25 Feb 06 War things as flowerpots
I was at the Singapore airshow yesterday. Lots of people were selling weapon systems and warfare related avionics. There was even a Serbian booth next to the US one - once enemies now together at a trade show. Many spies were going around taking pictures and asking probing questions.
Fighters and missiles on display.
Seeing all the missiles, I remembered something I saw once in Lao. Lao, a little country between China, Thailand and Vietnam was heavily bombed by the Americans during the Vietnam War to cut-off the supply routes of the North Vietnamese fighters.
The Laotians today use the remnants of these bombs as flowerpots.
USAF markings on the bomb.
Another missile fin being used as a dustbin in a Lao guesthouse.
Technorati Tags: lao, missile, singapore, vietnamwar, war
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I think it says plenty about the tenacity of the Laotians. Nice post, btw.
[...] n merchants’ wares reminds him of what he had seen in Laos: war material turned into flowerpots. Jose Manuel Tesoro « Malay [...]
Quite beautiful, isn’t it? Thank you, Preetam Rai.
I helped load many bombs that fell on Laos in 1966. I have worked there on and off, now, for eight years through our ngo, Jhai Foundation http://www.jhai.org.
“Jhai” in a social sense in Lao language means this :
that moment when all understand that harmony has been restored. This is often experienced in a village meeting. It is not ‘agreement and it is not ‘resolution’. Just harmony. It is a moment of harmony. It is so wonderful everyone wants more.
“Jhai” … that’s what we need, isn’t it?
yours, in Peace,
Lee Thorn
chair, Jhai Foundation
350 Townsend St., San Francisco, CA 94112 USA
1 415 344 0360
lee@jhai.org
http://www.jhai.org
Thanks Lee for dropping by. I read about the jhai pc, i think on slashdot. Hopefully I can drop in to lao one of these days and help out in some of the projects.
And Ivan, the laotians end up resusing almost every resource. Less wasteful than some of the other regions around it. But it is changing slowly.
Free Culture show in Singapore…
After doing my Free Culture show at INSEAD in early February, Singapore bloggers Han and Preetam asked me if I’d be interested in doing the show for a Singapore audience. Han pulled together a great crew that included the……