Young, cute and sexy constructing images of japanese women in hong kong

Title

"Young, cute and sexy: constructing images ofJapanese women in Hong Kong print media"

Advisor(s)

Nakano, Y; Wong, HW

Author(s)

Fukue, Natsuko.

Citation

Issued Date

URL

Rights

2008

http://hdl.handle.net/10722/51692

The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works.

Young, Cute and Sexy: Constructing Images of Japanese Women in Hong Kong Print Media by

Natsuko FUKUE B.A. Seinan Gakuin University

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong.

August 2007 Abstract of thesis entitled

“Young, Cute and Sexy: Constructing Images of Japanese Women in Hong Kong Print Media” Submitted by

Natsuko FUKUE for the Degree of Master of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong in August 2007

Young people in Hong Kong seem to have fixed images of Japanese women: young, cute and sexy. In fact, these images are particularly prevalent in Chinese-language print media in Hong Kong today. Running articles on young, cute and sexy Japanese female celebrities repetitively in print media leads Hong Kong audience to construct stereotypical images of Japanese women.

In order to investigate how images of young, cute and sexy Japanese women have developed in Hong Kong print media, I examined Chinese-language newspapers from 1955 to 2005, and a women’s fashion magazine from 2000 to 2005.

Portraying images of young and cute Japanese women in Hong Kong print media began when Japanese female stars changed from Hollywood-style glamour to approachable girls-next-door in the 1970s. Between the mid-1950s and 1960s, Chinese-language newspaper Wah Kiu Yat Po, which had the largest circulation during this period, ran articles of unattainable Japanese beauties. However, as cinema was replaced by television as a major medium of entertainment, young, approachable and

cute stars appeared in Japanese media. Consequently, images of Japanese women in Hong Kong print media shifted from beauties to cuties.

The rise of young people’s consumption power in Hong Kong in the late 1970s also played a key role in slicing out images of young and cute Japanese women. Thanks to the economic development towards the late 1970s, young Hong Kong people started to constitute one of the major forces of popular culture consumers and the demand for more entertainment increased. However, since there were not many young local stars in Hong Kong, popular culture for young people was brought from Japan to fill in the void. Along with popular culture, image of approachable and cute idols were stripped from Japan.

Aside from constructing Japanese women’s image as young and cute, Hong Kong print media have been framing them as sexy especially after the launch of the masscirculated Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily in 1995. In order to grab attention from audiences, consumer-driven Apple Daily put images of sexy Japanese women which are originally from weekly magazines mainly for Japanese salary men over 30 years old.

In Japan, young, cute and sexy women constitute only a part of various Japanese women’s images. However, other types of Japanese female stars such as comediennes, MCs, TV personalities in variety shows, and mature actresses and singers do not appear in Hong Kong print media. In Hong Kong, images of young, cute and sexy women are portrayed as though it were the entire images of female celebrities in Japan. Many Hong Kong people do not seem to be aware that there are a number of Japanese celebrities who do not actually fit in these fixed images frequently found in print media. As my research has shown, the construction of

Japanese women’s stereotypical images has been evolving in an interactive and unconscious process between Hong Kong print media and the audience.

Declaration

I declare that this thesis represents my own work, except where due acknowledgement is made, and that is has not been previously included in a thesis, dissertation or report submitted to this University or to any other institution for a degree, diploma or other qualifications.

Signed

Natsuko FUKUE

Acknowledgements

To complete this thesis, I owe many debts to my supervisor Dr. Yoshiko Nakano, who always gave me generously of her time, critical comments and advice with her enthusiasm. Whenever I got lost, she guided me through. Without her enlightening and insightful advice on my research topic and writing, I may not have been able to complete the thesis.

I wish to thank my Cantonese teacher Betty Hung for sharing her memories of Japanese popular culture. I thank my classmate Stephen Chi Ho Hui, who taught me

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about Japanese women’s images in newspapers in Hong Kong. Their information and opinions showed me the way to answer my research questions.

Carmen Lee and Simpson Wong have helped me familiarize with Japanese popular culture consumed by young Hong Kong people. I would like to thank them for generously answering any simple question, and even asking their parents to answer my questions about Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s.

I am indebted to Samuel Zachary LeNarz who kindly offered me to proofread my thesis. I greatly appreciate his patience and generosity.

I am also grateful to my friends who encouraged me from the beginning to the end.

My best friend Citing Li has always cheered me up with her warm-hearted words. I do not know how to thank her for her friendship and faith in me. Special thanks goes to Andrew Lang, who trusted in my potential and encouraged me with his humour.

Lastly, I thank my parents for supporting my decision of pursuing further study in Hong Kong.

Contents

Declaration ……………………………………………………………………………………i Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………………ii Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………………iii Note on Japanese Names …………………………………………………………………v Chapter 1 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………..1 1.1 The concept of kawaii ………………………………………………………4 1.2 Changes of beauty standard: From Hollywood glamour to girls-next-door ..9 1.2.1 Beautiful movie stars from the 1940s to 1960s …………………….. 10 1.2.2 Kawaii goes mainstream ……………………………………………. 11 1.2.3 Approachable Japanese cuties ………………………………………..13

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1.3 Images of young and kawaii Japanese women in Hong Kong media ………15 1.3.1 Young Japanese stars in TV dramas …………………………………..16 1.3.2 Young Japanese stars in cinema ………...…………………………….19 1.3.3 Young and kawaii Japanese women in fashion magazines ……...……23 1.4 Organization of the thesis …………..………………………………………28 Chapter 2 Literature Review ……………………………………………………………...31 2.1 Goffman’s frame analysis ………………………………………………….32 2.2 Construction of femininity …………………………………………………35 2.2.1 Construction of feminine appeal ……………………………………..36 2.2.2 Audience interaction with media ……………………………………..38 2.3 Japanese culture becomes accessible in Hong Kong ……………………….40 2.3.1 Consuming Japanese TV dramas in the 1970s ………………………..41 2.3.2 Economic take-off in the late 1970s ………………...………………..42 2.3.3 Luxurious to affordable: Japanese goods and culture in the 1980s…...43 2.3.4 Japanese pop culture consumed in the 1990s ………………..………45

Chapter 3 3.1 Data collection ……………………………………………………………..48 3.1.1 Entertainment articles in Chinese-language newspapers …………….50 3.1.2 Interview with former editor of Apple Daily …………………………54 3.1.3 Advertisements ……………………………………………………….54 3.2 Data analysis ………………………………………………………………..55 Chapter 4 Changes in images of Japanese women: From classic beauties to girls-next-door ……………………………………….57 4.1 The beginning of Hong Kong – Japan cultural exchanges in the 1950s …...58 4.2 Emergence of Hollywood type classic beauties in the 1960s ………………66 4.2.1 Sexy Japanese Actresses in the 1960s ………………………………...72 4.2.2 Large availability of Japanese women’s images ……………………...73 4.3 Unattainable to approachable: Shift from movie stars to TV stars in the 1970s ……………………………77 4.3.1 Mothers in electronic product advertisements ………………………..77 4.3.2 Replacement of entertainment media: From movies to television …...79 4.3.3 Young Japanese female TV stars replace elegant film stars ………….81 4.4 Young and kawaii Japanese women go mainstream in Hong Kong media ...84

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4.4.1 Kawaii Japanese teenage idols ……………………………………….85 4.4.2 Young, approachable Japanese women in fashion magazines ………..87 4.5 Summary ……………………………………………………………………90 Chapter 5 Selecting images of young, kawaii and sexy Japanese women: From 2000 to the present ………………………………………………..…92 5.1 Changing media market in Hong Kong: The launch of Apple Daily and its influence ………………………….…...93 5.2 Young and kawaii Japanese women in Ming Pao ………………………….95 5.3 Sexy Japanese women in Apple Daily ……………………………………102 5.4 Readers gap between Hong Kong and Japan ……………………………..108 5.5 Japanese women who do not appear in Hong Kong print media …………111 5.5.1 Japanese women in cosmetic advertisements ……………………….114 5.5.2 No Japanese women in high end cosmetic ads for mature women in Hong Kong …………………………………………………………119 5.6 Summary ………………………………………………………………….125 Chapter 6 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….127 References …………………………………………………………………………135

Note on Japanese Names

Japanese names are written following the Japanese practice: surname first, given name second. The exception is my name on the title page.

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

“Kawaii!” This is how my Hong Kong Chinese friend described Japanese women. We were talking about women’s attractiveness in English at first. When I said that Hong Kong women were attractive, he denied this and said that Japanese women were more attractive than Hong Kong women. He continued, saying “Japanese women are kawaii”. Although he does not speak any Japanese, he used the Japanese word kawaii. Most of the times I encountered young Hong Kong Chinese people between 20 and 30 years old, both male and female, they said “Japanese women are kawaii” like chanting a mantra when I told them I am Japanese.

In fact, these young Hong Kong people seem to have a particular image of Japanese women. Their comment on Japanese women made me curious enough to wonder why they often say Japanese women are kawaii, and why they say it in Japanese, instead of using an English word such as “cute” or “pretty”. What surprised me more was the following question: “Are you really Japanese?” Both in Japan and France where I spent a year as an exchange student, nobody doubted that I was Japanese after I told them I am Japanese. At first I thought some Hong Kong Chinese people could not really recognize the difference between Japanese and Hong Kong Chinese. However, they were persistent. “Is either of your parents Chinese?”, “But you don’t look like Japanese”, or “Are you really Japanese?” were the comments

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that followed after I told them my nationality. This often occurred when I encountered a new, young Hong Kong Chinese person.

Kawaii Japanese women, according to my Hong Kong friends, have big, round eyes with make-up, “white” or lighter skin tone, and curled hair dyed in a light brown colour. They gave me examples of kawaii Japanese female stars such as actress/model Ito Misaki ( 伊 東 美 咲 ), actress Matsushima Nanako ( 松 嶋 菜 々 子 ), and singer Hamasaki Ayumi (浜崎あゆみ) (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Hamasaki in Ming Pao’s international entertainment section, 6 December 2005, C11

All of them are characterized mostly with features that my Hong Kong friends described. I do not have these distinctive features that young Hong Kong people categorize as “Japanese”, therefore I was not considered as Japanese.

To be kawaii, my Hong Kong Chinese informants described, is not solely about the appearance. According to them, the difference between Japanese women and Hong Kong women lies in their attitude and personality. For example, the personality of Japanese women is often described as “polite”, “soft” and “gentle”.

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One of the informants told me she observed how Japanese women behaved in Japanese TV dramas introduced to Hong Kong. Imitating “Hai” (Yes) and “Sumimasen” (Excuse me) in a soft voice, she explained that Japanese actresses act very politely and usually speak softly, which made them appear kawaii. Another informant said Japanese women are kawaii because they have cute goods, such as stationery with cartoon characters (e.g. Famous Japanese kitten character, Hello Kitty). In Japan, certain posters and gestures can be regarded as kawaii. The informants agreed that the “peace” pose common to Japanese women was kawaii. Many Japanese young people make this pose when they take a photo. In general, they do it with one hand and place it somewhere in front of the chest. When young Japanese women, especially high school girls, make a peace pose, many of them like to place the peace sign along their face or horizontally near their eyes. This way of posing, according to the informants, makes Japanese women look kawaii.

Kawaii is also used to describe young Hong Kong women. For example, a popular young female duo in their mid-twenties, “Twins” from Hong Kong was described as “kawaii” in the Chinese-language biweekly magazine Fashion & Beauty in February 2006. Both of them are in red Chinese dresses for the Chinese lunar New Year, covering one fist with their hand. This is a common greeting gesture during Chinese New Year in Hong Kong. Instead of placing their hands in the middle, they put their hands close to their face and they slightly twist their body in the picture (Figure 2).

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Figure 2: Twins described as “kawaii” in the magazine Fashion & Beauty, 6 February 2006, p88

In Hong Kong, kawaii is a part of the lexicon among its young people, and is even used as a nickname. A young Hong Kong female DJ, who introduces trendy goods and clothes to youngsters on TV calls herself Kawaii, just like the singer “Madonna”.

The Japanese word kawaii even appears in Chinese and English language media in Hong Kong.

Images of young and kawaii Japanese women seem to be particularly emphasized in Hong Kong print media. Isolating a particular image is described as “slicing” in Sociologist Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974). Images of Japanese women are already “sliced” by Japanese media producers. It means that particular images of Japanese women are selected by media producers therefore they do not necessarily represent the entire women in Japan. These already “sliced” images of Japanese women are again “sliced” by media producers in Hong Kong when they are brought to Hong Kong. The process is more complicated than in Japan, because media producers in Hong Kong involve not only Hong Kong editors but also Japanese advertising

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agencies such as Dentsu and Hakuhodo. In this “slicing” or selecting process, it seems that overwhelmingly young and kawaii images of Japanese women are chosen. They are further sliced also by media consumers in Hong Kong because they may unconsciously select particular images available in media. To examine what kind of Japanese women’s images are put in Hong Kong print media and how they are selected, I conducted analysis of Chinese-language newspapers and advertisements in Hong Kong.

1.1 THE CONCEPT OF KAWAII

Today’s core meanings of kawaii in Japan include “innocent”, “adorable”, “approachable” and “submissive” (Masubuchi, 1994; Kinsella, 1995; Miller, 2004; Yomota, 2005). The meanings may vary depending on the situation and the object we describe. According to movie critic Yomota (2006:38), who currently teaches at Meiji Gakuin University, the Japanese word kawaii has wider meaning and usage than the English word “cute”. While in English “cute” is used to mainly describe children, meaning attractive in childish and delicate way, kawaii can be used to describe anything from food to computers to animals to people. Otsuka (2003: 28), a critic of sub-culture and a professor in Kobe Design University says that Japanese high school girls even described the Showa Emperor Hirohito as kawaii when he was dying. He observes that school girls found the Emperor kawaii because he looked innocent and fragile when he was ill (ibid). However, the meaning and usage of kawaii were more limited when it appeared in Japanese literature in the 8th century.

