Cambodian Public Holiday 2009

Cambodian Public Holiday 2010

How Bloggers Make Money Online without Blogging [POLL RESULTS]

Last month I ran a poll here at ProBlogger which asked readers if they make money online from sources other than blogging.

The result was almost completely split with 1022 of the 2053 people who responded saying Yes and 1031 saying no.

Some of the comments on the launch post of this poll revealed some of the ways people are making money online from sources other than blogging. They include:

• Website Design
• Flipping (selling) Websites
• Selling ebooks
• Youtube Partnership program
• Freelance writing, graphic design
• Teaching and Consulting
• Owning other types of websites (directories, forums etc)
• Business Documentation site
• Developing web applications
• Online Surveys
• Paid to Click Sites
• Selling Products and Merchandise
• Affiliate Marketing
• Writing on User Generated Content (Revenue Sharing) Sites
• Make Online Games
• Online Store – Selling Products
• eBay
• Selling Art
• Business Referrals
• Market Research
• Software Development
• Working as a Transcriptionist
• Membership Sites
• Generating Sales for Off-line Business from Websites

Lots of good ideas there and a nice reminder that there’s plenty to explore outside of blogging.

My own list of online money making sources that are not directly blogging include running a forum (advertising revenue), newsletter lists (affiliate marketing and some advertising), consulting (limited), selling a course, job boards, working at b5media (very part time)… and that’s about all I can think of.

Make Fast Money Blogging Products – My Reaction

As this thing is launching and I’m already getting emails about it from readers asking if they should buy it – let me give you a few quick reactions to it and other products I’ve seen like it.

Do keep in mind, I’ve not bought the product so I’m making these calls based solely upon what I’ve seen in the sales material and what I’ve heard from charter members. Much of what I have written below applies to most of these kinds of products (and there are many).

Note: I’m not naming the product here (and I’m certainly not going to try to make a quick buck with an affiliate promotion), I just don’t feel good about promoting it in any way – for reasons that I guess will become clear below.

Make Fast Money Blogging?

Here’s the main thing – making money from blogging instantly… immediately… quickly… fast isn’t something I’ve seen too many people achieve (I’m actually yet to meet any). I have seen bloggers make A LOT of money blogging – millions of dollars in fact. It’s certainly possible to do – however in every case that I’ve seen the blogger has worked their butts off blogging for a long time, building their authority, credibility and by writing content that is original and useful – well before their blog started making money.

If you think you can flick a switch or change to a new system and instantly make a lot of money fast – you’re in for a fall. Don’t fall for that line – to make money in this game you’re going to have to work really hard and have a long term view of things.

Lots of Blogs Each Earning Little Bits of Money

OK – the methodology of this program is that you need to start a blog network – multiple blogs that each earn a relatively small amount of money, that mounts up to be a significant amount.

Sounds like a reasonable way to approach things and there is actually some truth to the methodology. I know a number of bloggers who have made some money this way, a few that even make a full time living from it.

I’m not going to knock people for taking on this model – it can work and I guess people do need to make a living. I even did it for a little while myself. However keep in mind that there is a cost of this method – something that I learned for myself the hard way.

The problem with maintaining lots of blogs is that while they each might make a little money that adds up to a reasonable amount – you end up with lots of blogs that don’t really amount to anything in and of themselves on any other level than that they earn a little money.

Perhaps that’s all your dream is (to make a little money from lots of blogs that no one has ever heard of) but what I love about blogs is the way that they open up other opportunities for a blogger. A blog can build your brand and profile to the point that it opens up doors for new jobs, partnerships, book deals, speaking engagements, friendships, business ideas…. etc. The problem is that most bloggers who have experienced these opportunities have worked hard to build a small number of blogs (usually a single one) which they’ve worked hard at – rather than spreading themselves thinly across multiple blogs.

My experience of a small network of blogs was that it while I was able to sustain 10-20 blogs (20-30 posts a day) that the quality of what I was producing was pretty low. I did get a little traffic to each from Google – but never really generated any regular readers, never had anyone comment, never had any opportunities open up as a result of those blogs.

It was only when I switched to having 1-2 blogs with quality, useful and original content that things opened up. As a result I slowly started to make real money blogging and more importantly started to see opportunities to leverage the profile of my blogs to bigger and better opportunities.

Using Other People’s Content

One of the main methods taught by many make money blogging products is to use other people’s content on your blog for the bulk of your posts. This one teaches that you should use other people’s content for the bulk of your posts and throw in some original stuff from time to time. They even give you tools to find and import other people’s content quickly (remember you need lots of blogs to make this work – so you need to do it quickly).

Again – this is something I dabbled in for a while. I did it all manually and tried to use the content in a way that added value rather than just copying and pasting in content (I also did it with the blessing of those whose content I aggregated and always acknowledge sources) – but in the end I dropped it as a method for a couple of reasons.

Firstly it was the most boring thing I had ever done (and I’ve worked on conveyor belts on production lines for 12 hour shifts – so I know boring). Blogging can be an amazingly uplifting experience – but copying and pasting in content is not fun.

Secondly it’s only marginally useful – there are ways of aggregating content from other sites that can be useful, but it always takes work and extra effort for this to happen. The method demonstrated in the product I’m referring to just mashes up a load of content from other sites in a way that doesn’t really help anyone. As a result a blog that does this as the bulk of its content isn’t really useful to anyone, except the blogger making a few dollars from it. The demonstrator describes the post as quality content – it’s not really. It’s on topic, it might do ok in Google, but it doesn’t really help anyone.

