The Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; frequently vandlaized and defaced!
On an anecdotal level, after traveling in Cambodia I’ve concluded that the Cambodian people as a whole are friendlier than the Vietnamese people. It may be that they are a lot more relaxed than the Vietnamese and thus more aware of the affect they have on people around them. In Vietnam, it’s not uncommon for people to be in such a hurry (on their motorbikes, of course! They wouldn’t be caught dead walking anywhere!) that they’ll get to their destination any way possible…including driving on the sidewalk causing the pedestrians (usually foreign) to jump out of the way like a fat kid trying not to get pummeled in perverse and sick elementary school dodge-ball. Further proof of how much more relaxed the people of Cambodia are revolves around their farming techniques in comparison to Vietnamese farming: the Vietnamese literally have rice or produce growing on 100% of the tillable land, whereas in Cambodia it was common to see trees everywhere and fallow fields throughout the country side. Don’t get me wrong however, because on the whole the Vietnamese are a friendly people too, but just a little bit more wound-up than Cambodians.
Why does this happy and friendly Cambodian man dislike the Vietnamese so much?!
While I found Cambodians to be nice, I’m not so sure how nice they are to Vietnamese people and that’s because they literally HATE the Vietnamese people. When I told many Cambodians that I am currently living in Vietnam, the common response was a quick in-take of breath, eye brows quickly raised followed by a short comment like ‘oh do you actually like it?’ I had been warned by the other fellows in Cambodia about this aversion, and remained skeptical until I actually arrived and heard it first hand from many Cambodians that they disliked the Vietnamese. On the flip-side however, it appears that many Vietnamese are completely oblivious to the fact that Cambodians dislike them. When I returned back to the office and told my co-workers about this aversion, they were skeptical too! They seemed to hold the Cambodians and their country in high regard! Seeing this stark difference sent my brain a-working.
Now, I’ve been pondering this dislike for a the last couple weeks since I’ve come back from Cambodia. I’ve concluded it’s more than a love-hate relationship. In reality it’s a Cambodians-hate-the-Vietnamese-while-the-Vietnamese-are-completely-oblivious-relationship. Which has had me wondering what the cause of this dislike is…and I’ve come up with two theories so far:
Maybe Vietnam needs more of these protector statues along it's border with Cambodia to ward off evil thoughts!
1) Cambodia’s past is frequented by Vietnamese invasions whether they’re cultural or physical (think war); with the most recent physical invasion in 1979 when the Vietnamese invaded and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime. Thus, while this war ended a brutal dictatorship, it was decried by Cambodians everywhere because it was an invasion of their own soverign nation and was a reminder of all the previous invasions by Vietnam as well. Most peoples don’t like invading forces in their countries; think the Iraqi people after we ‘liberated’ them from Saddam. It simply doesn’t sit well, especially if there is a history of it!
Simple markets like this Cambodian one are controlled by Cambodians, but the big 'markets' are frequently run by Vietnamese.
2) A commercial invasion: many of the biggest companies and most export/import, is run by Vietnamese or Vietnamese firms. (Cambodia’s rice industry is actually very dependent on Vietnamese buyers/exporters as well as Thai, which is another country that has historically invaded Cambodia even taking over the Angkor Wat area for some time) Having your economy more or less run by an ethnic minority, usually doesn’t sit well with many people. If you haven’t read Amy Chua’s World on Fire I highly recommend it, because she makes an argument about how some strife in countries is caused by ethnic minorities running the economy (plus some other conditions as well such as a sudden move to democracy and free markets). It is very plausible that Cambodians are jealous that much of the money being made in their country is going into the pockets of Vietnamese, and futhermore this money is then being taken out of the country! This is sort of similar to anti-semitism around the world, especially in the early 20th century when many people thought Jews ran the economy in the US (Jewish people did run many banks at that time, as showcased in World on Fire).
This post may be my first controversial one, but I really am curious to know the reason behind the Cambodian aversion to Vietnamese, especially since the Vietnamese seem oblivious to it. If anyone else out there has any theories, please feel free to share! I’m all ears and want to know the truth! Let the comments begin…Cheers.
Tags: Amy Chua, Cambodia Vietnam relations, Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument, Cambodian-Vietnamese relations, Friendship Monument, World on Fire
April 19, 2010 at 9:33 am
Well, you’ve already sort of point to the two main reasons but let me elaborate on it a bit with what I’ve come up with while surfing the net. I’m a Vietnamese who lives in America so I don’t have any firsthand knowledge but this topic has also intrigued me in the past.
To understand the hatred you have to look at the history of mainland Southeast Asia. The Khmer Empire used to be the biggest and most powerful empire in mainland Southeast Asia. However, that empire has been in decline since around the 14th century losing chunks of its lands to Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. For the last couple of centuries current day Cambodia has mainly been the proxy battlefield between Thailand and Vietnam, both trying to gain control over the area. This is probably why you see a lot resentment towards Thailand and Vietnam but not much towards Laos, who has a huge grudge against the Thais for taking Isan (Northeast Thailand) from them but that’s a whole different story.