The origin of “cute” can be traced back to the Heian period (平安時代, 794 – 1185), according to Yomota (2006: 29). He says that Heian literary form of kawaii is kawayushi ( かはゆし ) which originated from kaowayushi ( かほはゆし ).

Kaowayushi combines the two words, kao (顔) which means face, and hayushi (映ゆ

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し), which means shining and attractive. He claims that kaowayushi literally means being attractive or a face blushed with excitement (p30).

However, kawayushi, which first appeared in Japanese literature had a different meaning from today’s kawaii (Yomota, 2006: 30). Kawayushi first appeared in Konjaku Monogatari-shū (今昔物語集, Tales of Times Now Past), a Japanese collection of over a thousand tales, written in the late Heian period.

コノ児ニ刀ヲ突キ立テ、矢ヲ射立テ殺サムハ、ナホカハユシ Kono chigo ni katana o tsukitate, ya o itate korosan wa, nao kawayushi.

It is unfortunate to thrust a sword into this child, shoot an arrow and kill him.

(Tales of Times Now Past, Vol 25, Story no 6, My translation)

The line talks about killing a child with a sword and arrow. In this context, kawayushi means heart-rending, pitiful, and unfortunate. This signifies that kawayushi was used when the relationship of a user of kawayushi and an object or a person described as kawayushi, was asymmetric. A person needs to feel sympathy or pity in order to find something or someone kawayushi. The adjective kawayushi, therefore, did not carry meanings of “innocent, adorable, and submissive” in the Heian Period.

Instead, the word utsukushi (美し) was used to describe something or someone small and adorable instead of kawayushi in the Heian Period (Yomota, 2006: 31).

Utsukushi means beautiful in modern Japanese, but in the Heian Period, it was used to describe something or someone “cute”, such as babies, small birds or little flowers.

The Japanese classic Makura no Sōshi (枕草子, The Pillow Book) written by Seishō Nagon (清少納言), is a good example of using utsukushi to describe cuteness.

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うつくしきもの 瓜にかきたるちごの顔。雀の子のねず鳴きするにをど り来る。また、へになどつけてすゑたれば、親雀の虫など持て来てくく むるも、いとらうたし。二ばかりなるちごの、いそぎて這ひ来る道に、 いと小さき塵などのありけるを、目ざとに見つけて、いとをかしげなる 指にとらへて、大人などに見せたる、いとうつくし。尼にそぎたるちご の、目に髪をおほひたるを、かきはやらで、うちかたぶきて物など見る 、いつうつくし。

Utsukushiki mono Uri ni kakitaru chigo no kao. Suzume no ko no nezunakisuru ni odorikuru. Mata, eninado tsukete suetareba, oyasuzume no mushi nado motekite kukumurumo, ito rautashi. Futa bakari naru chigo no, isogite haikuru michi ni, ito chiisaki chiri nado no arikeruo, mezato ni mitsukete, ito okashigenaru oyobi ni toraete, otona nado ni misetaru, ito utsukushi. Ama ni sogitaru chigo no, me ni kami no ooitaruo, kakiwayarade, uchikatabukite mono nadoo miru, ito utsukushi.

Adorable Things The face of a child drawn on a melon.

A baby sparrow that comes hopping up when one imitates the squeak of a mouse; or again, when one has tied it with a thread round its leg and its parents bring insects or worms and pop them in its mouth – delightful!

A baby of two or so is crawling rapidly along the ground. With his sharp eyes he catches sight of a tiny object and, picking it up with his pretty little fingers, takes it to show to a grown-up person.

A child, whose hair has been cut like a nun’s, is examining something; the hair falls over his eyes, but instead of brushing it away he holds his head to the side.

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The pretty white cords of his trouser-skirt are tied round his shoulders, and this too is most adorable.

(The Pillow Book, 99, from “Adorable Things” translated by Ivan Morris)

Although utsukushi is translated as “adorable” and “delightful” in English, the original Japanese meaning is close to today’s “kawaii” according to Yomota.

Youth and imperfectness are the keys to understanding cuteness. Yomota points out that Japanese culture cherishes something incomplete over something complete and perfect (p122). He uses an example from The Pillow Book:

なにもなにも、小さきものは、皆うつくし。 Nanimo nanimo, chiisaki mono wa, mina utsukushi. …indeed all small things, are most adorable.

(The Pillow Book, 99, from “Adorable Things” translated by Ivan Morris)

Seishō Nagon says in her essay in the 10th century that no matter what it is, anything small is all cute. In Japan, something or someone small and immature, that arouses sympathy has been considered “cute” since the Heian Period.

In the Heian Period, utsukushi meant “innocent, small and fragile”. Yomota (2006: 33) argues that what Seishō Nagon described here was “infant, naïve, innocent, and someone who needs protection from adults and who behaves playfully”. Utsukushi also meant “secular, imperfect and something immature” (p76). Therefore, the word was used to describe children or little birds. Cuteness, according to Yomota, even evokes the desire to touch and to protect. Yomota claims it is similar to the desire to control (ibid). It seems that utsukushi described in the Pillow Book is quite close to

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what is meant by cute today. Indeed, child-like innocence and naïveté were conditions of being cute even in Japan over a thousand years ago.

By the early 17th century, “adorable” started to become the dominant meaning of kawayushi. Yomota (2006: 34) argues that today’s meaning of kawaii was determined by the time the Society of Jesuits published the dictionary Vocabulario da Lingua Iapan. Members from the Society of Jesuits who came to Japan were Spanish or Portuguese. There is an entry “Cauaij”, and the dictionary says it means something or someone which engages sympathy (ibid).

The meaning and usage of kawayushi have developed from Edo Period through Meiji Period, which is from the 17th century to the early 20th century. According to Yomota (2006: 34), kawayushi is found in the well-known Edo era Kabuki play. “Kawaisa Amatte Nikusa ga Hyaku-bai” (可愛さ余って憎さが百倍, The greatest hate springs from the greatest love). It means that when we are betrayed, we feel more hatred towards the ones we love most. This indicates that kawaii is used when someone or something are in a close relationship. Because the two are close, the disappointment will be greater when one in a lower position than the other in the relationship becomes disobedient. In the Meiji Period, writer Futabatei Shimei (二葉 亭四迷) wrote “bakagete mieru hodo mujaki nanoga watashi wa kawayui” (馬 鹿げて見える程無邪気なのが私は可愛ゆい, I found him adorable when he is innocent to the extent it looks silly) in his novel Heibon (平凡). The writer used the word to describe the innocence and childishness of a main character’s aging father (ibid). While “cute” in Heian Period was used to describe something or someone small like children, it started to also be used for adults in Edo and Meiji Periods.

Among the examples of kawaii by Yomota (2006: 35), kawaii was used for young women by 1939 in the novel Joseito (A Female Student, 女生徒) by Dazai

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Osamu (太宰治). The narrator in this novel, “I” describes herself in the following sentence.

きょうは頬紅も、つけないのに、こんなに頬がぱっと赤くて、それに、 唇も小さく赤く光って、可愛い。

Kyō wa, hōbeni mo, tsukenai noni, konnnani hō ga patto akakute, soreni, kuchibiru mo chiisaku akaku hikatte, kawaii.

Today, I didn’t even put on cheek powder, but my cheeks are flushed, and my lips are small, red, and shiny. They are cute. (My translation)

Yomota (2006: 26) argues that the student finds her cheek and lips cute because they are small and lovely. The modern meaning of kawaii describing a teenage girl can be found in the literature from 1939. From the Heian to Edo Periods, kawaii was used to describe someone or something that is subordinate. However, in Dazai’s novel, the girl sees herself as kawaii. This sense of kawaii as described by the schoolgirl seems to be close to one of the today’s concepts of kawaii as applied to young Japanese women.

1.2 CHANGES OF BEAUTY STANDARD: FROM HOLLYWOOD GLAMOUR TO GIRLS-NEXT-DOOR

In Japan, kawaii went mainstream as the value of beauty has shifted from Hollywood-type glamour to “girls-next-door”. From the 1940s to 1960s, Japanese

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film stars were elegant and gorgeous. However, “next-door” types of girls became popular stars when youth culture started to bloom in Japan in the 1970s. Kawaii teen idols became popular in the 1970s and 1980s in Japan. They were more approachable than film stars who were seen as unattainable beauties. It seems that “approachableness” is a key to understanding the modern concept of kawaii.

1.2.1 Beautiful Movie Stars from the 1940s to 1960s

Japanese film stars were beautiful from the 1940s through the 1960s when cinema reigned as the major entertainment in Japan. Yomota (2005: 74-75) uses examples of three actresses to describe beauty. He uses examples of Li Xiang Lan (李 香蘭), Hara Setsuko (原節子), and Wakao Ayako (若尾文子). Li Xiang Lan, whose original name is Yamaguchi Yoshiko (山口淑子), is Japanese actress who debuted in Manchuria before World War II. Since her spoken Japanese and Chinese were excellent, a film company in Manchuria employed her as a Chinese actress. She was famous for having exotic features. She has well-balanced facial features with big eyes and a tall, slender nose. Hara who was popular from the 1930s to 1950s is considered one of the most beautiful Japanese women. According to renowned movie magazine company Kinema Junpōsha (1995: 394), she was often called “Forever Virgin”, or “Forever Madonna”. Her big eyes and symmetrical features were considered Western and sculptural. German director Arnold Fanck thought she was a typical Japanese girl, but to Japanese eyes, she rather looked western and dignified (p396). Beauty in Japan from the 1940s to 1970s tended to follow the concept of

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Hollywood beauty. Yomota (2006: 93) argues that beauty is sacred and perfect like Platonic Ideal Women. Yamaguchi and Hara were unattainable beauties. Their elegance, dignity and sharply-chiselled features created some distance between them and the audience. Because of the distance, they were not regarded as cute.

Towards the end of the golden movie era, there were “approachable” actresses.

For example, Wakao, who became popular in the 1960s, had less defined facial features. Kinema Junpōsha writes that she was a beautiful girl, however president of a movie studio Daiei (大映) Nagata Masaichi (永田雅一), said to her “Movie stars are said to be takane no hana (高嶺の花, flower at lofty peak therefore unattainable) but you are hikune no hana ( ヒ ク 嶺 の 花 , flower at lower peak therefore easily reachable).” However, when I compared Wakao and recent Japanese female stars, Wakao looks beautiful to my eyes. This is probably because Wakao was, after all, a very popular movie star who was more elegant and sophisticated than TV stars and singers.

1.2.2 Kawaii Goes Mainstream

The 1970s saw the rise of cute and young Japanese female stars. In the 1970s, popular entertainment was replaced from cinema to TV and more young stars began to appear in Japan. Masubuchi (1994), a professor in Aesthetics at Japan Women’s University says that when three junior high school students debuted as a singer in 1975 was a crucial point in the history of “cute” (p41). Mori Masako (森昌子) who won a prize at a TV audition programme in 1973 was only 13 years old. Later, Sakurada Junko (桜田淳子) and Yamaguchi Momoe (山口百恵) followed Mori, and became a singer. There have been young female stars since the 1950s, but they were in their late teens and they had trainings in singing and acting since childhood. These three junior high school girls were in their early to mid-teens when they debuted. From then, the Japanese entertainment industry began to use more young stars (ibid). They were

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neither professional nor particularly beautiful, and they were simply ordinary girls (p42). Masubuchi argues that it is important to note that ordinary girls were able to be idols in the 1970s (ibid). As President of Daiei movie studio said, movie stars from the 1940s to 1960s had to be an unattainable beauties (Kinema Junpōsha, 1995). On the other hand, these early to mid-teens idols were ordinary and approachable. In fact, they were the beginning of “cute” Japanese women.

Kawaii female idols went mainstream in the 1980s. After the success of young singers like Yamaguchi, youth culture grew ever faster in Japan. Many singers in the 1980s debuted at a very young age, ofte early to mid-teens. This is because young people in Japan gained more consumption power in the late 1980s (Masubuchi, 2004: 28-29) and became able to consume popular culture. Also, the entertainment industry began to mass produce more and more young and cute idols. Many young female singers wore frilled dresses and sang in sweet, high-pitched voices.

The entertainment industry created a certain mould to make these teen idols look kawaii. Ueno (1982), a professor in feminism at the University of Tokyo, argues that it is easy to act like kawaii idols because their nonverbal behaviour is ritualistic (p109).

Therefore, the idols do not have to be naturally kawaii but “cuteness” can be artificially created. She says that just by tilting one’s head, women can look cute (p116). Adopting Goffman’s dramaturgy (1979: 108), she argues that canting poses make women look kawai. Bending a part of the body is actually a sign to show submission, therefore dogs bend their whole body to send a message of submission when they encounter something superior (ibid). Therefore, by making herself submissive, a woman can look cute. The pose women make in magazines, for example are not made by natural body movements.

It is not practical either. She gives an example of certain kabuki poses, which is called “kata” (型, form) in Japanese (ibid). Kabuki is performed entirely by men, including women’s roles. However, by applying certain “kata”, they can look feminine. Kabuki actors who play female roles usually twist and turn their body. This is the sophisticated

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“kata” for femininity. Making feminine poses such as twisting one’s body or bending a knee suggests submissiveness. This in fact gives an impression of being kawaii.

Child-like innocent idols such as Matsuda Seiko (松田聖子) appeared during this idol boom period. Her child-like costumes and behaviour caught attention of scholars from the U.S. and U.K. Miller (2004: 149), professor in Anthropology at the University of Chicago, claims Matsuda is the prototype of burikko (ぶりっこ).

Burikko means “a woman who displays bogus innocence” (ibid), therefore Matsuda embodied cuteness by wearing cute clothes to Kinsella such as pink and frilled dresses and acting immature with a high-pitched voice. Kinsella, former Assistant Professor in Sociology at Yale University, described Matsuda as follows: “…on TV she wore children’s clothes, took faltering steps and blushed, cried, and giggled for the camera” (1995: 235). Matsuda did not exactly wear children’s clothes, but her pastel coloured dresses with frills and lace may have looked almost like children’s clothes. Her childlike attitude and costume indeed made her look innocent and cute. It is also worth noting that she was popular among boys. Therefore, her cute image was mainly created for male audience.

