by Brett Dakin
When I made it clear that I simply wanted to have a look, he took a key from behind the desk and, with an apologetic expression, led me up an unlit stairwell to the second floor. We made our way down a long, dark hallway and past a carpeted conference room that hadn’t been used in ages. At the end of the hallway, the receptionist unlocked the door to a bedroom and let me inside. The room was filthy. Suspicious streaks of red and brown marked the wall just above the bed. The sheets looked as if they might devour anyone who dared lie down for the night.
I thanked the receptionist and made a quick exit. As I was leaving the building, though, I noticed the vast concrete pillars on either side of the main entrance. They gave the place an air of majesty, I thought—in spite of myself, I still believed the Phonexay had potential. But the Inthavong family hadn’t lifted a finger to maintain the building, let alone renovate it to welcome the increasing numbers of tourists visiting Laos. What had happened?
“I am trying,” said Sone as he tallied up the bill for the only other customer at the Namphu. He was the family member who had the most responsibility for the Phonexay, and he had plans to give the exterior a badly needed new coat of paint. But I sensed that Sone’s enthusiasm was on the wane. “In Laos,” he explained, “it is very difficult.”
Where was Sone headed? I wondered. Would he spend the rest of his life behind the bar at the Namphu?
Sone would often speak with fondness of his years as a student in Australia. And like many of his friends, he couldn’t understand why I had decided leave the US for Vientiane. What good could I possibly find among the crumbling buildings and unpaved roads of this small country? Why come all the way here when there was so much opportunity waiting for me there? No matter how many times I tried to explain, most of my Lost Generation friends failed to see what I could possibly gain from leaving life in the West. Having experienced it for themselves, they knew what it had to offer: everything they couldn’t find in Vientiane.
When it came time for me to leave Laos months later, the Phonexay would remain untouched, a crumbling monument to a family’s decline and a generation’s malaise.
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Sophie was no stranger to the Inthavong family; in fact, she had once come quite close to marrying Sone’s brother. Sophie lived at her family’s house in Vientiane, a villa typical of those built during the capital’s wartime boom. The living and dining areas were combined in one spacious room, decorated with large, colorful oil canvases that depicted scenes of everyday life in Laos. I had come to meet Sophie for lunch, and as I entered the room, the indignant poetics of the late American rapper, Tupac Shakur, blasted from the stereo. Sophie emerged from the kitchen dressed elegantly in black slacks, a simple white blouse, and black designer glasses. She greeted me with a light kiss on each cheek, and we sat down to enjoy the light meal she had prepared: cheese omelets, mixed salad, and fresh baguettes from the market nearby. We washed this typical French repast down with a bottle of red table wine. Was I still in Laos?
Sophie had grown up in Vientiane, but had left Laos with her mother back in 1974, before entering high school. The Royal Lao Government had not yet fallen to the communists, but Sophie’s mother had seen the writing on the wall. She wasn’t royalty, but her family did belong to Vientiane’s merchant aristocracy, and her husband had done business in the US. The way political events were unfolding, the future looked bleak. Sophie and her mother left for India to join her aunt, who was working in the Lao Embassy in Delhi. When the revolution took place, they all moved to Paris. The only member of Sophie’s family to remain in Vientiane was an uncle who was able to hold onto one of the family’s houses—two were immediately confiscated by the new regime—until Sophie’s return, more than twenty years later.
When it came time for high school, Sophie left France for the States, where she lived with an aunt. She attended a public school in Los Angeles, and the American accent she’d acquired there remained with her even today. Her speech was punctuated with a heavy dose of “likes,” “oh, my Gods” and other typical Californiarisms. After graduation, she enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley to study political science, but ultimately completed her studies at a small community college nearby in order to save money. She had been living in an apartment with two roommates, driving her own car, about to begin the next chapter in her new American life when, one day, her mother called from Paris.
“It’s time,” she said, and Sophie knew just what she meant.
