I would have only a couple of additional thoughts. First, the impact of Chinese culture will be necessarily limited by the fact that there is a practically impenetrable linguistic barrier. From the western side, learning the Chinese language is a challenge that only a hardy few are willing to take on, and from the Chinese side, learning English and other western languages is hardly easier (as the Japanese have also found). Perhaps this barrier will be lowered as time goes on and economic necessities drive more linguistic adventuring (after all, Japanese was once though almost impossible for westerners to learn, but as the country became richer, "filthy lucre" seems to have greased the path quite a bit), but for now, films are about the only way cultural contact can be carried on, as Jacques mentioned, and this intercourse must be mediated by striking visual images and necessarily inadequate subtitles.
There is less of a linguistic barrier in the case of India, since the use of English by Indians is much more common, but there are still quite a few cultural gulfs to be spanned, for which I do not think Ballywood will suffice. I might suggest that the interest many westerners have already shown in Buddhism and other religions "imported" from the East is an early manifestation of the coming cultural interchange.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org _____________________________ "Simply by being human we do not have a common bond. For all we share with all other humans is the same thing we share with all other animals -- the ability to feel pain." -- Richard Rorty