1.2.3 Approachable Japanese Cuties

Approachableness constitutes an important part of cuteness in recent Japan. For example, 27-year-old model Ebihara Yuri ( 蛯 原 友 里 ) seems to embody this approachable cuteness. Ebihara started her career as a model in a Japanese women’s fashion magazine called CanCam in 2002. She has round eyes emphasized by makeup, a small, round nose and a round face. Her hair is dyed a bright chestnut colour and is softly curled. Ebihara wears pink and white clothing, and dresses with lace and

14

frills. Her feature and fashion style seem to make her look almost like a dolly animation figure. However, she does not wear them as much as Matsuda Seiko did. She has become so popular, particularly since 2004, that most clothes she wore in the magazine sold out immediately. Now she is known as “Ebi-chan”, which sounds kawaii. The suffix “chan” is a kind of nickname used among close friends or used for younger girls.

The magazine even came up with the word “ebi-kawaii” combining the first two letters of Ebihara’s last name and kawaii. To examine this “ebi-kawaii” phenomenon, the weekly magazine AERA published by The Asahi Shimbun, ran a featured article “Ebi-kawaiku Ikitai!” (エビかわいく生きたい！, I Want to Live like Cute Ebihara!). The magazine conducted discussion among four OL (Office Lady) readers who worship Ebihara. They claim that Ebihara is approachable.

One of them says even though she did not wear clothes with frills and ribbons before, now she thinks maybe she can too, after she saw Ebihara shining in cute clothes (p43).

Many young Japanese women copy “Ebi-chan” style because it is not very difficult to do so. With detailed explanation of which clothes to buy, how to do make-up, and how to curl hair in the magazine. The readers say wearing lace and frills are a girls’ dream.

Thanks to Ebihara, now it is possible to wear them even at the office. “Women want to stay cute forever”, the OLs say (Ibid). In this aspect, Ebihara is indeed an icon of cute fashion models in Japan.

Ebihara is actually more popular among Japanese women than men. AERA writes that the clothes Ebihara wears are chosen with girls’ desire to be cute in mind, not to be coquettish in front of men (2006: p41). One of the readers says that the clothes Ebihara wears look cute to her female friends and that is why she chooses clothes popular among women. The four OLs like cute “Ebi-chan” style because they want to look cute for themselves, not particularly for men. In the 1980s, teen idols like Matsuda looked kawaii for men. On the other hand, Ebihara tries to be kawaii for herself and for her female friends, rather than for men. She is closer to the schoolgirl in Dazai’s novel who thought she was kawaii.

In Hong Kong print media, this type of “approachable”, kawaii Japanese women seem to be particularly prevalent. Indeed, kawaii contains various meanings, such as innocent, child-like, immature, fragile, small, adorable, submissive and approachable.

However, this “approachableness”, which is the opposite of “unattainable beauty”, is

15

a key to understanding what kind of kawaii Japanese women appear in Hong Kong print media.

1.3 IMAGES OF YOUNG AND KAWAII JAPANESE WOMEN IN HONG KONG MEDIA

Images of young and kawaii Japanese women are indeed prevalent in Hong Kong media. In fact, Japanese popular culture such as TV dramas, movies, and music are widely consumed in Hong Kong. Furthermore, Japanese pop culture introduced to Hong Kong is particularly targeted for young people. Thus, Japanese women who appear in Japanese pop culture are mostly young. Japanese TV dramas imported to Hong Kong typically target a young audience. According to Hara, researcher for Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) Hōsō Bunka Kenkyu-jo (日本放送協会放送文化研究 所 , Japan Broadcasting Association Broadcasting Culture Research Institute), 91 Japanese TV programmes were imported to Hong Kong in 2001, which ranks fourth among the top five importing countries/regions (Table 1).

Table 1 <Top 5 Importers of Japanese TV programmes> programme

population (million)

Taiwan

194

22.7

US

169

295

Korea

169

48.2

Hong Kong

91

7.5

16

Singapore

87

4.4

Source: TV programme, Hara (2001) / Population, United Nations Population Fund

The other top four countries/regions are Taiwan (194 programmes), United States (169), Korea (169), and Singapore (87). Considering that Hong Kong has the second smallest population among the top five, this makes Hong Kong one of the biggest buyers of Japanese TV programmes. According to NHK, the majority of Japanese TV programmes exported overseas is animation. Recently, the number of imported variety shows has been on an increase. The trendy dramas (トレンディードラマ), which features young people’s city life, are mainly exported to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

1.3.1 Young Japanese Stars in TV Dramas

Japanese actresses who appear in TV dramas that were broadcast on Hong Kong’s free-to-air channels from 2005 to 2006 seem to be limited to young ones. The TV dramas, which were broadcasted through terrestrial channels in Hong Kong, include Puraido (プライド, Pride), Sekai no Chushin de Ai o Sakebu (世界の中心で 愛を叫ぶ, Crying out Love in the Centre of the World), and Ō-oku: Dai Isshō (大奥 第一章, Ō-oku: Chapter One). Pride seems to have been introduced to Hong Kong because of “star power”. This TV drama, starring popular Japanese idol Kimura Takuya (木村拓哉), one of the members of the popular group SMAP, achieved the second highest average audience rating (25.1%) in Japan in 2004 (Video Research Limited). Kimura ranked within the top 10 from 2000 through 2003 in NHK Sukina Talento Rankingu (好きなタレントランキング, My Favourite Stars) and

17

has ranked 1st in Suki na Otoko Rankingu (好きな男ランキング, My Favourite Guy) for 12 consecutive years, beginning in 1994. The latter poll was conducted by Japanese women’s magazine an-an, which is famous for polling opinions about popular actors and actresses. The TV dramas in which he starred usually score high audience rating and Pride followed suite. A heroine was played by Takeuchi Yuko (竹内結子), who was 25 years old in 2005. Takeuchi played a main role in numerous Japanese trendy dramas since her debut in 1996. She is a well-recognized young actress who won Outstanding Performance by Actress in a Leading Role at the Japan Academy Awards in 2004 and 2005. Having young and popular actress Takeuchi and idol Kimura as the leading characters, the TV drama seems to attract young audience in Hong Kong.

A young Japanese actress is a main character in Crying out Love in the Centre of the World. It was originally a novel about “pure love” between high school students.

The novel was so popular that it was made into a movie, which became the second most viewed Japanese movie in 2004. In 2005, it was remade as a TV drama with two young actors: Yamada Takayuki (山田孝之), 22 and Ayase Haruka (綾瀬はるか), 20. Pride in which a famous idol starred and Crying out Love in the Centre of the World, a show targeting the young generation were both broadcasted through Hong Kong terrestrial channels.

Japanese TV dramas with middle-aged actors are not likely to be broadcast on Hong Kong’s terrestrial channels. For example, TV drama Shiroi Kyotō (白い巨塔, The White Tower) was not broadcasted through terrestrial channels in Hong Kong, although it achieved a 32.1% audience rating, the highest in Japan, in 2004. It is based on the novel that criticized the corruption in Japanese medical circles. It has been remade as a TV drama four times because of its popularity. The main characters were played by Karasawa Toshiaki (唐沢寿明), 41, and Eguchi Yosuke (江口洋介), 37.

Both actors are highly recognized in Japan. However, the drama did not get a chance to be shown on free-to-air TV channels in Hong Kong.

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On the other hand, a TV drama whose story may attract a wide audience in Hong Kong is introduced to Hong Kong even if it stars middle-aged actresses. For example, the historical TV drama Ō-oku, whose main actresses are middle-age women, was an exception. The term Ō-oku refers to a section in Edo castle for women who had a relationship with the reigning shogun, including his mother, wife and concubines. The term is also used to describe these women. The story is about internal politics and competition among the shogun’s wives and concubines. According to Video Research Limited, the average audience rating was 17.5%. Before Ō -oku was shown, two TV dramas with similar storylines became popular in Hong Kong. One was a smash-hit local TV series called Gam Ji Yuk Yip (金枝慾孽, War and Beauty). It was broadcasted on local TV channel TVB Jade in 2004. This TV drama grabbed Hong Kong people’s heart because the politics among women in the court in the Qing dynasty resembled the modern office politics in the competitive workplaces of Hong Kong. A local newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that more than two million people were estimated to have watched the last episode of the drama (3 October, 2004). Another was the Korean TV drama Dae Jang Guem (大長今, Jewel in the Palace), whose story is also about women competing with each other in an ancient court. According to SCMP, the TV drama achieved an average of 2.62 million viewers per night; i.e. one out of three Hong Kong people watched it.

It is likely that the wide popularity of War and Beauty and Jewel in the Palace influenced the importers’ selection of Ō-oku.

Usually, however, Japanese historical TV dramas are not broadcast in Hong Kong even if it stars famous young actors or actresses. In Japan, a historical dramafleuve Shinsengumi ( 新 撰 組 , meaning newly selected samurai corps) made by Japanese public broadcaster NHK achieved almost the same audience rating as Ō-oku.

Shinsengumi was a group of samurai and rōnin (master-less samurai) which maintained public order in Kyoto in the late 1860s as members of the Tokugawa shogunate army.

Japanese people like the story of Shinsengumi, therefore many movies and TV dramas

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which featured this historical samurai group have been made. The main character of this TV drama was played by popular actor Katori Shingo (香取慎吾), a popular member of SMAP. Yet, the TV drama was not brought to Hong Kong.

In conclusion, Japanese dramas which star young actresses are more likely to be brought in Hong Kong, Therefore, young Japanese female stars are particularly prevalent in media. On the other hand, TV dramas with middle-aged actors and actresses are less likely to be broadcasted in Hong Kong despite higher audience rating in Japan.

1.3.2 Young Japanese Stars in Cinema

Japanese movies imported to Hong Kong also star young Japanese actresses.

Table 1 is the chart of box-office results for Japan in 2005, which combines both international and domestic movies. Four Japanese movies ranked in the top 10 of this list. Topping the 2005 smash-hit movie list in Japan were Hauru no Ugoku Shiro (ハ ウルの動く城, Howl’s Moving Castle), “Pocket Monster” (ポケットモンスター), Kōshō-nin: Mashita Masayoshi ( 交 渉 人 真 下 正 義 , The Negotiator, Mashita Masayuki), and NANA (Table 2). Howl’s Moving Castle and Pocket Monster are animation. NANA was originally a popular serial comic that appeared in girls’ comic book Ribon (Ribbon) whose core readership is under 13, according to Japan Magazine Association. The Negotiator is a sequel to Odoru Daisōsa-sen THE MOVIE (踊る大 捜査線 THE MOVIE, Bayside Shakedown), a comedy that features police detectives in Tokyo, attracted a large audience in Japan

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Table 2 < Box-Office Record in Japan in 2005 (international and Japanese domestic movies)> Movie T itle 1

( billion yen )

Moving

19.6

2

Harry Potter and the oblet of Fire G

11.5

3

Star Wars Episode III

9.1

4

War of the Worlds

6

5

Charlie and the Chocol

6

The Incredibles

7 8 8

Howl's Castl e

ate Factory

5.3 4.3

Pocket Monster The Phantom of the O The Negotiator: Mas

5.4

pera

4.2

hita Masayoshi

4.2

NAN 10 A (Japanese movies are in bold letters.)

4

Source: Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Inc 2005

Comparing Japanese movies which achieved a high box-office gross in Japan to Japanese movies brought to Hong Kong cinema, the main roles in the latter are played more by actors and actresses in their early twenties. Table 3 is the chart of Japanese movies which made theatrical release in Hong Kong. Except Train Man which is about a romance between an otaku boy and a woman older than him, heroines in the movies in table 2 are played by young actresses under 25.

21

Table 3 <Japanese Movies shown on screen in Hong Kong in 2005>

Japanese Title

Train Man 電車男

Main actor/ actress

Be With You いま、会いにゆきます

Love Letter

NANA

Age 22

Nakatani Miki

山田孝之 中 谷美紀

Yagira Yuya

柳楽優弥

15

Takeuchi Yuko

竹内結子

24

Yamada Takayuki

Shining Boy and Little Randy 星になった少年

Name

Nakamura Shido

中村獅童

29

32

Nakayama Miho

中山美穂

25

Nakashima Mika

中島美嘉

23

Miyazaki Aoi

宮崎あおい

20

Story Romance between a beautiful woman and a young man described as otaku. Otaku usually refers to men who are overly obsessed with animation, idols, games and computers.

A boy goes to Thailand to become an elephant handler

A wife who has died strangely comes back to her family and spends 6 weeks with them.

First shown in 1995. The story begins when the heroine writes a letter to her boyfriend who has died a year ago. She receives a reply from his former classmate who has the same name as her boyfriend.

Friendship between two girls who have the same name, Nana.

Crying Out Love, in the Moriyama Mirai

森山未来

20

Centre of the World

The main character of this story cannot fall in love, since he lost his first lover when he was a high school student. The story then goes back to his high school time.

世界の中心で、愛をさ けぶ

Nagasawa Masami

長澤まさみ

17

Swing Girls

Ueno Juri

上野樹里

19

21

High school girls who have never played musical instruments organize a jazz band for music competition

For example, Swing Girls is the movie about high school girls who organize a jazz band.

This movie’s box-office profit in 2004 was 2.15 billion yen, according to Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Inc. Table 4 shows which Japanese movies achieved high box-office record in Japan in 2005.