Thirdly – you end up a blog that isn’t really unique or original. This comes back to my points above about creating blogs that actually help build a brand or profile for you. If all you do with the bulk of your content is rehash and mashup other people’s content you’ll never get a name for being anything much more than someone who reads, quotes and links to other people’s content. Perhaps I’m crazy – but I’d rather be known for someone who has original, interesting and useful ideas than someone who whips up mashups of other people’s stuff all day every day. But maybe that’s just me?

Fourthly – while search engines unfortunately do rank this kind of content, I’m finding that they’re getting better and better at identifying truly useful content and junky content like this that is created purely to get search traffic. Sites like this can and do rank well but often they fall out of the rankings and in the long term don’t tend to rank well.

Note: at least the teaching offered in today’s course acknowledges sources of content with links and only uses short quotes from those sources – I don’t think it’s anywhere near as bad as some tools that scrape content, strip links and acknowledgements and automatically produce very spammy content.

Final Thoughts

In the end people will believe that they can make fast money blogging if they want to. Some people just want to believe the dream and nothing I can say will convince them. They’ll happily pay their $67 a month, create a few of these ‘blogs’ and a few months later realise that this isn’t a ‘fast’ or particularly ‘easy’ game.

If you’re tempted then please just pause for a moment and think about your objectives for blogging. If you’re looking to purely make money and you don’t want any real personal satisfaction or have any goals of building a brand or profile – then this type of model may actually work for you.

But if your dream is to build something that grows your profile as someone with authority in your niche, or to land a job or book deal, or to get invited to speak at an industry event, or to be quoted in mainstream media about your topic, or it’s just to build a blog that has loyal readers who keep coming back because you’re helping them…. then perhaps this isn’t the type of blogging model for you.

Your Thoughts?

PS: Interestingly the sales page of this new product highlights some successful blogs that make a lot of money blogging. They include Dooce and Mashable. I would argue that these blogs pretty much prove my point. They’re all about original and useful content. They are not about creating lots of blogs that each a little money – they’re about putting in a lot of work to produce useful and original content over a long period of time and don’t resemble anything I’ve seen about the actual product being promoted on the page.

Cable Freedom Is a Click Away

Oh, that, over there. You want to know why there’s a pile of gadgets and wires on the floor? My wife and I usually don’t talk about that clutter. We actually refer to it as the Gadget Graveyard. Mostly, we pretend it doesn’t even exist. But since you asked, I’ll explain.

This digital necropolis isn’t your typical sanctuary for retired devices. Instead, here you’ll find technologies that tried to provide the best viewing experience and program options with a television, but ultimately fell short. Everything is relatively new, and comparatively unusable — to me at least.

Among this pile you can find my old remote controls and wires from my cable box. Then there’s the dreaded Apple TV, now a $250 paperweight. There’s also the $80 Roku box, a device that allows you to stream video from Netflix, Amazon.com and other sites directly to your television. But wait, there’s more! A Vudu player, a Slingbox and a handful of other single-serving contraptions.

Those devices are all behind me now. I disconnected everything, threw it to the side and canceled the cable months ago. Instead, now I have a Mac Mini, wireless mouse and a Microsoft Xbox hooked up to my television.

This quest for cable freedom has been a couple of years in the works. Before I called the cable company to bid my farewell I imagined that I would need a vast array of devices to fill the entertainment void: a device for games, something for television shows, a contraption for streaming movies through Netflix and, finally, something to control all of the above. But it turns out a computer can do all those tasks with some software upgrades and a wireless keyboard and mouse.

I have to be honest, this isn’t as easy as just plugging a computer into a monitor, sitting back and watching a movie. There’s definitely a slight learning curve. One difficult part of this equation was getting used to the wireless mouse. We use a mouse called the Loop, made by Hillcrest Labs, that costs $99. The Loop looks more like a chocolate-frosted doughnut with buttons than something that navigates a television set. To navigate the screen you hold it out and wave your hand from side to side as if you are conducting an orchestra.

As for the computer, you don’t specifically need a Mac Mini. This set up can work with most inexpensive PCs; just make sure the video card can handle the streaming video requirements. Our refurbished Mac Mini cost $380 online.

Although the initial investment was costly, totaling $550, it took only a few months to recoup the money. Back in the olden days of cable we were forced to shell out a relatively standard $140 a month, for television service alone. This cost gave us access to a digital video recorder and hundreds of unwatched TV channels.

Contrast this with today, where our only expense is $9 a month to stream Netflix videos from the Web and the $30 a month that we always spent on an Internet connection. O.K., maybe that’s not completely accurate. When the wireless keyboard died a few weeks ago I was forced to spend another $4 for two new AA batteries. We’ve not yet recovered from that financial loss.

We still come home from work and watch any number of shows, just like the people who continue to pay for cable. We just do it a little differently, starting the computer and then using services like Hulu, Boxee, iTunes and Joost. Another interesting twist to this experience is that we’re no longer limited to consuming traditional programming. With these applications we can spend an entire evening flicking through videos from YouTube, CollegeHumor or Web-only programs.

