Little boy selling corn

The_Traveler

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A lot of the pictures that I've brought back are really slice of life things. Laos isn't much of a place for big, spectacular beauty but from morning to night every day there are little things that point up the difference between their society and ours.

The Lao children (by that I mean all the children one sees, not just the children of the Lao people) are wonderfully cared for with lots of affection from both genders yet, on the other hand, they are left free to roam and grow up in what any Westerner would count as naturally dangerous environs. Anywhere that is plausible, people bring their children with them and their presence is natural.


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The other notable part of this picture is the ears of sweet corn. While I have always assumed that corn was a product of the Americas that spread back through Europe after Columbus, seeing the corn so deep in Asia was a shock. Evidently there are early Chinese manuscripts that show corn in China as early as 1505. How is got there is unknown.
In Laos corn is grown in some flat lowland areas where it is a less labor intensive alternative to rice that also requires less water. Corn is grown as a subsistence and money crop on the very steep slopes of the highlands where rice cannot be planted. At least some of that corn seems to be left to dry in bins and then the kernels removed and bagged and the cobs discarded.

It is common to see sweet corn being steamed and then sold in the market place. Not quite the same cultivar as the large kernel varieties sold here on the east coast but, once I got past the experience of people handling my food with bare, unwashed hands, it was fine.

corn bin and discarded cobs
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A machine to strip kernels of corn. The nameplate was mostly defaced but I could read enough to see that the machine was made in China.

Corn cobs-1747.jpg
 
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This is an interesting look into a culture I knew absolutely nothing about. Thanks for sharing.
 
This is an interesting look into a culture I knew absolutely nothing about. Thanks for sharing.

We (Westerners like me) are used to seeing things as a pretty homogenous mass. All over the US houses and suburbs are pretty much the same as the same kind of suburbs near other cities.
In country like Lao (s is French addition and is silent and not even included in Lao) the different minority tribes hold onto their culture very tightly, build their houses in the tribal way and villages are usually homogenous as to tribe. Larger towns are composed of two or smaller towns of different tribal origin that have fused so it is quite typical to walk though a medium size town and see a signpost saying Ban something, signalling that you are now entering a new village (ban). So guidebooks will mention that the address of a hotel in Luang Prabang (for example) is 70/02, Soukaseum Road | Ban Vatsene, Luang Prabang, Laos. Ban Vatsene was formerly a small village that was merged into the larger city as it grew.

All this means is that people who look fairly similar to Westerners may have completely different cultural styles and beliefs. Many of the woman dress in a sort of homogeneous Lao way but many still wear tribal headdresses so their identity is visible. Men generally wear Western style clothes so their background is essentially hidden.

It is not an insult or prying to ask a Lao person what kind of people they are. They are proud of their background and are quite willing, even pleased to tell you their culture. In return they are quite pleased if a Westerner shows any knowledge of Buddhism. (I never had a conversation with any of the minority tribes people who were animists. They speak a variety of non-Lao languages and dialects and often speak Lao only marginally. The guides we hired were usually Lao or, in one case, Tai Dam (Black Tai) and spoke any of the minority languages barely.)
 
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Fascinating as usual! Thank you for sharing!
 

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