Time* this week has a survey titled The Making of Modern Asia which links together a large set of unrelated articles. Some of the more interesting ones:

1. Stephen Vines on The Other Handover - Li Ka-shing's rise as a forerunner to the change from colonial to Chinese Hong Kong. On the same theme, Jan Morris's Empire of the Sun says Japan's taking of Singapore in WW2 destroyed the myth of British invincibility and empire.

2. It takes a village tells the story of Xiaogang village. In 1978 it was the first village to undo collectivisation by allowing farmers to keep some of their own produce and allocating land to individuals. We've previously seen that China's massive and rapid rise out of poverty was most pronounced early on in its economic liberalisation and it is largely attributed to reversing the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution. In short, basic property rights were the single best reliever of Chinese poverty.

Note the initial attitude of bureaucrats to the village's reforms. There is also a photo-essay of Xiaogang to accompany the article.

3. Native Son says Bruce Lee was the answer to Hong Kong's search for a home grown hero.

4. A place in time links the old and new China by juxtaposing the site of the first meeting of China's Communist Party with it's surrounds: bustling, trendy, rich and modern Xintiandi.

There are other good articles wother wandering through as well.

* _{I've run Danwei's anti-meme software over these articles.}

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