God's Dust: A Modern Asian Journey

In a few pages, Ian Buruma sketches the essential characteristics, problems, myths and `soul' of 8 Asian countries. Burma still hangs in the iron fist of a military dictatorship. This potential rich country is strangulated by national socialism. Its population survives through a black market, `a tapeworm eating its way through a bankrupt economy'. Thailand sticks together by three crucial elements: `Nation, Religion and Monarch'. Being a country of `hedonism without guilt', it never lost its self-respect. The Philippines, as a nation, is still struggling with its colonial past (Spain and the US) and with its oligarchies, of which the strongest one is the Catholic Church. `As long as the US bases are here, we cannot become a modern country'. Malaysia's main problem is the chasm between the Village (which belongs to the Malays) and the City (dominated by the Chinese). The political class tries to cement a common national identity through religion (Islam). Singapore is a Big Brother state. Its government fears chaos and an attack on its independence. Taiwan is still dominated by the struggle between the early- and the late- comers from the mainland, and between the lowlanders and the mountain people. It has a fundamental identity problem: `How can a modern Chinese state identify itself with Chinese civilization when it is not China?' Korea has a precarious geographical situation. Its rulers have always been using outside powers to fight opponents at home. The legitimacy of the Korean nation is thwarted by the North/South division. The mythical pristine Japanese identity (idealized in the Village) based on benevolent imperial will, social harmony and communion with nature is lost in modern commercialism. Jingoism is used in order to forge a new concrete for the nation. This book is a must read for all Asian scholars and all those interested in Asian affairs.

Ian Buruma's lively writing style, familiar to readers of the New York Review of Books and the Far Eastern Economic Review, comes to the fore in this wonderful look at a variety of Asian countries. He manages to isolate scenes and trends that characterize the tension between the traditional and the modern in several Asian nations (or indeed nations in formation). The non-Asian writer on Asia is at times less forgiving, and at others brings a fresh view, but always provides insights that few other books or writers seem to produce. God's Dust lets the seasoned Asia dweller feel that she is developing her own unique perspective on life in Asia, and at the same time gives those who have never experienced Asia's intricacies and contradictions an opportunity to experience more than a travelogue or a soon-to-be-proven-wrong business trends bestseller would deliver.