Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. Part of HuffPost World News. All rights reserved. The modern borders created by colonial powers—for instance, between Malaysia and Indonesia—do not reflect logical cultural divisions.
A second feature of maritime Southeast Asia is the seas themselves. Apart from a few deep underwater trenches, the oceans are shallow, which means they are rather warm and not very saline. This is an ideal environment for fish, coral, seaweeds, and other products. Though the seas in some areas are rough, the region as a whole, except for the Philippines, is generally free of hurricanes and typhoons. However, there are many active volcanoes and the island world is very vulnerable to earthquake activity.
A distinctive feature of Southeast Asia is its cultural diversity. Of the six thousand languages spoken in the world today, an estimated thousand are found in Southeast Asia. Archeological evidence dates human habitation of Southeast Asia to around a million years ago, but migration into the region also has a long history.
In early times tribal groups from southern China moved into the interior areas of the mainland via the long river systems. Linguistically, the mainland is divided into three important families, the Austro-Asiatic like Cambodian and Vietnamese , Tai like Thai and Lao , and the Tibeto-Burmese including highland languages as well as Burmese. Languages belonging to these families can also be found in northeastern India and southwestern China. Around four thousand years ago people speaking languages belonging to the Austronesian family originating in southern China and Taiwan began to trickle into island Southeast Asia.
In the Philippines and the Malay-Indonesian archipelago this migration displaced or absorbed the original inhabitants, who may have been related to groups in Australia and New Guinea. Almost all the languages spoken in insular Southeast Asia today belong to the Austronesian family. A remarkable feature of Southeast Asia is the different ways people have adapted to local environments. In premodern times many nomadic groups lived permanently in small boats and were known as orang laut, or sea people.
The deep jungles were home to numerous small wandering groups, and interior tribes also included fierce headhunters. In some of the islands of eastern Indonesia, where there is a long dry season, the fruit of the lontar palm was a staple food; in other areas, it was sago. On the fertile plans of Java and mainland Southeast Asia sedentary communities grew irrigated rice; along the coasts, which were less suitable for agriculture because of mangrove swamps, fishing and trade were the principal occupations.
Due to a number of factors—low populations, the late arrival of the world religions, a lack of urbanization, descent through both male and female lines—women in Southeast Asia are generally seen as more equal to men that in neighboring areas like China and India. Cultural changes began to affect Southeast Asia around two thousand years ago with influences coming from two directions.
Chinese expansion south of the Yangtze River eventually led to the colonization of Vietnam. Chinese control was permanently ended in , but Confucian philosophy had a lasting influence when Vietnam became independent. Buddhism and Taoism also reached Vietnam via China. In the rest of mainland Southeast Asia, and in the western areas of the Malay-Indonesian archipelago, expanding trade across the Bay of Bengal meant Indian influences were more pronounced.
These influences were most obvious when large sedentary populations were engaged in growing irrigated rice, like northern Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Java, and Bali. Rulers and courts in these areas who adopted Hinduism or forms of Buddhism promoted a culture which combined imported ideas with aspects of local society. Differences in the physical environment affected the political structures that developed in Southeast Asia.
When people were nomadic or semi-nomadic, it was difficult to construct a permanent governing system with stable bureaucracies and a reliable tax base. The tax law does not provide tax credits for individuals, but corporate donors receive percent of tax credits. Sending cross-border donations is one area that seems to be quite restrictive in many of the economies.
India not only links the outflow with approval of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, but also conditions donations to match the interests of India as a country. In Pakistan, though the process and policies are clear, sending cross-border donations is a rarely observed practice due to resource scarcity. Finally, there are countries that are doing poorly on most measures of philanthropic environment.
The restrictive environment in Myanmar is explained by the fact that the country has been under the control of an army that is not usually supportive of civic liberties. According to the country expert, Myanmar remained under sanctions financially for two decades, which severely affected cross-border transactions.
But with the new fairly democratic government in place, things have started to improve. There are increasing signs of collaborations and consultations between philanthropic organizations and the government, but the impact of this mutual understanding is not seen in other areas, i.
More upsetting is the deterioration of the philanthropic environment compared with the previous year studied: Nepal has shown some improvement recently, but has lagged behind in many areas. Unregistered POs are considered illegal; there is no timeframe for the registration process to be completed, which might lead to indefinite delays by the offices involved; tax incentives for individuals and corporate donors are negligible; sending cross-border donations is not allowed; and receiving donations is permitted only with prior approval.
Though the government recognizes POs as agents of social change and policy documents are positive, as well, there is an underlying tension between the two sectors. Original comments adding insight and contributing to analysis are especially encouraged. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. NUS is producing too many propagandist and ideology peddlers rather than real scholars. But due to size constraint the tiny dot could not do what South Korea and Japan did. Does the author have delusions that South Korean shipping industry which is the Biggest in the World is a State Champion?
Or Mitsubishi former aeroplane maker are also Previous vestige is military regime also State Champion. Including all the advance OECD countries. After that they kick the ladder off. Not advising for it or encouraging it for other countries for obvious reasons. So what can South Asia learn from East Asia? Fourth, improve governance and the rule of law.
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