UCLA
Center for East Asian Studies
Japanese Youth and Popular Culture
December 5, 1999
New York Times || Japanese Youth Culture || News File Index
Japan Beckons, and East Asia's Youth Fall in Love
By Calvin Sims
On a recent afternoon in Taipei's fashionable Hsih Men Ting district, a sales clerk in Tower Records switched the store's background music from mellow jazz to the upbeat ballad ''First Love,'' sung by the Japanese pop star Hikaru Utada.
Suddenly a group of Taiwan teenagers who were perusing the store's vast Japanese music section screamed at the top of their lungs and began singing the Japanese lyrics to ''First Love.''
''Whenever we want to liven things up around here, all we have to do is play a Japanese artist,'' said Johnny Chung, a cashier. ''We Taiwanese go crazy for just about anything that's Japanese.''
Around the corner from Tower Records, young Taiwan women gathered in Hsih Men Ting's main square to show off their brown-dyed hair, salon-tanned skin, platform shoes and glittery teardrop stickers, long the fashion rage in Japan.
The women, who looked as if they had just stepped off a Japanese tour bus, talked of rushing home to see their favorite soap opera, ''Great Teacher Onizuka,'' a Japanese drama starring the handsome actor Takashi Sorimachi.
''We like Japanese things because Japan is a very advanced country with a very sophisticated lifestyle,'' said Vicky Chen, 18, a high school student. ''I dream of visiting there one day.''
Her classmate Kelly Chou concurred: ''Taiwan is too conservative, but Japanese fashion and music are so daring, so cutting edge. I love them.''
The people of Taiwan are not alone. Things Japanese have become immensely popular across East Asia, especially among young people, many of whom adore Japanese music, movies, television, animation, fashion and food.
In South Korea, for example, Japanese-culture cafes and teahouses are quickly replacing American fast-food restaurants and European-style coffee houses as the preferred meeting places for college students. Japanese rock and jazz bands are more popular than their Korean counterparts, and many soap operas, game shows and television dramas are direct copies of Japanese programs.
In Hong Kong, newsstands cannot stock enough copies of Japanese comic books and fashion magazines. Japanese TV dramas have huge followings.
In China, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, bootleg copies of Japanese music recordings and movies, and merchandise like Hello Kitty dolls are popular.
The number of Asians studying Japanese has increased 29 percent in the past five years, according to the Japan Foundation. The foundation, a government agency that promotes cultural exchanges, attributes much of the growth to young people who are interested in Japanese popular culture or are joining a Japanese company.
''I don't think we can ever underestimate the power of Japanese culture, which now ranks second in terms of global market share'' behind the United States, said Kang Hun, a leading Korean cultural critic who teaches a course in popular culture at Hong-Ik University in Seoul.
''Culture is like water,'' he said. ''It flows from stronger nations to weaker ones. People tend to idolize countries that are wealthier, freer and more advanced. And in Asia that country is Japan.''
Other factors contributing to the popularity of Japanese culture include Japan's proximity, the availability of TV programs via cable and satellite, and aggressive marketing and packaging.
''Geographically and culturally, we are closer to Japan than to the United States and Europe, so it's natural that Japanese products would be a hit here in Hong Kong,'' said Lisa Leung, who teaches cross-cultural studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. ''Just look at Japanese fashion: It fits us better than American and European styles.''
But Mr. Kang said that perhaps the main reason Japanese cultural products are so popular in Asia is that they borrow heavily from Western culture, particularly in their reliance on sex and violence.
''Much of Japanese popular culture is Western culture with an Asian face, '' he said. ''So Koreans and Chinese who are familiar with Western culture feel a unique Asian trait in Japanese culture that is very appealing.''
Winnie Lan, research director in Taiwan for Ogilvy & Mather, said that Japanese cultural products were popular because they are generally of high quality and well marketed.
''The Japanese make all their products look good, at least on the outside, '' Ms. Lan said. ''That's why almost all the Japanese artists we know are packaged as idols.''
The keen interest in Japanese culture among young East Asians marks a major departure from the decades of disdain that their elders who lived under the iron hand of Japanese colonization have had for things Japanese.
Many older East Asians have told their children and grandchildren of the sufferings they endured under the Japanese and warned them of the ''evils'' of Japanese culture. South Korea, reacting to Tokyo's brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, long restricted both the import of Japanese cultural products and the performance and display of Japanese art forms. Today, South Korea allows the staging of artistic events from Japan like dance, classical music and theater without restrictions. New rules announced in September permit performances by Japanese pop singers and entertainers in medium-size sites and screenings of G-rated Japanese movies that have received international honors.
Indeed, long before the government began lifting the restrictions, Japanese cultural products were being integrated formally and informally into South Korean society. ''The government saw the handwriting on the wall,'' Mr. Kang said.
At Kakehashi, a Japanese cafe in Seoul, college students gather to practice Japanese, read Japanese fashion magazines and watch videos by their favorite Japanese bands, like Kinki Kids and Malice Mizer.
Takizawa Ushio, 25, a Japanese graduate student who teaches Japanese literature in Seoul, said that given the history of bad blood between Korea and Japan, he had been concerned that he would not be welcomed in South Korea.
''I was afraid that the Koreans wouldn't like me, and there are some who don't,'' he said. ''But I have been surprised that so many Japanese things are popular here and that there are many Koreans who want to know me just because I am Japanese.''
Still, some South Koreans feel that their government has moved too quickly and fear that some aspects of Japanese popular culture, like its liberal depiction of violence and sex, and strong emphasis on commercialism, might affect their country negatively.
The Seoul YMCA has established a media-monitoring group that scrutinizes imported Japanese television programs as well as domestic programs based on Japanese genres. If the YMCA determines that a program violates Korean norms and ethics, the group lobbies government censors to have it restricted.
''Opening Korea to Japanese culture may be correct logically,'' said Lee Seung Jung, the executive director of the Seoul YMCA. ''But from a historical and political point of view it couldn't be more wrong. Because of Japan's occupation, many Koreans cannot tell which part of their culture is ours and which part came from Japan. There are too many issues that have not yet been resolved.''
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