Change — fundamental change — can be difficult to discern in Asia. Too often it is measured by rapidly changing skylines and cityscapes; change as reflected by new buildings, architectural marvels and ambitious public works projects. In this way, every trip to China is a visit to a new country, with cities sprouting from rural landscapes virtually overnight. These cement and steel structures reflect new trends in Asia’s inexorable urbanisation but they are only one manifestation of change.
Sometimes profound change can take place with little by way of physical structures or outward manifestations. It is measured in evolving mindsets.
Take Japan. A drama is playing out that promises to alter the fundamentals that have guided the country’s policies at home and approach to the world for generations. It manifests itself in a very different way from those changes taking place elsewhere in Asia. Look at the renowned hotel near the Ginza district that has been frequented by western visitors for decades. In one of the long passageways, a small area of carpet was worn through in the early 1990s, and was replaced with a bright green patch. It is still there, strikingly out of place and crying out for renovation, 20 years on.