Table 4 < Japanese Movies Box-Office Record in 2005> English Title

Japanese Title

(billion yen)

1

Howl's Moving Castle

ハウルの動く城

19.6

2

Pocket Monster

ポケットモンスター

4.3

3

The Negotiator: Mashita Masayoshi 交渉人 真下正義

4.2

4

NANA

NANA

4

5

The Suspect: Muroi Shinji

容疑者 室井慎次

3.8

6

Train Man

電車男

3.7

7

Always: Sunset on Third Street

Always 三丁目の夕日

3.2

8

Year One in the North

北の零年

2.7

9

Loerelei

ローレライ

2.4

星になった少年

2.3

10 Shining Boy and Little Randy

Source: Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Inc 2005

Based on this chart, the box-office record of Swing Girls is a little lower than that of Shining Boy and Little Randy, tenth on the Japanese movies box-office chart in 2005.

Compared to The Negotiator, these two movies are not considered smash hits. Yet, they were shown on screen in Hong Kong.

On the other hand, movies with middle-aged actors and actresses are not likely to be introduced to Hong Kong. Despite their wide popularity in Japan, Kōshōnin: Masthia Masayoshi (交渉人 真下正義, The Negotiator: Mashita Masayoshi) and Yōgisha: Muroi Shinji (容疑者 室井慎次, The Suspect: Muroi Shinji) were not

24

shown at commercial theatres in Hong Kong (Table 1:1, 1:3). Both movies are sequels to the movie Bayside Shakedown. The leading actor in The Negotiator was 34 years old and the one in The Suspect was 44 years old when the movies were shot.

In the series of Bayside Shakedown, all the main roles went to actors over 30. This includes 32-year-old actress Fukatsu Eri (深津絵里), the main female character in the series.

Similarly, Japan Academy Award Winner, Always – Sanchō-me no Yūhi (Always 三丁目の夕日, Always – Sunset on the Third Street), in which most of the actors and actresses are middle-aged, was not shown in Hong Kong although it was invited to the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2006. Yakushimaru Hiroko (薬師丸ひろ子) and Koyuki (小雪), the two actresses who played the leading roles in the film, were 41 years old and 29 years old respectively. The movie is set in 1958 in Tokyo. As Japanese historical TV dramas are not likely to be on broadcast on Hong Kong free-to-air channels, movies set in old Japan are less likely to be brought to Hong Kong movie theatres. Japanese movies released to theatres in Hong Kong are limited to those with young actresses set in today’s Japan.

1.3.3 Young and Kawaii Japanese Women in Fashion Magazines

Young and kawaii Japanese women are easily found in Japanese women’s fashion magazines in Hong Kong. Japanese women’s fashion magazines are widely available in convenience stores and news stands where many Hong Kong people usually buy magazines. Japanese fashion magazines are sold along with other magazines published in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the U.S. and the U.K., however, the majority of fashion and make-up pages are not localized but rather simply translated

25

from the original Japanese version. Locally published fashion magazines in Hong Kong, including Hong Kong edition of international magazines such as Cosmopolitan, often use Hong Kong Chinese or Taiwanese female models on their covers. Their contents are also modified to meet the needs of women in Hong Kong.

Japanese fashion magazines caught my eyes because they are widely available and are limited to magazines for young female readers in their late teens and twenties.

In fact, Japanese fashion magazines have been read by young Hong Kong women since the 1980s. Japanese fashion magazines written in Japanese are sold to young Hong Kong readers, while the U.S. and U.K. editions of international fashion magazines such as VOGUE and In Style are mainly sold in music stores or upscale supermarkets where American and British people often shop. Even though many Hong Kong readers of Japanese fashion magazines do not understand Japanese at all, they “read” Japanese fashion magazines by looking at pictures. This way of “reading” Japanese fashion magazines was quite common for Hong Kong readers until international Chinese editions began publishing in 2003 in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Among the Japanese fashion magazines, non-no, which targets older teenagers in Japan, has been particularly popular among young Hong Kong women. A 40-year-old Hong Kong female teacher recalls reading non-no when she was a teenager in the early 1980s. She did not understand Japanese. However, she says she enjoyed looking at pictures of fashion pages and continued “reading” non-no without actually reading the Japanese text.

Of the many types of Japanese magazines, only fashion magazines which target young women are widely available in Hong Kong. These Japanese fashion magazines found in Hong Kong are either original magazines imported from Japan or international Chinese editions for the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. The originals of Japanese fashion magazines are written all in Japanese, therefore most of the readers of these magazines have to rely on pictures and certain Chinese characters that Japanese also use. They are usually available at convenience stores and news stands only a few weeks after they are published in Japan. According to the Japan

26

Magazine Association, which conducts surveys on the circulation of magazines in Japan, these four magazines target teenagers and women in their early twenties in Japan (Table 5).

Table 5 <Original fashion magazines brought from Japan> Publisher

Name

First Published

First Published

in Japan

in HK/Taiwan

Core Readership in

Circulation in Japan

non-no

1971

-

Japan 16-21 years old

MORE

1977

-

22-26 years old

680,833

Kobunsha

JJ

1975

-

19-24 years old

434,375

Shogakukan

CanCam

1981

-

20-25 years old

626,250

506,522

Shueisha

Source: Japan Magazine Association 2005

Non-no, MORE, and JJ were first published in the 1970s in Japan. They have a longer history and a larger circulation than other Japanese womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fashion magazines that target women in their early twenties. Popular fashion magazines for young women in Japan are not translated into Chinese language and they are much more expensive than locally produced magazines, yet they remain highly popular among young Hong Kong women. In fact, these imported Japanese fashion magazines cost from 40 to 60 Hong Kong dollars while international Chinese editions are around 25 Hong Kong dollars and other locally edited fashion magazines cost around 35 Hong Kong dollars.

Entertainment magazines published in Hong Kong generally cost around 10 Hong Kong dollars, therefore these Japanese magazines are considered quite expensive.

However, the 40-year-old teacher who used to read non-no occasionally buys MORE, whose core readership is women in their twenties. Another Hong Kong woman in her mid-twenties says she decided to major in Japanese in university because she

27

wanted to actually read non-no. Although these imported originals are two or three times as expensive as locally edited magazines, they have been embraced by Hong Kong women up through the present.

Besides the originals, eight more Japanese women’s fashion magazines, also for young female readers in their twenties, have been translated into Chinese for readers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Compared to the first four magazines, non-no, MORE, JJ, and CanCam, these eight magazines are relative new comers to the competitive magazine market in Japan. As table 5 shows, half of the magazines were first published in the 1980s and the rest were established within the past ten years in Japan.

The magazines in Table 6 entered Japan’s magazine market later and have smaller circulations in Japan than the four fashion magazines in Table 5.

Table 6 <Japanese fashion magazines published as international Chinese edition> First Core Readership in Japan

Circulation in Japan

2004

22-26 years old

628,333

1983

2006

18-23 years old

467,917

Ray

1981

2003

18-24 years old

246,059

Shuhunotomo

éf

1984

2003

22-27 years old

66,946

-sha

Cawaii!

1996

2005

teenagers

189,084

mina

2001

2005

twenties

244,837

Shogakukan

Oggi

1992

2003

24-28 years old

232,833

Takarajimasha

mini

2000

2004

19-23 years old

n/a

Publisher

First Published in Japan

Published in

With

1981

ViVi

Name

HK/Taiwan

Kodansha

Source: Japan Magazine Association 2005

28

More and more international Chinese editions of Japanese fashion magazines for young women are being published for the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. This is not only because Japanese fashion magazines have been popular in Hong Kong, but also because Japanese publishers want to expand their market to China and secure new readers. For example, Shufu no Tomo Sha (主婦の友社) first entered the magazine market in mainland China in 1995.According to Kanda (BS-i, November 2004) Managing Director of Shufu no Tomo Sha, the magazine market in Japan is fully saturated and there are already plenty of fashion magazines. Therefore, it was difficult for the company to boost the circulation of existing magazines in the market in Japan. While Ray, whose target audience is women in their late teens to early twenties, from Shufu no Tomo Sha sold 246,059 copies in 2005, non-no from Shueisha (集英社) sold double that. Kanda therefore decided to transform its fashion magazine Ray to Ray Li (端麗) and enter the mainland Chinese market. The launch of an edited version of the Japanese magazine in China has been a big success. Cyber Brains (2005), a Japanese company which specializes in market surveys in China, reported that Ray Li was the most read magazines in Shanghai in 2005. Mina from Shufu no Tomo Sha, also for young women in their twenties, ranked fourth in the survey. To further develop publishing in China, Shufu no Tomo Sha co-invested in Shanghai-based publishing company Chuang Guang Xin Xi Ji SHu Gong Si (創光信 息技術公司) with Japanese comprehensive trading company Mitsubishi Corporation in 2004. With the intention of cultivating a new overseas market, Ray Li regularly sells 560,000 copies in mainland China, which is almost double the circulation of Ray in Japan (BS-i, November 2004). Success in the mainland China market led Shufu no Tomo Sha to publish international Chinese editions of Ray and éf in 2003 for the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. Kodansha (講談社), Shogakukan (小学館), and Takarajima Sha (宝島社), whose fashion magazines have small circulations in Japan,

29

followed the strategy of Shufu no Tomo Sha. As of 2007, four Japanese publishers sell fashion magazines for women in their twenties in Hong Kong.

The twelve Japanese fashion magazines available in Hong Kong are all for young women in their twenties. Japanese fashion magazines whose target readers are older are not found in convenience stores and news stands. They are, however, found in a bookstore in a Japanese department store where most of the customers are probably older Japanese women living in Hong Kong. The majority of fashion magazines in Hong Kong are for relatively young women. For example, CosmoGIRL targets teenage girls. According to Hachette Philippachi Media, the publisher of ELLE, the magazine’s worldwide average readership is 34.7 years old. Fashion magazines for women in their thirties are mainly Hong Kong editions of international magazines, such as ELLE, Cosmopolitan and marie claire. On the other hand, the core readership of Japanese women’s fashion magazines available in Hong Kong is teenagers and women in their 20s. There are wide ranges of Japanese magazines Japanese bookstores in Hong Kong, including magazines for mature women.

However, Based on observations of Japanese fashion magazines in Hong Kong, I realized images of young Japanese women and Japanese popular culture for young people in particular are “stripped” in Hong Kong. Media images of young Japanese women are prevalent in Hong Kong print media, while there are fewer images of mature Japanese women and Japanese men.

Hong Kong print media, in particular, puts emphasis on images of young and kawaii Japanese women, while other visual media such as TV dramas and movies portray both Japanese men and women, as I will further discuss in chapter 3. Japanese advertisements which use Japanese as models are mostly limited to cosmetic advertisements. These cosmetic advertisements are put in fashion magazines targeting young women in their twenties, therefore models in advertisements are also young.

30

Japanese women who appear in newspapers and advertisements are not only young, but also kawaii. Thus, in my thesis, I would like to examine how Japanese women in Hong Kong print media contribute to the construction of Japanese women’s images.

1.4 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS

In this section, I explain the organization of the thesis. In chapter 2, I introduce literature on Goffman’s (1974) Frame Analysis, construction of femininity by media and audience, and the process of how Japanese popular culture became accessible. I explain the main concept of Frame Analysis and the unit of analysis I apply to examine images of Japanese women. Literature on how femininity is constructed by media and audience helps to understand how images of Japanese women are constructed by media and audience in Hong Kong. It is also important to understand how Japanese popular culture for young people became accessible in Hong Kong. Since Japanese popular introduced to Hong Kong is mainly for young people, images of Japanese women brought to Hong Kong are likely to be restricted to young ones. Tracing the economic background of Hong Kong, I explain how Japanese consumer goods became affordable to working-class people and young people. Japanese popular culture also became accessible to young people as consumer goods became affordable.

In chapter 3, I explain the methodology. Since images of Japanese women are particularly prevalent in newspapers and advertisements, data were collected from these two print media. I traced the data back to the mid-1950s as it was the time when Hong Kong and Japan began to rebuild their relationship after the war and when images of Japanese women began to appear. Data analysis is based on Goffman’s Frame Analysis.

31

Chapter 4 sketches the process of how images of Japanese women have developed in Hong Kong print media. Although today’s images of Japanese women in Hong Kong print media are young and kawaii, it was different in the mid-1950s and the 1960s when Japanese film stars were “beautiful”. By analysing Chinese-language newspapers such as Wah Kiu Yat Po, Ming Pao and Apple Daily, I examine the development of young and kawaii Japanese women’s images historically from the mid-1950s to the 1990s.

In chapter 5, I examine how editors in Hong Kong print media have framed images of Japanese women as “young and cute” from 2000 to the present, focusing on the launch of Apple Daily. The launch of Apple Daily brought competition to the media market in Hong Kong, while at the same time bringing “infortainment” to Hong Kong journalism. This resulted in repetitive emphasis on young and cute Japanese women’s images in Hong Kong print media. By examining who appears and who does not appear in Chinese-language newspapers, I try to further clarify the selection process of Japanese women’s images coming to Hong Kong.

The conclusion turns back to the question of how Japanese women’s images have been constructed by media producers in Hong Kong. In the next chapter, I will start by explaining the unit of analysis by sociologist Erving Goffman.

32

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

In the literature review, I introduce literature on Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974), construction of femininity, and the process of how Japanese popular culture became accessible in Hong Kong. Goffman’s frame analysis is used as an unit of analysis in this thesis in order to examine the mechanism of how Japanese women are portrayed in Hong Kong print media. I will explain his general concept of frame analysis and also describe which concept of frame analysis I adopt for analyzing women’s images. I add recently developed frame analysis by media studies researchers based

33

on Goffmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original theory to further explain my approach to images of Japanese women.

I explain the mechanism of how media and audience construct femininity and feminine appeal since the focus of my study is about how images of Japanese women are constructed. I first describe representation of femininity in media using Goffmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gender Advertisements (1979), which compared portrayals of men and women.

Then I explain how media plays a key role in constructing feminine appeal with more recent studies on women in media. Although media seem to have a powerful influence in constructing feminine appeal, studies show that audiences also participate in this process. In fact, feminine appeal is constructed by the dialectical relationship between media and its audience. Therefore, I explain interaction of media and audience by using examples of how standards of beauty are decided by media in the U.S. and U.K. and how kawaii is constructed by fashion magazines in Japan.

