Buddhism in Southeast Asia taught and supported Theravada ideologies. The success of Theravada Buddhism in Burma under the rule of Anawrahta allowed for the later growth of Buddhism in neighboring Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. The influences of the Mon people as well as the Pagan Empire are still felt today throughout the region. Currently, the Southeast Asian countries with the highest amounts of practicing Theravada Buddhists are Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Buddhism has long been characterized by some scholars as an other-worldly religion, that is not rooted in economic and political activity. That is in part due to
Eurasian (mixed ancestry) of British settlement and 49 years of American occupation which gives the country the longest unstopping 382 years of continuously European exposure in Southeast Asia. While Burma was colonized by the British for 124 years, the French controlled Indochina for 67 years, the British controlled Malaysia for 120 years and Dutch controlled Indonesia for 149 years after Portugal. In the last official census in French Indochina in 1946, there were 45,000 Europeans in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. One-fifth were Eurasian. Jean-François Izzi, a French banker of Italian origin, was the father of the Queen Mother of Cambodia, Norodom Monineath. The