Cambodia, then, like so many other nations in the developing world, is an agricultural country, and, in terms of the cash incomes of its people, desperately poor.

In the past, Cambodia was able to earn foreign exchange to pay for imported goods by selling agricultural surpluses-of rice and corn, for example-or plant crops, such as pepper, rubber, and cotton. Its normal patterns of trade were broken up in the wars of the 1970's. When the fighting died down, Cambodian trade became lively again, but more informal, which benefited many individual traders but deprived the government of money it needed to pay for essential services, like electricity, schools, water, and highways. There was some question at the end of the 1980's if Cambodia would ever be able to trade its way back into the kind of prosperity that it had enjoyed in earlier times.

Of course, the word "prosperity" is a relative one. Even in the peaceful 1960's, Cambodia was one of the poorest countries in eastern Asia, at least in terms of individual income. It is hard for even a relatively poor Westerner to imagine just how poor-in terms of cash, choices about the future, and possessions-a Cambodian farmer or unskilled

Present-day Cambodia was colonized by France in the 1860s and remained under French control (except during Japanese occupation during World War II) until 1953, when it was granted independence. During the postindependence period, Prince Norodom Sihanouk was the dominant figure in Cambodian politics, until he was deposed in 1970 by General Lon Nol, who was backed by the United States. When the U.S. withdrew from Southeast Asia in 1975, the Khmer Rouge, a Communist faction headed by Pol Pot, took control of the country and began a violent, forced restructuring aimed at returning the country to an agrarian communal society. Sihanouk was reinstalled as the nominal head of state, but he resigned in 1976, During the Khmer Rouge's four-year rule, more than 1 million Cambodians and ethnic minorities were killed or died of starvation and disease. The educated and business classes were all but eliminated. The economy was destroyed.

Being poor in Cambodia means eating less than a pound of meat a month, and a family's earning less than six hundred dollars from a rice crop that has occupied most of its labor, intensively, for the equivalent of three months. For most Cambodians, there is a little question of new clothes, gadgets, or vacations. The money from the rice crop has to last the farming family for an entire year, unless the husband leaves home to find another job-as a laborer in Phnom Penh, for example-or the wife manages to supplement their income by selling fruit, cloth, or cigarettes in the local market. Most Cambodians live below the poverty line and struggle hard to find enough food for themselves and their children. The difficulties are intensified because in the late 1980's a large proportion of the rural population-statistics are not precise, but perhaps as many as one in four-consists of families headed by women widowed in the wars of the 1970's and 1980's.

Mainly subsistence farming except for rubber plantations; main crops-

In the longer term, the rapid changes of the 1980's need to be seen in the context of Cambodia's history, for which written records extend back for nearly two thousand years.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Phnom Penh, Past Cambodia, Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot, Kampong Chhnang, Khmer Rouge, Cambodia West, Cambodia Thai, China United, Asia Pop, phnom penh, pol pot, khmer rouge, democratic kampuchea, civil war, thai border, hun sen, proper medical, prime minister, economic boom, proper medical care, fear pol pot, people desperately poor, economic boom overtaken, phnom penh government,
Approximate Word count = 3999
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page double spaced)