East Asia possesses a rich cultural and documentary heritage. East Asian countries, and especially China and Korea, had unique systems of documenting their achievements. They also developed unique systems for preserving the archives they created. It is important to notice that considerations of the practical needs for documenting and preserving human experience are universal across time and throughout the world. Because of this universality, we will be able to "objectify" the theories and practices of records and archives management in modern society when we examine them in the light of the documentation and archives management traditions in East Asia. Understanding the documentary experiences of East Asia from a historical perspective can lead to view modern records and archival theory as a development of traditional archival thinking and an expression of universal human behaviours. The result of this "objectification" can provide an intellectual ladder with which to envision the future.