8.3: Cultural Hearths, Diversity and Resilience
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- 166123
- Explain various cultural hearths that revolutionized numerous societies within the region
- Describe the role diversity has played in developing regional language, religion, and innovative practices
- Describe the innovative resilience in spite of rapid population growth
Diversity and Distribution
East Asia has a population of around 1.7 billion and southeast Asia has a population of over 650 million people. More than half southeast Asia's population lives on the many islands of Indonesia and the Philippines.The small island of Java in Indonesia is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. More than half of the 245 million people who live in Indonesia live on the island of Java.The island of Luzon in the Philippines is also one of the more densely populated areas of the insular region. The Philippines has over one hundred million people, Vietnam has more than ninety million, and Thailand has about sixty-seven million. Local areas with high food-producing capacity are also high population centers, which would include deltas, river valleys, and fertile plains.
Cultural Hearths
Historically the collective of east and southeast Asia has a longstanding history of innovative contributions to regional and neighboring societies linked to trade, food, architecture, and numerous products geared towards human consumption. Ancient Chinese inventors were the first to create various products like silk, soap, ink, parasols, and kites for example. These various products were traded along the Chinese Silk Road established in 130 BCE, through central Asia and having a final destination of the route in Europe by the 2nd century CE. The trade route refers to an era in which new goods and products were traded from China to Europe along a network of trade routes for over 1,500 years before the Ottoman Empire closed off trade with the west. Europe is believed to have benefited the most with receiving an early fireworks and weaponry product known as Pyro (gun powder) in 850 ACE from China. European entities would eventually go on to reverse engineer early guns and Pyro into modern use to aid European dominance over various parts of the world in ancient times. In addition to various products that came from Asia, blueprints for irrigation, map-making, time, and writing systems were developed throughout an interconnecting web of Asia societies.[1]
Hearths from China
Ancient tales state that silk was discovered and developed upon around 4,000 BCE in China as legend states that Empress Lei Tsu found a silkworm in her hot tea. Instead of dismissing the silkworm, Empress Tsu noticed the worm unraveling into smooth filaments and creating fibers. Although, archeological and writing history suggests that farmers were cultivating silk from silkworms around 3,200 BCE, and using mulberry trees to feed silkworms for cultivation. By 2,500 BCE, the Chinese developed ink for writing purposes which is also around the same timeframe the Egyptians developed writing ink as well. Ink replaced the time consuming craft of stone carving that was common in both cultures at the time of invention. It is unclear as to when and who specifically created kites in China but the Chinese have been flying kites for thousands of years, being the earliest known people on Earth to do so. Some early kites likely made of silk stretched over bamboo frames, and other early kites were made of large leaves or animal skins.[2]
During the coronavirus era and prior to in East Asia, face mask are of common use and have become a part of societal norms in health responsibility and infectious disease prevention. Although, how did face mask become ubiquitous in Asia society and eventually global society? Dating back to 1910 China, The Great Manchurian Plague swept through the northeastern Harbin province of China and killed 95% of people that were infected with the plague. Even though plague was believed to be of Chinese origins and mainly affecting the public of northeast China, Russia and Japan were two neighboring countries that were more proactive in preventing the spread of Manchuria as the Chinese Qing government got blamed for not doing enough to stop the spread. As result, the Qing court invited dr. Wu Lien-Teh, a Cambridge educated doctor from Penang, Malaysia to investigate the outbreak. Upon Dr. Lien-teh's time in China, he devised a mask made from two layers of gauze called "Wu's mask", which were adopted from existing surgical masks to slow down the spread of Manchuria. Afterwards, face masks were used in global prominence to slow spreading against other airborne diseases like the Spanish flu and eventually the 2020 coronavirus. Dr. Wu was nominated for a Nobel prize for medicine and his work pneumonia, to become the first person of Malaysian decent to be nominated for the award.
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Ethnic Diversity
The ethnic mosaic of Southeast Asia is a result of the emergence of local differences between people that have evolved into identifiable cultural or ethnic groups. Though there are a multitude of specific ethnic groups, a number of the larger ones stand out with recognizable populations. On the mainland the Burmese, Thai, Khmer, and Vietnamese are the largest groups, coinciding with the physical countries from Burma to Vietnam. A similar situation can be found in the insular region. Many distinct groups can exist on the many islands of the region. The island of New Guinea, for example, has hundreds of local groups with their own languages and traditions. The large number of ethnic groups is dominated by Indonesians, Malays, and Filipinos, coinciding with the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Each of these main groups has many subgroups that hold to their own cultural heritage in the areas where they exist. The many islands of Indonesia and the Philippines create the opportunity for diversity to continue to thrive, in spite of the globalization process that increased the interaction and communication opportunities between groups.
