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September 25, 2000
ASIA RISING FROM THE CRISIS: A BOOK REVIEW
Anyone interested in Asian culture or business has a vested interest in the late-1990s financial crisis, which was sparked by a real estate crash in Thailand and spread like a flu across the region, ultimately affecting world powers such as India, Korea and Japan.
| The book begins with a chilling scene in Indonesia where villagers have beheaded a “sorcerer” who they believe was partly responsible for the wretched economy and dire times. |
The premise of “Thunder from the East” is that the financial crisis was the best thing that could have happened to Asia. Like a natural forest fire or the long-term process of evolution, the “Asian contagion” fell sickly companies and exposed government waste and corruption, and is allowing – nay, forcing -- a hearty breed of entrepreneurs to sprout in its wake and take advantage of Asia’s long-standing but in recent years, moribund, traditions of hard work and leadership.
The book begins with a chilling scene in Indonesia where villagers have beheaded a “sorcerer” who they believe was partly responsible for the wretched economy and dire times. Kristoff describes the gruesome scene, juxtaposed with the smiling friendliness of the locals towards those they don’t think are the evil sorcerers. The format of the book – Kristoff and WuDunn’s analysis and commentary splashed against the backdrop of scenes painted with first-person reportage – is established immediately.
The two tackle individual chapters, but with the same voice: They travel throughout Asia, meeting real people (almost everyone they interview is described with a verbal snapshot of his or her hair and face) in real situations. Then they take the situations and step back to insert historical context and their opinions.
They share gut-wrenching stories of the poorest villagers, but also profile the other end of the spectrum. The book introduces a Bangkok real estate mogul who suddenly finds himself selling sandwiches from a street cart, and the couple also interviews such notable players as South Korea’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Kang Kyong Shik, who was blamed for his country’s economic collapse and was even imprisoned; and the shining star of Japan’s future economy, Masayoshi Son, head of the technology venture capital giant Softbank.
Throughout, the authors evoke the hard-to-imagine gap between the wealth and modernity of the Asia most of the world knows, and the Asia where villagers die for lack of basic medicine or eat bark for food. They probe the reality of lives that are so bleak that selling a daughter into prostitution or sending a child off to a Nike sweatshop represents a chance at a better life.
The reportage is often poignant. WuDunn comes across a family in the jungles of Cambodia where the smartest son has just died of malaria because the father couldn’t afford a $5 mosquito net that may have saved him. She then has an epiphany about an earlier meeting with a young girl whose stepfather sold her as a prostitute to use the money to save her sisters and mother. She wonders if the boy would have lived if the family had sold their teenaged daughter as a prostitute.
"What overwhelmed me was the waste: Kasiet had died for want of a few dollars, roughly the price of my bottled water that day. And unless Yok Yorn could raise a bit of cash, more of his kids might very well be dead inanother year or two," she writes.
"So as I stood there awkwardly, embarrassed at invading a family's grief, thinking of my own children, a disturbing thought kept surfacing in the back of my mind, rising again no matter how many times I tried to slap it down: Why not sell the teenage daughter who had spoken to me and save the rest of the children?"
(In this instance, there is some good news in a footnote: The story of Kaiset’s death ran in the New York Times and a Cambodian publisher started a program to raise money to buy mosquito nets for the poor.)
One of the most compelling chapters switches back-and-froth between the depressed Japanese factory town of Omiya, where Kristof meets various shopkeepers and business owners who face shutting down their livelihoods, and a ritzy, exclusive Tokyo restaurant where the authors and a new Times editor sit through an over-the-top extravagant meal that cost almost $1,000 per person.
The restaurant is a symbol for what was wrong with Japan’s economy before the crisis, a symbol of waste where businessmen and politicos could throw money around and be entertained by geisha at the expense of shareholders and less fortunate citizens alike.
"The ninth course was a dessert, fruits, served on Kenzan golden chrysanthemum platters first made by the eighteenth century potter Kenzan Ogata. The platters were works of art and so was the food," Kristof writes. "The melons were sweet as candy, soft as yogurt, and ludicrously overpriced. Japan has a soft spot for melons, and prices soar into the stratosphere. The ones we ate at Kiccho probably cost about $100 each, but the very best can be much more than that."
For Japanophiles the book has an extra serving of food for thought, since Kristof and WuDunn predict that Japan will lose its place as the economic leader of the region. The pair point out striking examples of how Japan's socially egalitarian system, which doggedly helps everyone, has created absurd situations. In one case, an entire school is kept open for only one student who lives in the area instead of forcing the student to attend another school. In another example, public services and daily ferry service are maintained to an island community with a handful of inhabitants, even though it would be cheaper for the government to relocate them.
The profile of Masayoshi Son includes his frustrations about the lack of support from Japanese business and government for innovators and entrepreneurs in the Internet economy.
The profile also touches on Son's Korean background, which dovetails with the book's chapter on Japan's other, non-economic problems: racism and an inability to deal with and give closure to the country's behavior throughout Southeast Asia during World War II. In two revealing interviews, WuDnn and Kristof meet veterans with opposing views. One breaks down when describing his days as a soldier, and says that Japan should formally apologize to other nations for transgressions from the Rape of Nanking to the enslavement of Korean women as prostitutes. The other admits to participating in atrocities and medical experiments against prisoners in Manchuria, but shrugs it off as part of conducting warfare.
The book submits that while such dichotomies exist in Japanese society, the country will be held back from taking on a true leadership role in Asia.
Both authors sometimes write as if their journalistic credentials make them uncomfortable stating opinions, and insert “I think…” or “it seems to me that…,” making the prose noticeably clunky from time to time. But that’s mostly the fault of Knopf’s editing, which seems sloppy and inattentive. The book would probably have been well-served by a once-over by the couple’s Times copy editors.
Still, “Thunder from the East” is a solid and smart read, and a timely and essential primer to the fast-developing evolution of Asia’s economy. There’s no doubt that Asia is rising, and Kristof and WuDunn capture it as the phoenix is just starting to test its wings.
"Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia" (Alfred Knopf, 2000) by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, is available at bookstores near you, and at Amazon.com.