Lastly, in order to examine why images of Japanese women are widely available in Hong Kong, it is important to understand how Japanese culture became accessible in Hong Kong. From the mid-1950s, when Hong Kong and Japan began to re-establish their economic ties, to the early 1960s, Japanese products were either commercial use, or for people who could afford such as business executives if they were consumer goods.

However, Japanese consumer products and pop culture gradually started to become more accessible starting from the late 1960s. This is closely related to the economic situation in Hong Kong. Therefore, I also explain the economic development in Hong Kong, which contributed to the quality of life for Hong Kong people and enabled more Hong Kong people to access Japanese goods and culture. In fact, easy access to Japanese pop culture greatly contributed to the wide availability of Japanese womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s images and also to the reasons why they are limited to those who are young and kawaii.

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2.1 GOFFMAN’S FRAME ANALYSIS

Goffman (1974: 8), in his book Frame Analysis, argues that reality is situational.

He says that individuals who participate in a current situation would ask: “What is it that’s going on here?” (ibid). This “what is going on here” is reality for individuals.

However, in any current “situations”, different perspectives can be seen synchronously, thus reality varies for different individuals. Goffman gives an example of opposing supporters at a football game (ibid). They do not experience the “same” game when one team wins and the other loses. For supporters of the winning team, the game may be a good one, but for people who lost the game, it may be perceived as a bad one. Similarly, he suggests that a “couple” kissing can be interpreted differently, such as “a ‘man’ greeting his ‘wife’ or ‘John’ being careful with ‘Mary’s’ makeup” (p10). The “same” event, social occasions, or situations can largely differ depending on what kind of role an individual undertakes (p9).

If I interpret this in regard to the Hong Kong handover event in 1997, the “same” event was largely different in media reports from U.K., mainland China, and Hong Kong. BBC, for example, framed the last Governor Patten’s farewell ceremonies as “British successes, honourable and dignified withdrawal, and continued moral support for Hong Kong”, according to the book Global Media Spectacle: News War Over Hong Kong written by Lee, a professor in English and Communication at City University of Hong Kong, and Chan, Pan and So, professors in journalism at Chinese University of Hong Kong (p77). On the other hand, Chinese media such as People’s Daily and CCTV, emphasized that China washed away past humiliation and Hong Kong returned to the motherland (p129). While British media and Chinese media praise their own achievement, Hong Kong media expressed “tremendous ambivalence and uncertainty about the handover” (p142). Hong Kong newspapers, such as Apple Daily and Ming Pao, described Hong Kong people’s “mixed feelings” in their editorials

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(p143). They wrote that although Hong Kong people were culturally more Chinese than British, they were also critical of China’s political system (Ibid). Thus, the “same” handover event was perceived differently depending on where the media reports were from.

“Frame” is a mechanism which guides the perception of reality (p10). Goffman calls it “schemata of interpretation” which allows individuals or group to “locate, perceive, identify, and label a seemingly infinite number of concrete occurrences defined in its terms” (p21). Therefore, his example of a couple kissing changes according to whether a frame of “greeting” or “being careful with makeup” is applied.

Goffman claims that the term is based on the paper “A Theory of Play and Phantasy” by anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1972). Regarding the definition of frame, he says that he “assumes that definitions of a situation are built up in accordance with principles of organization which govern events – at least social ones – and our subjective involvement in them; frame is the word I use to refer to such of these basic elements as I am able to identify” (Goffman, 1974: 10). In other words, “frames” are cognitive structures that enable us to perceive and identify what is happening in the current situation. Frames help us make sense of everyday experience.

In my thesis, I borrow this frame analysis, especially the concept of “strip” (p10).

The term “strip” is used by Goffman to describe “any arbitrary slice or cut from the stream of ongoing activity, including here sequences of happenings, real or fictive” (Ibid). Frame analysis is applied to this strip of everyday experience. For example, he says written and photographic records are “artifacts from an actual strip of activity” (p69) because these documentations are sliced, isolated and emphasized out of ongoing “reality”. Since particular types of Japanese women’s images are sliced out, brought to Hong Kong, and being emphasized, the “strip” is the concept I would like to adopt in my analysis.

Goffman’s concept of “strip” is applied in the study of media framing in order to understand how media producers slice “reality”. Tankard (2001: 98), late professor

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emeritus in journalism at the University of Texas, says picture frames perform a Goffman’s concept of “strip”, because picture frames “isolate certain material and draw attention to it”. While Goffman talks mainly about strip of “reality”, picture frames also focus on what is not sliced and what is excluded from “reality”. Tankard, referring to definition of framing “selection, emphasis, and exclusion” by Gitlin (1980, 7), professor in journalism at Columbia University, argues that a frame put around a picture “excludes other possible slices” (Tankard, p99).

Particular images of Japanese women too, are emphasized in Hong Kong print media and other possible images are excluded. In this regard, the concept of picture frames explains the situation of Japanese women’s images in Hong Kong. However, picture frames and media frames discuss how news is framed by media producers such as newspapers (Goffman, 1974: 95). Images of Japanese women are sliced by media producers in Hong Kong, but they are also stripped by audience. Therefore, I elaborate on the concept of picture frames and adopt it not only to analyse media producers, but also to analyse audience.

2.2 CONSTRUCTION OF FEMININITY

One of the early studies on the representation of femininity in media is Erving Goffman’s Gender Advertisements in 1979. Comparing portrayals of men and women in advertisements, Goffman (1979: 1) argues that gender in advertisements is “ritually displayed”. Ritual is a “single, fixed element of a ceremony”. It refers to social occasions or relationship such as graduation, annual gatherings, marriage, greetings and dinner. Displays are “certain motivated behaviours formalized in the sense of becoming simplified, exaggerated, and stereotyped”. In other words, displays are an individual’s behaviour and appearance which tell us his or her social identity, mood, intent, expectations and the state of his or her relation to us (Ibid). Therefore, femininity

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portrayed in American advertisements reflects women’s social situation and behaviours.

Goffman (1979: 42) claims that women are portrayed as subordinate, submissive, child-like, ingratiating, unserious and inferior. Most of the women’s social functions reflected in advertisements in the 1970s, for example, were to take care of family, do housework, and perform a non-executive role such as nurse or secretary. On the other hand, men play a role as doctor or tennis coach. Goffman says this is a “hierarchy of functions” (p32). Women are also positioned lower and smaller than men in advertisements (p28, p43). He argues this shows men’s superiority over women (Ibid).

Therefore, women look submissive and inferior compared to men.

Women’s nonverbal behaviours also contribute to the representation of femininity in advertisements. Goffman (1979: 69) found that women in advertisements often smile, put a finger or hand on their face, touch, and bend a knee.

Women tend to have a more expansive facial expression such as smiling and placing a finger or hand on their face in real life and in advertisements than men. This signifies that women “appear to withdraw from social situation” and tend to get involved in emotional responses such as pleasure and delight (Ibid). Women who are emotionally rather than socially engaged in advertisements, therefore, look like children. Women in advertisements often use their fingers and hands to trace the outlines of objects or to touch their face. According to Goffman, this “feminine touch” has to be distinguished from men’s “utilitarian kind that grasps, manipulates or holds” (p29). Cradling or caressing an object with fingers and hands is ritualistic. This ritualistic touch also represents femininity. Bending a knee is also seen frequently in the portrayal of women.

One can look lower than the other by bending his or her body. Goffman argues that this implies he or she is accepting obedience. Therefore, this canting posture can be perceived as “an acceptance of subordination, an expression of ingratiation, submissiveness, and appeasement” (p46). The subordination indicates that women are equivalent to children (p5). Goffman (1979: 8) argues that these behaviours “express” femininity.

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2.2.1 Construction of Feminine Appeal

Studies on femininity in media have developed since Goffman’s Gender Advertisements. They suggest that media also construct feminine appeal.

Advertisements and women’s fashion magazines are particularly influential on constructing feminine appeal. Professor Gauntlett of Media and Communications at the University of Westminster argues that researchers pay particular attention to advertising. He says that cosmetic advertisements, for example, are “produced by capitalists who want to cultivate insecurities which they can then sell ‘solutions’ to” (2002: 77). Women’s magazines are also the major subject of analysis because, as Professor McCracken in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, puts, advertising and editorial sections are undetectable (1993: 3).

Advertisements and magazines are influential in deciding what and who is beautiful by repetitively celebrating ideal beauty. Greer (1999: 19, 23), a former lecturer specialising feminism at the University of Cambridge, based on the situation in the U.K., says that magazines supported by the beauty industry tell even young girls how to properly do make-up (Ibid). She argues that women have to follow certain images of beauty (p23). Certain images of beauty mean a woman with “a tight, toned body including her buttocks and thighs so that she is good to touch” (p22). Cortese, Professor of Sociology at Southern Methodist University, supports the view that thinness of female body is emphasized in advertisements. Analysing gender in advertisements, he claims that women often shown as the “perfect provocateur” are “slender, typically tall and long-legged” (1999: 45). According to Gauntlett (2002: 79), very thin women in women’s fashion magazines are considered beautiful, but a curvaceous and not-so skinny appearance is preferred in men’s magazines. However, he admits that beautiful women in magazines for both men and women are “thin, not fat”, therefore this has an impact on the relevance of slim body and beauty (Ibid).

In the U.S., advertisements and magazines can also decide what and who is sexy.

McCracken (1993: 138) says that beauty and fashion magazines exaggerate concern with physical appearance and other aspects of human beings are less valued.

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“Beauty” that advertisements and magazines advocate is mostly physical beauty.

Therefore, women’s images in advertisements and magazines are objectified, fragmented and idealized. Women, then compare idealized parts of the body in advertisements with parts of their own body, thinking they are not perfect (Ibid). She also argues that reader’s view on fragmented images “coincides with the perspective of male surveyor” (p125). Parts of the body are emphasized not only to make women feel bad about themselves and purchase products in order to remedy imperfectness, but also to gain the attention of males. She also adds that repeated images of a fragmented body do more than sell products (Ibid). They encourage consumers to develop narcissism on a fragment of our body because we can obtain ideally beautiful parts of the body if we purchase the product (p123). Similarly, Kilbroune (1999) claims that American advertisements often portray a fragment of women’s body. She says we are affected by these images used in advertisements which portray women’s legs, hip, torso and back, and women feel their body is not perfect (p259).

She argues that objectification of women also has an effect on sexuality and desire (p260). Thus, these sexual images of fragmented and objectified women in advertisements “define what is sexy, and more important, who is sexy”. That is, women who are “young, thin, carefully polished and groomed, made up, depilated, sprayed and scented” (Ibid). In so doing, advertisers and magazine editors take part in creating what and who is ideal, sexy and beautiful.

2.2.2 Audience Interaction with Media

Audiences also participate in constructing feminine appeal. Carter, lecturer in Cardiff School of Journalism and Steiner, Professor in Journalism at University of Maryland (1996: 241) say that researchers in media studies were mostly concerned

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with media’s influence over people’s behaviour. Researchers assumed either that “media messages had powerful, direct effects or that quantifiable effects were very limited”. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s “encoding/decoding” model was therefore a new approach, compared to studies focusing on media’s powerful effects.

Hall’s (1973) “encoding/decoding” model of communication shows that it is important to identify audience participation in reading messages. Hall’s model emphasizes the need to acknowledge that audiences accept, partially accept or reject the “preferred” meaning of media messages. Hall, using the example of TV production, argues that “production and reception of the television message are not identical, but they are related” (1973, 2001: 130). This occurs because audience may not decode the meaning as media producers intended.

Therefore, the meaning is a “negotiated” one (Hall, 2001: 137). Hall says that the majority of audiences may fairly understand meanings which are dominantly and professionally defined. However, audiences’ decoding could be adaptive and oppositional to the “hegemony-dominant” encodings. He gives an example of a worker’s response to the Industrial Relations Bill which limits the right to strike or to arguments for a wages freeze. The audience may agree that our pay has to be less in order to fight against inflation, which is a dominant definition. But this is less related to his or her willingness to go on strike for better payment or to go against the Industrial Relations Bill (Ibid). This suggests that the audience can create alternative and resistant readings of messages. Thus, decoding is a complex and interactive process.

In this regard, it can be argued that meanings are co-constructed by media and audience. Hall argues that consumption or reception of media messages is also a production process (2001, 130). Circulation and reception of media messages are “reincorporated, via a number of skewed and structured ‘feedbacks’, into the production self itself” (Ibid). The audience’s decoded messages are therefore reflected to the production side as feedback.

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In the U.S., beauty standards seem to be decided by interaction between media, especially advertisements and fashion magazines, and audience. For example, advertisers and magazine editors do marketing and discover what the audience wants.

According to the book Social Communication in Advertising edited by scientist William Leiss et al, the marketing industry implements intensive market research as a key strategy since it recognizes the limits of the aggressive (2005, 8). Based on classic liberal theory, Leisse argues that the most efficient way to function the market is to let consumers direct producers (p9). Thus, rational consumers would accept the consumer products which fulfil their wants and rational media or goods producers would produce what consumers want. In this regard, ideal beauty is constructed interactively by media and consumers.

2.3 JAPANESE CULTURE BECOMES ACCESSIBLE IN HONG KONG

From the mid-1950s to the 1960s, major consumers of Japanese consumer goods were limited to those who could afford to purchase them. According to Chan and Yeung (2004), Assistant Professor and instructor respectively in the Department of Japanese Studies at the University of Hong Kong, well-established Japanese comprehensive trading companies such as Itochu Corporation (伊藤忠), Mitsubishi Corporation (三菱商事) and Marubeni Corporation (丸紅) began their operation in Hong Kong in 1955. Business between Hong Kong and Japan had already started in the mid-1950s, however, it did not mean that people in Hong Kong could afford

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Japanese products. For example, according to Nakano and Wong (2005: 84), Assistant Professor and Associate Professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at the University of Hong Kong, Shun Hing Electronic Trading Co. Ltd (信興電器貿易有限 公司) in Hong Kong started its business relationship with Panasonic in 1953. In 1959, SONY entered the Hong Kong market. However, electronic products such as fans, TV sets, refrigerator and washing machines were too expensive for middle-class people in 1960 (Nakano and Wong, 2005: 22).