Southeast Asia is also home to over thirty million overseas Chinese—ethnic Chinese who live outside of China. The Chinese exodus to the realm was the greatest during the last Chinese dynasties and during the colonial era. European colonial powers enhanced this migration pattern by leveraging the use of people with Chinese heritage in their governing over the local populations in the realm. Life has often been difficult for overseas Chinese. The Japanese occupation of the realm during World War II was a time of harsh discrimination against Chinese. Japanese occupation and colonialism diminished with the end of World War II. The overseas Chinese minority retained an economic advantage because of their former colonial status and their economic connections. Chinatowns emerged in many of the major cities of Southeast Asia. The discrimination against the Chinese, fueled by religious or socioeconomic differences, often continued after World War II by the local ethnic majorities. Nevertheless, overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia have been instrumental in promoting the global business arrangements that have established the Pacific Rim as a major player in the international economy.
Language
Language and associated writing systems of the collective region are complex, diverse, and numerous modes of both have been widespread throughout the realm for several thousands years in human history. Language families and sub-groupings of languages have direct ties to larger and remote ethnic groups from the interior parts of Mongolia, down to the island regions of the Indonesia and the Philippines where over 700 languages combined derived out of the region. Due to the age of globalization and westernization's influence, various colonial words have been adopted into Asian languages as the region continue to evolve. A few languages within the region are dominant in use based the population and inhabitance of mainly China's 90% Han ethnic group, which equal around 955 million people speaking Mandarin. Other languages spoken in China and through the collective realm are spoken by significantly lesser than that of Mandarin and collective Chinese languages that derived out of the Sino-Tibetan and Tibetan-Burmese language families. The evolution of language in the more remote northeastern area of the realm consisting of Japan and Korea, has been a topic of debate by modern researcher since the mid 20th century with both languages with categorized as isolated languages. Both countries and their languages developed intricately over several millennia due to remote regional influences that became distinguishable from its early connections to interior mainland Asia. Korean, which is also known as the Kugo language has around 62 million speakers in total throughout both the north and south of the Korea Peninsula. Kugo is believed to have origin to Altaic languages of central Asia that includes Mongolian, Siberia, and Turkish languages. The Yayoi cultured migrated from mainland Asia to Japan in 300 BCE, brought in the roots of what is now modern-day Japanese. The language is believed to have initial roots from southern Korea and began to spread eastward with small-scale migration to Japan. Despite the practice and widespread use of Sino-Tibetan languages, the early roots of languages coming from areas outside of interior Asia share deep connections and has the appearance of distinguishable attributes that details language's role in developing the greater region.
Southeast Asian Language Diversity
Language and the diversity of language is deeply tied to the history of human existence within southeast Asia for countries like Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, and Indonesian for example. Thailand and the Tai people of later settlements of the area where the Pyu of Burma and the Khmer of Cambodia predating ruled over, have a distinctive language that is not directly connected to the larger language families within the region, despite being wedged between Cambodia and Burma. During the western colonization, the Thai language incorporated words from German and the Spanish language into it's language. Predominately, the Thai language was heavily influenced by ancient languages like Sanskrit and Puli. The Malay language spoken in Malaysia, has a a great influence of Arabic, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Dutch, and Chinese due to colonization. Chinese migrants into southeast Asia are historical known to speak languages like Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, and Teochew, which are languages that derived out of East Asia and have influence speech within the southeast Asia realm.[3]
Religion
Spirituality and the various modes of religious expression are deeply connected to collective Asian cultures, especially when it comes to the intrigue garnered from western culture. Indonesia is also home to the largest Muslim population in the world. All major religions can be found here. The Philippine population is predominantly Christian, but there is a minority Muslim community, including rebel insurgents. Most of people in Malaysia follow Islam. About 95 percent of the people in Thailand and more than 60 percent of the people in Laos are Buddhist. Hinduism is present in the Indonesian island of Bali and in various other locations in the region. Animism and local religions can be found in rural and remote areas. Clearly, Southeast Asia is a mix of many ethnic groups, each with its own history, culture, and religious preference. With the diffusion of Buddhism having a significant impact upon the spiritual development of east and southeast Asia, derivatives of Buddhism developed in Japan known as Shintoism. The word Shinto means "the way of the kami" or divine power, had been introduced into Japanese society in the 6th century ACE. Shintoism evolved out of Japanese society's desire to exclude formal Buddhism from its society by formulating a "purer" Japanese version with regional references of philosophy.