Here are a few of the applications on our home setup:

Boxee is probably the most clicked icon on our television. You can download this free open-source application from Boxee.tv. It’s important to note that it’s still in test phase and a little rough around the pixels, but over all it allows you to access almost any type of video content online. You can easily stream CNN, Current TV, PBS and more. Most important for us, Boxee easily allows access to the Netflix streaming service, which offers up thousands of movies and television shows (just not always the most popular options).

Next there is Hulu Desktop, the joint venture among Fox, NBC, ABC and many other mainstream programming outlets. This service allows you to watch more than 1,700 television shows, including traditional favorites like “30 Rock,” “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Office.” Hulu’s downloadable desktop application, as opposed to hulu.com, works extremely well with large screens. Apple’s iTunes application replicates all the features of Apple TV, allowing you to buy or rent movies and listen to your music collection.

Be warned though that iTunes can get expensive. If you watch premium-cable television shows, you can pay more than $40 for the season of a single show. But even that is less than one month of cable. Since there are so many other entertainment options online, we just skip “Dexter” and “Weeds.” Trust me, there is a lot of great free or ad-supported content out there.

Finally there’s Joost.com. Although it’s not a downloadable application and only accessible through a Web browser, Joost offers free streaming movies and a strange variety of cartoons.

While Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (starting at $200), is not absolutely necessary for this setup, it delivers an array of lively entertainment options. I can, of course, play video games, but I can also rent movies (through the Xbox marketplace or through Netflix’s online viewing service), and browse Twitter and Facebook, with a new feature that lets you watch a streaming interface of your social networks flow across the screen.

I understand this kind of living room experience isn’t for everyone. It’s a lot less work to just click a button up or down on a standard remote control. And it can be difficult to explain how to use this unfamiliar toolbox of buttons, programs and devices.

Over Thanksgiving a friend graciously house-sat at our apartment. It took my wife more than an hour to write a detailed description explaining how to use our new TV setup. After explaining how to use the mouse and keyboard, we had to describe how to switch among applications. The instructions read:

“If you want to watch “Ugly Betty,” or “Saturday Night Live,” you will need to load up Hulu. If you’d like to watch some of the movies we’ve downloaded, you will have to quit Hulu, open up Boxee and navigate to the movies folder. To use Netflix, you’ll need to switch to the Xbox and. ... ” But after a few hours of randomly clicking into cyberspace, our friend figured it out.

There is one other showstopper. I know the sports and technology enthusiasts don’t often mix, but if you’re one of the few people who live in both of those worlds you might have to look for other options. To watch baseball you can buy a little dongle that plugs into the back of your computer and streams free over-the-air high-definition channels. I bought this for the Yankees games and it worked perfectly. If you’re an ESPN fan you have two options. Stick with cable, or go to a bar to watch the basketball games.

Over all, I couldn’t be happier with our computer television setup. Now, I just have to figure out what gadgets I’m going to buy with the $1,600 a year I no longer send to the cable company.

Hamstrung by Delays, Fitbit Explains and Tries to Deliver

That was 13 months ago. Mr. Cole is still waiting for the $99 gadget to arrive, as are legions of other eager customers.

“I haven’t heard anything yet, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to get it in a month or two,” said Mr. Cole, a 20-year-old student living in New Brighton, Pa.

Others, unwilling to wait any longer, have forked over as much as $350 to buy a Fitbit on eBay from other consumers.

That was 13 months ago. Mr. Cole is still waiting for the $99 gadget to arrive, as are legions of other eager customers.

“I haven’t heard anything yet, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to get it in a month or two,” said Mr. Cole, a 20-year-old student living in New Brighton, Pa.

Others, unwilling to wait any longer, have forked over as much as $350 to buy a Fitbit on eBay from other consumers.

Fitbit’s tale of expectation and delay is a classic start-up story: a couple of entrepreneurs with a hot idea generate excitement, then run into a range of real-world problems in actually trying to make their product and get it to customers. With bigger companies like Nike and Philips Electronics making similar fitness devices, Fitbit runs the risk of getting stomped by competitors before it can really get going.

But the company’s unusual frankness about its problems may also help it survive its growing pains.

“They’ve been really open and transparent about where they are in the process, and that’s made it easier to tolerate the wait,” Mr. Cole said.

A prototype of the Fitbit Tracker was introduced in September 2008 by the co-founders, James Park and Eric Friedman, at TechCrunch 50, an annual showcase of innovative products and Web services.

The thumb-size device uses an accelerometer to sense a user’s movement, then translates that into calories burned. In addition, users can wear the device at night to track the quality of their sleep and can manually input their food consumption to get a better grasp of their overall health and well being. A home base station collects information each time the user passes by and uploads it to Fitbit.com.

The concept appealed to fitness enthusiasts, and Fitbit began taking preorders right away, expecting to be able to ship them within a few months.

Instead, the company, which is based in San Francisco, found that it took eight months to refine its prototype into something that was ready to manufacture, Mr. Park said in a recent interview.

Mr. Park and Mr. Friedman are experienced entrepreneurs, having started two previous tech companies together.

But this was their first foray into hardware. The Fitbit has more than 100 electronic components and 22 plastic and metal parts. Its complexity resulted in unexpected problems in making everything work together.

For example, “we would discover the product used more power than we’d originally thought and have to decide if we wanted to include a larger battery,” Mr. Park said, “which meant going back to the drawing board to figure out how that impacted the size and form factor.”

The company also encountered setbacks during the testing phase, including equipment that at one point got stuck in customs in Indonesia.

