** Lao New Year, or Songkan / Pi Mai Lao, generally celebrated from 13 to 15 April ( Laos )

Reading Lao Tzu: A Companion to the Tao Te Ching With a New Translation ( Xlibris Corporation, 2003 ).

Other works referred to within the novel itself are the writings of Lao Tzu, the Kama Sutra, the Torah, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the Tao Te Ching and, of course, the Gospels of the New Testament.

Each year, on the third day of " Pimai " or Lao New Year, the Phra Bang is taken in procession to Wat Mai.

There it is exhibited at a shrine where the Buddha image is ritually bathed by devout laypeople during Lao New Year festivities.

Hmong Resistance in the New Lao State

* New York Times Article on Lao food

* Burmese New Year ( Thingyan ): Lunisolar new year falls in April ; similar to Cambodian, Lao, Sri Lankan and Thai new years

* Cambodian New Year, similar to Burmese, Lao, Sri Lankan and Thai

* Lao New Year, similar to Burmese, Cambodian, Sri Lankan and Thai

* Sinhala and Tamil New Year, similar to Burmese, Cambodian, Lao, and Thai

* Thai New Year ( Songkran ), similar to Burmese, Cambodian, Lao and Sri Lankan

It is partly preserved in the Nam Ha NBCA ( National Biodiversity Conservation Area ), that has developed as an eco-tourism destination with the help of neighbouring and western countries, as well as international organizations ( New Zealand, European Union, UNESCO and Lao National Tourism Administration ).

Tad Kha is a popular picnic spot for locals, especially during the Lao New Year holidays.

* Lao New Year

Scenes from court dancers were performed on Lao New Year celebrations, and other Buddhist holidays.

The institution has a student population of about 12, 000 students, and is divided into two campuses: Lao Qu, the Old Campus, and Xin Qu, the New Campus.

In Windows 7, they are also found in Ebrima ( N ' Ko, Tifinagh, Vai ), Khmer UI ( Khmer ), Lao UI ( Lao ), Microsoft New Tai Lue ( Tai Lue ), Microsoft PhagsPa ( Phags-pa ), Microsoft Tai Le ( Tai Le ).

To find out, we traveled throughout that part of Laos still nominally controlled, in the daytime at least, by the Royal Lao Army: from Attopeu, the City of Buffalo Dung in the southeast, to Muong Sing, the City of Lions in the northwest, close to Communist China ( map, page 250 ).

We were told that to the Pathet Lao, a kidnaped American was worth at least $750, a fortune in Laos.

The Laos government said four major Pathet Lao rebel attacks had been launched, heavily supported by troops from Communist North Viet Nam.

* Lao Issara, Day of the Free Laos.

* 1975 – Pathet Lao seizes power in Laos, and establishes the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

* Pathet Lao Day ( Laos )

The earliest Laos legal document ( and the earliest sociological evidence about the existence of the Lao people ) is known as " the laws of Khun Borom " ( also spelled " Khun Bulom "), still preserved in manuscript form .< ref >

Although the Mekong was established as a border by French colonial forces, travel from one side to the other has been significantly limited only since the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( LPDR, or Laos ) in 1975.

Laos shares its short — only 541 kilometers — southern border with Cambodia, and ancient Khmer ruins at Wat Pho and other southern locations attest to the long history of contact between the Lao and the Khmer.

As of November 2010, Lao officials plan to convert the station into a rail cargo terminal for freight trains, allowing cargo to be transported from Bangkok into Laos at a lower cost than would be possible with road transport.

Laos has constructed a new highway connecting Savannakhet to the Vietnamese border at Lao Bao, with funding coming from the Japanese government.

The foreign relations of Laos, after the takeover by the Pathet Lao in December 1975, were characterized by a hostile posture toward the West, with the government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic aligning itself with the Soviet bloc, maintaining close ties with the Soviet Union and depending heavily on the Soviets for most of its foreign assistance.

When Japan surrendered, Lao nationalists declared Laos independent, but by early 1946, French troops had reoccupied the country and conferred limited autonomy on Laos.

It is similar to other Indochinese kickboxing systems, namely pradal serey from Cambodia, tomoi from Malaysia, lethwei from Burma and muay Lao from Laos.

** Pi Mai Lao ( Lao: ປ ີ ໃໝ ່ Songkan ) in Laos

They include Thai and Lao, the national languages of Thailand and Laos respectively.

* December 2 – In Laos, the communist party of the Pathet Lao takes over Vientiane and defeat the Kingdom of Laos which ends the Laotian Civil War but the ongoing Insurgency in Laos begins with the Pathet Lao fighting the Hmongs, Royalist-in-exile and the Right-wings.

** Laotian Muay Lao – Laotian boxing which is similar to Muay Thai

In the central and southern mountains, Mon – Khmer tribes known as Lao Theung or upland Lao, predominate.

" Philological Notes on Chapter One of the Lao Tzu " ( Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 1957, 20: 598 – 618 ).

* May 7 – The Pearl of Lao Tzu, 24 x 14 cm, is found in a giant clam off Palawan, Philippines.

* Isan ( Northeastern Thai ), the language of the Isan region of Thailand, a socio-culturally distinct Thai – Lao hybrid dialect which is written with the Thai script.

Lao or Laotian ( ພາສາລາວ, BGN / PCGN: phasa lao, ) is a tonal language of the Tai – Kadai language family.

Among the major writers of the period were Guo Moruo ( 郭沫若 ) ( 1892 – 1978 ), a poet, historian, essayist, and critic ; Mao Dun ( 茅盾 ) ( 1896 – 1981 ), the first of the novelists to emerge from the " League of Left-Wing Writers " and one whose work reflected the revolutionary struggle and disillusionment of the late 1920s ; satirist and novelist Lao She ( 老舍 ) ( 1899 – 1966 ); and Ba Jin ( 巴金 ) ( 1904 – 2005 ), a novelist whose work was influenced by Ivan Turgenev and other Russian writers.

* Lao She ( 老舍 ) ( 1897 – 1966 )

* Lao Lan – Founded by Grandmaster Charlie Villanueva.

* Hekou – Lao Cai, by road and rail, is the only Sino-Vietnamese land border crossing open to non-Chinese / non-Vietnamese.

Similarly, the unrelated Khmer ( Mon – Khmer ), Cham ( Austronesian ) and Lao ( Kadai ) languages have almost identical vowel systems.

* Charles G. Finney – The Circus of Dr. Lao

The Lao language is a tonal, analytic, right-branching, pronoun pro-drop language of the Tai – Kadai language family, closely related to Thai and other languages of Tai peoples.

Kaysone Phomvihane ( ໄກສອນ ພ ົ ມວ ິ ຫານ ) ( December 13, 1920 – November 21, 1992 ) was the leader of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party from 1955, though Souphanouvong served in a figurehead role.

They are the most widely spoken of the Tai – Kadai languages, and include Thai, the national language of Thailand ; Lao, the national language of Laos ; Burma's Shan language ; and Zhuang, a group of languages of southern China.

Chao Anouvong (; ; ), or regnal name Chaiya Sethathirath V (; ), ( 1767 – 1829 ), led the Laotian Rebellion ( 1826 – 1829 ) as the last monarch of the Lao Kingdom of Vientiane.