ENTERTAINMENT

Music & Dancing
In most or rural Laos, entertainment means sitting around with friends over a few jiggers of lao-lao, telling jokes or recounting the events of the day and singing pheng pheun meuang (folk songs).

Religious and seasonal festivals are an important venue for Lao folk and pop music performances - see the Public Holidays & Special Events section earlier in this chapter for details.

Almost every provincial capital has a couple of dance halls (banthoeng; roughly 'nightclub') - called 'discos' by the. Lao in English in spite of the fact that they usually host live bands nightly and play no recorded music. Food as well as drinks are always available at Lao dance. halls, though most people drink rather than eat. By government decree, the music is mostly Lao. though in the north and north-east you'll also hear Chinese and Vietnamese songs mixed into the repertoire,

Western pop songs arc expressly forbidden but bands will slip them in occasionally or improvise Lao lyrics to make them more acceptable to the music police, Fortunately there is no prohibition on dance styles, which ill any given place may vary from the traditional lam wong to American country-style line dancing to wiggle-your- hips-and-dangle-your-fingertips pop styles - all in one night. You'll even see a foxtrot now and then. In Vientiane foreign embassies (particularly the French and US) sponsor occasional pop, rock or classical concerts.

Cinema & Video

At one time several movie houses thrived in the Big Three (Vientiane, Savannakhet and Luang Prabang), but the arrival of video in the late 1980s completely killed off local cinema. Video shops in the larger cities rent pirated versions of all the latest Chinese, Thai and Western videos. See the Entertainment section of the Vientiane chapter for information on film venues.

SPECTATOR SPORTS

Football (soccer) and other stadium sports can occasionally be seen at the National Stadium in Vientiane. Admission fees arc inexpensive. Interprovincial matches take place on fields or stadiums in each provincial capital.


Boxing

Many Lao sports fans living in the western part of the country are glued to their TV sets during the Sunday afternoon muay thai (Thai kickboxing) matches that are televised from Bangkok. Though very popular, kickboxing is not nearly as developed a sport in Laos as in Thailand and is mostly confined to amateur fights at upcountry festivals. It's not uncommon for the better Lao pugilists to drift across the Mekong to compete in Thai boxing rings, where there's more money to be made.

As in muay thai, in the Lao version of kickboxing all surfaces of the body are considered fair targets and any part of the body except the head may be used to strike an opponent (one small concession to safety). Common blows include high kicks to the neck, elbow thrusts to the face and head, knee hooks to the ribs and low crescent kicks to the calf. A contestant may even grasp an opponent's head between his hands and pull it down to meet an upward knee thrust. Punching is considered the weakest of all the blows and kicking .as merely a way to 'soften up' one's opponent knee and elbow strikes are decisive in most matches.

International boxing muay saakon) is gaining popularity in Laos and is encouraged by the government in spite of the obvious Lao preference for the bang-up South-East Asian version. At local festival programs, an eight-match line-up might include three matches in the international style and five in the Lac-Thai style.


Kataw

Kataw a contest in which a woven rattan or sometimes plastic:" ball around 12cm in diameter is kicked around, is almost as popular in Laos as it is in Thailand and Malaysia. It was introduced to the 'South- East Asian Games by Thailand but the Malaysians seem to win more often.

The traditional way to play kataw is for players to stand in a circle (the size of the circle depends on the number of players) and simply try to keep the ball airborne by' kicking it soccer-style. Points are scored for, style, difficulty and variety of kicking maneuvers.

A popular variation on kataw - and the one used in local or international competitions - is played with a volleyball net, using all the same rules 'as in volleyball except that only the feet and head are permitted to touch the ball. It's amazing to see the players perform aerial pirouettes, spiking the ball over the net with their feet.