However, more Hong Kong people had started to consume Japanese goods and culture by the late 1960s. Regarding the number of rice cookers imported from Japan, it increased from 100 per year in 1960 to 100,000 per year in 1967 (Nakano and Wong, 2005: 155). A rice cooker from Japan was a barometer of improvement of living standards for working-class people and families who just moved to Hong Kong (Ibid).

Standard of life has improved with the economic take-off that started in the late 1960s.

According to Tsang (2004: 170), Professor in governance at the University of Oxford, the economy started to grow more with the help of the foundation in light industry and export trade which have been already established in the 1950s and 1960s. The rapid economic growth made the Hong Kong government become more active and positive in social policies by the end of 1960s (Ibid). It was not until the end of the 1960s that the government managed to secure a comfortable amount of reserve to use for the community (p171). This enabled the government to provide education, health services and other civil services (Ibid). In this regard, professor in Sociology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lui (2003: 164) argues that it was “the beginning of a new era”.

2.3.1 Consuming Japanese TV dramas in the 1970s

Japanese TV programmes were brought to Hong Kong when Television

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Broadcasting (TVB), a free-to-air TV station in Hong Kong, began broadcasting (Nakano and Wong, 2005: 159). Although TVB began broadcasting, there were not enough locally produced TV programmes. Thus, TV dramas from Japan and the U.S. were brought to Hong Kong to fill in the airtime (Ibid). One of the popular Japanese TV programmes was Sain wa V (V is Our Sign, サインはＶ), featuring a young female volleyball team. The TV drama was named as Young Sparkler (青春火花) in Cantonese and broadcasted in 1970, a year after it was shown in Japan. In the 1970s, “Japanese TV dramas featuring sports, romance and samurai” continued to be broadcasted in Hong Kong (Nakano, 2002: 236). Japanese small-size TV set occupied 78% of the total amount of imported TV sets in Hong Kong in 1970 (Nakano and Wong, 2005: 162).

Unlike movie tickets, which were usually expensive for working-class people (Nakano, 2002: 236), TV offered free entertainment to anybody who owned a TV set.

It was also a time when a demand for entertainment such as television and radio also increased as real income rose steadily in Hong Kong from the mid-1970s.

According to Tsang (2004: 174), salary-earners in Hong Kong were able to afford to eat in restaurants on social occasions, watch movies, and purchase consumer goods.

This resulted in an expansion of the local service sector. Tsang argues that the affordability of leisure items indicated that “ordinary people had the time and the resources to reflect on their living and working conditions, make their views known and generally play an active part in local society, politics and economy” (Ibid). More money to spend on leisure and a strong demand for entertainment facilitated importing and producing more TV programmes.

2.3.2 Economic Take-Off in the Late 1970s

The economy in Hong Kong continued to gain momentum in the late 1970s.

From the late 1970s, Hong Kong began to shift its main focus on light industry to

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banking, accounting and consulting. There are several reasons why the transformation occurred. First, educated workers gave an impetus to the local economy. According to Hong Kong Annual Report, a three-year junior high school education became free and compulsory in 1978 (Hong Kong, 1978). Tsang (2004: 176) writes that by the 1970s, the local economy enjoyed a plentiful supply of people who had received higher education compared to the 1950s and 1960s. The university graduates were able to engage in more knowledge based jobs such as finance, marketing, and research and development. Second, Hong Kong unexpectedly managed to broaden its economic activities as the political tension between China and the U.S. was eased by the visit of President Nixon to China in 1972. The diplomatic development between China and the U.S. lifted the U.S. embargo and also opened China to the world. This enabled Hong Kong to become an attractive economic base for financial and business services. Third, young entrepreneurs in Hong Kong with Western educational backgrounds started their own stock exchanges (p175). The Far East Exchange in 1969, the Kam Ngan Stock Exchange in 1971, and the Kowloon Stock Exchange in 1972 were founded by them. With their aggressive push, Hong Kong developed itself into a major capital market. Lastly, the lifting of a moratorium on the issue of new banking licenses in 1978 gave Hong Kong a great impact on diversifying its economy. This allowed major international banks to open full offices (Ibid). Evidently they played an important role in tramsforming Hong Kong into a leading financial centre in the world. The upgrade of industries and transformation of Hong Kong into a financial centre again enhanced the standard of life for Hong Kong people.

2.3.3 Luxurious to Affordable: Japanese Goods and Culture in the 1980s

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The 1980s was the beginning of a new social structure in Hong Kong: the middle class. According to the Hong Kong SAR Census and Statistics Department, industry in financing, insurance, real estate and business services rose from 2.7% in 1971 to 4.8% in 1981. By 1991, it increased to 10.6%, which is four times more than that of 1971.

Thanks to the rapid economic growth and transformation into a financial centre, the Hong Kong class structure was significantly changed. According to Lui (2003: 166), the 1970s and the 1980s “are the periods wherein we see the rapid growth of new openings in the social structure, particularly those of the middle-class and non-manual positions. He adds that economic development in Hong Kong allowed people of more humble origins to move into middle-class positions (Ibid).

In the 1980s, some working class people were able to afford Japanese consumer products at Japanese supermarkets in Hong Kong.

Yaohan (ヤオハン, 八佰伴 in Chinese), a regional Japanese retail company which opened its first store in Hong Kong in 1984, allowed Japanese goods to be more accessible for working-class people. According to Wong (1999: 59), although it was considered a regional supermarket in Japan, it was regarded as a department store in Hong Kong. Yaohan catered to local Hong Kong people in new towns. There were already Japanese department stores such as Daimaru (大丸), Matsuzakaya (松坂屋) and Isetan (伊勢丹) in the 1970s (Chan and Yeung, 2004), but both department stores targeted Japanese tourists as major consumers (Wong, 1999: 51).

Wong argues that the company had different strategies than other retail companies from Japan, such as type of merchandise, location and target customers (Ibid). While other retailers targeted Japanese tourists or took over local store operators, Yaohan served a more local market. While department stores were located in major tourist and shopping areas, Yaohan’s stores were operated in new towns, created by the Hong Kong government to solve the problem of limited land space (Wong, 1998: 268). Yaohan opened its outlets in Shatin, Tuen Mun, Hunghom, Tsuen Wan, Yuen

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Long, Lam Tin, Tin Shui Wai, Junk Bay and Ma On Shan, which were all new towns (p267). However, Yaohan’s presence seems to have had an impact on Hong Kong people’s life as it opened more stores than other retailers and “raced to the front ranks of large-scale retailers in Hong Kong (Wong, 1999: 51).

One of the reasons why working-class people could afford to buy at Yaohan lies in its business strategy. Woking class Hong Kong people living in these new towns went to Yaohan where around 40 to 50% of the products were Japanese brands (Wong, 1998: 270). However, the company did not emphasize on up-market like department store. It provided groceries and daily necessities which were actually mostly available in neighbouring shops (Ibid). The strategy Yaohan took was “one-stop-shopping”, in which customers can buy everything at one shop (Ibid). Wong argues that these working class people had moderate disposable income since they moved to the new towns. In fact, they paid less for the rent after moving to the new towns and rent occupied only 10% of their household income (Ibid). As a result, they could shop at Yaohan where goods were less up-market. By the 1980s, there were several Japanese department stores and supermarkets catering everyone from working class to upper-middle class.

More and more young people in Hong Kong consumed Japanese pop culture, including Japanese pop music and women’s fashion magazines in the 1980s.

According to Ogawa (2001: 123), the instructor of Japanese Studies Department at the University of Hong Kong, Japanese pop music became prominent. A radio programme which played only Japanese songs was launched, and magazines which mainly discussed gossip about Japanese entertainment were published (Ibid). Karaoke also contributed to this popularity (Wong, 2001: 116). Lee (2000: 242), professor in the Japanese Studies Department in Chinese University of Hong Kong, says Japanese teenage idols such as Kondo Masahiko (近藤真彦) and Nakamori Akina (中森明菜) became widely known. Fashion for young women was also introduced with Japanese women’s fashion magazine non-no (Wong, 2001: 116).

Children have been consumers of Japanese animation since the 1970s. According to Nakano (2002: 236), a number of Japanese cartoons “began to occupy children’s afternoon”. The titles included a blue cat-robot Doraemon (ドラえもん) and a

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human-robot with superman strength Dr. Slump (Dr.スランプアラレちゃん) which many Japanese kids watched when they were broadcasted. Nakano says “classic Japanese cartoons” such as Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy, 鉄腕アトム) were available since the 1970s, however, Japanese cartoons “truly became a part of children’s daily life” in the 1980s (Ibid).

In the 1980s, Japanese goods and youth culture were consumed by working-class people to young people to children. According to Nakano (2002: 236), Japanese cultural products changed positions from “luxurious to popularly accessible” in the 1980s. It is also quite evident that economic development enabled Hong Kong people from different income backgrounds to consume Japanese products and culture.

2.3.4 Japanese Pop Culture Consumed in the 1990s

In the 1990s, Japanese trendy dramas, which portrayed the lives of urban young people in their twenties, played a major role in promoting Japanese youth culture in Hong Kong. Leung, Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, says that starting with “Tokyo Love Story (東京ラブストーリー)” in 1991, trendy dramas became “household phenomenon” in Asia including Hong Kong (2002: 65). After “Tokyo Love Story”, some other TV dramas, such as “Hitotsu Yane no Shita” (Under the Same Roof, ひとつ屋根の下) and “Aishiteiru to Ittekure (Waiting for You to Say You Love Me, 愛しているといってくれ)” broadcasted in Japan in 1993 and 1995 respectively, were broadcasted on the terrestrial ATV Cantonese channel and on Cable TV (p66).

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With the assistance of video compact discs (VCDs) piracy, Japanese trendy dramas became widely popular in Hong Kong (Leung, 2002: 67). One of the most popular Japanese dramas in Hong Kong, “Long Vacation (ロングバケーション)”, was released in the form of VCD in early 1997 (Ibid). It was almost a year after the drama was shown in Japan. According to Leung, 30% - 40% of households in Hong Kong used this cheap and compact VCD by that time. She says that VCD piracy was a major factor in the success of the drama. The popular and successful “Long Vacation” prompted interest in Japanese trendy dramas. Many other TV dramas such as “Love Generation (ラブジェネレーション)” and “Nemureru Mori (A Sleeping Forest, 眠れ る森)” were brought to Hong Kong and released on VCDs. However, the legal VCDs were relatively expensive (HK$40-60, US$5-8 per disc). Therefore, with the development of VCD piracy technology, purchasing pirated VCD trendy dramas became “a widespread popular phenomenon” because it was almost half of the legal VCD price (Ibid).

Tabloids also contributed to the popularity and diffusion of trendy dramas.

“Long Vacation” was also spread through word of mouth, and later through tabloid Apple Daily and weekly Next Magazine both owned by Next Media (Nakano, 2002: 240). These trendy dramas were not broadcasted on Hong Kong channels, but were spread through word of mouth among young people (Ibid). According to Nakano (2002: 241), Apple Daily expanded its Japanese entertainment section from one article to three or four a day. The news included Japanese trendy dramas which had not been shown in Japan yet. She argues that readers of Apple Daily regarded an article on Japanese TV dramas as “a buyers’ guide” (Ibid).

Mass-circulated dailies started not only to report about trendy dramas, but also to become a big provider of Japanese entertainment news. Good Japanese entertainment news was vital for selling more papers (Nakano, 2002: 241). Therefore, other tabloids including newspapers and weekly magazines also joined this competition. Acting as a guide of Japanese TV dramas, stars, fashion, cosmetics and foods, tabloids became

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“constant sources of Japanese entertainment and product news in Hong Kong” (Ibid).

Japanese products and culture became even more accessible and affordable due to the popularity of Japanese dramas which grabbed young women’s heart, the VCD piracy technology and news articles regularly reported by tabloids.

In this chapter, I have attempted to come to an understanding of Goffman’s frame analysis, construction of femininity and the process of how Japanese culture became accessible to Hong Kong people. Frame analysis provides a way to understand the multi-dimensionality of “reality”. Multi-dimensional images of Japanese women are “stripped” and particular images are emphasized when they are brought to Hong Kong.

By adopting the concept from frame analysis, I examine how frames applied to the images of Japanese women have developed in Hong Kong in chapter IV and how editors frame them as “young and cute” in print media in chapter V. I explained the mechanism of how media and audience co-construct femininity because images of Japanese women are also co-constructed. The process of how Japanese culture became more accessible explains the background of how images of Japanese women became prevalent in Hong Kong and how they changed from unattainable to approachable, which is discussed in chapter IV. In the next chapter, I discuss the methodology of data collection and data analysis.

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

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3.1 DATA COLLECTION

I chose print media as the primary data source since print media can be traced back historically. Images of Japanese women appear in various types of mass media in Hong Kong, such as movies, TV dramas, entertainment magazines, fashion magazines, newspapers, advertisements and the Internet. While talking with 15 Hong Kong Chinese informants in their twenties and thirties about Japanese culture, most of them mentioned either Japanese TV dramas or Japanese popular songs. Indeed, Hong Kong is one of the biggest importers of Japanese TV programmes including animation as I have discussed in chapter I (Hara, 2004). This generation seems to have been much influenced by Japanese visual and sound media. However, by choosing print media, I was able to conduct research on Japanese womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s images more consistently from 1955 through 2005. Among print media sources, entertainment articles in Chinese-language newspapers and advertisements which portray Japanese women in the entertainment section is the focus of the analysis.

