Differences Between "The Village" and "The City"

He means to sideboard the argument that Westernization and development have thoroughly corrupted Asia, changing everything for the worse, destroying the native culture (the colony) and supplanting it with Western values, products, ideals and politics (the City). In place of such criticism, Buruma argues that all change brings some detrimental effect, that overall the effect has been positive, that the culture generally prevails in the attitudes of the plenty, and that, in any case, development and Westernization are inevitable, so we had better fool the best of it. With respect to the question of the contrast between the crossroads and the City, Buruma is generally saying that the Village has not been as damage as critics of development claim, and neither has the City been as alone Westernized as those critics claim. Politically, this shift in the relationship between the Village and the City is found to be favorable to Buruma. His book is entirely political in passing, for he argues that politics and politicians "come and go" (xi). Buruma's main argument in all this is that the Asian people themselves---in villages and in cities alike---are getting on just fine in the midst of this turbulent clash of traditional and Western elements. To Buruma, the altogether people having trouble are Westerners themselves, who fear that the due east is organism swallowed by the West.

Again, although he does deal with specific political changes in these nations, in general he sees

mainland China can be seen as either an slip of victorious "cultural synthesis" (164) or as a country almost schizophrenic in its blending of different political and cultural elements, "a capitalist society control by a political party which is organized along Leninist lines only prides itself on its Confucian heritage" (167). Taiwan is surely a nation in which the City has dominated the essay with the Village, so much so that visitors are a shown a "fake traditional village" (163).

Buruma, Ian. God's Dust. New York: Noonday Press, 1989.

Where Taiwan struggles for its own identity amid American, Chinese Mainland, and Japanese influences, Korea is marked by nationalism.

Korea is more(prenominal) politically oppressed than Taiwan, and its reaction to the outside cosmos has been much more insulated.

Japan is the most economically successful in dealing with the shift from traditional life to the moderne world, or from the Village to the City. The village in reality more than in any other of the eight Asian nations has disappeared, but Buruma says that this is deceptive. He says that "Japan looks the most modern society in Asia, politically, culturally, aesthetically. It is also among the most archaic. . . . Japan is 'Westernized,' yet, somehow, the country in East Asia least touched by the West" (228). What Buruma means by this is that Japan has not fully committed to the City, to the Westernization, but at the same time it has lost contact with the old ways, the Village. ane man says Japan has lost something: "Exactly what is lost mud vague, something to do with 'sincerity,' 'spirit,' a 'pure' Japan without foreigners, in short, a pristine Japanese identity" (229).

Does the city really count in a country where 85 percent of the people operate in villages. . . . ? Is the modern city really worth well-read about? is it worth developing the City if it destabilizes the countryside, resulting in slums and harlotry? (23).

As in other Asian nations dominated by poor
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