PebHmong Discussion Forum
News & Announcements => News Headlines => International News => Topic started by: NceegVaj on July 20, 2011, 04:55:53 PM
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Chinese take a gamble on the pleasures of sin city
I HATE CHINESE. IT"S IN MY BLOOD. "Suav fuas koj tsho koj tias koj tsho ntuag !!"
A playground for businessmen is thriving on land leased from the Laos government. Edward Loxton reports from Kapok City
The extravagant and lavish Chinese-owned casino in Kapok City, with its golden crown, rattles to the sound of gaming chips
Reuters
The extravagant and lavish Chinese-owned casino in Kapok City, with its golden crown, rattles to the sound of gaming chips
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It may be well down river from the People's Republic, but the red flag of China flies prominently among other national standards at a jetty on the Thai bank of the Mekong River. Visitors check out with Thai immigration officials, before being ferried upstream in a sleek speedboat to a world of ostentatious casinos and half-built hotels.
Welcome to the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, a Chinese-leased playground on the Mekong River border between Laos and Thailand – or Kapok City, named after the tree that provided the area's main source of income before the Chinese moved in.
The 25,000 acre site – larger than China's famous gambling playground Macau and billed as a new city destined to be the throbbing heart of the fabled Golden Triangle region – was leased by the Laotian government to a Chinese business group, KingsRomans.
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They are only a few years into that 99-year lease, and new buildings are springing up fast.
When complete, developers claim the site will be home to two casinos, a dozen or more hotels, an international airport, up to six golf courses, holiday residences and a network of services that will include shopping malls, supermarkets, restaurants and bars.
Right now, most of the people who visit the area are Chinese who brave the day's road journey along a mountainous route from the Sino-Laotian border at Boten to spend a weekend in what Thais on their side of the Mekong are dubbing "sin city".
"With time, we hope to attract more visitors from Thailand and also Western tourists," Ebahim Abbas, president of the main casino in Kapok City, told The Independent.
The formalities of entering Kapok City from Thailand are as streamlined as the courtesy speedboat provided by the KingsRomans Group for the brief river crossing. A Thai exit permit costs the equivalent of £10 – well worth parting with for the pleasure of the exhilarating ride across the Mekong.
A wide staircase leads from a waterfront pier on the Laotian side to a spanking new Laotian immigration building, sporting an ostentatious golden dome. Gold is the predominant colour and theme of this extraordinary development.
Visitors hand in their passports and Thai exit forms to the Laotian officials, who return them unstamped on departure. Entry formalities take a few minutes – opening the doors to the pleasures and enticements of Kapok City, which include the inevitable casinos, tax-free shopping and, for male visitors, cheap, barrack-like brothels.
Although slated to become the second largest city in Laos with a projected population of 200,000, bigger even than the world heritage city Luang Prabang, Kapok City appears on no maps. It is virtually self-governing, with its own security forces patrolling wide roads bearing such names as Park Avenue, where even the cruising limousines are Kapok City registered vehicles.
Chinese is the official language, which can make life difficult for visitors, who find hotel room instructions written only in Mandarin. Chinese Yuan are the preferred currency, although Thai Baht are accepted. There are no banks or ATMs, while credit cards are carefully screened before payment is accepted.
The main casino – a vast, vulgar building reminiscent of the excesses of Las Vegas – is the first construction to be completed in Kapok City. A huge golden crown and a golden cupola sit atop the palatial building, whose main entrance is flanked by a dozen statues of Greek and Roman deities.
A huge statue of Zeus welcomes punters into an entrance hall where glittering chandeliers hang between soaring Corinthian pillars and walls covered with oversized reproductions of European Renaissance masterpieces. The surrounding land is piled high with building materials – sand, bricks and concrete drainage pipes. There's a sense that nobody is in a hurry to complete the job – after all, the Chinese own the place for the next 90-plus years.
The tax-free status of the new city keeps prices down – a room in a comfortable hotel costs the equivalent of £15 pounds while an enormous Chinese buffet at the casino can be enjoyed for just £2.
Two Laotian villages, complete with their temples, were relocated to make room for Kapok City. The Laotian farmers who once grew rice, beans and garlic on the alluvial Mekong soil were replaced by a small army of construction workers needed to create Kapok City.
The main casino alone employs 2,000 people to keep the gaming tables staffed and the roulette wheels spinning around the clock. The staff includes croupiers from Sino-Burmese border towns, where the once-thriving casinos have suffered from an official Beijing clamp- down. Kapok City is presumably far enough from China to escape official attention from Beijing.
Some of the casino workers have been flown in from Russia's far east to boost the numbers of qualified staff needed to maintain the 24-7 routine. Olga, from Vladivostock, is one of the Russians employed to work the roulette and blackjack tables. Is she happy working at Kapok City? The young woman smiles weakly and signals with her hand "so so".