Technically, if you look at it Cambodia has lost the least amount of land to Vietnam but seem to resent them the most, why is that? I believe this has to do with the cultural different between the two. Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia share a very similar cultural heritage while Vietnam is culturally more Sinic, so it didn’t help things much when a Vietnamese emperor in the 19th century tried to forced the Cambodian king and his subjects to wear Vietnamese clothing only. There’s probably a sense among the Cambodians that if Vietnam were to take over then their proud culture would be suppress and destroyed. Stories like this http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2009/12/tea-ong-do-all-khmer-remember-that.html also doesn’t help. To be honest I think this story is completely fabricated but it has been used by Cambodian nationalists routinely to drum up hatred towards the Vietnamese.
Most Cambodians are probably also aware that if it weren’t for the French, Cambodia would had probably ceased to exist. West Cambodia would had belonged to Thailand and East Cambodia would had belonged to Vietnam. There’s more reasons right or wrong that I’ve come upon, but it’s getting late so I don’t feel like typing further =).
The Vietnamese are probably oblivious to the hatred because they don’t think what they’ve done is any different from what any other empire has done in the past. Though I do know some Vietnamese resent the fact that they had to give up Cambodia due to world politics, and that it should be rightfully theirs.
October 19, 2010 at 10:06 am
so what i learn as a kid growing up in stockton california were the two main ethnics that lived there are vietnamese and khmer AKA cambodain are to stay away from khmers because they will put black majic on you ,so i as a vietnamese boy growing up in america didnt belied in that shit and for]und out the truth ,khmer like to keep there friends close to them and there family closer due to what they learnd in there old counrty yes viets run most of camodia but thats not why there made there are chinese and thais there all so they hold a gruage because really of the war america had with vietnam and basicy lost to vietnam ,during the war and afther the war america dorp all there LEFT OVER BOMB in cambodia due to this hundreds and thousand of khmer die ,the khmers blamed vietnamese for this but it the US that really cause all the death in this war my grampa dad said the the khmer foight with the south viet in the war and next to them there was no beef between the two country before the war but there was after ,ask and OG vietnamese or cambadain im vietnamese 100% and i have khmer friend b4 we became friend we hated each other for kno reason just because of what growing ups tell us ,they feed us hatride and trade us like undercover attack dogs out for blood but wat is the hate really about?
November 17, 2010 at 6:42 am
^^ To that Youn guy above me! Youns don’t run Cambodia! Chinese does! We will make sure Chinese will continue to dominate Cambodia! Why you Youns in Vietnam and Cambodia like to bother the relations between the Chinese-Cambodians! Stay away from our business! Youns out of Cambodia! We need more Chinese not Youns!
November 21, 2011 at 8:31 am
camera quan sat…
[...]The Cambodian-Vietnamese Love-Hate Relationship « Vietnam Adventures[...]…
January 23, 2012 at 11:19 am
van and tran made a good point. tran actually a smart guy who find those answer rather fast. it took most people a long time. im cambodian so i can understand whos talking nonsense and whatnot.
people like tee also a jerk who still keep grudge and provoke more hatred.
there’s more to the stories that cause hatred. i remember old folks talk about the mine that is planted all over cambodia by the Vietnamese people. vietnamese planted so many mine that is consider the most mine planted in history. now speaking of that, what cause the hate to sky rocket its like this. you may have to relate to it to understand the feeling. lets say, your wife/husband, your sibling, or best friend betray you. lets say they post a naked picture of you online or snitch on you to the cops etc.. isnt that anger is much more emotional than a stranger you dont really know? you get so mad you want to kill them right there and then. if its a stranger you be mad but it goes away fast because you dont know that person. this is the mind of folks that they have. when they found out there so many bomb planted by the Vietnamese, its enough bomb to wipe out all the khmer people. it wasnt just politics war, they see it as personal war. my parent used to told me about their neighbor was vietnamese. who ever make pho that day they would give some to each other in the morning. they had a good relationship. help each other in every way possible like with business etc..this is common for alot of folks back then. then theres the other sad stories how one of the so called good neighbor surprisingly was force to join the vietkong and killed their neighbor to show they are loyal to the vietkong. if they didnt join the viet kog would kill the viet who didnt join.
the other difference between cambodian people and the rest of people in south east like laos, viet and thai is that cambodian know the history on top of their mind at least most. while the rest dont know or didnt know about it until later when they have google as their research buddy. the reason why most cambodian know is that the conflict between thai and viet is long before the last war. they been battling for a while until everything setting down then the last war started the hatred all over again. cambodian parent pass down the history to their children because they fear viet and thai people take over cambodia. this is true, because their intention of taking cambodia started ever since. now i think its impossible for viet or thai to take over cambodia in this modern times. being a cambodian and not being dumb but i do agree that the cambodian have the right to hold that hatred.
myself i dont bare that hatred at all but since i was born in the state. most of my friend are actually Vietnamese.
cambodian also hate thailand. this is also a complicated view points. i try to make it as short as possible, getting sleepy. thai claim everything belong to them. the government is the one who started the recent hatred. like provoking a war with cambodia because they couldnt control the protestor. most of the old temple are cambodian ancient temple it even have cambodian text on there. yet the thai people still claim its theirs. make no sense…i dont know if the government made a big lie to their people are the people themselves are ignorant of this. also they were known to steal more stuff from the temple than the viet. they still have that market today selling it in thailand. everyone know assume most of it is actually a fake or duplicated. no one really buy them now days. thats my quick write up and im going to bed.