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(r= Just as it may now derive from a combination of older traditions and newer technologies--many of them, of
course, facilitated by electronics legendary for being "made in Japan," "made in China,” “made in Korea," and so on--the
older traditions themselves are combinations.

These combinations and recombinations can be a very clear expression of what | mean by “inter-East”: one melody can be
heard as something Indian, something Japanese, and something Bosnian, which in turn will have roots in Asia Minor, now
“Turkey,” and the rhythms may derive from somewhere else. These hybrids, with many meanings, are not merely “post-
modern eclecticism" based on ethnic origins. They often have an entire other set of origins as well: raves, for example, are
closely connected with green movements or other new social movements, movements resisting global capital. in this re-
gard, we can think of these hybridizations as “tactical syncretism" and distinguish them from mere pastiche. The fact that
these cultural hybridizations aren't limited to one aspect or register of a “trend” would support this, | think. Thus we see an
“Asian” influence on record sleeve and flyer design as well. Some, of course, are simply fakes or simulations, arbitrary
choices made within a “postmodern” visual superstore; but others are not.

| don't want to overemphasise the details of subcultures: “cultural studies" does not mean a theory of subculture or a crit-
ical discourse on cultural ephemera. But it is important to be aware of these strata, and to be open to what they might offer
us as we think about the functions of subcultural diaspora in a translocal context. We cannot lose sight of the fact that
refugees, travelers, and illegal or semi-legal migrants travel around the world from in rave parties and club circuits. A de-
tail here or a person there may not be so significant; but the trajectories they trace--for example, a DJ playing in Taipei,
then Tokyo, then Sydney-is not reducible to "globalization." In the wake of these movements, we may find new types of
solidarity of urban tribes or alternative public sphere which happen to be elaborated through music.

In the context of cultural diasporas established or propagated through worldwide networks, dichotomies such as
local/giobal begin to lose their original meaning--in other words, they change their meanings, maybe to the point of use-
lessness. Generally, “peripheries” (which | distinguish from liminalities) can appear at the "center" not only theoretically
but also substantially; or they can become terminal, an end. Under the circumstances, we must reconsider the relationship
between the universal (or the world) and the native (or the indigenous). For example, in thinking about the East as an ori-
entation and an indication, Asia can mean “far east," “south east," "middle east," and so on--posited for or against the West
but, at the same time, somehow inside Europe, since “former socialist regions” are represented politically as well as geo-
graphically as “the East." In this regard, the very idea of “globalism,” or of a “global standpoint," becomes problematic as
a way to form positions: it too is still deeply based on “civilizationalism in the West" and is not sufficient for understand-
ing the workings of global tribalization and so on. Unless we adopt a newer, better-suited conceptual framework--for ex-
ample, “transiocal," which is neither global nor local--our positions will fall into the same transversal traps that ideas like
“the East” do. "Transiocal," on the other hand, no longer essentializes "the East" as "Asia" or “former communist areas”; it
does not speak of any necessary direction. This, the orient(ation) itself becomes multiplied, hybridized, and divergent.
It should come as no surprise, then, that | would prefer the term “Inter-east" over “Inter-Asia,” because it can speak of the
same phenomena without falling prey to programmatic or projected in geographical and geopolitical imaginations. Terms
like “Pacific rim" and especially “Pacific era" are similarly problematic; the latter term is especially so, because it re-
maps spatial projections onto temporal ones--since the alternative is, of course, an "Atlantic era.”

In the framework of globalization and transnationalism within Asia or Pacific, it seems strange or paradoxical--but unde-
niable an effect-that one nation or one country-state or one continent should always be considered a center for global
capitalism and historical prestige. This is still a developing discourse. Notion such as "Asia" and " Pacific Rim" have
served at various points as "strategic" imagery to help deconstruct the Western “core.” These and other ideas allowed peo-
ple to decenter and recenter the world--to Taiwan, say, or Australia or Japan. However, the troublesome gesture of estab-
lishing a center and a homogeneous field remains: "Asia" and “Pacific Rim" still very much impose ethnocentrisms or
state-nationalisms on “Asian” countries.

For example, the term "Pacific rim” is not quite new; not surprisingly, this idea has a history. During the World War Il, in
particular, the idea of a "Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” ("Dai Toa Kyouei Ken") was promoted by the Japanese fas-
cist-militarist regime as an imperialist vision in which a peaceful order among Asian areas would be led and enlightened

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