Mr Abbas, a Malaysian-born Australian citizen, admits it's difficult keeping foreign staff happy in a city that's still a construction site. "They get homesick very easily," he says.
Wandering the deserted streets at night, it's easy to understand the Russian woman's unhappiness. Apart from the casino and one or two of the livelier restaurants, there's not a lot to do in Kapok City. Single men in search of sex head for the primitive brothels that have sprung up to cater for gamblers who have struck it rich at the gaming tables. Outside the reach of most official law enforcement, there is little protection for the women working in the sex trade here.
Even hotels have plugged into the sex trade, and unaccompanied male visitors staying at bourgeois "boutique" establishments are asked when checking in: "Would you require the company of a young woman during your stay?" The equivalent of £40 is charged for two hours of "service" from a Thai sex worker, while young Chinese women command a higher rate – £50. Hotel rooms have bedside packets of condoms and sex aids. The television – showing only Chinese programmes – offers hardcore porn.
Male visitors who resist the reception desk offerings return to their rooms after an evening on the town to find that explicit "calling cards" have been slipped under their doors in their absence.
"The Chinese are persistent, in everything," said a visiting Thai businessman. "They have to be, to take out a 99-year lease on this place."
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I know you can't beat them so if you don't mind, just join them. :2funny: :2funny: :2funny: :2funny: :2funny:
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I know you can't beat them so if you don't mind, just join them. :2funny: :2funny: :2funny: :2funny: :2funny:
That is correct. Reason our sisters/bros in China are chipping them away.
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If I get a chance I will h**t any chinese
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omfg! 99yrs lease! Laos might as well give it to them! what a way to ruin a country that is barely surviving! that's going to drive more hmong/laotian girls into the brothels.
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What a way to undermine a countries integrity!
Lease their land and put brothels on them, casinos for gambling, and corrupt the people so that they have no future.
Once they forget what just happened, TAKE THEM OVER BY POWER..
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Eventually Laos will become a "little China."
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NceegVaj,
I'm surprise you're still alive! Would imagine you'd die of PMS by now!
But I'll tell you like I tell all those activists who do nothing but post online, "You can't do shit by talking shit, if you want something done, you need to earn the respect of the people around you. It works like a chain of fire, you gain the respect of this group, word of mouth about you spreads good news. No one will talk shit about you, those who do will be burned by your supporters. Once everyone starts listening you start getting things done. How and why? The only problem the world has right now is that they lack leaders who can do this, there are thousands of people with great ideas but these people can't get their ideas across if to everyone else they're just a bunch of nobodies."
Anyway, I don't care if you take that to heart or not. I'm not the one stressing out about SE Asia and China =P
come again? and what have you done? -0-
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that isn't so bad, if Laos alone can't develope their own country might as well let others invest in it and help them out! O0
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why the fuuuuuuuuuuucc cccccccccccccc cccccckkkkkkkk kkkkkkkk you care about Laos? worry about your kids 1st.
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I've was there last year. I had to cross from the thai border by boat. It's a nice place but will be better once it's done. Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4gh9Nop7CM#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4gh9Nop7CM#ws)
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My Lao friend just move back to build a new casino near Vientiane. It will be open in 2016. This one is lease for 50 years and also own by a Malaysian guy that married my friend's niece. It's across from the friendship bridge by Nong Kai and Laos. I wonder which one will make more money. The Malaysian casino will beat the Chinese because it's closer to the big city versus country farm land up north where the Chinese casino is located.
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why the fuuuuuuuuuuucc cccccccccccccc cccccckkkkkkkk kkkkkkkk you care about Laos? worry about your kids 1st.
Because I want to fuc.k NeegLaus.
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Eventually Laos will become a "little China."
Already is along with Viet Town, Thai cities, and new Vientiane of Australian city coming in 2030 :)
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Already is along with Viet Town, Thai cities, and new Vientiane of Australian city coming in 2030 :)
Proudlao - your loving country will disappear in 30 years. Sad thing. No king and no country, no love, no kare, no Lao.
Are you onboard to start a revolution? We die with honor.
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NceegVaj, you are not the only one who hates the Chinese. I hate the Chineses as well. And this is why:
1) They rape, murder, and pillage Hmong people for centuries
2) They murder Hmong, exploit them, and destroyed the literacy of the Hmong people
3) They always take everything, trying to spread and force their culture and ideas onto other people.
4) Anything that is not familiar to them is considered "barbaric." Hence they called Hmong as "Miao."
5) They pretty much f*cked up the Hmong people.
I hate Laotians as well and for three reasons:
1) Always discriminate against Hmong.
2) Always blaming all of their problems on Hmong.