For years, Sophie and her mother had been discussing the possibility of returning to Laos. As official “traitors” to the regime, they were understandably wary. But by 1995, after having heard reports from other émigrés who had successfully gone back, they had decided that it was safe. Sophie dropped everything in LA and flew to Vientiane. She and her mother moved back into the house her uncle had been holding onto for so many years, and Sophie set about looking for a job. During the first few months, she felt strangely uncomfortable in her own home. Her relatives welcomed her back, of course, but they remained suspicious of the motives for her return. After all, Sophie and her mother had escaped, while they had stuck it out. Why had they bothered to come back now? Even in the mid-1990s, most Lao remained wary of returnees, even family members. After so many years away, Sophie wondered if she had anything in common with her relatives any longer. She felt alone, and isolated.
Indeed, Sophie wasn’t a traditional Lao girl. Her manner of speaking, the way she dressed—her entire approach to life—was more the result of her years abroad than her Lao upbringing. She had aspirations that were unbecoming for a young woman in Laos. She even spoke of founding her own consulting firm, through which she would work to attract foreign direct investment to Laos. In considering such business endeavors, she saw extraordinary opportunities not only for herself, but also for the future development of her country. But much of Sophie’s time was spent trying to come to terms with what it meant to be a Lao carrying a foreign passport in Laos—in the culture of her birth, but not entirely of it.
Just as Sophie was struggling with questions of her identity, her mother was trying to marry her off. As a child, her mother had been good friends with one of Grandpa Inthavong’s sons. One night, the younger Inthavong and his wife invited Sophie to dinner. She was enjoying a good conversation about French literature and philosophy when Mrs. Inthavong suddenly brought up the topic of her son. He had completed his studies in Russia, she said, and at 29 was ready for marriage. Both were appropriately well-bred, and hailed from two families of similarly high status. They would be a perfect match! But Sophie already knew about his reputation around town as a playboy, and she wanted nothing to do with him. She had little desire to be among the gaggle of hopeful young women who surrounded him in every nightclub he frequented.
“He is a bit turbulent,” his mother allowed, “but we think he has promise.” And then there was always the money. “You can have everything you want,” she told Sophie. “We can even get you two houses, one to live in, another to rent out.” As Mrs. Inthavong continued to extol his virtues, the prodigal son walked in, just in time for dessert. Upon entering the room, he transformed from the joker Sophie had always known to a polite, well-spoken, and respectful son. Swept away by his charm, Sophie agreed to a few dates and, before she knew it, they were “a couple.” Soon enough, the mothers began to plan the wedding. After all, this match had less to do with love than it did with business and social status. It was in the best interest of both families for their children to marry within Vientiane’s upper class. Sophie could already imagine her life as the wife of an Inthavong, the pressure of always having to impress Vientiane society by wearing the right color sin at parties and enough new gold jewelry at weddings. She soon determined that this playboy and his family weren’t for her.
When she put an end to the relationship, he didn’t go quietly. If he ever saw Sophie in a nightclub, he would promptly dump the girl with whom he’d arrived and join her. Once, while she was having a business din
ner in a Vientiane restaurant, he approached her table, kissed her on the lips, and announced, “This is my wife.” After she exploded and demanded an apology, he finally got the message. But Sophie wasn’t accustomed to this sort of behavior; she expected to be treated as an independent woman, free to make her own decisions about her future. She found it hard to understand why so many girls in Vientiane continued to throw themselves at this guy’s feet, hoping desperately for a marriage proposal, while he treated them like dirt. Unlike these women, Sophie had seen the possibilities.
Life in the world beyond Vientiane had taught Sophie that even an heir to the Inthavong fortune was nothing special. She knew there were far better men out there—in Vientiane, they were just especially hard to find. But how long could she hope to resist the pressure to please her mother and to impress the neighbors? She began to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to leave Laos and head back to the States after all. Would she ever be able to find happiness in the country of her birth?
