Word: laos
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Often enough the importer does not bother to import the radios-he has them intercepted in Bangkok and sold at still higher profits. Sometimes the radios really reach Laos (marked with the universally recognized symbol of clasped hands in front of a U.S. flag). But before Laos' primitive customs guards can catch up and impose an import tax, the radios are smuggled back across the Mekong River and shipped into Bangkok for sale at handsome profits. Laotian officials, either out of confusion or collusion, have granted orders for some items that seem of questionable utility in a country that...
...botched situation is largely the work of a small, fierce-eyed man with a bulging forehead named Truong Chinh-called "Little Uncle" in recognition of his role as heir apparent to "Great Uncle" Ho Chi Minh. Back in 1951 Truong Chinh was named secretary-general of the Lao Dong (Communist) Party, and launched a ferocious campaign of land reform. His slogan: "Better kill ten innocent people than let one enemy escape." Son of a landlord mandarin himself, Truong let his own parents die at the hands of his land reformers, declaring coldly: "The people's court was right...
...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...