3) The most important of all: Laotians want to exterminate the Hmong to the root. Let me quote from the public newspaper of Laos in 1975, "We must eradicate the Meo minority to the root!"
I don't like Thais as well for three reasons:
1) Exploit Hmong while they came in as refugees.
2) Forced Hmong back into death camps back in Laos.
3) Always blaming and putting problems on other ethnicities, and never look at themselves. I"m glad the Muslims are getting the Thais a taste of their own medicine.
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Proudlao - your loving country will disappear in 30 years. Sad thing. No king and no country, no love, no kare, no Lao.
Are you onboard to start a revolution? We die with honor.
A group of people so I've heard have started something ten years ago, and I have yet to see anything. Without the UN's help, I highly doubt that anything will be done.
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A group of people so I've heard have started something ten years ago, and I have yet to see anything. Without the UN's help, I highly doubt that anything will be done.
Well...I thought the Lao Liberation Front, by the sons of SAVANG VATHHANNA, in France have such group...and yes, going almost nowhere. On the other hand, you must be talking about the World Hmong Congress group...that's not for Lao people. yes, 10 yrs ago and it's gettting there like a turtle but you know some turtles live 500 years!
Anyway, I agree we just need to relax then fly to Laos and celebrate Pi Mai with the young honeys, Lao or otherwise. Agree?
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NceegVaj, you are not the only one who hates the Chinese. I hate the Chineses as well. And this is why:
1) They rape, murder, and pillage Hmong people for centuries
2) They murder Hmong, exploit them, and destroyed the literacy of the Hmong people
3) They always take everything, trying to spread and force their culture and ideas onto other people.
4) Anything that is not familiar to them is considered "barbaric." Hence they called Hmong as "Miao."
5) They pretty much f*cked up the Hmong people.
I hate Laotians as well and for three reasons:
1) Always discriminate against Hmong.
2) Always blaming all of their problems on Hmong.
3) The most important of all: Laotians want to exterminate the Hmong to the root. Let me quote from the public newspaper of Laos in 1975, "We must eradicate the Meo minority to the root!"
I don't like Thais as well for three reasons:
1) Exploit Hmong while they came in as refugees.
2) Forced Hmong back into death camps back in Laos.
3) Always blaming and putting problems on other ethnicities, and never look at themselves. I"m glad the Muslims are getting the Thais a taste of their own medicine.
I hear you bro. I think I can live with Thai and Lao but the Chinese? h3ll no. I rather gave up my pus.sy to any Hmong Man first, second to Lao, and then just maybe after I get HIV, I will give it to the Thai man. No soup for Chinese....gaw k fuclker!!!!!!!!
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Stupid. Manchus ruled China for over 400 years as the Qing Dynasty. Han chinese had no say in how the country was run until the Republic era when they overthrew the Manchus. Read history. Every Hmong rebellion was supported by Han Chinese. People who blindly hate Han Chinese have no knowledge of our history.
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A group of people so I've heard have started something ten years ago, and I have yet to see anything. Without the UN's help, I highly doubt that anything will be done.
Stupid laotian people! Always waiting for others to start! The name Laos should be change to Kamu or Hmong and let them fight!
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Stupid. Manchus ruled China for over 400 years as the Qing Dynasty. Han chinese had no say in how the country was run until the Republic era when they overthrew the Manchus. Read history. Every Hmong rebellion was supported by Han Chinese. People who blindly hate Han Chinese have no knowledge of our history.
What can you expect, a Han, a Miao, a Mongol, and etc that lives and are from China is automatically a Suav. People hate it them because of history, whether the Manchus, Qings or the Hans in charge, the Hmong had always rebelled because of their ridiculous taxation... And these entrepreneurs arriving to this pitiful country trying to make riches for themselves thru the exploitations of the poor and needy just reinforces that hate. If they're developing factories or other goods and services it would be a different story but whore houses and casino. The leadership in Laos definitely need to be eliminated to save the people.
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3) They always take everything, trying to spread and force their culture and ideas onto other people.
4) Anything that is not familiar to them is considered "barbaric." Hence they called Hmong as "Miao."
5) They pretty much f*cked up the Hmong people.
For moment there, I thought you were talking about America. ;D
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Direct your hate at the correct group of people - wealthy, social elites whom are mostly Han ethnicity. When you use the umbrella term "Chinese", you appear an idiot because the majority of Chinese citizens (most of whom are Han ethnicity) are shit broke and can barely buy the name brands shit that they are making for below-subsistence wage and being sold in developed countries for exponential profit.
It's a lot like Sudanese directing their hate towards all of China and Chinese people when it's just a few fukks at the top raping that country for its resources. Most of the Chinese citizens can't even afford gas and oil because they don't even have a car! Hell, most don't even have a parking space even when they rent an apartment!