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It may seem strange that I cared so much about these people and their lives. To be sure, in a country where one in five children dies in infancy and adult life expectancy is just more than fifty years, their struggles were minor. What did these rich, spoiled, twenty-somethings have to complain about? They had been granted opportunities to see the world that most of their fellow countrymen could never hope to obtain. Above all, I suppose, I was intrigued by the members of Laos’ Lost Generation because they were my peers. And while we were close in age, we found ourselves in strikingly different situations. I had left the West behind by choice. I was living far away from my family, working for a communist government in a developing country, making just enough money to get by—whenever we went out to dinner, I was inevitably the poorest one at the table—and absolutely loving it.
On the other hand, my friends were living only a few paces from where they had studied as teenagers. They found that the good fortune of their upper-class background only served to stifle their independence and personal growth. They had plenty of money, but nowhere to spend it. Plenty of new ideas, but no way to implement them. Many, like Paul, had felt obligated to come back to Laos. Among those like Sophie who had freely chosen to return, many had yet to find what they were looking for. Their lives were on hold. Having been exposed to life in the West, they felt left behind in Vientiane, and quietly pined for something more.
Across the River
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At the NTA, much of my colleagues’ time was spent figuring out what on earth to do about the Visit Laos Year 1999-2000 campaign. Frantically organizing celebrations in each of the provincial capitals, drafting speeches by deputy prime ministers, designing logos and dreaming up catchy mottos, the staff were consumed by the campaign. Much of my time, however, was spent trying to figure out why on earth we were even having a Visit Laos Year. The roads in the capital were impassable; the UN and most foreign embassies had condemned Lao Aviation as unsafe; and a full-scale military conflict with the Hmong was brewing in the Northeast. The Party was by no means certain that it even wanted foreign tourists roaming around. All this led me to think that it was perhaps not the best time for the campaign.
A few years back, the Party had decided that the NTA should organize a promotional campaign for 1999. But given the enormity of the task and the absence of funding, the NTA soon ran out of time to prepare. When 1998 rolled around and it became clear that the country wasn’t ready, the Party fudged the issue: rather than canceling Visit Laos Year 1999—which would have required the awkward reversal of an official decision—it decided to re-name the campaign Visit Laos Year 1999-2000. This afforded some breathing space, and some welcome ambiguity.
When I arrived in Vientiane, no one was quite sure when the campaign was supposed to begin. Was it January 1999? Or perhaps the Lao New Year in April? As it scrambled to prepare, the NTA did little to alleviate the confusion. Every few weeks, someone in the Marketing and Promotion Unit would come up with a new slogan as we prepared for Visit Laos Year (or was it Years?): “Laos—Your New Love;” “Laos: Jewel of the Mekong;” and “Fabu-Laos!”
In Bangkok, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, along with some highly paid Western consultants and a budget that dwarfed that of the entire Lao government, had long before come up with its own cohesive tourism promotion campaign: “Amazing Thailand.” That’s Amazing Thailand, mind you, as in “Amazing Gateway,” the “Amazing Doi Ting Tour,” and “Amazing Chiang Rai’s Hilltribe Shangrila Adventure.” And don’t forget the country’s “Amazing Cultural Heritage,” “Amazing Natural Heritage,” and “Amazing Arts and Lifestyle.” Not to mention fun-filled activities like the “Amazing Mini Light and Sound Presentation Chiang Rai.”
In short, the Amazing Thailand campaign was inescapable. Whenever I crossed the Friendship Bridge over the Mekong, the first thing that greeted me was an enormous billboard that read, “Amazing Thailand Grand Sale—50-80% Off!” The entire country was on sale.
Living in Vientiane, I often thought of the Kingdom of Thailand as one big shopping mall. It was the Promised Land of Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s. If ever an expat in Vientiane needed a fast food fix, all he had to do was to make a run for the border and cross the Mekong. In Thailand, particularly during the Asian economic crisis, nothing was sacred. Everything was for sale, from the country’s natural heritage to its cultural identity, its ethnic minorities to its young women. And that was the most amazing thing of all.
