>Build some of the most magnificent religious monuments in the world.
>Create a sophisticated irrigation system across over 1,000 square kilometers to, in 1100, foster the world's largest urban area until the 1800s
>Remembered only for the big Rouge splooge
Why isn't Cambodian civilization touted more often for being as cool as it was? Can you guys tell me more about it?
>>722009
>not as well known / famous enough to get mocked / criticised
>not oppressed / primitive enough to get pity appreciation
tfw be south east asians
either way greeting from your far southern neighbour, indonesia :)
They never really had much impact on the world beyond Cambodia and its immediate neighbors, which is why it tends to be under-appreciated except as a tourist attraction.
Angkor really was one of the most impressive cities in the pre-modern world though, if not the most impressive of all. All we see now is the bare skeleton of the city and it's still incredible.
>>722375
I'm SE Asian and our civilisations were more relevant than Africa and Latin America combined.
Angkor (Cambodia) was a great city
Ayuttaya (Thailand) had the largest city in the world
Malay Kingdoms were known as the lands of gold because of thier immence wealth.
SE Asia literally has more impressive Hindu Architecture than actual India lol
Pooo in the loo
>>722375
SEA is pretty cool.
t. Germanfag
>>722009
How the fuck do you even pronounce Khmer
>>722009
Their history & culture related tourism aren't as big as Thailand. Maybe french did not gave enough attention on them or something.
>>722508
>more relevant than africa and latin american combined
Africa is more relevant for west because african-american. They're also relevant for those raw resource. Latin American relevant because raw resource and narcos. I'm glad we have none of it.
I preffer SEA to not be relevant rather than gain attention of WE WUZ type.
>>722523
keh-mer
>>722089
>Indonesia
>Biggest muslim population in the world.
Late 80s the dictator Suharto tried to get more control of his collapsing dictatorship by embracing islamists and letting them in to take part in the government
Throughout 90s to the present time islamist movements started to gain more traction. Mass medias promote the religion through movies, tv shows, and advertisements, pushing its own agenda and not letting anyone criticize it. It's funny that islam in there is just like liberalism in the west.
It will be just another muslim shithole in a few decades with Orangutans and jungles. Early Suharto, dutch colonials and communism were the only thing that seemed to be able to prevent such thing from happening, if your people actually wanted such thing.
Considering it's long-term territorial decline at the hands of the Thais and Vietnamese, the Khemer civilization was doing something wrong.
>>722091
The scale of Angkor Wat is totally mind-blowing in person. That all that was done without modern machinery. Does anything in the pre-modern world compare for sheer scale?
>>722508
All I know about SEA is that you can go there to fuck hookers and smoke opium. One of my coworkers goes to the Philippines for a month every year.
>>722747
Seriously, though. It's so shrouded in mystery, too. As far as I know all archaeologists have to go on are ruins and the incredible detail on these temples. Does anyone here know if there are written histories for the Khmer Empire?
>>722773
No written histories, only stones last in tropical humidity. Historian use chinese reports and chronicles to supplant these.
You may want to read D.G.E. Hall's History of Southeast Asia or George Coeddes's Indianized States of Southeast Asia.
>>722009
How do you pronounce "Khmer?"
>>722564
This, though. I'm happy to be proud of my own culture and still live fairly well while being surrounded by countries with high growth rates like my own. Sure, the 20th century was rough, but we really won the 90s and 00s, SEA-bros.
>>722749
Phillipines is an special case. It was like a tribal no-mans land that no SE Asian Empire cared about. It wasn't until they got cucked by Spain that they joined the game. Basically they are Ireland of SE Asia.
>>723014
>It was like a tribal no-mans land that no SE Asian Empire cared about.
Bruneian Sultanate and Sri-Vijaya had trading posts there. Flip Ruling Clans often had relatives in Indonesia/Borneo.
Also it had its own tiny states. The Sultanate of Sulu, an Indland kingdom among the Pangasinense, and Tagalog Rajahs perhaps being the most powerful.
>It wasn't until they got cucked by Spain that they joined the game
Kek, other way around: Spain divorced us from Southeast Asia and into a Latin/European Colonial Sphere. Our worldview transformed from "What is happening in Insular Southeast Asia guys?" to 1) "What was happening in Europe/Americas?" and 2) "What is happening in China? Our Spanish master's Business-partner?"
Lets even add Catholicism as yet another barrier. Pre-Colonial Filipino nobility had family/trade contacts in Borneo/Malacca (it's where they get their fucking firearms ffs), but 200 years under Spanish rule and Catholicism, these selfsame families - now known as the "Principalia," viewed Indonesia and Borneo as this sort of Barbarian land populated by Muslim pirates and thats was that.
Under Spain Filipinos knew next to nothing of their SEAsian neighbors. Plebs here are still surprised when there's shitloads of words in Filipino languages that have the same phonetics/meaning in Indonesia for example. Its only recently that Pre-Colonial history is being studied and interest in the interraltions between peoples of Insular SEA is drawing scholarship. Largely due to the emergence of ASEAN and globalization.
>>723044
Yeah, there are many similar words in Manadoese.
>>722089
How long until Indonesia dissolves? Soon, I hope.
Pagan is even more ignored. It has a bad reputation because the Burmese government has carried out some really bad restoration work there (compared with Angkor where the restorations were carried out by experts using anastylosis), which I guess is why it's generally ignored. Plus there's the fact that Burma was a closed country until recently.
>>723044
yeah i imagine being the only catholic majority nation in southeast must feel pretty weird
>>723942
Beautiful and absolutely massive. Any renditions of how it looked when the Khmer empire was at it's zenith?
