Asian Journey

Each winter, TIME Asia senior editor Zoher Abdoolcarim has one of the most pleasant tasks in journalism: he gets to propose the topic for our summer annual double issue, which for six years now, we've called Asian Journey. Zoher, who leads the editing of the issue, must have found last year's theme, "In Search of Paradise," a bit tame. For 2005, he says, he decided that we'd embark on "the mother of all journeys—how modern Asia came to be, no less." Once we'd heard him out and shook our heads, all of us at Time Asia were enchanted by the idea. We decided, in Zoher's words, to find "signposts along the way; the moments in time and place that became turning points for the region, mostly propelling it forward but occasionally causing it to stumble."

We didn't find it hard to persuade Time's correspondents—together with the collection of guest writers we call on to help with Asian Journey, some of whom have become annual contributors—that the theme was an exciting one. Islamabad bureau chief Tim McGirk had been longing to explain how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a key moment in history; Jan Morris, that most perceptive and elegant chronicler of the end of empire, wanted to write about Singapore's fall to the Japanese; Beijing bureau chief Matthew Forney sought out the precise village where China's economic reforms started; Donald Richie remembered the magic of Tokyo after World War II but before Japan's economic miracle; veteran Hong Kong watcher Stephen Vines picked the moment of the real handover to China—the day that local tycoon Li Ka-shing took control of a venerable British hong; Hannah Beech traced the history of a corner of Shanghai that saw the birth of the Communist Party but is now the apotheosis of modern consumerism.

As ever, our crack art and photo teams, led by art director Cecelia Wong and picture editor Lisa Botos, made the pages look gorgeous. At Time we're lucky to work with some of the world's finest photographers, and legends like Yuri Kozyrev, James Nachtwey and John Stanmeyer all brought their skills to the party. Our team of avid, hardworking researchers and reporters in Hong Kong kept the whole thing on track, and delivered the terrific issue you're now reading. My own pride in, and enjoyment of, the project has been darkened by only one cloud: What on earth will Zoher come up with next?