Thailand’s influence in Laos was overwhelming. Thai fingerprints were all over the spheres of commerce, fashion, finance, and popular culture. A simple stroll through the Morning Market in Vientiane revealed the degree to which the daily life of the average Lao was suffused with Thai influence. Nearly every product was an import from across the river. Toothpaste, milk, clothing, even sugar and salt—it was all foreign. As the Lao economy slid deeper into recession, the government exhorted its citizens to buy Lao products and reject Thai imports in order to boost domestic production. It was a lost cause. “Of course I want to promote Lao products,” my colleague and friend Chanh told me over lunch at his house one day. “But the Thai quality is just much better.”
When Chanh graduated from high school in Vientiane in 1985, he had been at the very top of his class. The government offered him a scholarship to study at the university level in one of the usual Cold War suspects: the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam. Most of his classmates would have jumped at the chance. They weren’t interested in the academics, but rather in the possibility of making a little extra money to send back home. (Even today there are Lao merchants in Moscow and St. Petersburg, stuck in a post-Soviet, not-quite-capitalist culture dominated by the mafia.) But Chanh wanted something different. He wanted to go someplace no one from his school had ever been. He wanted to live someplace warm. And, realizing that Russian influence was on the wane, he wanted to learn a language that might one day be useful. So Chanh chose Cuba.
He lived in Havana for five years, studying economics at the National University, and never once leaving the country. He spoke Spanish fluently, and the resulting effect on his accent was clear: I loved to listen to his festive pronunciation of English words, which brought to mind the steamy streets and sensual nights of Havana. Chanh’s accent wasn’t the only aspect of his character that had a Latin influence. His moves on the dance floor at the nightclubs in Vientiane we would visit together would often devolve into a salsa of sorts. A highlight of his time in Cuba was a meeting with Fidel Castro, who came to visit the National University and to chat with the international students for a few brief, exhilarating moments. Chanh had never joked with Laos’ president, though one of his best friends was the man’s only daughter, a colleague of ours at the NTA. A statue of Che Guevera sat on Chanh’s desk at the office. “I’m not a communist,” he once assured me. “He is just an inspiration.”
Che probably wouldn’t have approved of the array of electronic products in Chanh’s bedroom in Vientia
ne. He owned a stereo, television, and laptop computer, each of which he’d purchased in Thailand. Chanh had been able to acquire these prized items due to one of the major perks of working for the NTA: whenever he traveled abroad on trips approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was permitted to bring one purchase into the country tax-free. Ordinary Lao citizens re-entering the country from Thailand, on the other hand, had to pay a 100% percent import tax on consumer goods. It was no surprise that the NTA staff put a premium on access to UN-funded “study tours” and other international travel opportunities.
Chanh once returned from a tourism development seminar in Thailand with a new CD player. At the airport in Vientiane, he was stopped by a Customs official and forbidden from taking his new toy into the country; he had forgotten his all-important Foreign Ministry approval forms. Chanh left the machine at the airport and spent the day going through a series of bureaucratic hoops in order to get his precious new purchase into the country, tax-free. He now enjoyed waking up in the morning to Elton John’s greatest hits—or at least a passable Thai imitation.
Certainly the most pervasive influence of Thai culture in Laos was on the airwaves. As the languages of Thailand and Laos were so similar, most Lao had no problem understanding Thai radio or TV. If I ever glanced into a living room while walking through the streets of Vientiane, at any time of the day, I would invariably catch a glimpse of the family gathered around the TV, glued to a Thai soap opera or game show. People rarely watched the state-run channel, which was a dreary affair. Newscasters sat in front of a cardboard cut-out depicting one Vientiane landmark or another and read news reports about the successes of the revolution—everything from the improved living conditions of remote villagers to increased productivity at a chicken farm near Pakse. They provided commentary on endless government meetings with delegations from friendly nations like Cuba and Vietnam. The sight of aging Party cadres shuffling in and out of yet another seminar was enough to send anyone channel surfing.
