In life, even daily decisions can result in unintended consequences. Sara Jones, a single mother of two and owner of a luxurious estate, left for a routine run along her beachfront property. When she didnt return, her daughter contacted the Wayfarer Police. A mysterious phone call to the police during the course of their investigation stated that Sara had decided to join a friend on his yacht. Case closed. When Jack Conner, retired sheriffs lieutenant from Colorado vacationing in San Diego, picks up a week-old newspaper, he reads a simple two-paragraph story about a retired porn star named Asian Sin who disappeared. With time on his hands and a secret in his past, Jack decides to start his own investigation into the case of the missing Asian Sin. Thus begins the quest for a woman who is more than what she appears by a man who is haunted by an event that occurred more than thirty years earlier.
Incorporating cultural and religious contexts, this unique Encyclopedia provides a vital guide to the main concepts and thinkers in Asian philosophy - starting with Abhidharma and ending with Zurvan. The main philosophical trends and thinkers in each geographical area are featured, with an emphasis on endtemporary developments and movements. The A-Z structured encyclopedia emphasizes that Asian philosophy is not merely an ancient form of thought but that it is a living philosophy, with roots in the past, and also a potent and animate presence today. This translates into the reciprocal exchange of theories between Eastern and Western thinking, for example of new schools of thought such as orientalism. Requiring no prior knowledge of philosophy, religion or Asian cultures, this book is essential reading for students, teachers and the interested individual who wishes to gain an understanding of the philosophical basis to Asian cultural systems.
South Asia is probably the largest area in the world where Islam exists within a mixed composite culture, overlapping with several other religions. No matter how many origins of political conflicts one may find in the domain of culture and religion, there are, at the same time, elements of peaceful co-existence as well.
Dr. Jhin shares the secrets of the Far East in maintaining the beauty that comes from young, vibrant skin. She combines modern-day skin care regimens with the natural and spiritual beauty products, trends, and rituals practiced in Korea, Japan, and China.
This book provides a timely analysis of the politics, philosophy, and history of Chinese power, focusing on social, strategic, and diplomatic trends that have shaped China for over three thousand years. Chinese elites have used the past to inform the present, but have also mobilized new ideas to address the country’s rapid transition to global power. China’s intellectual world can draw on a surprisingly pluralist legacy. When Chinese thinkers assess “power,” they bring to bear their classical legacy, the military classics, Chinese socialism, and Western political thought. There are also a number of intriguing formulations that give shape to the exercise of Chinese power. Among these are comprehensive national strength, stability preservation, soft power, asymmetric conflict, and counter-intervention strategies. This book looks at key periods in Chinese history when attitudes to power evolved and at their current expressions. These include China’s expanded use of think tanks to chart the future, efforts at creating an eco-civilization to balance growth, and an extended set of security and information capabilities. From observing the centrality of power in today’s international affairs, the book moves to the foundational concepts of Chinese governance: its belief in a strategic configuration of power—as understood in military contexts—as well as its growing diplomatic and maritime engagement abroad. This analysis culminates in new ideas of functional multipolarity. Power is also deployed internally: China’s use of nationalism as a major tool for state-building and cohesion, the ongoing role of socialism, and the People’s Liberation Army are all examined in this light. China’s current strategic culture has shaped President Xi Jinping’s search for a new model of power for China in the twenty-first century, an endeavor that will have serious implications for the future global order. This book provides an alternative perspective on China’s trajectory towards a revised international system.
This book is about cultural and political figures, institutions and ideas in a period of transition in two Muslim countries in Southeast Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia. It also addresses some of the permutations of civilizing processes in Singapore and the city-state's image, moving across its borders into the region and representing a miracle of modernity beyond »ideas«. The central theme is the way in which Islam was re-constructed as an intellectual and socio-political tradition in Southeast Asia in the nineteen-nineties. Scholars who approach Islam both as a textual and local tradition, students who take the heartlands of Islam as imaginative landscapes for cultural transformation and politicians and institutions which have been concerned with transmitting the idea of »Islamization« are the subjects of this inquiry into different patterns of modernity in a tropical region still bearing the signature of a colonial past.
Provides a thematic discussion and case studies on the history and development of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches in the countries of South Asia, South East Asia and East Asia.
This book digs deep into Yonggi Cho's teaching of the Threefold Blessing: salvation, financial prosperity, and healing, expressing the biblical concept of hope in the Korean Pentecostal context. Ironically, hope always begins situations where it is lacking. The Threefold Blessing was the most urgent and eager hope in the desperate socio-economical and political situation following the Korean War. Cho's theology, successfully contextualized, became deeply lodged in the Korean Pentecostals' lives, which resulted in the growth of strong churches in Korea. But the context has now changed, in part due to the gospel's successful penetration of Korean culture and the Threefold Blessing must be reinterpreted and theologically recontextualized. The original Threefold Blessing emphasized the wellbeing of the individual person. The new Threefold Blessing must expand its theological perspectives to include social and ecological matters. This book suggests ways for its recontextualization for present and future of Korean Pentecostals.
Despite the end of the Cold War, security continues to be a critical concern of Asian states. Allocations of state revenues to the security sector continue to be substantial and have, in fact, increased in several countries. As Asian nations construct a new security architecture for the Asia-Pacific region, Asian security has received increased attention by the scholarly community. But most of that scholarship has focused on specific issues or selected countries. This book aims to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive, in-depth understanding of Asian security by investigating conceptions of security in sixteen Asian countries. The book undertakes an ethnographic, country-by-country study of how Asian states conceive of their security. For each country, it identifies and explains the security concerns and behavior of central decision makers, asking who or what is to be protected, against what potential threats, and how security policies have changed over time. This inside-out or bottom-up approach facilitates both identification of similarities and differences in the security thinking and practice of Asian countries and exploration of their consequences. The crucial insights into the dynamics of international security in the region provided by this approach can form the basis for further inquiry, including debates about the future of the region.
