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So, all right, there's the word. And yes, alas, Asia has now become something of a cliché. There are much worse fates. If the golden prophecies seem at times a bit overrubbed, like a secondhand Aladdin's lamp, and if the cup of tributes now and then blurbeth over, the region soaking up all this attention tends to take little for granted.
Poverty, famine, pestilence and warfare appeared to be more at home_here than anywhere else. Communists and Nationalists were locked in a death struggle in China, having missed barely a beat after Japan's surrender. Indonesian freedom fighters and returning Dutch forces were destined to draw blood till 1949. As India's Hindus and Muslims eyed each other on the eve of terrible independence massacres, Vietnamese were gearing up for another generation of conflict, embroiling successively France and the U.S. Manila was bombed out, major Japanese cities were blackened shells, and everywhere civilization was prostrate. |
ifty years ago, who would
have dreamed it? The "Asian miracle," the "East Asia edge"
and -- good heavens!-the "Asian Century." The
skyscrapers and subways and bullet trains. The electronics
empires that supply the world. The many manufacturers and
financiers, trading and development firms each earning tens
of billions of dollars a year. The universities and research
labs. The apartment houses and family cars, jet package
tours to Honolulu and Paris, designer jeans and razor-cut
coifs. Satellite TV and the Singapore Girl. The five-star
hotels and restaurants where beeps from cellular phones pop
off like celebratory firecrackers. The lively streets aboil
with direction and purpose. The part of the world about
which no introduction apparently can be written without the
word dynamic.
Asians of a certain age still have vivid memories
of what life was like not that long ago. In 1946, when Time
made its debut on Asian newsstands, Japan and its "Greater
East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" lay in ruins. Under Western
eyes, very different stereotypes applied-clichés that
were too often too true.
