The Year of the Rabbit in 1987 was designated as (the ninth year of the 10-year cycle).
A calendar does not exist in a vacuum. In 1987, Cambodia was known officially as the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), a state heavily influenced by Vietnam following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. Cultural Revival
By 1987, the situation was one of fragile stalemate and tentative diplomacy. The capital, Phnom Penh, which had been forcibly emptied to nearly zero inhabitants in 1975, had seen its population grow from about 50,000 in 1978 to an estimated 700,000. The country was ethnically homogeneous, with over 90% of its roughly 6.25 million people being ethnic Khmer. Life expectancy was low, averaging just 48.5 years, reflecting the immense toll of recent tragedies and ongoing hardship.
