TOWARD A NEW ASIAN ORDER : A WORLD REPORT SPECIAL SECTION : Changing Lifestyles : Rising Middle Class Finds Political Voice : City dwellers’ newfound prosperity transforms not just spending patterns but also governments.

Suvat Suebsantikul grew up in a tin-roofed house in Bangkok’s teeming inner city, one of seven children. Now, at 41, Suvat owns his own spacious home, drives a late-model Toyota and has two children in a private nursery school.

Ong Koon-An, a 43-year-old technician in Singapore’s air force, also grew up in a steamy shack in what was then a British colony. Now, Ong and his wife, Ow Yong Yeam-Lan, own a spacious five-room penthouse apartment in one of the city’s newer housing projects. They relax in front of a 30-inch German television at night and hand their dirty laundry over to their maid from the Philippines.

In Taipei, Wang Yu-feng is a high school graduate who now works in an office--unlike his father, who had only an elementary school education and is a shopkeeper. Wang owns a motorcycle and yearns to buy an apartment. “My father didn’t have such a rich life as we do now,” he said.

Across Asia, the economic boom of the 1980s has created a burgeoning middle class. Like their elders in the United States, the Asian middle classes tend to live near big cities and own their own homes. They are far better educated than their parents and have considerable disposable income to indulge newfound tastes for imported clothes, cellular telephones and European vacations.

The importance of this new wealth is not limited to patterns of consumer spending, however. In most countries of the region, especially Taiwan, South Korea and, more recently, Thailand, the newly emerging middle class is for the first time helping shape the national political agenda and choosing governments. It is also transforming everything from the look and culture of Asia’s grand old cities to the ways people spend their leisure time.

“Urban areas are expanding more rapidly than the population of most of these countries,” said John M. Dowling, an economist at the Asian Development Bank in Manila. “Basically, there has been a shift from agriculture into industry and then another shift from industry into services.”

As an example, 17% of the gross domestic product in Taiwan was produced on the farm in 1970, while in 1990, agriculture accounted for just 4%. The service sector rose from 40% to 52% of the economy during the same years.

Japan’s more advanced economy, with average household income at $50,815, produced the first real middle class in Asia. A family car is no longer uncommon in Japan, and about 38% of Japanese now go to college, compared with only 10% in 1960.

South Korea’s domestic economy, as opposed to exports, has grown so dramatically that the country’s economic experts are advising that growth be slowed down to avoid an outburst of inflation, a suggestion that would have been considered heresy only a decade ago.

Singapore has achieved similar economic growth, from a per capita GDP of just $1,053 in 1966 to a whopping $13,714 last year. In Taiwan, a family in the middle level of the government’s five income brackets earns an average of $16,868 a year.

In Thailand, the boom came later than it did in Korea, Taiwan or Singapore, but agriculture, which accounted for 30% of GDP in 1970, is now just 14%. At the same time, industry now has risen from producing 25% of income to 35%, and the service sector is up from 44% to 50%.

This translates into more high-paying jobs for everyone from secretaries to mechanics and junior executives. A graduate engineer now starts at $600 a month, contrasted with $150 five years ago.

It also means that most Asians now get their food at restaurants or supermarkets rather than from rice paddies out back. A decade ago, fast food was virtually unknown in Thailand. But a short stroll down Bangkok’s Silom Road shows a dramatic change--Mrs. Field’s cookies faces Famous Amos across the road; McDonald’s, Swensen’s and Pizza Hut compete against Burger King and Arby’s roast beef sandwiches nearby. Most of the customers are young Thai office workers, frequently jammed 10 to a booth.

Suvat is a good example of the newly emerging middle class in Thailand, since his parents were among the urban lower classes when he was a child. He went to a university in India on a scholarship and now works as the banking manager for Berli Jucker, a large trading company. Like many Thais without a large amount of capital, Suvat went to Saudi Arabia to work for nearly 10 years for an Indonesian banking group, where he was able to amass considerable savings because of the hardship salaries and the limited opportunities to spend money.