Even now, once the products arrive in California from the manufacturer in Singapore, Fitbit employees must spend several minutes updating the software on each device before sending it out to fulfill orders.

To assuage the growing restlessness of its customers, Fitbit has been e-mailing them and posting updates on the company blog about the progress of the Fitbit Tracker, including photos and videos showing production and testing of the devices.

“It’s definitely a way to help people stay interested,” Mr. Park said. “Most products on back order are in a black hole of information.”

Some customers who have received their Fitbit, like Andrew Chen, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, say it is worth the wait. “I love how simple and convenient it is,” he said. “I just put it on and don’t think about it.”

However, Mr. Chen managed to get his device only after complaining on Twitter about his mounting impatience over his back order. One of the investors in the company then shipped him a unit directly.

Now, Fitbit says it is planning to ship the remainder of its back orders by the end of January, when the stand-alone devices will also be available in retail stores.

Jon Callaghan, founder and managing partner of True Ventures, which led a $2 million round of seed financing to Fitbit, acknowledged that it would have been better not to miss the holiday shopping season.

But it was more important to get the product right. “I would not like a warehouse full of products customers didn’t like,” he said. “That would be disastrous and short-term thinking. We’re going to be around for next Christmas.”

Bernie Tenenbaum, an expert on small businesses who has no connection to Fitbit, said the delay was not likely to do permanent damage to the company’s reputation.

“Yes, they’ve missed some sales and some revenue opportunity” and created some excitement prematurely, “but that’s not fatal” compared to shipping a flawed product, said Mr. Tenenbaum, managing partner of the investment firm China Cat Capital.

Still, Fitbit may have lost valuable momentum, he said. “It’s not as if there aren’t enough other shiny new tech things floating around at this time of year. That’s not to say the passionate aficionados won’t be there with bated breath, but for everyone else, there are too many other choices in the world.”

While the Fitbit struggles to fill old orders, the competition has moved in.

Many Web sites allow users to track various aspects of their health, similar to what users can do on Fitbit.com.

And other companies are getting into the gadget side of the business. Philips, a consumer electronics heavyweight, has introduced a fitness tracking device called DirectLife. And other rivals have come out with the BodyBugg, a calorie-tracking monitor worn on the arm, and WakeMate, which monitors sleep cycles and selects the ideal time to rouse its wearer within a given time slot.

So far, none of this appears to have diminished demand for the Fitbit — which does not surprise Jim Silver, an industry analyst and editor in chief of TimetoPlayMag.com.

In the age of Twitter and Facebook, word of mouth operates on hyperdrive, whether it is for the Fitbit or this holiday season’s hot toy, the battery-powered hamsters called Zhu Zhu Pets.

“Even people who aren’t parents or associated with toys know what they are, which opens the door to more sales, just because it’s a hot item,” he said.

Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong

Ho Xuan Huong (1772-1822) was a Vietnamese woman poet born at the end of the Later Le Dynasty (Period 1428–1788: the greatest and longest lasting dynasty of traditional Vietnam) who wrote poems with unusual irreverence and shockingly erotic undertones for her time. She is considered as one of Vietnam's greatest poets, such that she is dubbed "the Queen of Nom Poetry” and has become a cultural symbol of Vietnam. I came across her name first in a travel guide where one of her poems was listed. It led me to search more of her poems. It was a sheer delight to read her poems in the book titled “Spring Essence”, which is what her name means in Vietnamese language.

The epoch she lived was marked by calamity and social disintegration. A concubine, although a high-ranking one, Ho Xuan followed Chinese classical styles in her poetry, but preferred to write poetry in an extinct ideographic script known as Nom, similar to Chinese but representing Vietnamese. And while her prosody followed traditional forms, her poems were anything but conventional: Whether mountain landscapes, or longings after love, or apparently about such common things as a fan, weaving, some fruit, or even a river snail, almost all her poems were double entendres with hidden sexual meaning.

In a Confucian tradition that banished the nude from art, writing about sex was unheard of. And, if this were not enough to incur disfavor in a time when impropriety was punished by the sword, she wrote poems which ridiculed the authority of the decaying Buddhist church, the feudal state, and Confucian society. So, in a time when death and destruction lay about, when the powerful held sway and disrespect was punished by the sword, how did she get away with the irreverence, the scorn, and the habitual indecency of her poetry? The answer lies in her excellence as a poet and in the paramount cultural esteem that Vietnamese have always placed on poetry, whether in the high tradition of the literati or the oral folk poetry of the common people. Quite simply, she survived because of her exquisite cleverness at poetry.

Her poems were copied by hand for almost 100 years before they finally saw a woodblock printing in 1909.

Below are some samplers of her playful poetry. I am sure it will delight you as much as it did me. The reader will experience Ho Xuan Huong's lonely, intelligent life, her exquisite poetry, her stubbornness, her sarcasm, her bravery, her irreverent humor and her bodhisattva's compassion in these poems.

