While those who fled Laos in their late teens or as adults were fully socialised in a Lao context and held fond and nostalgic memories of their native places, this was not true for the children who grew up bicultural and bilingual in France or America, or somewhere else. Many Lao who went into exile may have thought that it was only tem porary, but the gradual integration of their children into the host society as they grew up made their exile permanent. Pressures on the young to assimilate were influenced by internal and external factors Among the Hmong the internal pressures to maintain their identity were stronger than among the Lao Thus, however, has not stopped young Hmong from becoming very successful in their host societies, especially educationally, which has created some tension with the Lao who have on the whole done less well In France the republican tradition strongly encourages refugees to become French, an expectation negotiated with relative ease by the large numbers of the old elite who relocated there. In the USA, however, the pervasive politics of ethnicity compels young Lao to parade their ethnic heritage, and for many this creates psychological confusion. Forced by the broader culture to identify themselves as Lao-American, these young people have turned their attention to Laos, the fabled homeland. In the 1990s especially, many have made a pilgrimage back to meet relatives and to visit their parents' villages, only to find the culture strange and, for many, the language difficult. For them it is easier to be Lao in America, and in particular on the Internet. The blossoming of the Internet in the 1990s has been a boon for the Lao diaspora and websites, both collective and personal, have proliferated. These have enabled easy contact between dispersed relatives and friends abroad, and increasingly inside Laos too thereby creating the sense of a global Lao culture. Yet the content of most websites rarely goes beyond touristic information, and some of the chat rooms are frankly depressing in their displays of ignorance of Laos itself.