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The Orient is one of the more interesting places in the world with ancient cultures and many facets of those cultures quite different from the west. Some of the factors that come to play are a lower standard of living, lower production costs, greater density, language diversity, strange politics, impressive work ethics, family values, different religions and wide ranges of wealth from ultra wealthy to dirt poor. The obvious racial differences in hair color and appearance tend to extenuate the differences between North Americans of European extraction and locals. And there are a range of visible racial characteristics which differentiate parts of the Orient. For example Japanese and Chinese or Vietnamese and Korean.
Trade has been a part of life since the earliest times and each area seems to have it's own products such as spices or metal ware or agricultural products etc. Foods are different from North American meals and in fact as you know many oriental recipes have successfully made a transition to North American and world restaurants. Others such as snakes, grubs, dogs etc have not. I suppose if a person was hungry enough one could try just about anything.
In certain areas technology is king and there are major electronics companies that supply the world market with modern technology. China for example is now the largest manufacturer of goods in the world and ships products around the world. Over the years Oriental manufacturing went from building simple products to higher end higher value products and only Germany has a higher GDP due to the high end products they produce.
Power in the world has changed over the past half century. China, Japan, Korea, India have all excelled and have moved up with the result that it appears that the day of the USA as undisputed single super power is now being challenged. China has the largest balance of payments of any country on the planet.
When considering where to visit in the Orient one has several challenges. The language, high costs in some areas, different customs, politics and religions and in some areas hostility and violence towards westerners from Muslims. It helps if you can speak the language but most North Americans cannot do that. Most tourists seem to visit specific tourist areas with or without a tour guide when in the Orient. That solves much of the language problem as you have a guide to help you and they also look after accommodation and food too.
These thoughts are only an introduction to the Orient in a few words and as time permits we will add more information and links. Here are a couple of good ones to start with huge amounts of information:
Hong Kong Tourism Board Official site of the Hong Kong Tourist Board
Japan Survival Links - interesting site with web cams and info on Japan
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