Culture Realms of Southeast Asia: Region by Region

Introduction to Southeast Asia's Culture Realms

In the past few decades, the study of different culture realms across Southeast Asia has increased, bringing a wealth of information to historians and anthropologists. Southeast Asia can be described as an area of approximately 4,100,000 square kilometers containing the countries of Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and the Philippines. This part of Asia is home to many different peoples, including Thais, Karen, Shan, Hmong, Lao, Khmer, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Roads pass through green, terraced rice fields fringed with palm trees, forests with waterfalls and monkeys, and villages of thatched wooden houses. Southeast Asia represents a clash of the past and the present—a combination of the traditional and the modern. While Southeast Asia contains vast areas of remote forest, it also includes centers of international business with soaring skyscrapers, such as Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia) and the port of Singapore, a city that is an independent state in its own right. This paper identifies the area that comprises Southeast Asia and discusses the differences in religion, land, demographics, and economy in each of the countries that make up the region.

Brunei is located in Southeast Asia on the northern coast of Borneo, almost completely surrounded by Malaysia. It is a small, oil-rich state occupying a total area of 5,770 sq km, of which 5,270 sq km is land. The country has a 381 km land border and 161 km of coastline and is close to vital sea lanes through the South China Sea linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Brunei has a tropical climate—generally hot, humid, and rainy—with terrain that consists of flat coastal plains rising to mountains in the east and hilly lowlands in the west. Natural resources include petroleum, natural gas, and timber. Typhoons, earthquakes, and severe flooding are rare. The country consists primarily of Malays (64%) and Chinese (20%). The predominant religion is Sunni Islam, and Malay is the official language.

Brunei

The official currency is the Brunei dollar, under the country's constitutional sultanate form of government. Brunei gained independence from the United Kingdom in January 1984, and the national holiday celebrating this event is February 23rd. The Brunei flag is yellow with two diagonal bands of white (top, almost double width) and black starting from the upper hoist side; the national emblem in red is superimposed at the center and includes a swallow-tailed flag on top of a winged column within an upturned crescent above a scroll, flanked by two upraised hands. Brunei's economy is a mixture of foreign and domestic entrepreneurship, government regulation and welfare measures, and village tradition. It is almost totally supported by exports of crude oil and natural gas, with revenues from the petroleum sector accounting for more than 50% of GDP. This makes Brunei one of the highest per-capita income countries in the developing world, and it is further supported by substantial income from overseas investment in addition to domestic production. The government provides all medical services and subsidizes food and housing.

Burma, also known as Myanmar, is located in Southeast Asia bordering the Bay of Bengal between Bangladesh and Thailand. The Irrawaddy River flows north to south through the country and forms a broad delta where it meets the sea. This is a strategic location near major Indian Ocean shipping lanes. The Irrawaddy River is an important trading route used to transport logs, petroleum, rice, and other crops. Cargo vessels on the river are made of wood and display square sails. Much of the country features wooden houses built on stilts above the water. Rice, sugarcane, and rubber trees are found in the warm, wet lowland region, while forests cover the northern part of the country where it is cooler and hillier. The country occupies a total area of 678,500 sq km, of which 657,740 sq km is land, and has 1,930 km of coastline. The climate is tropical monsoon—cloudy, rainy, and hot with humid summers (southwest monsoon, June to September) and less cloudy, drier winters with mild temperatures and lower humidity (northeast monsoon, December to April). The terrain is marked by steep, rugged highlands surrounding central lowlands.

Natural resources include petroleum, timber, tin, antimony, zinc, copper, tungsten, lead, coal, marble, limestone, precious stones, and natural gas. Burma exports oil, natural gas, and gemstones, and is subject to destructive earthquakes, cyclones, flooding, landslides during the rainy season, and deforestation. The population is approximately 48,081,302, with Buddhism as the predominant religion. The majority of the population is Burmese, though minority peoples include the Chin, Kachin, Shan, and Karen. The official language is Burmese. Burma is governed by a military regime; its flag is red with a blue rectangle in the upper hoist-side corner bearing, all in white, 14 five-pointed stars encircling a cogwheel containing a stalk of rice—the 14 stars representing the 14 administrative divisions.

Burma (Myanmar)

Just outside of Burma, the Brahmaputra and Ganges rivers form the world's largest delta region, occupying about 29,000 square miles. Every five days on a lake in Burma, farmers, craftworkers, and other community members gather in boats to trade rice cakes, farm tools, silk, fish, fruits, and vegetables. Tropical storms called cyclones rage across the Bay of Bengal, and large areas of land are often flooded. The golden-roofed Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon is one of the holiest temples in the Buddhist faith.

Cambodia is located in Southeast Asia bordering the Gulf of Thailand, between Thailand and Vietnam. It occupies a total area of 181,040 sq km, of which 176,520 sq km is land; the country has a 2,572 km land boundary and 443 km of coastline. Cambodia has a population of approximately 10,750,000 who speak the Khmer language. The predominant religion is Theravada Buddhism, and the average life expectancy is 48 years of age. In Cambodia, fewer than 0.1% of people own cars. The climate is tropical, with rain and monsoons from May to October and a dry season from December to March. The terrain is mostly low, flat plains with mountains in the southwest and north. Natural resources include timber, gemstones, manganese, phosphates, and hydropower potential.

Despite these natural resources, Cambodia is a desperately poor country whose economic recovery has been held hostage to continued political unrest and factional hostilities. The country's immediate economic challenge is an acute financial crisis that undermines monetary stability and prevents the disbursement of foreign development assistance. This situation stems in part from Cambodia's abrupt shift in 1990 to free-market economic mechanisms and the cutoff of aid from former Soviet bloc countries. After this aid stopped, Cambodia faced severe economic crises. As a result, the country's infrastructure of roads, bridges, and power plants has been severely degraded, operating at only 40–50% of prewar capacity. Telecommunications services are barely adequate for government use and virtually nonexistent for the general public. Statistical data on Cambodia's economy remains sparse and unreliable.

Conclusion: Similarities and Differences Across the Region