• Vietnam — The Land of the Bach Dang River
• Cambodia — The Angkor Kingdom
• Laos — Lane Xang

Indochina is south of China and east of India, the two Asian giants of history. Both greatly shaped the culture of the region, providing the name: Indochina. Yet there are serious objections to this familiar term. It tends to convey that Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are mere appendages of China or India rather than nations with their own unique individualities.

It is even more imperative to retire the term French Indochina. The history and culture of mainland Southeast Asia did not begin with the colonial era. Informed church folk have long since ceased using "discovery" language to describe European conquests, and yet we often continue to study a nation's history from the time of contact with European cultures.

A woman of Koky, Cambodia.
Photo by Richard Lord.

Vietnam — The Land of the Bach Dang River

Ancient sources tell us that the refined, advanced Bronze Age Doug Son culture was flourishing in Vietnam by the third century B.C. This culture then received, absorbed, and sometimes rejected the impact of Indian and Chinese influence, being geographically located at the crossroads of Asia. Monsoons fueled the great sea route between the two commercial centers, India and China.

An Indianized state appeared in the seventh century on the Vietnamese coast near Danang. This was the Hindu Kingdom of Champa. Indian Sanskrit was the sacred language of the realm, and there was regular trade with India. From the North came Chinese traders en route to India and with them came various aspects of their ancient culture: techniques for the construction of dikes and irrigation systems that were essential for wet rice cultivation. Along with the metal plough and domesticated animals came Confucianism, Taoism, and Mahayana Buddhism.

After centuries of subjugation and tyranny, the Vietnamese revolted in A.D. 938, defeating the hated Chinese armies in the battle of Bach Dang River, under the leadership of Ngo Quyen.

Ngo Quyen then established an independent Vietnamese nation. This ended a thousand years of Chinese rule and soon began the rule of independent Vietnamese dynasties, lasting from 939 to 1945, with the exception of one brief interlude in the 1400s.

The history of independent Vietnam is rich, engaging, and well documented. For instance, following his amazing and terrifying conquest of China in the mid thirteenth century, the Mongol warrior Kublai Khan demanded the right to cross Vietnam en route to attack the kingdom of Champa. When the Vietnamese refused, 500,000 Mongols invaded. Tran Hung Dao rallied the badly outnumbered Vietnamese, who forced the Mongols back into China. Having little experience with defeat, the Mongols returned. This time, Tran Hung Dao lured them up the Bach Dang River, waited until low tide, and then counterattacked, driving the Mongol boats into bamboo stakes that had been driven into the river bed the previous night. The entire Mongol fleet was captured or sunk after being impaled on the stakes.

Harvesting beans in Binh Quay, Vietnam.
Photo by Richard Lord.

In 1418, the Chinese were again defeated during the Lam Son Uprising. The Vietnamese guerrilla troops were led by Le Loi, still honored today as one of the country's greatest national heroes. It was at this event that poet Nguyen Trai penned his famous "Great Proclamation" (Binh Ngo Dai Cao) that gave voice to the deep sense of Vietnam's spirit of independence: "Our people long ago established Vietnam as an independent nation with its own civilization. We have our own mountains and our own rivers, our own customs and traditions....We have sometimes been weak and sometimes powerful, but at no time have we suffered from a lack of heroes."

In the centuries to follow under the Le Dynasty, Vietnamese culture benefited from agrarian reform, land redistribution, and advances in law, religion, and literature. Scholars began to favor the Vietnamese language over Chinese and great works of literature were created. While women gained almost equal rights through domestic legal reforms, slavery was not abolished. Pagodas sprang up throughout the land thanks to the state support of Buddhism. Vietnamese Buddhism, by the seventeenth century, had become intermingled with animism, ancestor worship, and Taoism.

Cambodia — The Angkor Kingdom

The great and powerful Angkor Kingdom began to emerge in the ninth century. In reality, there developed a pattern of the rise and fall of Angkor kings and kingdoms under the leadership of god-kings. Conflict and war were followed by a new king under whom reunification and further territorial expansion would be the norm. Scholars have pointed out that the most productive periods architecturally occurred after the periods of conflict. Angkor Wat and later Angkor Thom were constructed to honor the Hindu god Vishnu and Buddhism.

A building in Angkor Wat, twelfth-century Hindu temple complex in NW Cambodia.
Photo by Paul Hertig.

Angkor was sacked by the Thais in 1431, and there followed 150 years of dynastic rivalries and ongoing war with the Thais. There were also centuries of tension and conflict with Vietnam.

