Buk Nut
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The White man Marches on
Posts: 441
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Age: 35
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I only said they were similar because of the fact that they rely on foreign handouts. Apart from that, Lao people and Khmers are a world apart.
You know, back in the day, before Laos opened up to the outside world, there were no sexual diseases in the entire country.
I think part of the problem is that Laos lets in so many foreigners, and also maybe Lao people go to work in Thailand or other neighboring countries and catch an infection/disease and they bring it back into Laos.
The thing here is that Laos had to open the country up to stop the economy from failing. Even after opening the country up to the outside world, most Lao people still have few ways to make money, and the economy is still very small.
Yes, Lao girls do sell themselves. It's very sad, I think. Most of the people that come to beg in the cities are Lao Theng (ລາວເທີງ) people. I've had a Khmu boy follow me all day, begging for me to buy his trinkets, and he looked like he was about to be in tears. It seems to me that Lao Lum people are much better off economically than Lao Theng and Lao Sung people, but there are still quite a few impoverished Lao Lum people.
Poverty in Laos is not limited to the countryside. I have friends that live on a major road in Southern Laos and they can't even afford to take their kids to the doctor when he is sick. I see many kids in Laos drop out in ປ. 2 and they can barely even read. A lot of ethnic minority Lao people I know don't even know how to read, and neither do their school age children. I once met a Lao girl who was 17 and she lived in the city and she didn't even know how to read.
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