Swinging

Praise whoever raised these poles
for some to swing while others watch
A boy pumps, then arcs his back.
The shapely girl shoves up her hips,
Four pink trousers flapping hard,
Two pairs of legs stretched side by side.
Spring games. Who hasn’t known them?
Swinging posts removed, the holes lie empty

Male Member

New born, it wasn’t so vile. But, now, at night,
even blind it flares brighter than any lamp.
Soldier-like, it sports a reddish leather hat,
Musket balls sagging the bag down below

Jack Fruit

My body is like the jackfruit on the branch:
My skin coarse, my meat thick
Kind sir, if you love me, pierce me with your stick
Caress me and sap will slicken your hands

Weaving at Night

Lampwick turned up, the room glows white.
The loom moves easily all night long
As feet work and push below.
Nimbly the shuttle flies in and out,
Wide or narrow, big or small, sliding in snug.
Long or short, it glides smoothly.
Girls who do it right, let it soak
Then wait a while for the blush to show

The Man - and - Wife Mountain

A clever showpiece nature here displays
It shaped a man ,then shaped a woman, too
Above some snowflakes dot his silver head.

Below, some dewdrops wet her rosy cheeks.
He flaunts his manhood underneath the moon.
She rubs her sex in view of hills and streams.
Even those aged boulders will make love.
Don’t blame us, human beings, if in youth….

(On a journey, the poetess saw two huge rocks, one poised on top of the other, resembling a couple engaged in sexual intercourse)

The Condition of Women

Sisters, do you know how it is? On one hand,
the bawling baby; on the other, your husband
sliding onto your stomach,
his little son still howling at your side.
Yet, everything must be put in order.
Rushing around all helter-skelter.
Husband and child, what obligations!
Sisters, do you know how it is?

(A very touching poem capturing the social issues of women)

On Sharing a Husband

Screw the fate that makes you share a man.
One cuddles under a cotton blanket, the other’s cold
Every now and then, well maybe or maybe not.
Once or twice a month, oh, it’s like nothing.
You try to stick to it like a fly on rice
but the rice is rotten. You slave like a maid,
but without pay. If I had known how it would go
I think I would have lived alone.

The Unwed Mother

Because I was too easy, this happened.
Can you guess the hollow in my heart?
Fate did not push out a bud
even though the willow grew.

(This poem is a classic gem of leaving unsaid everything but what is needed. A heart unfolding. In those times, for an upper class woman, pregnancy out of wedlock could be punished by being forced to lie down while an elephant trod on her stomach, killing both mother and unborn child.

For peasants, socially far more free in sexual encounters, there's a folk proverb:

"No husband, but pregnant, that's skillful.
Husband and pregnant, that's pretty ordinary.")

Questions for the Moon

How many thousands of years have you been there?
Why sometimes slender, why sometimes full?
Why do you circle the purple loneliness of night
and seldom blush before the sun?
Weary, past midnight, who are you searching for?
Are you in love with these rivers and hills?

Autumn Landscape

Drop by drop the rain slaps the banana leaves.
Praise whoever’s skill sketched this desolate scene:
The lush dark canopies of the gnarled trees;
The long river, sliding smooth and white.
Tilting my wine flask, I am drunk with rivers and hills.
My bag , filled with wind and moonlight, weighs on my back,
Sags with poems. Look and love even men
Whoever sees this landscape is stunned

(What an amazingly beautiful sketch it is! ‘Look and love even men’ has a subtle sarcasm.)

Spring –Watching Pavilion

A gentle spring evening arrives
Airily, unclouded by worldly dust
Three times, the bell tolls echoes like a wave
We see heaven upside- down in sad puddles
Love’s vast sea cannot be emptied.
And spring of grace flow easily everywhere.
Where is Nirvana?
Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten

(This one is a masterpiece indeed. Seeking solitude in nature, she realizes that it is nature itself, not any organized religion or other construct of the human world, which holds the key to the search for nirvana and sometimes can see heaven upside- down in sad puddles ‘)

Religion

According to Prime Ministerial Decree No 92 of 5 July 2002 on the Administration and Protection of Religious Activities in Lao PDR, ‘Lao citizens, foreign residents, people without citizenship and foreigners in Lao PDR have the right to carry out religious activities and participate in religious ceremonies in their places of worship at the temple or their own established churches or mosques' (Section 1, Article 4).

Predating Buddhism, the worship of animist spirits (phi) in Laos represents some of the region's most ancient religious practice. Animist shrines may be found in many parts the country.

The origins of Luang Prabang (Muang Sua) are deeply bound up with the legend of Khun Borom's loyal servants Phou Nheu and Nha Nheu, who to this day are revered as the settlement's devata luang or guardian deities at a shrine in the grounds of Wat Aham. Similarly, many residents of Vientiane still venerate the lak muang or district pillar at Wat Simuang, which is believed to contain the guardian spirit of the city.

Animism continues to permeate many aspects of Lao Buddhist ritual, and even the traditional Lao baci ceremony, commonly held to bestow good luck by the tyeing of white strings around the wrist when people receive promotion, move house, start a new job, marry or have a new baby, is derived from the worship of guardian spirits known as khuan.

Buddhism was introduced into the region as early as the first millennium CE, but was not widely practised amongst the Tai principalities until the late 13th or early 14th centuries. Fa Ngum (1353-1371), founder of Lane Xang, established Buddhism as the state religion, but it is clear that the worship of animist spirits continued to predominate for centuries after this, prompting the devout Buddhist King Photisarath in 1527 to promulgate an edict banning the worship of spirits and construct Luang Prabang's Wat Aham and Vientiane's Wat Simuang on the sites of the afore-mentioned animist shrines.

After moving the capital to Vientiane, Phothisarath's son King Sai Setthathirat I (1550-1571) made strenuous efforts to make Vientiane a regional Buddhist centre. However, Buddhism only gained a firm foothold in Lao society during the 17th century, when it began to be taught in schools.