Flowing across the seas from India were two of the world's major religions, Hinduism and Buddhism. Hinduism was a way of life closely intertwined with the Indian caste system, with its priests, the Brahmans, coming from the highest caste. The practice of worshiping a number of individual gods constituted the framework of everyday Indian life. Particularly popular among the people of Indochina 2000 years ago were Siva, the god of destruction, change, and reproduction and Vishnu, god of preservation and permanence.

Rising, in part, as a challenge to the predominance of the Brahman caste as well as to the polytheism of daily Indian life, Buddhism emerged. It offered a practical philosophy of life as an alternative to a structured system of religious worship. Eventually, Buddhism divided into two schools, both of which deeply influenced Indochina in centuries to follow. Hinayana Buddhism, of which Theravada is a major part, retained the simplicity of Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism, the Great Vehicle (as opposed to the Little Vehicle, Hinayana Buddhism) was receptive to new ideas and interpretations. In it Buddha came to be worshiped as the central godhead, surrounded by numerous Bodhisattvas, considered temporary embodiments of the eternal spirit of the Buddha. As scholars note, the great Khmer temples did not rise out of popular faith nor were they places of public worship. They were primarily royal and princely foundations built to house the personal worship of the founder or his ancestor in the form of one of the gods of the Hindu or Buddhist pantheon. The incredible size of these monuments clearly indicates the massive labor involved and one can only imagine the impact of that upon the common people of that era. Today, Angkor is the principal symbol of modern Cambodia, featured in the center of the national flag and reminding the citizens of the majesty and superb artistic skill of their early civilization.

Laos — Lane Xang

But Laos is not peripheral, marginal, backward, or forgotten. Granted, this landlocked nation, which is 80 percent mountainous, has often been in the shadow of Thailand (Siam), Vietnam, China, or France. Yet we must firmly reject the viewpoint championed by colonial apologists that Laos was merely a creation of French colonial policy.

While Lao culture and society are not coterminous with present-day political boundaries, the same can be said of dozens of nations whose geographical borders were decided by powerful outside forces. Historical sources tell us that Lao territories were unified under Tra Ngoum in 1353 and became known as Lane Xang. Lane Xang existed as a substantial Southeast Asian kingdom for 350 years with clearly defined boundaries. Following unceasing strife over succession to the throne, it disintegrated into the separate kingdoms of Luang Prabang, Vientiane, and Champassak. They eventually fell under Thai influence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

A girl separates rice grains from hulls in the Hmong village of Pu Kaw Quay, Laos.
Photo by Richard Lord.

The sacred and the secular are often intertwined in Indochina. Intensive wet rice cultivation in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam is traditionally considered a sacred as well as a secular endeavor. Lao farmers call upon the phi, or nature spirits, to ensure the fertility of the crops and an abundant water supply. Prior to the annual April rains, the Lao have an elaborate New Year's celebration.

In wet rice cultivation the rice seedlings are transplanted into the fields. At harvest time, precautions are taken to ward off evil spirits who might make a raid on the rice. Later, there is a special rite for the reopening of the storage bins. Holding candles and crouching, the people recite: "Today is an auspicious day. We take you. We draw you out. When we eat you, you shall remain undiminished. May you always be plentiful." The Lao then tell the souls of the rice not to fear the rhythmic sounds and heavy weight of the pestles that will now come to break up the rice.

The Lao, who are gentle and peaceful to the point of being concerned about the smashing of the rice, have had their country pounded by powerful neighbors and literally bombarded by US bombers during the Vietnam war. While traveling to Vientiane and Luang Prabang in 1968, I briefly visited the enormous US air base in Udorn, Thailand, from which planes bombed Vietnam. I learned that returning bombers with jammed bombs that failed to release were not allowed to land at the base for "safety" reasons. Pilots bailed out and sent the planes crashing into neighboring Laos. Today, the soil of Laos contains not only nurturing rice but undetermined amounts of unexploded ordnance. The same is true for Vietnam, and Cambodia's rice fields and forests are saturated with antipersonnel landmines.

This article has intended to provide the reader with a glimpse of the richness of precolonial Indochina. Abundant published sources from the colonial period and the independence period await the student of history and current events. Interpreting post-World War II history of Indochina is a monumental challenge for Westerners who, consciously or unconsciously, harbor stereotypes of "the enemy." Visits earlier this year to the Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh and the Killing Fields in Cambodia and the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City and the tunnels at Chu Chi were all vivid, poignant reminders to me of recent wars and conflicts. To learn from history is to avoid such pain and destruction in the future.

To engage in a study of these mainland Southeast Asian nations is to enter a culturally diverse, deeply religious part of the world. From quiet, traditional villages to hectic, lively urban centers, these countries and their people will stimulate, inform, and inspire the serious student.