Southeast Asia and Religion
With a region of over 650 million people, the majority of the inhabitants follow the teaching of Buddhism which was hearth in Lumbini modern-day Nepal by the accounts of Siddhartha Gautama. The teaching of Buddhism began to spread well after Siddhartha's death as king Asoka the Great by 268 BCE began to influence the spread of Buddhist philosophy from India to countries eastward into the East Asia and southeast Asian realm. Buddhism derived from its parent religion of Hinduism but is considered to be more of a philosophy that does not have a focal point on deities and traditional customs associated with prior Hindu influences. Although, various forms of Buddhism like the Theravada practice along with others, developed over time with their own distinctive customs rooted with core teaching of early Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism focuses on the eighth part of the Eightfold Noble Path that leads to enlightenment of which Buddha experienced through meditation. Despite the widespread practice of Buddhism throughout the region, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Animism are of common practice throughout. Islam is the state religion for Brunei and Malaysia, as Buddhism is the official religion for Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand.[3]
Resilience
The ancient history of the collective region illustrates a timeline of rapid human migration that continues throughout the region in current times. Throughout various eras of famine, war, and conquests, the cultural identity of the region highlights areas of ancient preservation and cultural fusion that isolates east and southeast Asia. Recent history details a past consisting of western colonial disruption, the rise and fall of nations in which the region continues to evolve with a method of forwardness. Resilience of the region's inhabitants, biodiversity, and natural processes highlighting a vibrant balancing connection the distinguishes east and southeast Asia. The current complexity and history of the region is distinctive to a point where contrasts between east Asia, mainland southeast Asia, and oceanic southeast Asia can be highlighted. Cultural hearths and diffusions continue to occur from industries of technology, farming, tourism, spirituality, and more despite the influence of geopolitical matters. Consider the region as a potential model or area of focus for society moving into the future.
Innovation and Forwardness in Southeast Asia
As a precursor to the industries section of southeast Asia, it is worth noting that the region is developing rapidly and continuing to do so at an unsettling current time in human history with the not so anomaly of infectious disease and climate change dynamics. Inhabitants of the region are continuing to develop technologies that can have the power to transform future society, especially as it pertains to environmental sustainability. In the Philippines, discarded plastic bottles known as solar bottle lights are becoming an inexpensive and popular commodity. Commonly referred to as The Liter of Light, was developed by a Filipino non-profit known as MyShelter Foundation, in which daytime filled bottles of water refract light and at night, the bottles run of solar batteries. In Bali, the passive cooling architecture is of widespread use at over 80% resorts as replacements for air-conditioners. The practice is based on incorporating green walls into buildings to improve airflow and reduce exterior surface heat generated by the sun. Myanmar has the lowest electrification rate in all of Asia due to rural lifestyle and Singaporean implemented Microgrids by using decentralized power plants that run off of solar energy and backed up by diesel generators at a 4% capacity, to reduce to carbon emissions and provide energy to rural areas.[4]
Cultural Appropriation and Identity
The way culture is consumed, observed, and revered is complex in thought from western societies to Asian societies. The facts of identifying cultural appropriation and the mentality of what classifies such in a manner that aids the marginalization of a culture, vary. The term refers to the adopting cultural attributes of a people that often co-opts or diminishes a group’s customs. Furthermore, cultural appropriation often occurs against already marginalized groups of people. Cultural outsiders tend to not have any significant ties to a particular culture aside from ambitions to exploit a group for one’s own gain. Exploitation often comes in the form of non-existent cultural contribution, mimicking, and financial gain for the dominant group at the expense of an oppressed group that does not have equal access to profit from. Also, the often oppressed and appropriated group lacks the influence to prevent cultural exploitation. The fluidity of Asian travel and tourism has created numerous opportunities for non-Asian groups to globally monetize Asian culture through modes of cuisine, religion, fashion, and recreation to list a few. In many regards, some may argue that such opportunities for profit can be afforded to Asian people and cultural reverence can be respected more definitively. Although, the concept itself may be polarizing in perspective from Asian living in the West versus various groups of people living in Asia. Can cultural appropriation exist within Asia and outside of Asia? Western societies tend to broadly group Asia into a monoculture category, but that is a fallacy. Classism, colorism, racism, and other forms of intersectionality exists within Asian society to where people are placed into societal sub-groups, then endure marginalization and appropriation specific to one’s ethnic group. For example, colorism has been appropriated or adopted from the West, as various people tend to disapprove of darker skinned Asian people on television and throughout various household. Therefore, two or more modes of Asian cultural appropriation can exist within the region and from the actions of non-Asian people.[5]
Cultural Contribution or Appropriation?