Today some 60 per cent of the Lao population (predominantly lowland Lao and some other Tai-speaking groups) follow Theravada (Hinayana or 'small vehicle') Buddhism, which was based on the earliest teachings of the Buddha and was preserved in Sri Lanka after Mahayana Buddhism branched off in the second century CE; Theravada Buddhism is also the dominant school in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar. Buddhism is an inherent feature of daily life in Laos and an important influence on Lao society and culture. Almost every Lao Buddhist male becomes a monk for a short period of time, usually before marrying, and many young boys spend long periods as novices in temples, earning their families 'merit'. Most Lao Buddhists try to gain 'merit' for a better next life by giving donations to their local wat and through regular worship.

Tha Lao Buddhist sangha has been organised into the Lao Buddhist Fellowship Organisation, a mass organisation established in 1976 with the aim of managing, developing and educating its members and ensuring that they observe the laws of the country.

Most of the ethnic minority communities practise a combination of animism and ancestor worship, but some Mon-Khmer, Hmong and Yao communities hold Christian beliefs.

Vientiane's tiny Islamic Cham community worships at the Alaishad Mosque in Ban Pounsawat Tai (known locally as Wat Khmer). The Vientiane Jamia Masjid near Nam Phu Square in the centre of the city is used primarily by Islamic settlers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Education

Traditional temple schools, established during the 17th century to give young boys a Buddhist education, brought basic literacy to the Lao territories.

During the French colonial period the 1917 Law on Education passed by the French colonial government introduced a common education system for its Indochina territories modelled loosely on that of France. However, relatively few elementary schools and just one secondary school (the Lycée Pavie) were subsequently constructed by the French administration in Laos, and most of the country's elite were trained in Hà Nội, Sài Gòn or France.

For the great majority of the population during this period, the wat schools provided the only opportunity for schooling.

After 1955, with American aid, the Royal Lao Government began constructing elementary and secondary schools in major centres of population. Higher education came to Laos in 1958, when Sisavangvong University was established in Vientiane. By 1969 that university comprised three constituent colleges - the Institut superieur pedagogique, the Royal Medical Institute and the Royal Laws and Administration Institute. Regional technical colleges were also set up in Luang Prabang, Pakse (Champassak) and Savannakhet.

Formal arts training began in 1959 with the establishment of the National School of Fine Arts (now the National Faculty of Fine Arts) and the National School of Music and Dance) under the Ministry of Education, Sport and Religious Affairs.

However, by 1975 the Lao education system remained inherently weak.

Considerable efforts were made after 1975 to extend elementary education to all ethnic groups, and an adult literacy campaign was launched, but these efforts were seriously undermined by the exodus of qualified teachers. In 1987 educational objectives were redesigned in the context of overall economic development and in harmony with the New Economic Mechanism, recognising education as the driving force in socio-economic development and giving priority to the development of an education system which could provide the skilled workforce required by a modern economy. Since that time improvements have taken place in the education system at all levels, although across the country the sector continues to be hampered by shortage of human resources, under-qualified teaching staff, inadequate curricula, dilapidated facilities and lack of teaching equipment.

Literacy is currently estimated at around 50 per cent, and only 71 per cent of primary school aged children are in school. Net enrolment rates drop to 15 per cent at lower secondary level, and two per cent at upper secondary level. Another serious issue is the wide difference of enrolment rates between boys and girls, and between the different ethnic groups. The higher the level of schooling, the relatively worse the attendance of girls and ethnic minorities.

The general education system in Laos comprises pre-school education (creche and kindergarten), primary education (five years), lower secondary education (three years) and upper secondary education (three years). Private schools and colleges have been encouraged since 1990.

Following the exodus of teaching staff in 1975, Sisavangvong University was dissolved and carved up into separate colleges, leaving the country with no degree-awarding institution. In the 1970s and 1980s large numbers of graduates from upper secondary schools were able to pursue a higher education in East European countries and the USSR, but by 1990 this option was no longer available. However, in 1996 the National University of Laos (NUOL) was established, grouping together the former Vientiane Teacher Training College, National Polytechnic Institute, College of Medical Science, College of Electronics and Electrotechnology, Vientiane School of Transport and Communications, Vientiane School of Architecture, Tad Thong School of Irrigation, Dongdok College of Forestry, Nabong College of Agriculture and Veunkham Agriculture Centre.

NUOL now comprises 11 Faculties - the Faculty of Science (FOS), the Faculty of Education (FOE), the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS), the Faculty of Economics and Management (FEM), the Faculty of Engineering (FOE), the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FMS), the Faculty of Agriculture (FOAG), the Faculty of Forestry (FOF), the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences (FLP), the Faculty of Letters (FOL) and the Faculty of Architecture (FOAR) - and a School of Foundation Studies (SFS). Further development of the National University is being funded by a loan from the Asian Development Bank.

Language

The official language of Laos is Lao (pasaa Lao), a tonal Tai-Kadai language which is spoken by an estimated 15 million people in Laos and North East Thailand (Isaan), as well as in numerous diaspora communities around the world. Since the Lao language is closely related to Thai, most Lao and Thai people can understand each other relatively easily.