I chose entertainment articles in newspapers and advertisements because images of Japanese women have been available particularly in these two media since the mid1950s. I reviewed these two media from 1955 to 2005 and examined images of Japanese women historically. For more than five decades, Japanese women who appeared in Chinese-language newspapers in Hong Kong have been mainly actresses, singers and models. It seems images of Japanese women seldom appear in other sections of newspapers apart from the entertainment section. Ming Pao, a Hong Kong Chinese-language newspaper, carried articles on Japanese female stars in the entertainment section almost every day in 2005. There were few reports on the Japanese royal family, including the empress and princesses. Chinese-language

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newspaper Wah Kiu Yat Po, which has ceased publication, reported about the crown princess on 30 April 1970. However, the majority of articles on Japanese women have been about entertainers.

Articles and advertisements along with images from 1955 to 2005 were examined and those with only text are not included for analysis. I focused on analysis of the visual component of print media, which seems to have a great influence on Hong Kong people in constructing Japanese women’s images. Goffman (1979:11) argues that “to consider photographs, it is necessary, apparently, to consider the question of perception and reality”. Photographic images are closely related to the perception of reality because photographs slice out images of “real” people or objects or places. Therefore, audiences tend to relate photographic images to the real world.

Drawing also has a similar effect. In the early 1960s, advertisements in Chineselanguage newspapers in Hong Kong mainly used drawings. The products and people were carefully drawn to look “real”. Messaris (1997:3), professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that visual signs serve as a representation of reality. Although he acknowledges that photographs do not always portray reality accurately, he explains that images and reality are close enough that audiences perceive the images as a representation of something real (1997:3). Unlike text, which forces people to use their imagination to project reality, photographs and drawings have a more direct effect on telling audiences what is real. In this light, I focused on articles and advertisements along with photographic images and drawings.

I also analysed advertisements which portray Japanese women in print media from 1955 to 2005 in order to examine how images of Japanese women are framed in advertisements and how the frames have been changing. Advertisements with images of Japanese women can be found in Chinese-language newspapers in the mid-1950s.

In fact, not all Japanese advertisements are brought to Hong Kong. They are selected and some are brought to Hong Kong, or modified to meet the taste of Hong Kong people. Some are “stripped” from Japan and some are localized for Hong Kong

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market. The former often portrays images of young Japanese women. The latter usually uses non-Japanese models or a photo of the products. For example, currently available advertisements of a cosmetic line “Maquillage”, launched by Shiseido (資生 堂), a major Japanese cosmetic company, are stripped from Japan. According to the Shiseido website, “Maquillage” targets women in their twenties and early thirties. For more luxurious lines for mature women, the company uses well-known Western models and mature Japanese female models in Japan. However, images of mature Japanese women are not sliced in cosmetic advertisements in Hong Kong. By examining frames of Japanese women’s images in advertisements and the possible reasons behind that, I would like to find out the differences between images of Japanese women in Japan and those in Hong Kong.

3.1.1 Entertainment Articles in Chinese-Language Newspapers

I examined three Chinese-language newspapers, i.e. Wah Kiu Yat Po, Ming Pao, and Apple Daily to analyse entertainment articles. Wah Kiu Yat Po were examined every five years from 1955 to 1990. Wah Kiu Yat Po had the longest history in Hong Kong. The paper was first published in June 1925 and ceased publication in 1995.

According to the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong, Wah Kiu Yat Po was one of the largest papers from the mid-1950s to the 1960s. Lee (2000) categorizes the paper as a partisan right wing paper since it used to support the Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party in Taiwan.

The purpose of collecting data from Wah Kiu Yat Po is to examine how frames of Japanese women’s images have developed in the past five decades. I began examining articles from 1955 because it was the year in which movie studios in Hong Kong and Japan started to collaborate on making movies. Although the

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official restart of trading between Hong Kong and Japan was in 1947, it was not until the early to mid-1950s that Japanese private business enterprises began to enter the Hong Kong market (Chan and Yeung, 2004). Japanese women’s images did not appear suddenly in recent years, but have been available in Hong Kong media since the mid-1950s and a larger number of them began to appear in Hong Kong newspaper in the 1960s. Therefore, it is important to begin the examination of the newspaper in 1955, when cultural and economic interaction between Hong Kong and Japan began.

I examined more recent images of Japanese women in Ming Pao annually from 2000 to 2005. This paper prints articles on Japanese stars almost every day in the international entertainment section, which is called “Entertainment East/West”.

Japan-related articles constitute one of the major focus points in the international entertainment section along with Hollywood news. Although it seems to me that the paper prints a number of entertainment articles, it is considered one of the most reliable Chinese-language newspapers in Hong Kong. The paper claims to be “an intellectual daily with audience of higher income and education levels” in its company profile. First published in 1959 by prominent novelist Louis Cha, the paper was once famous for offering insightful and critical opinions on China issues, especially during the Cultural Revolution.

I chose Ming Pao because images of young Japanese woman appear frequently in its entertainment section, although the paper is recognized as a quality paper which does not target a particularly young audience. It may be natural to use images of young Japanese women if the paper targets young readers because readers may be attracted to or feel affinity to Japanese women in similar age. According to the company profile, paper is known for its hard news and its core readership is managers and professionals. However, the paper repetitively puts articles on young and kawaii Japanese women in its entertainment section. Analysis of Ming Pao thus enabled me to understand what kinds of Japanese women’s images are stripped and who are not in today’s Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong.

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I also reviewed Apple Daily, a mass-circulated Chinese-language paper issued in 2000 and 2005, throughout the year. There are two reasons for choosing this paper.

First, the paper targets young audiences who are the major consumers of Japanese popular culture in Hong Kong. The paper has become one of the most widely read newspapers among Hong Kong young people since its launch in 1995. According to a survey conducted by the Office of Student Affairs at the University of Hong Kong (2005/2006), Apple Daily is the most read newspaper among undergraduate students.

In addition, the average net circulation per issue in 2005 was 326,004 while that of Ming Pao was 98,726 (Table 6). This is over 3.3 times more than the average net circulation of Ming Pao.

Table 6 <Average Net Circulation per Issue in 2005> Apple Daily (Chinese)

326,004

Ming Pao (Chinese)

98,726

Hong Kong Economic Times (Chinese)

80,701

South China Morning Post (English)

74,334

Source: Hong Kong Audit Bureau of Circulation Note: There is no circulation survey for Oriental Daily conducted by HKABC.

Apple Daily competes with its rival paper Oriental Daily, which is also an entertainment-oriented paper. However, its circulation is not available through the Hong Kong Audit Bureau of Circulation. It is important to examine Apple Daily because Japanese popular culture is widely consumed by young people in Hong Kong.

In fact, Apple Daily has greatly changed what newspapers offer to the Hong

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Kong market. According to Lee (2000:306), professor of English and Communication at City University of Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai’s entrance to the media market belongs to the third stage of Hong Kong media, in which many of the Hong Kong print media are full of gossip-oriented entertainment articles. He categorizes the history of Hong Kong media into three stages. The first stage is from 1949 to 1984, from the founding of the People’s Republic of China until the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the handover of Hong Kong. During this period, the media were proBritain (Lee, 2000:291). However, Apple Daily started to become more critical of politics and the handover issue in the second stage from 1984 to 1989. They were energized by the autonomy given by Britain which was stepping off from the sovereign and by China which had not yet come. The third stage, from 1990 to 2000, can be marked with the start of Next magazine launched by Lai in 1990, which core themes have been “sex and violence”. Thanks to the huge success of the magazine, Lai also started publishing Apple Daily. The competitor Oriental Daily News and its weekly magazine Eastweek also thrive on gossip, crime, and pornographic themes.

Although there have long been mass-circulated newspapers in Hong Kong (Lee, 2000:306), the rise of Next Magazine and Apple Daily had a great impact on print media in Hong Kong. The success of consumer-driven tabloid led other newspaper agencies in Hong Kong to follow suite. As a result, other newspapers, including Ming Pao, now give wide coverage to entertainment news from around the world, particularly Hong Kong, Hollywood and Japan.

Second, it is important to note that images of Japanese women are also framed as sexy mass-circulated newspapers. Apple Daily also frames Japanese women as young and sexy in its entertainment and “night life” section. Ming Pao, although it carries images of young and kawaii Japanese women frequently, does not put images of sensual Japanese women. According to Lee (2000: 36), Apple Daily is famous for writing sensational articles with soft pornography. In order to grab attention from readers, the paper tends to strip images of sexy Japanese women.

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3.1.2 Interview with Former Editor of Apple Daily

In order to understand what types of Japanese women’s images are likely to be stripped in Apple Daily and why they are stripped, I conducted an interview with a former editor of Apple Daily. He worked for the Japanese entertainment section of the paper for two months in 2003 when he was 24 years old. I asked the former editor the following questions: 1) if there are any conditions to select images of Japanese women, and if so, what they are, 2) who decides the conditions and why, 3) who selects Japanese women’s images, and 4) what Japanese sources they refer to.

3.1.3 Advertisements

I reviewed advertisements which portray Japanese women in Wah Kiu Yat Po and JESSICA. The former was examined to see how images of Japanese women have framed in advertisements from the mid-1950s to January 1995 when they stopped publication. I examined advertisements with images of Japanese women in women’s fashion magazine published between 2000 and 2005 in Hong Kong because advertisements which target particular consumers, such as those of cosmetic brands, shifted from newspapers to magazines in the 1980s. With the development of magazines, the number of advertisements which target specific gender and age groups has increased in magazines whose readership is similar to their target consumers.

While entertainment articles remain in newspapers, advertisements which target young women are now found in women’s magazines. Therefore, not only newspapers, but also the fashion magazines popular among Hong Kong women have to be investigated to understand the changes of Japanese women’s images in

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Hong Kong media.

Advertisements in JESSICA, Hong Kong women’s fashion magazine which achieved the largest circulation in 2005, were reviewed from 2000 to 2005(Table 7).

Table 7 <Average Net Circulation per Issue in 2005> JESSICA

81,226

Cosmopolitan (Hong Kong edition)

45,526

Cosmo Girl

32,567

ELLE (Hong Kong)

21,910

marie claire (Chinese edition)

14,128

Source: Hong Kong Audit Bureau of Circulation

Average net circulation per issue of Hong Kong women’s fashion magazine JESSICA in 2005 was 81,226, which is almost double that of Cosmopolitan. As the magazine’s core audiences are probably women between twenties and early thirties, they print advertisements with images of young Japanese women who are closer to the audience's age. In Hong Kong, the majority of fashion magazines in Hong Kong are for women raging from teens to thirties. Magazines read by more mature woman in Hong Kong such as Hong Kong Tatler, a society magazine originally from the U.K. for upper class readers, occasionally put Japanese advertisements. However, the advertisements in magazines for mature women usually do not portray images of Japanese women.

Inevitably, the fashion magazines I chose to analyse advertisements are those for young readers.

3.2 DATA ANALYSIS

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This research is conducted based on Goffman’s (1974) concepts “frame” and “strip” in Frame Analysis I explained in chapter 2. Images of Japanese women in today’s Hong Kong print media are framed as young, kawaii and sexy. In order to investigate how these frames have developed in Hong Kong, I examined what types of Japanese women were available in entertainment articles and advertisements of Wah Kiu Yat Po from 1955 to 1990.

I also analysed who appears and who does not appear in Japanese entertainment articles of Ming Pao and Apple Daily from 2000 to 2005, and advertisements in JESSICA. Images of young and kawaii Japanese women are stripped from the entire images of Japanese women in Japanese media and brought to Hong Kong. Comparing images of Japanese women striped in Hong Kong print media and popular female figures in Japan, I examined what kinds of Japanese women tend to be stripped and not to be stripped.

The construction of images of Japanese women is not static, but rather a multidimensional process. It varies depending on who constructs the images. Frames of Japanese women’s images also change over time. . Images, perceptions, and stereotypes of Japanese women do not come from a single process, but they are rather constructed through layers of various processes. Mass media plays one of the most important roles in these complex processes. With the analysis of newspaper articles and advertisements, I hope to show how frames of Japanese women’s images in Hong Kong print media have changed in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER IV CHANGES IN IMAGES OF JAPANESE WOMEN: FROM CLASSIC BEAUTIES TO GIRLS-NEXT-DOOR

In this chapter, I examine the process of how frames of Japanese women’s images developed in Hong Kong print media. Based on Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974), I approach the development of Japanese women’s images by focusing on the three frames “young”, “kawaii” and “sexy”. The most prevalent images of Japanese women in today’s Chinese-language newspapers in Hong Kong seem to be young and kawaii.

However, they do not represent the entirety of Japanese women in Japan. Japanese women who appeared in Wah Kiu Yat Po (Overseas Chinese Daily News, 華僑日報), a Chinese-language Hong Kong newspaper in 1960 were graceful film stars. Many of them were in their mid to late twenties while current Japanese female entertainers who frequently appear in Chinese-language newspapers are mostly teenagers. In fact, within the past five decades, images of Japanese women in Hong Kong print media greatly changed from a classic beauty to a kawaii girls-next-door.

There are three major

factors that changed the images of Japanese women in Hong Kong print media and led to the development of frames “young” and “kawaii”. First, characteristics of Japanese female stars, including facial features, have been changing in Japan. As I discussed in chapter 1, Japanese actresses in the 1950s and 1960s were classic beauties who looked

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like Hollywood film stars in terms of facial features, hair style and dressing style.

However, unattainable Japanese beauties in cinema started to decrease as the movie industry declined while TV increased in popularity. In place of classic beauties, more approachable next-door-girl type female stars have started to appear on TV. The idol boom from the early 1970s to the late 1980s also helped to make approachable young and kawaii Japanese female stars more prevalent.

Second, young and kawaii Japanese women began to emerge in Hong Kong print media in the 1970s when Hong Kong young people started to gain consumer power thanks to the economic growth in Hong Kong. A rise of young people’s consumer power developed the needs of young entertainers in Hong Kong. In the 1960s and 1970s, the major consumers of Japanese goods were people with higher incomes who could afford to travel overseas, and housewives who use home appliances and personal hygiene products. what happened in between? In the 1980s, young people in Hong Kong enjoyed not only movies, but also music and TV as entertainment. Some of them also began to be able to afford to rent Japanese records or to buy Japanese magazines.

