The new Asia : global transformation, regional ascendancy, and metaphorical modernity

A modern equation: money equals modern mega events. The West gets poorer; the East gets richer. Tokyo 1964, Seoul 1988, Beijing 2008 are metonyms for Asian economic metamorphosis. In consequence, the world has witnessed a shift in its geo-political axis-from West to East. Asian ‘Otherness’ has been redefined; the mantra is no longer faded esoteric Asian promise but blooming modernistic Asian achievement. Asia is no longer the object of the complacent but rather the apprehensive Western gaze. Tokyo 1964, Seoul 1988, and above all, Beijing 2008 are metaphors for a deeper and wider modernity