The Lao language may be divided into five main dialects: Vientiane Lao, Northern Lao (Luang Prabang), North Eastern Lao (Xieng Khouang), Central Lao (Khammouane) and Southern Lao (Champassak); the Lao script is based on Vientiane Lao, a dialect which is widely understood throughout the country.

There is no official Latin transliteration system for the Lao script, and although French-based transliteration is generally used there are many inconsistencies of spelling, particularly of vowels.

Lao speakers (including Lao Isaan and Lao Ngaew) are believed to make up just 52 per cent of the total population; another 15 per cent of the population is made up of other Tai-Kadai speakers, while the remaining 33 per cent comprise over 90 culturally distinct ethnic groups, many of which have their own language.

French and Vietnamese are spoken widely, particularly amongst the older generation, but English has become the language of business and tourism and is increasingly promoted at government level in the context of Lao membership of ASEAN.

People

Laos is a predominantly rural country.

The most recent government census of 2005 reveals a total population as 5,609,997, and although a detailed breakdown of this figure is not available at the time of writing, the previous census of 1995 showed that approximately 85 per cent of the total population live in rural areas.

According to the 2005 census, the largest centres of population are Vientiane Prefecture (695,473) and the provinces of Savannakhet (824,662), Champassak (603,880), Luang Prabang (405,949), Vientiane (386,558) and Khammouane (336,935).

The population of Laos has been significantly depleted over the past half century by warfare and mass exodus of refugees, and the current population density of some 25 people per square kilometre is one of the lowest in Asia. Another legacy of the country's turbulent history is that females still outnumber males by c 2:1. The Lao government is currently encouraging repopulation, and a large proportion of its population is currently made up of children.

One of South East Asia's most ethnically diverse countries, Laos has long defied the best efforts of anthropologists and linguists to classify its complex array of ethnicities and sub-ethnicities, many of which utilise several different names and synonyms given to them by the government or by other ethnic groups.

In the 1970s the Lao government began to classify its ethnic minorities according to the simple threefold designations Lao Loum (‘Lowland Lao’, corresponding to Lao, Lu, Phuan and other Tai-speaking Austro-Thai language family peoples), Lao Theung (‘Upland Lao’, embracing all Austro-Asiatic language family peoples) and Lao Soung (‘Highland Lao’, comprising Hmong-Mien peoples of the Austro-Thai language family and all Sino-Tibetan language family peoples). However, although this classification system is still quoted widely by civil servants and in many books on Laos, it is no longer given official credence; a more universally accepted method of organisation classifies Lao ethnic groups according to the three great language families - Austro-Thai, Austro-Asiatic and Sino-Tibetan.

According to the government census of 1995, the so-called Lao Loum or 'Lowland Lao' made up just over 3.1 million or 68 per cent of the then total population of 4.58 million. Of these just under 2.4 million (52 per cent of the total population) could strictly be designated as ethnic Lao; the remaining 700,000 (15 per cent of the total population) comprised various other Northern, South Western and as yet Unclassified Tay-Tai speaking peoples. Of the remaining 1.48 million Lao citizens, just over 1 million (22 per cent of the total population) comprised Austro-Asiatic Mon-Khmer peoples (designated by the government as Lao Thueng or 'Upland Lao'), just over 400,000 (9 per cent of the total population) were Lao Soung or 'Highland Lao' (Hmong, Yao, Haw, Akha, Ha Nhi, Kado, Kongsat, La Hu, Lolo, Phanna, Phunoi, Poussang and Si La) and around 45,000 (1 per cent of the total population) ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese.

More recent estimates suggest that out of a total population of 5.6 million (2005) there are now over 3 million ethnic Lao and around 2.6 million other cultural distinct ethnic people, including other Tay-Tai speakers.

The most numerically significant of the non-Lao ethnic groups in Laos are the Khmu (500,957, 1995), Hmong (315,465, 1995), Lu (119,191, 1995), Phuan (115,000, J Schliesinger estimate 2001), So (102,000, SIL estimate 1993), Katang (95,440, 1995), Akha (66,108, 1995), Tai Dam (65,000, J Schliesinger estimate 2000) and Bru (64,000, SIL estimate 1993).

Economy

Economy

According to the World Bank, Laos remains the poorest and least developed country in East Asia and one of the ten poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of around US$320. Infant mortality remains high, and in remoter regions inadequate diet, poor sanitation and limited healthcare still give rise to debilitating and fatal diseases.

In the decade after 1975 the economy grew at just 2.9 per cent each year, barely enough to feed the population, and an abortive attempt to collectivise agriculture during the late 1970s seriously disrupted production. Reform was initiated in 1986 when, like its neighbour Việt Nam, the Lao government adopted a programme of structural reform known as the New Economic Mechanism (NEM), the main objective of which was to bring about the transition from a centrally-planned economy to a market-oriented one. Because of the country’s land-locked location and underdeveloped communications infrastructure, the reformist economic policies of the 1980s have taken longer to take root in Laos than they did in Việt Nam, but from 1991 until 1997 growth averaged 6 per cent, and Laos succeeded in attracting substantial foreign investment in mining, food processing and the textile industry. Heavily reliant on Thailand for both imports and exports, the country was hit badly by the Asian crisis of 1997, but since 1999 annual growth has recovered, averaging 5 per cent per annum. Private enterprise has developed considerably since receiving official encouragement in 1987, although the government still subsidises a number of loss-making state enterprises.

