On a visit to a northern province in the 1950s, Hô Chí Minh, who had spent many years during the war with the French living with upland peoples in northern Vietnam, asked local authorities how many ethnic groups were found within the province. Professor Đang Nghiêm Van, the doyen of ethnologists in Vietnam, has written that President Ho received the following response:

The “scientific” project of ethnic classification undertaken for political purposes in Vietnam beginning in 1958 was comparable directly (and not unrelated) to a similar project undertaken in China in the 1950s.

“In the city,” says carl schorske, writing of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, “… the truth of industrial and commercial society had to be screened in the decent draperies of pre-industrial artistic styles. Science and law were modern truth, but beauty came from history” (1981, 45). Quotations from the past were equally the mark of architectural styles that were forged in colonial and postcolonial societies, as history became a resource for defining new ideals of beauty. If the retreat into (classical European) history was a striking feature of public architecture in colonial India (Evenson 1989, 99–109), an attempt to command a long and respectable lineage of authority equally marked the efforts of Indian nationalists in the early post-independence period.

Research into the reunification of Korea has focused on the governmental policies of North and South Korea, as well as the policies of countries involved with them. The views expressed within Korean civil society about reunification have not been given much consideration. It is difficult, therefore, to gauge what the Korean people themselves think of reunification and how opinions differ among discrete sociopolitical groups in Korea, such as the conservatives, liberals, and radicals.

The fifth day of the Lunar New Year marks the beginning of six weeks of religious festivities in the rural area of Chaozhou, a distinct dialect region in Southeast China. Scheduled on separate dates, processions of local deities are staged by different villages. On the morning of the chosen day, villagers flock to the main village temple, where wooden statues of the divine occupants are congregated with those from other local temples. Each family sets up a table in the courtyard, lights incense and candles, and presents its offerings (of chicken, duck, goose, fish, rice, wine, fruits, cakes, and candies) to the statues. With paper money set on fire, worship and prayers begin.