Time Asia today published their take on the 25 greatest living Asian Heroes

If you enter the site from the front page, you have to sit throught an infuriatingly slow graphic-heavy intro, so we have provided the above link as the first page with useful textual content.

Time Asia's selection are an eclectic group. But it is prefaced by a welcome homily to the unsung hero, in the context of an Asia which celebrates the group rather than the individual.

"...In so much of Asia, where the nation, group, tribe or village takes precedence over the individual, it is too easy to forget that pedestrian gallantry. There is a steady nobility in the husband or wife waking up early to earn enough to feed a family. In the student going through exam hell in one of Asia's supercities so that he may fulfill his parents wishes and graduate to a better life. In the grunt soldier manning his post, in defense of that nation, group, tribe or village. In so many of our days and lives, there is a low-wattage sort of heroism that we should take a moment to celebrate..."

It is the same sort of hero the Asia Pacific Management Forum celebrates in our mission, which includes a dedication to "..all those who hustle to surivive...". That was 7 years ago.

Being Time, we guess, part of the mass market Time/AOL group, they singled out a pop singer for the cover - A*mei of Taiwan.

The list includes some well known, some not so well known names, including

Xanana Gusmao: The first president of East Timor, and previous revolutionary leader who spent many years in a Jakarta jail.

Sompop Jantraka: A Thai activist who works to save rural girls from being snared into a life of sexual slavery

Doraemon: Not a real person, it is a Japanese cartoon cat.

Chinese grandmother Gao Yaojie who was far ahead of her younger bretheren in drawing attention to a hitherto underpublicised AIDS academic in China

Indonesians included rock star Iwan Fals and the country's most celebrated writer Pramoedy Ananta Toer

Altogether a very eclectic group, the 25 include more sports stars and film stars than we would have expected, but we guess that's what celebrity - rather than heroism - is all about.