The thing about Southeast Asia is that it isn't really a thing. It should really be thought of as three regions; Vietnam, Indochina, and Nusantara (maybe there are better names than that). Vietnam is essentially East Asian, and while Indochina and Nusantara are both Indianized regions, both have completely different histories and went in completely different trajectories. Of course they interacted and influenced each other, but not more than they interacted with or were influenced by other regions. Each region needs to be learned about separately, because for the most part there is no unified 'Southeast Asian history'. The one exception is Champa, which interacted greatly with all three regions.
Southeast Asia is really just a vague term of convenience given by Westerners who just decided it would be convenient to lump it all together since it looked like a coherent region on a map, completely ignoring any cultural or historic factors. Now the term's basically impossible to get rid of, because the alternatives like 'Indochina' or 'Nusantara' are either vague, obscure, or outdated.
>>724001
>tfw i live just one hour from there
>>724001
It's fascinating seeing the spectrum of culture in that region. Indian, Chinese, Arabical.. all there.
>>723953
That's not Khmer, though it's contemporary with them. I haven't seen any renditions of it, sorry.
There are some great reconstructions of Angkor here though: http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/3dg/projects/visualising-angkor.html
Though keep in mind that the wooden buildings are mostly speculative.
>>724001
It looks so nice from far away, but I've heard it's dirty and untreated. Or was it Borobudur?
>>722375
r u d e
>>724043
You must be thinking of something else, both of them look pretty amazing close up with some really impressive relief work.
>>724058
No, I mean there are litters, and some vandalism.
>>722715
How is that relevant to anything being said here?
Also> implying we don't want return of glorious Islamic Sultanate
>>724064
I've never heard of that, but I've never been there myself so I can't say. Hopefully that's not true.
>>724065
Oh, we don't. Now, shut up because this is a Cambodia thread.
>>724043
Prambanan & Borobudur is the most maintained senpai, there may be litter around the site tho.
>>724099
speak for yourself infidel, soon the black flag of the caliphate shall rise too in the south east asia
>>722508
south east asia looks very interesting because their culture is a mix of indian and chinese influence, you got pretty nice architecture like pic related
so does south east asians identify more with indians or china politically and culturally? or do you regard yourself as wholly independent sphere?
>>725580
Maybe Chinese and Indian cultures are incomplete copies of Cambodian culture?
>>725580
Indian.
>>724065
He said that Indonesia isn't well known for anything.
>biggest muslim country in the world
>>725751
*muslim population
>>723044
"He's talking shit about my bowl hat isn't he?"
>>723044
either thats a really bad reconstruction picture or pre colonial flips look like native american compared to SEA
>>727922
>implying native american could not pass as local in SEA
>>727942
its the costume, not the face
>>722009
>Create a sophisticated irrigation system across over 1,000 square kilometers to, in 1100, foster the world's largest urban area until the 1800s
elaborate?
>>727951
Pray, tell, since when did Native Americans wear silk?
It's typical of Insular SEA. Looks like some of the clothes here in Indonesia
>>727964
still felt very incan like pic related
i thought indonesian costume was more similar to cambodian / myanmar costume?
>>722773
Only symbols and sculptures of what I know. Modern technology explains a lot when it comes to how their cities' infrastructure worked.
>>727953
In order to compensate for monsoons and drought, the Khmer Emperors built a network of stone irrigation canals and tunnels (many of which used temples as crossroads) for farmers. This allowed for massive food production and population growth. Although I haven't been able to find numbers, evidence from buildings and travellers' texts shows traces of a population up to one million people
>>724001
early khmer has close relation with nusantara though, java in particular:
pasta from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Empire#Jayavarman_II.C2.A0.E2.80.94_the_founder_of_Angkor
>Jayavarman II is widely regarded as a king who set the foundations of the Angkor period in Cambodian history, beginning with a grandiose consecration ritual that he conducted in 802 on the sacred Mount Mahendraparvata, now known as Phnom Kulen, to celebrate the independence of Kambuja from Javanese dominion. At that ceremony Prince Jayavarman II was proclaimed a universal monarch (Cambodian: Kamraten jagad ta Raja) or God King (Sanskrit: Deva Raja). He declared himself Chakravartin, in a ritual taken from the Indian-Hindu tradition. Thereby he not only became the divinely appointed and therefore uncontested ruler, but also simultaneously declared the independence of his kingdom from Java. According to some sources, Jayavarman II had resided for some time in Java during the reign of Sailendras, or "The Lords of Mountains", hence the concept of Deva Raja or God King was ostensibly imported from Java. At that time, Sailendras allegedly ruled over Java, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and parts of Cambodia, around the Mekong delta.
>>722564
>Their history & culture related tourism aren't as big as Thailand. Maybe french did not gave enough attention on them or something.
One of the major reasons the French colonized Cambodia was the presence of Angkor Wat. French Nationalism worked such that anything controlled by France was considered part of French achievement. So the history/culture aspect was pretty heavily in play, at least for the French. Contemporary lack of recognition probably stems from all the trouble of the 20th century
>>724001
This is a good point.
Funfact: Khmers were going to originally appear in Age of Empires 2 add-on (when ES was still a thing), but got replaced by Koreans in the last minute.
Microsoft decision, we want to pander to Starcrafters.
You can see it was rushed, I mean War Wagon? That's a Czech thing
What's with all of those - Persians, Indians, Khmers, Siamese, etc always getting Elephant special units?
You could even give it to Mongols (Tamerlane I think was famous from this), lol.
>>722009
i like SEA
>It's 1991
The best thing about South East Asia is its booming economy that will never, ever, crash. Not even a billionaire jewish banker could slow it down!