In relation to Western practices of mimicking and profiting from marginalized groups cultural expressions, could it be possible in the more affluent "western friendly" regions of east Asia that cultural appropriation is thriving? Or could it be possible that cultural contribution and transcendence may be in process with consideration to nations like Japan and South Korea for example? In recent years, a trend of Chicano American cultural customs and practices has spread through urban Japanese society as media outlets like VICE News highlighted in 2019. Consider that after WWII, the West went on to aid the rebuilding of Japanese society that also helped bring in a current era of "modernity" and wealth, that may appear to exploit groups that are not as closely aligned with Western philosophy or favor as that of Japan. Many within Chicano American culture have the belief that their cultural is being mocked by many within urban Japanese society without a true understanding of Chicano roots and oppression. Furthermore, modes of homage, respect, and contribution to Chicano culture are not being demonstrated. Although, the manner in which many within Japanese society pay respect and honor to Chicano culture may be present in some form and misunderstood, or in fact, disregarded. According to various people within Japanese society and those interviewed by VICE, honor and respect for other cultures is best demonstrated by not trying to change, add, or deter away from the practiced customs of a group of people despite historical context. In most cases, the best way to show honor and acknowledge other cultures that are appreciated within Japanese society is to be identical as possible in expressing one's cultural.[6] In nearby South Korea, a history of appropriation or claims relating to such have a more complex history related to anti-blackness abuse and practices within South Korea, despite the renowned music genre of K-Pop having influence from Black American culture. In some cases, there has been a call out of hypocrisy against South Korean society for pointing out Western racism and Orientalism but choosing to disregard Black American cultural influence upon Korean music and cuisine dating back to the Korean War era.[7] Although, recently various famous entertainers within Korean society have been making more conscious efforts in acknowledging K-Pop and urban Korean cultural practices rooted from cultures outside the country. With using Japan and South Korea as an example for cultural appropriation or appropriation, it is important to understand that the concerns and observations made about east Asian cultural dynamics are not generalizing or universal truths. The context of cultural identity in the region provides important perspectives of historical and ongoing occurrences connected to the influence of the West.
Cultural focuses on the region also highlight cultural theft and monetization of practices that either originated or evolved out of the region with yoga, Tai chi, and Buddhist practices for example. Travelers from all over the world experience, consume, and spread cultural practices, in addition to migrants that bring cultural practices to areas outside of hearth spots. Therefore, there are many opportunities for cultural theft and exploitation to occur, especially as it relates to merging various cultural practices into global capitalism that does not often benefit marginalized innovators of culture the most. Perhaps considering fairness of financial gain is a moot point for various people of Asian decent that are bound by the cultivation and adherence to cultural practices independent of capitalistic philosophies.
As the philosophical teachings and practices of Buddhism has spread across the world, especially to the West over the past few centuries, could there be brewing concerns of exploitation for monetary gain and cultural theft? It can be argued that teaching of Buddhism connects with the individual in ways that are unique by comparison to some of the larger practiced spiritual faiths in the world. Teaching of Buddhism tend to more on lived experiences, with minimal accounts of mysticism that is commonly associated with various spiritual practices. The individual connections provided within Buddhist practices does not also appear to have significance in attaching followers to a particular place, setting, or hierarchy like that of Christianity or Islam for example. Therefore, it is possible for some followers of Buddhism, especially many individuals conditioned by Western thought to develop and possessiveness or ownership type of perspective when it comes to Buddhist expression. The "realistic" everyday life teachings of Buddhism have inspired a lucrative industry of mindfulness to blossom in the capitalistic West and beyond. The mindfulness industry has a focus on meditation, ethics, and morality that translates into corporate workspaces as well as for the individual, while becoming an industry worth more than $4 billion USD.[8] On the surface, mindfulness practices in corporate spaces and within the individual is a positive practice, but who is profiting from the mindfulness industry that has "borrowed" roots from Asia? Also, at the core of Buddhist thought, is it irrelevant to be concerned with potential prioritization and misleading practices that come elsewhere?
References:
[1] Szczepanski, K. How China Invented Gunpowder. ThoughtCo. Gun Powder and Fireworks from China.
[3] Asudkar, S. Culture of southeast Asia-religions, clothing, food and more. Holidify. Southeast Asian Culture, Language, Religion, and Art.
[4] Mock, A., & Xuan Kong, Y. 7 Smart Innovations from Southeast Asia to Speed up the Energy Transition. Eco. Innovations in southeast Asia.
[5] Tiara, C. Asians in asia view cultural appropriation differently than you realize. The Establishment. Cultural Appropriation Viewpoint.
[6] Ulloa, Y. Japan’s Chicano subculture: cultural appropriation or appreciation or something in between? The History, Philosophy and Ethics of Design.
[7] Williams, A. What’s the Deal with K-Pop and Cultural Appropriation?. Pop Life.
[8] Dale, L. Can Westerners respectfully engage with Buddhism?. Medium.
Attributions:
“Population, Diversity, and Religion” is adapted from East and Southeast Asia by Caitlin Finlayson, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.