The Southeast Asian Nations

[dorkery]

As a placeholder to be expanded on, but after going through the foreign relations and general history of some of the countries, there are some conclusions I can make regarding their characters.

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS.



The mainland section consists of Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Peninsular Malaysia while the maritime section consists of Brunei, East Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Austronesian peoples predominate in this region.

Islam is the most widely practiced religion in Southeast Asia, numbering approximately 240 million adherents which translate to about 40% of the entire population, with majorities in Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. Countries in Southeast Asia practice many different religions. Mainland Southeast Asian countries, which are, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam practice predominantly Buddhism. Singapore is also predominantly Buddhist. Ancestor worship and Confucianism is also widely practised in Vietnam and Singapore. In Maritime Southeast Asia, people living in Malaysia, western Indonesia and Brunei practice mainly Islam. Christianity is predominant in the Philippines, eastern Indonesia and East Timor. The Philippines has the largest Roman Catholic population followed very distantly by Vietnam. East Timor is also predominantly Roman Catholic due to a history of Portuguese rule.



Singapore and Malaysia SHOULD be siblings (or at least divorcees) but Singapore would be Chinese and Malaysia would be Malay.

Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei are definitely siblings. Indonesia would be the eldest sibling.

Philippines would probably be a cousin of the more southern countries since Philippines is further away.

Cambodia and Thailand are brothers who are constantly at odds with each other. Vietnam is their little sister.

I can easily imagine Thailand being Malaysia's sibling too, but not so much Malaysia with Cambodia and Vietnam (because of less contact, but honestly all the people in southeast asia are more or less alike).

Brunei's history makes me a little sad. XD IT USED TO BE SO DAMNED HUGE but silly sultans just gave and gave away their land to the colonials in Sarawak. Geez.


People of Southeast Asia

1. Malays
   
   • Malays (Malay: Melayu) are an ethnic group of Austronesian peoples predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula including the southernmost parts of Thailand, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations. The Malay ethnic group is distinct from the concept of a Malay race, which encompasses a wider group of people, including most of Indonesia and the Philippines. The Malay language is a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Malay people demographically dominate the countries of Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
   
   
2. Thai
   
   • The Thai (or Tai) are the main ethnic group of Thailand and are part of the larger Tai ethnolinguistic peoples found in Thailand and adjacent countries in Southeast Asia as well as southern China. Their language is the Thai language, which is classified as part of the Kradai family of languages, and the majority of Thai are followers of Theravada Buddhism. The term Thai people may also refer to the population of Thailand in general, and not only to ethnic Thais. In this sense, they are also known as Thailanders.
   
   
3. Viet
   
   • The Vietnamese (Vietnamese: người Việt or người Kinh) are an ethnic group originating from what is now northern Vietnam and the lower reaches of southern China. They are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising 86% of the population as of the 1999 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam. The earliest recorded name for the ancient Vietnamese people was known as the Lạc peoples.
     
     
   • Although geographically and linguistically labeled as Southeast Asians, long periods of Chinese domination and influence have placed them culturally closer to East Asians, or more specifically their immediate northern neighbours, the Southern Chinese and other tribes within the proximity of South China.
   
   
4. Khmer
   
   • The Khmer (pronounced /ˈkmɛər/ or /kəˈmɛər/) are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14.8 million people in the country. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Mon-Khmer language family found throughout Southeast Asia. The majority of the Khmer are followers of the Khmer style of Buddhism, a highly syncretic version which blends elements of Theravada Buddhism, Hinduism, animism and ancestor-spirit worship. Significant populations of Khmers reside in adjacent areas of Thailand (Northern Khmer) and the Mekong Delta region of neighboring Vietnam (Khmer Krom).
   
   
5. Lao
   
   • The Lao (Lao: ລາວ, Isan: ลาว, IPA: láːw) are an ethnic subgroup of Tai/Dai in Southeast Asia. The vast majority of Lao people live in Laos and the Isan region of Thailand. There are around 3.6 million Laotians in Laos, constituting approximately 68% of the population (the remainder are largely hill tribe people). The ethnic Lao of Laos form the bulk of the Lao Loum ("Lowland Laotians") (Lao: ລາວລຸ່ມ, Thai: ลาวลุ่ม, IPA: laːw lum).
   
   
6. Bamar
   
   • The Bamar are the dominant ethnic group of Burma, constituting approximately 68% (30,000,000) of the population. The Bamar usually have straight black hair, and a relatively light skin tone (although intermixing makes skin tone vary). The Bamar are frequently called simply Burmese, but this term is ambiguous as it can also refer to a citizen of Burma who belongs to a different ethnic group (Karen, Shan, Kachin, Mon, etc.). In general, the people of Burma use "Myanmar" to describe persons of all ethnic backgrounds in Burma.
   
   
7. Filipino
   
   • The Filipino people are the citizens of the Republic of the Philippines. The term is also often used to refer to a person having Filipino ancestry. There are about 92,000,000 Filipinos in the Philippines and about 11,000,000 outside the Philippines. Most Filipinos refer to themselves colloquially as "Pinoy" (feminine: "Pinay"), which is a slang word formed by taking the last four letters of "Pilipino" and adding the diminutive suffix "-y". The pre-1987 Philippine alphabet (Abakada)'s lack of the letter "F" had caused the letter "F" to be substituted with "P". This is the reason, when the 28-letter modern Filipino alphabet has been made official in 1987, the name Filipino was preferred over Pilipino.
   
   This is, by no means, a complete list. However, it does detail the majority races in the countries. There are about a few hundred (if not thousand) smaller ethnic groups altogether in these countries (Indonesia alone has 300).
   
   
   Indonesia
   
   Without a doubt, Indonesia would be the oldest of all the ASEAN countries. Some of the earliest people were Indonesian, as civilisation and a mastery of rice cultivation is said to have existed within the 1st Century. By the 7th Century, the kingdom of Srivijaya had already existed. I'm not sure how Hidekaz plans on doing it (probably Indonesia just as one guy) but Indonesia is made up of a few thousand islands, of which the five largest islands are Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo), New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea), and Sulawesi. Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, is in Java.
   
   
   Indonesia consists of 17,508 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited. These are scattered over both sides of the equator. Indonesia shares land borders with Malaysia on the islands of Borneo and Sebatik, Papua New Guinea on the island of New Guinea, and East Timor on the island of Timor. Indonesia also shares borders with Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines to the north and Australia to the south across narrow straits of water.
   
   Indonesia and Malaysia are siblings for SURE. The Malay people are said to have originated from the landmasses of Indonesia, according to one theory. Another theory is that they came from southern China.
   
   
   Malaysia
   
   I imagine that Malaysia would either be (A) made up of 2 people, with the original Malaya representing Malacca/Johore/the Peninsula and the eastern part representing Sabah and Sarawak (the country is split into two landmasses by the South China Sea), so the two people would represent the Geography (with the Peninsula being the spokesperson due to the capital and industrialisation there), or (B) a totally new Malaysia replacing the old Malaya and Northern Borneo.
   
   Historically speaking, Malaysia would have had relationships with the following nations:
   
   
   1. Indonesia
      
   2. China
      
   3. Arabia (Turkey back then as the Ottoman Empire)
      
   4. Portugal
      
   5. The Netherlands
      
   6. UK
      
   7. Japan
      
   8. Singapore
      
   9. Brunei
      
   10. Thailand