre 95n5, 109-110 Phnom Penh 22 Phongsali 118 Phousi Hill 64, 152 Phovihane, Kaysone 23, 39, 156-157 physiognomy 21, 26, 29, 34, 47, 58-62, 67, 70, 76-79, 83-84, 86, 93, 101, 106, 109, 122, 140, 155, 157-160, 162, 165, 171; see also cryptoseparatism; cultural intimacy; heritage; Lao national identity; secrecy political transitions as process 49, 126, 144-145, 169 transition paradigm 49, 169 see also democracy; dissent poverty 27, 35, 44, 77, 94, 99, 117 pragmatism 117, 121, 123, 129, 136, 138-139, 141, 143, 169 Proschan, Frank 97 rice 16, 68-70, 103 Sai (tour guide) 32-35, 162 Sam Neua 118, 155, 157 Schlemmer, Gregoire 92n3, 95 Scott see Zomia secrecy 31, 75-76, 171; see also Lao historySecret War Shong (Hmong student in China) 131, 138, 143 Sinh as ethnic hegemony 41 as index of cultural change 70 as methodological tool 41, 55, 57, 68 prevalence in Luang Prabang 41, 57, 68, 70, 153 Sisavang Vatthana see Lao monarchy Sisavang Vong see Lao monarchy Special Economic Zones 43, 119, 126, 168-169 Staiff, Russell and Bushell, Robyn 63, 79n27 statues 17-19, 35-36, 60, 67, 75, 151-154, 157, 160-164, 170-171

stereotypes 95-96, 106, 118, 123-124, 136 symbols amulets 80 Buddhist 39, 171 flags see flags of RLG 20, 65, 80-83, 162-163 Tan, Danielle 126n14, 129, 142-143 Tappe, Oliver 19n4, 20n7, 80, 81n29, 158n1, 161 tax 33 Teng (Hmong student) 105 textiles 81, 105-106, 113; see also handicrafts; sinh Thailand 65, 85, 104 Tou (Hmong student) 132-133, 135, 138 tourism as employment 40, 47, 56, 63, 103, 107, 172 East Asian tourist market 119-120 importance to Lao economy 23, 36, 37n29, 73, 163 involvement in alms-giving see Buddhism Luang Prabang as tourist site 36-37, 55, 61, 64-65, 70n16, 72, 74, 78-80, 103, 106-107, 165, 168 souvenirs 20, 82 tour guides 17, 32-33, 36, 61, 68, 71-72, 83, 127, 158 Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre 73, 107 Trankell, Ing-Britt 121 UNESCO 16, 19-20, 36-38, 55, 59, 61-65, 67, 72-73, 79, 83-84, 86, 107, 137, 142, 154, 163-164 United States 22, 67, 77-78, 99, 104-105, 107, 127, 157; see also Laos history USSR 21, 49, 95, 162 Vang Pao 22, 76, 99, 101, 111; see also Hmong; Laos history Vieng Xai 155-156, 158, 164 Vientiane 18, 20, 25, 31, 39, 43-44, 61, 65-67, 69, 103, 111, 117, 119-120, 156, 158, 164 Vientiane Times 117-118 Vietnam Chinese influence in 143, 145 influence in Laos 21-22, 31-32, 85, 95, 122, 144 Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City 22 War 21-22 Vintzky-Seroussi, Vered and Teeger, Chana 60, 75n20, 77n26 Wikipedia 65 Yamada, Norihiko 23, 59 Yao 95 youth 16-17, 21, 27, 32, 40-42, 44, 47, 64, 69, 73, 75, 85, 102-105, 129, 145, 162 Zomia 26, 91, 98, 100-101, 112-114, 166