People & Culture - Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Northern Thailand - page 1011

People
As empires came and went, so too did the populations, and many of the countries in the
Mekong region are far less ethnically homogenous than their governments would have us
believe. It wasn't only local empire building that had an impact, but colonial meddling,
which left a number of people stranded beyond their borders. There are Lao and Khmer in
Thailand, Khmer in Vietnam, Thai (Dai) in Vietnam and Chinese everywhere. No self-re-
specting Mekong town would be complete without a Chinatown.
The mountains of the Mekong region provide a home for a mosaic of minority groups,
often referred to as hill tribes. Many of these groups migrated from China and Tibet and
have settled in areas that lowlanders considered too challenging to cultivate. Colourful cos-
tumes and unique traditions draw increasing numbers of visitors to their mountain homes.
The most popular areas to visit local hill tribes include Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri
Provinces in Cambodia, Luang Nam Tha and Muang Sing in northern Laos, Chiang Mai
and Chiang Rai in northern Thailand, and Sapa and Bac Ha in northern Vietnam.
Population growth varies throughout the Mekong region. Developed Thailand embraced
family planning decades ago and Vietnam has adopted a Chinese model of sorts with a
two-child policy in lowland areas. Cambodia and Laos have the highest birth rates and
large families remain the rule rather than the exception out in the countryside.
The Mekong region is home to around 45 million Thais, concentrated in Thailand, Laos, Viet-
nam and Yunnan.
Chinese
Many of the great cities of the Mekong region have significant Chinese communities, and
in the case of capitals like Bangkok and Phnom Penh people of at least some Chinese an-
cestry may make up half the population. The Chinese are much more integrated in the
Mekong region than in places like Indonesia, and continue to contribute to the economy
through investment and initiative.
With one eye on history, the Vietnamese are more suspicious of the Chinese than most,
even though, culturally, the Vietnamese have much in common with the Chinese. Vietnam
was occupied by China for more than a thousand years and the Chinese brought with them
their religion, philosophy and culture. Confucianism and Taoism were introduced and still
form the backbone of Vietnamese religion, together with Buddhism.