The word "Yuon" is not racist

Letter to the Editor
Mr. Seth Meixner
Editor in Chief
Phnom Penh Post

Dear Sir,

I am dismayed at Sokchea Meas's ignorance of the meaning of the word "yuon" (“Sam Rainsy declares border victory”). As a Cambodian, Mr. Meas should have known clearly that this word had existed in the Khmer vocabulary since time immemorial, even before the existence of the word "Vietnam" and that the meaning of the word is not "a racist epithet".

The word "yuon" we Cambodians used to describe the Vietnamese people is equivalent to the word "mien" the Vietnamese people used to describe the Khmer people. If the Vietnamese are offended by the word "yuon", then should we Khmer be offended by the word "mien" that they used to describe us?

The word "yuon" is a neutral vocabulary. It does not carry any racist connotations. If anything at all, it is just a slang word equivalent to the words "Aussie" for the Australians, "Yankee" for the Americans, "Pommie" for the English or "Kiwi" for the New Zealanders etc.

Also the word "yuon" is a Khmer word we used to call the Vietnamese, while the word "Vietnam" is a Vietnamese word the Vietnamese people used to describe themselves. If the Vietnamese are offended by the word "yuon", should the French be offended when the English people called them "French" instead of the French word "Francais or Francaise"? Or vice versa, should the English people feel offended when the French people called them "Anglais or Anglaise" instead of the English word "English"?

The Thai called Khmer as "kmen", not Khmers and we don't feel offended. But when Khmer people called Thai people "Siem" (derived from the word Siam), the world think that we are racist. The world has always looked at Cambodians as the villains in regards to the Khmer-Vietnamese relations and Khmer-Thai relations. It is not fair.

I hope Phnom Penh Post can be clear of the definition of the word "yuon" from now on.

For your inforamtion, I'd like to draw your attention to a detailed article by Kenneth T. So regarding the definition of the word "yuon".

Yours Sincerely,

Khmerization