Similar to the romanticized images that Manchuria would evoke with Japanese citizens looking for a better life in the 1930s, but on a larger geographical scale and over a longer chronological period, the Nan'yô, or South Seas, conjured up a multiple of idyllic visions within the imaginations of many Japanese. In Japanese perception over the course of the Meiji and Taishô periods, the Nan'yô became a region as diverse and as expansive as the interests and energies of those who directed their attention toward it. To disenfranchised ex-samurai, it was a warm tropical paradise, a territory in which to gain personal achievements and fulfill a sense of adventure. Politicians, journalists, and patriots hoping to plant the Japanese flag for national glory mistakenly viewed the South Seas as the one area untouched by Western imperialists and thus the optimal place for the new nation of Japan to acquire territories. On the other hand, certain entrepreneurs came to view the South Seas as a resource-rich economic treasure house, an area waiting to be exploited through commerce and industry.

The image of the apex of the Japanese legal system, as portrayed by file video clips on NHK evening news, has remained amazingly consistent over the years: poker-faced judges sit motionless in high-backed chairs, as if waiting to be taken to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. With such a stodgy and foreboding appearance, it is hard for us to imagine that exciting events might transpire within those solemn chambers. And yet occasionally a specific case does demand our attention, especially when the controversy at hand is thought to embody, represent, or challenge some of the most fundamental principles ordering the way society goes about its business.

In the middle years of the Ming (1368–1644) dynasty, temples dedicated to the Fourth Son Golden Dragon Great King (jin long si da wang) began to appear on dikes and in administrative centers along the Yellow River and the Grand Canal. The Golden Dragon cult originated as an ancestral cult dedicated to an apotheosized Southern Song (1127–1280) patriot from the Hangzhou area. It later became popular with boatmen and merchants who travelled on the Grand Canal. Beginning in the sixteenth century, hydraulic officials promoted the cult as an adjunct to their administration of the Canal and the Yellow River.

This paper examines the sexual composition of the hero (yingxiong) in traditional China and how this sexuality is projected onto the political plane. Existing scholarship on the Chinese hero has provided Sinology with excellent material on a number of issues, from those which link the hero with Chinese concepts of chivalry, to those which discuss the hero as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘mass-based’. One of the major lacunae in all of these studies, however, has been an analysis of the importance of sexuality to the successful construction of a ‘hero’. Before Chinese studies drew on more recent methodologies, such as those developed by feminist criticism, the yingxiong's sexuality was often casually dismissed. It was asserted that, in contrast to Western chivalric romances, where love is often the most important inspiration for heroic deeds, love (and by implication sex) in traditional Chinese chivalric tales ‘plays no such important part’.

Recent years have brought a spate of serials centred on the theme of Urdu ghazal to the Indian television screens. The image of the ghazal in these serials is one of a kind of rhymed verse sung by courtesans in their ‘kothas’ (residence-cum-performance locales), under the appreciative eye of the poet, and often lustful eye of a decrepit zamindar whose purse is heavy but judgement is light. The singing is accompanied by some dancing, a few musical instruments being played by the courtesan's hangers-on, and unceasing rounds of liquor. The ambience in which the performance is enveloped is meant to convey what modern sensibilities would construe as decadence.

In spite of the recent flowering of studies on the South Asian diaspora, we are nevertheless left with many gaps in our knowledge and many unanswered questions. The bulk of existing work is still focused on the migration of agricultural labour and the ‘Little Indias’ it spawned in various corners of the world. The recent migrations of educated professionals to the countries of the ‘First World’, particularly the USA, are also attracting increasing attention. The whole field of migration and diaspora studies remains, however, dominated by a host country perspective which tends to obliterate the general picture from the point of view of South Asian history.

The district histories should not become [. . .] a series of unrelated facts without any narrative which can be linked with national history, [. . .] the facts that raised problems should invariably come in the gazetteers if they are to be taken as faithful registers of the country. (Chaudhuri, History of the Gazetteers of India, 1964: 163)

After India became free, it was felt that a new edition of the Gazetteers should be brought out. The life of a people never stands still. Any account of a country—and a gazetteer is no exception—must therefore be revised from time to time (Gazetteer of India: Indian Union, 1965: ii).

How does a nation ‘imagine itself into existence’ (Anderson 1983), particularly after it has been subjected to colonial rule? How does it (re-)appropriate its history, and what are the means at its disposal for creating and asserting an identity or specificity of its own? India has since independence achieved some political and ideological unity: from north to south and from east to west of the peninsula, although they have contested it in a number of cases, people have developed some consciousness of being Indians, ‘sons of Mother India’.

Since independence (1947), foremost among the issues related to the growth of Bombay has been the decision to build New Bombay, a new city on the mainland across from Bombay island. In this paper, I examine first, the emergence of the idea of New Bombay and the interest groups who influenced the planning process. Secondly, I examine the actual achievements of the New Bombay project and the disjuncture between planning and reality. The New Bombay case shows clearly the way the political environment can influence the planning process. Confronted with the demands of different interest groups, the state in its urban planning opted for a solution which would accommodate all of them. In the process, many of the original objectives of building the new city have remained unfulfilled.

In this paper, we explore some ways through which the adoption of specific consumption practices enables members of a South-Indian ex-untouchable community, Izhavas within Kerala, to objectify and redefine their self-perceived and other-perceived social position, and to concretize and make sense of their attempts to achieve generalized upward mobility. Located within individual, familial and group mobility strategies and developmental cycles, consumption assumes a long-term dimension, oriented towards present and future. Consumption practices also take on a normative aspect: youthful orientations towards transience and ephemerality should be replaced by a mature demeanour directed towards duration and permanency, and achievement of householder status. ‘Householders’ negotiate their paths through a complex consumer culture where values of transience and durability articulate with a local/foreign continuum. The labouring poor, whose consumption is severely limited, remain unable, in the eyes of the majority, to attain mature householder status. While Dalit castes withdraw into virtuosity in arenas such as fashion, labouring Izhavas struggle unsuccessfully to maintain distinction and join the mainstream.