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Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
DECEMBER 10, 1999 VOL. 25 NO. 49
Celebrating a Century - Uniquely
Yes, everyone is doing it: taking advantage of the turn of the calendar to identify the person, thing, idea or whatever that best characterizes the 20th century. But we hope that you will find in the nearly 60 pages of this issue devoted to the Century a perspective on the past 100 years that is uniquely Asian, uniquely Asiaweek.
Consider, for example, the Century in Images. Here are assembled some of the best known photographs in the world - such as Eddie Adams's picture of a South Vietnamese police chief executing a Viet Cong suspect in 1968 - as well as some surprises from our own extensive files, like the photo of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim as a Malaysian student activist. Picture Editor Rob Mountfort spent months working on this project (in addition to his other duties), often recruiting interns or visiting photographers to help. In addition to the images, we also look at 20 icons that have made Asia what it is at the turn of the millennium - from air conditioning to golf to People Power.
But the centerpiece of the issue is the naming of our own Asian of the Century. To reach the final selection, we first identified the person who contributed most in each of five categories: Politics and Government; Business and Economics; Arts, Literature and Culture; Science and Technology; Moral and Spiritual Leadership. From that select group, and with a lot of discussion, we chose our Asian of the Century.
This was mainly an in-house exercise, led masterfully by General Editor Jonathan Sprague. He organized nominations, set meetings, and more or less kept order as the debates raged. "Everybody came to see the choice as one that reflects the region, the magazine, and themselves," he says. "That led to a lot of passionate arguments, and forced us to plumb our feelings and thoughts to come up with the best choice."
At the same time, our online edition, Asiaweek.com, was polling our Internet readers for their votes for Asian of the Century. By coincidence, their choices and ours were, in almost every category, identical. In a previous column, we also asked readers to submit their own nominations. Of these, the clear winner was Mary C. Young Sui-Tin, nominated by her son, Wilson Y. Lee Flores of Manila, as a "symbol of the countless faceless and unheralded Asian women." Born in China's Fujian Province, she migrated to the Philippines in 1949 where she remained a teacher and school principal all her life. The widow of a prominent businessman, she was honored by prelates and politicians after her death at 65 in 1991. But her greatest recognition may be in her son's nomination of her as the representative of "the resilience in face of crises, and perseverance and nobility of spirit" that define Asian women of the 20th century.
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