FROM THE EDITOR.

The subject matter of this issue of East Asia breaks new ground for our journal. However, "East Asian Sexualities" are not irrelevant to the expanding horizon of our journal as the new sexualities have become part and parcel of the process of liberalization, democratization, and commercialization--in short, the globalization of East Asia. As the forces of globalizafion penetrate deeper and deeper into remote parts of Asia, not only the metropolitan centers, the lives of ordinary people in rural areas are effected. As anthropologists Sara Friedman and Sandra Hyde, who did field work in China, have found, even in the isolated rural community of Hui'an county in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian and in the remote minority district of Xishuangbanna in the inland province of Yunnan ("South of the Clouds"), startling changes have taken place in sexual practices and attitudes.

In her article "Spoken Pleasures and Dangerous Desires: Sexuality, Marriage, and the State in Rural Southeastern China," Sara L. Friedman examines sexual practices in Hui'an county where "reproductive sexuality" is the norm and "sex for pleasure" is not spoken of. Friedman tells the story of AYing, a young woman who voices her desire for sexual pleasure when her longing for her boy Mend, who died in a motorcycle accident, overwhelms her. Her vocalization of sexual pleasure is only symptomatic of greater changes in moral and social values that are taking place in China today as a result of the state's policy of market reforms and reproductive policy of one child per family. As Friedman points out, increasing commercialization of the country and growing wealth have begun to erode the old traditions of strict "reprosexuality" and the natal residence marriage system; simultaneously, prostitution and "pre-marital sexual relations and even cohabitation have begun to make their appearance in rural society."

Sandra Teresa Hyde's article "Selling Sex and Sidestepping the State: Prostititutes, Condoms, and HIV/AIDS Prevention in Southwest China" points out that in the minority district of Xishuangbanna, where the forces of globalization and commercialization have impinged, the consequences are not an unmixed blessing--a veritable "explosion of sexual practices, the commercialization of women's bodies, and the rampant increase in sexually transmitted infections, and now HIV/AIDS" have occurred. The new market economy in the region has brought about an increase in prostitution and a rise in sex tourism. Hyde's article focuses on the various changes that have taken place in the region and the interaction between the state, local practices, and the market economy in shaping condom use in the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. China will play host to the 2008 Summer Olympics and whether or not it joins the WTO, China has joined the international family of nations as far as the global AIDS pandemic is concerned.

As a result of the Korean economic "miracle" in the 1980s and continuing political liberaization and democratization, there has been an unprecedented proliferation of "commodification and diversification of the sex industry." However, Cheng Sea-lings article on "Assuming Manhood: Prostitution and Patriotic Passions in Korea" approaches the ...