There is an irony in many Asian nations that after the colonisers were kicked out the ruling elites inherited, sustained and continued to impose colonial governance and practices upon their nascent nation-states. This extended to the modernisation and economic development of their countries and cities; to become 'high-income' and 'developed'. This is unsurprising as the elite mind was/is concurrently colonised and self-colonised.
Take ‘self-colonisation’. In the 19th-20th centuries the rulers of Siam (Thailand) and Persia (Iran) tried to avoid direct European colonisation. But their capitals, Bangkok and Tehran, developed with European urban planning practices anyway. Many European specialists were employed in these self-colonisation and modernisation projects which were later expanded through the training and educating of the locals.
While the indigenous application and extension of colonial practices resulted in hybrid forms and practices more adapted to local conditions, the tradition of sending and educating generations of leaders in Western institutions only served to entrench self-colonisation. That mindset and associated self-imagery was imposed upon their home city from top-down policies and development to the personal spaces of everyday life.
