Vietnam and Cambodia: Two Very Interesting Countries by Cameron
Introduction Vietnam and Cambodia are two entirely different countries that have interesting culture, food, wildlife, and history that all have a big story to them. This report will tell you a little bit about all of them.
Culture The culture in Vietnam and Cambodia has changed over the years for many reasons. Probably the biggest reason was being invaded and conquered by its neighbors like China, and also France, the U.S. and other countries. Vietnam and Cambodia s local god is Buddha. Buddha was actually a wealthy young man who was troubled by the sadness in the world. He started something they later called Buddhism. Buddha showed people how they could bring happiness to themselves. It was Buddha s followers that gave him the nickname Buddha meaning, the enlightened one. When the French took over Vietnam and Cambodia they almost completely wiped out Buddhism by doing many things such as destroying the statues and building Christian churches and forcing their people to worship their gods and completely changing their religion. After a few centuries of French rule, Vietnam and Cambodia regained their independence. They still took a piece of French culture with them. For instance: Vietnam and Cambodia still kept some of the churches and some traditions of the French religions like choir (which is a form of singing in Christian churches). They also even kept some of their food recipes, like spaghetti (the relative of their now native noodles), pizza, and even ice cream.
Native Food The food in Vietnam and Cambodia is often scarce for families, so many times they eat what they can, which to us can seem very exotic. Vietnamese and Cambodian people often don t have enough money to buy a lot of food, so many of the people who live in the city live on a basic diet of noodles, soup, rice, and the occasional dog. To make a little bit of extra money, they set up little mini stands with plastic chairs and pots of soup and noodles. But for most of the people who live in the country, life is much harder. They mostly live on a diet of frogs, crickets, ducks, scorpion, and cockroaches. To get frogs, they catch them in the moist rice paddies, skin them, and then cook them. To catch crickets, they stick stakes into the ground, tie plastic sheets to the stakes, and at nightfall the crickets jump into the sheets, and get knocked out so the natives can collect them. Also, almost the only thing that they grow is rice. In the country, there are hundreds of miles of rice paddies. Rice paddies are soft, human-made shallow bogs that are used to grow rice. There are many field workers who pick and harvest the rice. In most cities restaurants, the gourmet dishes are: fried crickets, deep-fried scorpion, ostrich, and crocodile.
Wildlife The wildlife of Vietnam and Cambodia is very exotic and wider in population and variety. They have: monkeys that swing through the trees, bats that come out at dusk and eat bugs, and elephants that roam the savannahs. The animals are very extraordinary, for instance monkeys will hop up to you and steal whatever you ve got in your pockets, then run away with it. There is also a gecko that comes out at night, and a snake that is very thin slithers into its mouth to eat something inside it, and when the snake comes out, the gecko can make noise. But many of these fabulous animals are being poached, killed, or eaten.
Ruins & Past There is a very big history to Vietnam and Cambodia s ruins and past that is still being discovered and uncovered, like the lost ruins of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom which were populated by an ancient civilization in the jungle that were abandoned thousands of years ago. The king of Angkor Wat would sit on his throne, overlooking a battlefield, where elephants fought (much like Roman coliseums), and this is why its name is The Elephant Wall. There are still lots of growth and trees growing on top of the roofs of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom that are still being taken off to uncover the ruins. Ho Chi Minh was probably one of the best-known people of Vietnam and Cambodia, for his famous and historic act, when he helped drive the French back to their own country, and took Vietnam and Cambodia out of their long depression. This helped them regain independence and peace. He also had a city named after him after he died (the city s original name was Cygon) and his memorial is a sacred building that is guarded by soldiers.
War The Vietnam War was a horrible battle, which also connected to the crisis in Cambodia that caused thousands of people s deaths. The war started when communism started spreading through southern Vietnam, and our government was worried that that it would spread even more, so the American military arrived and started a war. The government bombed their villages and forests with Napalm and Agent Orange. Napalm is a bomb that causes huge fires, which burnt down forests, and killed people. Agent Orange is a chemical that infects and kills trees, and if it infects people, their babies can have birth defects. To escape bombs, they dug tunnels underground where it was safer, and they could survive. The government lost the war because they had strong soldiers called guerillas, which would ambush the military, and booby-trap our military. In Cambodia, a man named Pol Pot took control and did many horrible things, some of the worst in history. He turned a high school into a prison, but if one person committed a crime, then anyone who was related to them was arrested. He started arresting doctors, soldiers, and a few thousand of innocent people, which he killed or used as slaves. Pol Pot would kill them in the killing fields, which was in the country so no one would know what he was doing. But eventually, they stopped him and ran him into the forest where he died.
Present Many people think that the modern world of Vietnam and Cambodia is a very big improvement from what it used to be. Now they have buildings, technology, and lots of tourists. They also have western food (like scrambled eggs) and hotels. Now the streets are crammed with mopeds, but very few cars, because no one can afford them. There are rules like communism, where everyone has a job and works for the government. Also a lot of people copy movies by going into theaters with cameras, and video taping the movie, and then selling it (almost illegally). The movie usually has very bad graphics and sound. Most of almost anything that is electronic, and sold on the streets, is most of the time a sham. Vietnam and Cambodia s people are very insistent and will say to tourists, if they pass by, the price of their items. They try to get you to buy their product by starting a conversation, like asking where you re from, or how old you are, and if you walk away, they will lower the price. Conclusion Have you learned any interesting facts in this report? Are you interested in learning more? I encourage you to learn even more about Vietnam and Cambodia, and I hope this report has left you pondering and thinking... will Vietnam and Cambodia change even more over the years?