Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ginosko!uunet!amara!babar!khai From: khai@babar.uucp (S. Khai Mong) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Call For Discussion about creating soc.culture.asean Message-ID: Date: 11 Oct 89 16:17:19 GMT References: <9895@thorin.cs.unc.edu> Sender: khai@amara.UUCP Organization: Applied Dynamics International, Inc. Lines: 68 In-reply-to: low@unc.cs.unc.edu's message of 9 Oct 89 20:02:09 GMT In article <9895@thorin.cs.unc.edu> low@unc.cs.unc.edu (Kah-Chan Low) writes: > Definitely. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar (and to a certain extent > Thailand) are known collectively as Indochina, while malaysia, singapore, > phillipines, brunei, and indonesia are collectively known as the insular > part of south-east asia. Rubbish. Burma has never been known as part of being Indochina; neither has Thailand. And I don't believe that Thailand has been known to be part of ``insular Southeast Asia'' either. > Traditionally, Indochina had been subject heavily to cultural influences > from India and China, while the insular south-east asia cultures reflect > a lot of Arabic/Islamic influence on top of the earlier Indian Influence. In your words, the majority of the Phillipines, an Asean, an insular south-east asican culture, ``reflect a lot of Arabic/Islamic influence on top of the earlier Indian Influence.'' ? Thailand? > The native languages spoken there belong to the family of Malayo-Polynesian > languages while those spoken in Indochina are definitely not Malayo- > Polynesian languages. The Thai language is not Malayo-polynesian either. In fact the Thai language is much closer to Laos, and to the Shans of Burma. > Because of different colonial experience and subsequent economic policies, > the insular south-east asia is now culturally much more westernized than > in Indochina, not to mention the fact that the legal, financial, and Would you care to explain how insular southeast asia as a group has a different colonial experience than mainland southeast as a whole? Malaya, Indonesia, Philipines, and Thailand, all Asean countries have totally different colonial experiences. Absolutely nothing in common. > other systems which affect life in both big and small ways are modelled > along western european/american lines. That is not the case in > Indochina. > The result is, presently, there are vast cultural and socio-economic > differences between the ASEAN countries and Indochina countries. To the credit of the *people* of the ASEAN countries. This has not much to do with colonial heritage. If it weren't for despotic rulers, I am sure that the people of other countries of SE Asia would love to be as prosperous as ASEAN. The fact that the ASEAN countires recognize the savage rulers (the Khmer Rouge), and continue to give military supplies (to Burma) doesn't help the situation either. > Most importantly, we (the people from the 6 countries) do not perceive > the Indochina countries as "on the same boat" as ours. Oh yeah? Stinks of elitism. And I have the opinion that this is what all pro-s.c.asean people are advocating. ``We don't want to have anything to do with those poor and opressed masses . . . we have nothing in common with them . . . Keep them out''. And I wonder why you have to use the pronoun ``we'' rather than ``I''. > If there's no justification for creating a newsgroup for the six countries > apart from one that covers the whole of south-east asia because "those > countries are all the same" . . . Again, they are hardly the same, not any more so than other SE Asian nations. -- Sao Khai Mong: Applied Dynamics, 3800 Stone School Road, Ann Arbor, Mi48108 (313)973-1300 (uunet|sharkey)!amara!khai khai%amara.uucp@mailgw.cc.umich.edu