Tengger Javanese are an ethnic Javanese people who live in the rugged uplands surrounding Mount Bromo in eastern Java. Tengger are unique among modern Javanese in that they alone trace their religious traditions back to a non-Islamic, Hindu-Javanese priesthood thought to date from the time of the last of Java's great Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms (the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries). Specialists of Java's ancient Hindu traditions, however, have generally concluded that liturgical manuscripts from the Tengger region can tell us little about Old Javanese religion. The eminent Dutch historian Th. G. Th. Pigeaud writes that the people who preserved the religious texts among the Tengger never belonged to the class of cultured ecclesiastics so prominent in Hindu-Javanese times. Many of the Tengger manuscripts in museum collections are written in a rustic and non-standard, budha script, and do not contain any learned Sanskrit slokas or other easily identifiable references to classical Hindu-Javanese traditions. These facts led Pigeaud to speculate that the Tengger population had always formed a separate community, only superficially influenced by Hindu tradition, and primarily involved in the worship of Mount Bromo, the volcano located at the centre of the region.

In the on-going debate over the consequences of national policies of political and economic integration in pluralistic nations such as the Philippines, two facts have become increasingly obvious. We need to know more about the effects of the patterns of political incorporation and more about the type of economic strategies pursued by individuals to judge the effects of integration on peripheral populations. Our former views of the monolithic nature of external influences have been modified; new research has made it apparent that local populations have certain resources at their disposal which can influence the direction of political and economic change. One such resource is the manipulation of the discrepancy between state law and customary law, a strategy which often includes the use and/or invention of custom. This paper uses diachronic data from one upland community in the northern Philippines to illustrate how individuals have manoeuvred within and utilized the conflicts between the provisions of customary law and national legal codes in order to pursue certain economic strategies. The creative process of inventing custom is demonstrated, since the patterns of communal ownership which have been set against Philippine state property law in this region, and which have been used to support claims for regional autonomy, are shown to be a relatively new jural construct. The paper suggests that there are no clear winners in these strategies, elite prerogatives have been eroded in favour of poorer families and the community as a whole has suffered from increased factionalism. This in turn suggests that should regional autonomy be granted in this region, conflict will not necessarily be reduced by a return to customary practice.

A government's education policy reflects its attitudes towards the people it rules. The response of the people towards this education policy in turn is determined by their needs.

The Brooke Rajahs ruled Sarawak for slightly more than a century, a personal rule characterized by strong adherence to the principle that the cultures of the local inhabitants should be respected and accepted as essentially natural. There was little interference with the customs and traditions of the people and only gradual change took place under this paternalistic totalitarian administration.

Prostitution in Singapore was linked to economic factors in rural China and Japan. Congenital poverty, weak family economies, and rising economic expectations were all part of a set of prevailing conditions that created a vast source of supply of Chinese and Japanese women and young girls for international traffic. Life in both countries was exceptionally difficult in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although China had considerable wealth, most lived a hand to mouth existence in the over-populated rural areas. Poverty in the villages and outlying districts of southeastern China, where many agrarian families lived on the edge of starvation, not only drove women and girls out of the countryside into the ports but acted as a lever on parents already bowed under financial strain. Privation was a handicap which struck hardest at the daughters of peasants and rural labourers. Unable to feed the many mouths they were responsible for, and suffering from chronic economic insecurity, parents sold their daughters to would be benefactors, totally unaware of the future fate in store for so many of them who were taken to Singapore. Poverty and desperate hungry Chinese families were root causes of brothel prostitution in Singapore at the end of the nineteenth century.

By the late nineteenth century British control over Burma had been firmly established and by 1893 a comprehensive legal system for its population put in place. The guiding principle of the judicial and legislative system was that each racial or religious group had the right to its own law in matters of religion and custom. Thus, Burmese “Buddhist law” for the Burmese, “Mohammadan law” for Muslims and Hindu law for the Hindus. In addition, the customary laws of other ethnic groups were also recognized.

The Thammakai movement in Thailand has won increasing attention over the past decade for its popularity, for the devotion of its supporters and the size of their contributions, and for its links with influential individuals in the Thai government, army, and business communities. This suburban monastery's ability to draw a congregation of 50,000 participants each year for its most publicized annual religious observance is perhaps unprecedented in Thai ecclesiastical history. Thammakai leaders see themselves heading a key Buddhist reform movement to improve the lives of their followers, to strengthen the religion, and to bring prosperity to the nation. But Thammakai's detractors criticize the meditation method around which the movement has been built, deplore the movement's expenditure rates and fund-raising techniques, charge that it uses hypnotic mind-control methods over its followers, and criticize its increasingly acquisitive tendencies. Thai observers of all persuasions have noted Thammakai's skilful use of positive national and religious symbols in its public relations, its abilities in organizing students and young urban professionals to work for organizational goals, and its skill at staging visually and emotionally appealing public displays.