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On top of building stadiums and other facilities, there have been unprecedented efforts to ‘beautify’ Vientiane in anticipation of the SEA Games, now only two weeks away. But not everything, it seems, is going to plan.
As part of the sprucing up, the flower pots in the attached photos have been slowly laid along the road to the airport – previously Luang Phrabang Rd now Souphanouvong Road (renamed earlier this year after the ‘Red Prince’ on the hundredth anniversary of his birth). However, people have objected that they look like coffins, and especially coffins for children, so a couple of nights ago the laborious task began of removing them entirely from the median strip lest they bring the Games bad luck. It was only half done by yesterday, when this shot was taken, so they capture the ‘here now and gone tomorrow’ scene.
Thanks to an astute observer in Vientiane for picking up on this tale, which provides a revealing local alternative to the ‘national glory’ narrative of the Games and a fascinating insight into the lengths organisers are willing to go to in order to ensure the SEA Games are a success.
Have recently returned from VTE and indeed there’s a widespread sense of anticipation and a very active campaign to see the place spruced up. While it’s pleasing to see that Laos intends to put the best possible face on their moment in the spotlight, it’s regrettable they don’t feel it can be done without a very visible increase in uniformed security.
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It’s regrettable, as you say, but I think the increase in security points to an irony that strikes at the heart of the SEA Games spectacle, something along the lines of ‘watching the state, the state is watching’. On the one hand, the SEA Games in Laos provide unparalleled opportunity for the people to watch the Lao state symbolically perform national achievement and, hence, bolster its power. On the other, the fact that the state is watching back, through increased security, suggests it lacks confidence in the idea of the nation as a unifying idea.
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