The Southeast Asian Nations
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.
( Read more... )
I'm surprised anyone actually found this post. I've sort of set it aside right now to focus on Prussian history, but I'll return once I start working through some nusantara fanfiction.
Admittedly, I don't know too much about Vietnam, though I'm not taking oldest existence of culture or civilisation as a yardstick to measure the comparative ages of the countries. What I'm looking at, instead, is the dominant modern culture in the region. For example, if we were to identify the cultures of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, we would see that the latter two countries were influenced by Indonesian culture over the centuries; thus, Indonesia is culturally dominant and therefore can be seen as the 'older sibling'.
Thailand and Cambodia share a similar relationship to Singapore and Malaysia, thus they have a slightly more equal sibling relationship. In terms of cultural similarity, Vietnam is far more similar to China, I'd say, due to historical ties to Southern China. I still haven't worked everything out yet, so we'll see how things go.
Reply
If use this way, all countries in this world are siblings arent they?
Like the US is a very young country but their cultural influences worldwide, so Japan, Korea, China ect they all are US's siblings?
And with it also, could you explain why you put VN as Thai & Cambodia's little sis? '~'
Reply
If we talk strictly historically, then yes, every single country in the world is related. However, culturally speaking, that is not necessarily the case (besides which, 'ancient' cultures have died or gone extinct, leaving only modern cultures behind). America is a political hegemony, possibly a cultural one too, but I am talking about narrowing the focus on to specific sub-regions and looking there. The Javanese (kraton) had an immense amount of cultural influence on the southern landmasses of Southeast Asia, and so the identity of these people are firmly intertwined. The language spoken in the modern countries is nearly exactly similar. So on, so forth.
Anyway, once again, this list above was just a work in progress and still subject to change. I was also taking canon into consideration and according to Himaruya, Vietnam was younger than Thailand.
Reply
The ‘culture’ includes a lot of various & complicated contents. There were lots of ethnic groups living in each S.E.A countries. They always moved, created migration flows, culture combination, raised civilization or faded away. If a minority ethnic from country A migrated to country B, live there & developed a brilliant civilization in country B, i dont think we can affirm or say that country A is younger sibling of country B.
Otherwise, one of the original and dominant culture of S.E Asia was agricultural, its origin was from China. According to Peter Bellwood's “First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies”. One of its development path downward the south was from Taiwan island to Philippines islands then Malay-Indo. So, according to your idea, if i get it right, Taiwan should be Philippines’ older cousin & they are older than Indonesia
So, I think determining they’re related or not base on dominant modern culture in the region is not stable, as i would like to repeat that the modern culture is the combination & development of various culture sources in the past.
Reply
In Vietnam there are 3 areas: the North, the Central and the South. The Central i divide to the half above - Central 1 & the half below - Central 2.
When China ruled Vietnam for 1000 years (Vietnam's territory that time was only the North & the Central 1) that caused the strongly influence of China/East Asia on this area.
From 10th to 17th centuries, Vietnam ( had already discharged from China in 938) started expanding her territory to the Central 2 and the South, this areas that time had 3 kingdoms: Chămpa (Champa), Phù Nam (Bonam) Chân Lạp (Chenla) whose cultures & origins similar to Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar. These kingdoms had great civilizations, especially Champapura, but was destroyed by conquests and even some unknown/mysterious reasons. With the invasion of people from the North, known as Kinh people; the owners of those lost civilizations are Chăm people and Khmer Krom people, by time, only remain as ethnic minorities in Vietnam in the present, while Kinh people has the highest has the highest population about 86.2% (as you have already known *points at the post*)
What I am trying to tell through the texts above is Vietnam doesn’t relate to Thailand or Cambodia, she cant be their sibling. You may use the religion - Buddhism to present their relations. But Buddhism in Vietnam has differences with Buddhism in Thailand & Cambodia, even with China’s.
So, I’m against the idea of Thailand, Cambodia & Vietnam being siblings ._.
Then, the next is older-younger thingy =w=
Could you please show or link me the post of Himaruya said Thailand was older than Vietnam? Is that a question to him on his blog?
But you know, I believe he was mistaken, he is a Japanese mangaka, he cant know as much and deep about a country’s history as naive people from the country; unless anthropology and history are his major; on the contrary, it’s clear that we cant be good at Japan’s history as him.
And actually I have a small project of Hetalia’s Asian countries before (but i had to put it aside because I didnt have spare time :/); to make sure, I asked somes Thai friends of mine, they all agreed that Thailand is younger than Vietnam ._.
P/S: sorry for late reply; school, work, they kill~ you know +_+
dear lord why countries in this world didnt speak the same language *bangs head into wall*
Reply
Leave a comment