ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the metaphor and the model capture the essence of the great transformation that many societies and cultures on the Pacific Rim are experiencing. One great strand in the web of change girdling the Pacific Rim may be broadly characterized as organizational or structural. The transformation of Pacific Rim societies in past began, in most cases, not with political regime or social policy changes but rather with economic development. A comprehensive, coherent, and convincing account of the complex and important process of social change currently being experienced by perhaps as much as one-third of the human race awaits our discovery. Perhaps as important as the general growth of industrial employment, has been the massive movement of women out of the home and into the paid labor force. Ancestral worship is a widespread and deep-seated element of many Asian cultures.