More than three quarters of the country's population are still engaged in subsistence farming, although it has been estimated that as much as 40 per cent of arable land remains barren as a result of decades of warfare.

Agriculture accounts for around 53 per cent of GDP and includes the farming of glutinous rice, coffee, corn, sugar cane, vegetables, sweet potatoes, ginger, tea, peanuts, tobacco and cotton, and the raising of water buffalo, pigs, cattle and poultry. Industry accounts for 23 per cent of GDP and includes garment manufacturing, hydroelectricity production and sales, gypsum and tin mining, wood processing, cement manufacturing and agricultural processing. The remaining 24 per cent of GDP is based on the services sector, which includes tourism and communications.

After a comparatively late start in the mid 1990s, tourism emerged by 2000 as one of the country's top foreign income earners. In 2004 tourism visitor numbers showed a 22 per cent increase over 2002's previous high to reach a total of 894,806, generating US$118,947,707 in revenue. By 2010 the Lao National Tourism Administration aims to attract 1.2 million visitors each year, with attendant revenue of over US$189 million per annum

Although Laos has in recent years experienced an increase in export earnings, it still faces an annual trade deficit. Lao exports generated total revenues of c US$332 million in 2003, and included garments, electricity, wood and wood products, coffee, cardamom, rattan and tin, primary markets being Thailand, Việt Nam, France, and Germany; imports amounted to US$492 million in 2003 and included fuel, food, consumer goods, machinery and equipment, vehicles and spare parts, mainly from Thailand, Việt Nam, China and Singapore.

Government

Government

Under the 1991 constitution, the supreme political and policy-making authority of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos is the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (Phak Pasaxon Pativat Lao), the work of which is reviewed at five-yearly Party Congresses which consider plans and strategies for national development and elect the President of the Party, the members of the Political Bureau (Politburo) and the members of the Central Committee. The current President of the Politburo and Central Committee, Mr Khamtay Siphandone, is also President of the Republic. A Standing Committee made up of members of the Politburo elected by the Central Committee oversees the functioning of the Party and follows up the implementation of Party resolutions; guidelines are issued by the Party Central Committee.

The unicameral National Assembly (Sapha Heng Xat) is currently made up of 166 members who are elected by universal adult suffrage to serve for a five-year term. The National Assembly elects the President of the People's Democratic Republic, who is Head of State.

The executive is headed by a Prime Minister and a Council of Ministers, which are appointed for five-year terms by the President with the approval of the National Assembly.

The judiciary comprises the People's Supreme Court and subsidiary courts; the President of the People's Supreme Court is elected by the National Assembly on the recommendation of the National Assembly Standing Committee, while the Deputy President of the People's Supreme Court and the judges are appointed by the National Assembly Standing Committee.

Six mass organisations play an important role in conveying the Party's directives and policies and the government's regulations and laws, and involving people in the political life of the nation. These are the Lao Buddhist Fellowship Organisation, the Lao Federation of Trade Unions (LFTU), the Lao Front for National Construction (LFNC), the Lao People's Revolutionary Youth Union (LPRYU), the Lao Veterans' Association (LVA) and the Lao Women's Union (LWU).

The country is divided into 16 provinces (khoueng) - Attapeu, Bokeo, Borikhamxai, Champassak, Houaphanh, Khammouane, Luang Namtha, Luang Prabang, Oudomxai, Phongsali, Saravane, Savannakhet, Sayaburi, Sekong, Vientiane and Xieng Khouang – plus the special region (khetphiset) of Saysomboun which was formed in 1994 from parts of Borikhamxai, Vientiane and Xieng Khouang Provinces. The capital city of Vientiane is an independent prefecture (kamphaeng nakhon) which enjoys administrative parity with the provinces. The provinces are in turn sub-divided into districts (muang) and villages (ban).

There are between three and 13 districts (with an average of six) in each province, about 100 villages per district, and around 11,500 villages in the entire country. The average population size of a province is 230,000, of a district 36,000, and of a village approximately 300-400 (40-70 households).

The Lao People's Revolutionary Party is represented at provincial level by the Provincial Governor, who is by default also the Chairperson of the Provincial People’s Committee. In the same way District Governors and Village Heads are also responsible for chairing District and Village People's Committees.

Introduction to Laos

A general overview of the geography and topography, history, government, economy, people, languages, religion and educational system in Laos.

Geography and topography

The People's Democratic Republic of Laos is a landlocked country, bordered to the north by China, to the west by Myanmar, to the east by Việt Nam and to the south by Thailand and Cambodia. It covers a total land area of 235,000 square kilometres (an area slightly larger than Great Britain), some 70 per cent of which is made up of mountain, highland and plateaux.

Southern and central Laos lie just to the west of the Annam Highlands, a formidable mountain range with an average height of 1,200 metres which has long divided the indianised and sinitic civilisations of the region. All tributaries west of this range drain into the Mekong River, which forms a large part of the border with Thailand and continues on through Cambodia and southern Việt Nam into the South China Sea. The Mekong and the tributaries which flow into it have always been at the heart of Lao civilisation and culture, indeed most of the country's population lives in the fertile plains in their immediate vicinity.

History

Standing at the crossroads of mainland South East Asia, the territory which now comprises the People's Democratic Republic of Laos was for some 350 years the heartland of the powerful kingdom of Lane Xang. Since the demise of Lane Xang the Lao territories have all too often been the arena for wider conflicts between more powerful neighbours.

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