Word: lao
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...exile in Bangkok, restored King Sisavang Vong to the throne, complete with white umbrella. Another nephew. Prince Souvanna Phouma, later took over as Premier, has since been doing his best to set up a stable, non-Communist government. His task has been difficult, first because everything is difficult in Laos, second because the country's Communist-led Pathet Lao forces (which occupy two northeastern provinces) are bossed by his own half brother Prince Souphanouvong...
...worship of nature is as old as Chinese history. Confucius, the great precept-giver on manners and morals, said as early as 500 B.C.: "The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills." Lao-tzu, an elder contemporary of Confucius, added another dimension, proclaiming that underlying nature was an all-pervading spiritual force, which he called Tao, and likened to water...
Believing with Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism, that inspiration comes in a flash and cannot be long sustained, the Ch'an painter worked in monochrome "as if a whirlwind possessed his hand." Greatest of them all was Liang K'ai, who had won the Emperor's highest painting award, the Golden Girdle, before he retired to a Buddhist monastery. He dashed off such inspired sketches as his Ink Brushing of an Immortal, showing a monk tearing off his shirt to prove the indifference of the enlightened man to outward appearances...
While the turnips and lettuce waxed luxuriant, the man the Communist sentries were assigned to protect was up to other matters. Bronze-skinned, mustachioed Prince Souphanouvong, leader of the Communist-controlled Pathet Lao forces which occupy the northeastern Laotian provinces of Samneua and Phongsaly, was determined to get representation in the Royal Government of Laos on his own terms. To this end he assiduously cultivated the idea that unity in Laos was a family affair. After all, his half brother is the Premier, Prince Souvanna Phouma...
...Pathet Lao has consistently refused to honor the 1954 Geneva agreement placing the administration of its two provinces under the royal government; Pathet Lao forces, Communist-supplied and equipped, have been waging haphazard war against royal government troops for more than two years. The Reds' idea of a settlement is to be incorporated into the royal government, and the princely Premier had shown signs of falling for it. The Reds kept pressing. Souphanouvong argued: "To be really neutral, Laos should accept economic aid from China as a counterweight to American aid." Royal Premier Souvanna Phouma, who had come back...