In 1981, with all of his savings, Suvat and his wife, Dao, bought their current house in the upscale Bang Na area for $37,000. As in Los Angeles, real estate prices have zoomed in the ‘80s, and Suvat’s house is now worth $150,000. Bangkok, Seoul and Hong Kong have all seen their skylines transformed in the last 10 years by hundreds of middle-income condominium buildings. Suvat and Dao have even ventured into the leisure housing market, buying a condo at the beach resort of Pattaya.

Since both Suvat and Dao work (their combined monthly income is $3,000), they employ two Thai maids, still available at salaries of $80 a month. But they spend $650 a semester on private school for their children, ages 3 and 4.

Dao does most of her grocery shopping in department-store complexes or upscale supermarkets, rather than the less expensive open markets favored by poorer Thais. “The stores are cleaner and it’s more convenient,” she said, reflecting a national trend.

They own most major consumer items, such as a television and video set, and are saving for a second car and a trip to Europe.

Both Suvat and Dao have American Express and Visa cards, reflecting a burgeoning dependence on credit in Asia. Viraphong Vachratith, assistant manager of Bangkok Bank’s research department, said that 1.2 million credit cards and 10 million automatic-teller cards have been issued in Thailand in the last decade.

“It reflects the more advanced development of the country but also the growing expenditure of the people,” Viraphong said.

Ong Koon-An, the Singapore technician, earns $1,840 a month from the Singapore government repairing jet fighters. Like every Singaporean, he is obliged to contribute 17% of his salary to a social security fund from which he can draw when he retires.

Under Singapore’s unique blend of capitalism and state involvement in the economy, 86% of Singaporeans live in government-built apartments that are sold by lottery to young married couples.

Ong’s apartment in Ang Mo Kio is a showpiece, so much so that the Housing Development Board sends visiting dignitaries to meet him. He purchased the apartment on the open market in 1988 for $90,000, about one-fifth the price of buying in privately built developments, which cater mostly to foreigners. While the public complexes have the utilitarian appearance of all public housing, a wide range of restaurants and shops are located nearby.

Ong said he chose the location because of its proximity to bus lines and Singapore’s shiny new subway system, since a private car is beyond his means. The government levies huge sales taxes on the purchase of new cars to keep car ownership at a minimum.

Ong and his wife, Ow, also have a maid but at a cost much higher than that in Thailand. Their Filipino maid earns $185 a month, and they must pay another $185 to the government as a fee. As a result, Ow has decided to return to work despite having a 3-year-old.

The Ongs get a break on schooling because their two older children attend a Catholic parochial school for girls that costs only $8 a month. But they spend $64 a month to provide a tutor for their 14-year-old daughter on Sunday afternoons, adding to her six-day regular school week. A recent newspaper survey showed that a third of all Singaporeans have tutors for their children to increase their competitiveness in school.

At 42, Ong will be eligible for a public sector pension in eight years. He will receive only about $434 a month, but he will get a cash payout of $50,000 when he retires. At the moment, he and his wife are saving to buy wooden cupboards for their bedroom.

One development of growing importance in the region is the increasing role being played by the middle classes in the political transformations that are taking place.

In South Korea, for example, the 1987 student demonstrations were widely supported by the middle class, forcing the ruling party to promise an end to authoritarian rule, a promise that has been largely fulfilled.

In Taiwan, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party draws considerable strength from middle-class wage earners. “If we want to win power, we have to win the support of the middle class, who are concerned about social stability and political stability and economic growth,” Hsu Hsin-liang, chairman of the Democratic Progressives, said in an interview with The Times.

Even in Thailand, the middle class played a far greater role in demonstrations against the government earlier this month than ever before. It was not uncommon to see students in ratty sneakers standing next to executives in silk suits speaking on portable telephones.

“I saw a lot of well-to-do people--bank managers and M.B.A. students,” said Prof. Varakorn Samakoses, dean of economics at Bangkok’s Thammasat University. “They carried phones and pagers and donated money. I have the feeling that the demographics of these demonstrations is quite different from 10 years ago.”