Third, the launch of mass-circulated newspaper Apple Daily influenced on framing images of Japanese women. This is further discussed in the next chapter.

By analyzing these three factors, i.e. the changes of Japanese female stars in Japan, economic background in Hong Kong, and change of media roles in Hong Kong, I hope to show how the frames “young” and “kawaii” Japanese women have been developed in the past five decades.

4.1 THE BEGINNING OF HONG KONG – JAPAN CULTURAL EXCHANGES IN THE 1950S

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This section examines cultural and commercial relationship between Hong Kong and Japan in the mid-1950s. Although images of Japanese women are rarely found in Chinese-language newspapers in the 1950s, it is crucial for understanding the foundation of how images of Japanese women started to appear in the newspaper through Japanese films and advertisements of Japanese consumer products.

Cultural exchanges between Hong Kong and Japan has already begun by 1955, ten years after World War II. For example, Hong Kong had begun shooting movies in Japan and collaborating with Japanese movie studios. According to Press Release from the Hong Kong government, film director Lee Sun-Fung (李晨風) from Hong Kong movie studio MP & GI went to Japan to shoot the movie “The Lone Swan (斷鴻零雁 記)” in the same year (Hong Kong SAR, 2005). The next year, the Hong Kong film “Madame Butterfly (蝴蝶夫人)” was made with almost all scenes shot in Japan. Based on the renowned Puccini’s opera, the film facilitated the development of Hollywood style musicals by collaborating with Japanese Toho dancer troupe and the prestigious Takarazuka Revue (宝塚歌劇団) which consists of only female members.

Although images of these female dancers were not put in Wah Kiu Yat Po, Japanese women had already appeared in Hong Kong films by the mid-1955.

One of the frames of Japanese women’s images in 1955 was “traditional”. In fact, there were only five images of a Japanese woman in movie advertisements in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1955. This shows the scarcity of Japanese women’s images during the mid1950s. The movie advertisement portrayed a 30-year-old Japanese actress, Otowa Nobuko (乙羽信子). An image of a geisha with a traditional hair style, played by Otowa, was drawn in the advertisement (Figure 3).

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Figure 3: A movie advertisement of â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Life of Geishaâ&#x20AC;?.

Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 20 November 1955, Section 3/Page 2

This image of Otawa looks similar to young apprentice geisha, maiko, in Japan Airline advertisement in 1955 (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Advertisement of Japan Airline Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 8 August 1955, Section 1/Page 4

In the advertisement, maiko in kimono smiles, holding a traditional umbrella. There are probably cherry blossoms in the background. The text says that there is a flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo three times a week. Similarly, the Japanese movie advertisement

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“The Gate in Hell” (地獄門), whose story was set in the Heian Period in the 12th century, showed a traditional woman in kimono, played by Kyō Machiko (京マチ子) (Figure 5).

Figure 5: The advertisement for “The Gate in Hell” Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 28 July 1955, Section 4/Page 2

Today, historical movies and TV dramas are rarely shown in Hong Kong, however, Japanese historical movies and images of traditional Japanese women were occasionally “stripped” in Hong Kong in the 1950s.

Other frames of Japanese women’s images were “young” and “beautiful” in the mid1950s. The other three movie advertisements portrayed modern Japanese women. Two of them are advertisements of the well-known Toho movie “Godzilla”, a Japanese gigantic dinosaur (Figure 6).

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Figure 6: The advertisements for “Godzilla” (Left) Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 1 July 1955, Section 4/Page 2 (Right) Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 4 October 1955, Section 4/Page 3

Kawauchi Momoko ( 河 内 桃 子 ) appeared in the first Godzilla movie with actor Takarada Akira (宝田明) who was well-known in Hong Kong between the mid-1950s and the 1960s. She was 22 years old when the movie was released in Japan in 1954. 26year-old actress Wakayama Setsuko ( 若 山 セ ツ 子 ) appeared in the movie advertisement for the second Godzilla movie in October. Women in the advertisements look surprised and scared by Godzilla. By the woman in each advertisement, there is a male leading character who tries to protect her from the horror. The other advertisement portrayed 23-year-old actress Kishi Keiko (岸恵子) in the movie “A Journey” (旅路) (Figure 7).

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Figure 7: The advertisement for “A Journey” Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 19 July 1955, Section 4/Page 2

According to Kinema Junpōsha, all these young actresses in the movie advertisements were the beautiful box-office stars in Japan in the 1950s. However, it is important to note that the Japanese actresses who appeared in Wah Kiu Yat Po were not as young as today’s Japanese female stars in print media in Hong Kong.

Wah Kiu Yat Po frequently carried articles on Hollywood actresses, but there were only five images of Japanese actresses in movie advertisements in 1955.

Throughout the 1950s and also the 1960s, most of the imported films were still from Hollywood. Japanese films began to be shown more and regularly in the early 1960s.

Not until the early 1960s, did more images of Japanese women also begin to appear in the newspaper. In 1955, there were movies such as “The Prodigal” starring MGM actress Lana Turner, and “The Glass Slipper” starring another MGM actress, Leslie Caron (Figure 8).

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Figure 8: Movie advertisements.

Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 5 September 1955, Section 4/ Page 2

Images of Japanese women were rarely found in advertisements in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1955 except for the JAL advertisement. There were very few advertisements of Japanese products in 1955, although there was business and trade between Hong Kong and Japan. Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1955 spared one page for the schedule of commerce ships entering and leaving Hong Kong. The table on the top right of the paper (Figure 9) shows the name list of ships and their schedules.

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Figure 9: Schedule of commerce ships entering and leaving Hong Kong.

Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 6 November 1955, Section 3/Page 4

There were 56 ships for arrival and departure on 6th November, 1955. There were 24 ships arriving from Japan, which accounts for almost half of the total number of ships arriving Hong Kong, and 10 departing for Japan. The bottom half of Figure 5 is also a schedule for particular commerce ships. For example, O.S.K Line on the left is an Osaka trading vessel (Osaka Shōsen 大阪商船) and there is a schedule for four Japanese ships. Although frequent arrival and departure of Japanese trading ships can be seen in the newspaper, the 1950s was still the time when Hong Kong and Japan were trying to re-establish their economic tie after the war. There were advertisements of Japanese products in 1955, such as advertisements of tie, steel, textile, and rayon and nylon which are synthetic fibres (Figure 10 & 11).

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Figure 10: (Left) An advertisement for Mori tie in Tokyo Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 7 November 1955, Section 1/Page 2 (Middle) An advertisement for Yawata Steel Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 5 August 1955, Section 2/Page 3 (Right) An advertisement for Toyo Rayon Corporation Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 21 September 1955, Section 2/Page 3

Figure 11: Advertisements for Asahi Kasei Corporation textile (Left) Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 1 March1955 (Right) Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 10 October 1955, Section 3/Page 2

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There were images of women in textile advertisements, however, they were probably not Japanese. One of the advertisements portrayed a western woman in a Chinese dress. Another only showed the silhouette of a woman in a dress. In the 1950s, Japanese advertisements were mostly limited to those of banks, airlines, trading vessels and textile goods which were mostly business use.

In 1955, images of Japanese women were scarce. However, limited images of Japanese actresses which appeared in movie advertisements framed Japanese women as “traditional”, “young” and “beautiful”.

4.2 EMERGENCE OF HOLLYWOOD TYPE CLASSIC BEAUTIES IN THE 1960S

Frames of Japanese women’s images in Wah Kiu Yat Po in the 1960s were mostly “elegant” and “beautiful”. When there was a theatrical release of a Japanese film in Hong Kong, Wah Kiu Yat Po carried articles on the movie with photos and a synopsis.

There were also articles on the stars who appeared in the movies (Figure 12).

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Figure 12: (Above) An article explaining the story of a movie “A Week in Hawaii” Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 24 August 1960 (Bottom) Wakao Ayako with an actor Kawaguchi Hiroshi in the movie “An Ideal Wife” Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 3 September 1960, No 6/Page 4

As discussed in chapter 1, “Classic beauties” in Japanese films were characterized by their big eyes and sharply chiselled features. To Japanese eyes, they looked more like Hollywood actresses who have well-defined facial features such as Audrey Hepburn.

Hollywood movies such as “Gone with the Wind” starring Vivian Leigh and “September Affair” starring Joan Fontaine were shown in Hong Kong during this period (Figure 13).

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Figure 13: (Left) A movie advertisement for “Gone with the Wind” Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 12 August 1959, Section 6/Page 2 (Right) A movie advertisement for “September Affair” Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 20 September 1955, Section 4/Page 3

Hollywood actresses in the 1960s were elegant and refined. They had symmetric facial features which gave them an aura of an unattainable beauty. Similarly, Hong Kong film stars such as Yeh Feng (葉楓), Grace Chang (葛蘭), and You Min (尤敏), who were popular from the 1950s to early 1960s were also this Hollywood type of beauty (Figure 14).

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Figure 14:

(Left) A movie advertisement of “Tragedy of Love”, starring Yeh Feng Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 4 August 1959, Section 3/Page 3

(Middle) A movie advertisement with an image of Grace Chang Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 1 June 1960, Section 3/Page4

(Right) A portrait of You Min Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 16 April 1960, Section 6/Page 3

In the 1960s, both Japan and Hong Kong probably looked for their prototype beauties in Hollywood, which was the biggest producer and provider of entertainment in this era.

Elegance was one characteristic of Japanese film stars in the 1960s. One of the characteristics of Japanese actresses in the golden age of cinema was grace. This is probably because stars during this period had more experience and charisma than today’s entertainers. Prior to the arrival of television, ciname stood alone as a source of mass entertainment. It was the golden age of Japanese movie from the 1950s until the early 1960s. According to Yomota (2004), 547 movies were made in the year 1960 in Japan, which was the largest number for any year. Unlike today’s commercialized entertainment industry, the movie industry in Japan in the 1950s and

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1960s still had time and financial resources for training good actors and actresses. This seems to help Japanese film stars in the 1950s and 1960s to become elegant and graceful, which cannot be seen in recent Japanese entertainers. On the other hand, youth and child-like innocence seem to be emphasized in Japanese female entertainers nowadays.

Japanese women who appeared in Wah Kiu Ya Po were not as young as today’s female stars found in Hong Kong print media. For example, Wakao Ayako, whose photography and articles were put most frequently in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960 was an 27-year-old Japanese actress. The number of articles which featured Japanese actresses in entertainment section in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960 is counted for one year. Movie advertisements are not included. The average age of Japanese actresses appeared in the paper in 1960 is 25.1 years old. Japanese actresses at that time were mainly in their midtwenties.

Table 7 <Japanese actresses in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960> The number Name

Name in Japanese

5

Wakao Ayako

若尾文子

27

4

Tsukasa Yoko

司葉子

26

3

Nozoe Hitomi

野添ひとみ

23

3

Yamamoto Fujiko

山本富士子

29

2

Izumi Kyoko

泉京子

23

2

Dan Reiko

団令子

25

2

Shigeyama Noriko

重山規子

27

1

Kondo Keiko

近藤圭子

17

1

Kuwano Miyuki

桑野みゆき

18

1

Kita Akemi

北あけみ

20

1

Nakamura Tamao

中村玉緒

21

1

Miyakawa Kazuko

宮川和子

21

of articles

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Age in 1960

1

Kano Junko

叶順子

24

1

Kondo Mieko

近藤美恵子

24

1

Nakajima Sonomi

中島そのみ

24

1

Shirakawa Yumi

白川由美

24

1

Mihara Yoko

三原葉子

27

1

Nakata Yasuko

中田康子

27

1

Yashima Hiroko

矢島ひろ子

27

1

Arima Ineko

有馬稲子

28

1

Kishi Keiko

岸恵子

28

1

Kagawa Kyoko

香川京子

29

1

Eshima Keiko

絵島慶子

unknown

1

Fuji Teruko

藤井輝子

unknown

Age of the actresses is calculated based on the birth year indicated on the book Nihon Eiga Jinmei Jiten: Joyū hen (Kinema Junpōsha, 1995).

Wakao was the box-office star in one of the biggest Japanese movie studios Daiei (大 映). Although she was considered approachable compared to other glamorous actresses, she smiles elegantly and looks self-contained in the articles. Her classy attitude seems to be a general feature of Japanese actresses during this period.

The example of beautiful Japanese woman’s images can be seen in articles of Yamamoto Fujiko (山本富士子) (Figure 15).

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Figure 15: (Left) Yamamoto Fujiko and actor Kawasaki Keizo in the movie “A Week in Hawaii” Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 27 August 1960, Section 6/ Page 2 (Right) Yamamoto Fujiko in kimono Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 22 September 1960

According to Kinema Junpōsha (1995), Yamamoto won a prize for Miss Japan in 1950 and became an actress in 1953. She is considered as the representative of Japanese beauty. Her features are characterized by her wide almond eyes, long and tall nose, and a slender face. During the golden age of Japanese movies, many Japanese actresses were unattainable beauties like Yamamoto. Images of this Hollywood glamour type of Japanese cinema beauties were stripped to entertainment articles in Wah Kiu Yat Po in the 1960s.

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4.2.1 Sexy Japanese Actresses in the 1960s

In fact, Wah Kiu Yat Po also framed images of Japanese women as “sexy”. Glamā Joyū (グラマー女優), glamorous actress, who appeared in the paper, were famous for having alluring and glamorous bodies, and they played the role of sexy women in movies. Two of the most well-known glamorous actresses, Mihara Yoko (三原葉子) and Izumi Kyoko (泉京子), appeared in entertainment articles and movie advertisements in the paper (Figure 16 ).

Figure 16: (Left) A movie advertisement of Mihara Yoko Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 18 April 1960, Section 4/Page2 (Right) An article of Izumi Kyoko Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 5 May 1960, Section 6/Page 2

Japanese glamorous actresses often posed in a sexy manner while wearing revealing clothing. The newspaper did not focus on their face but rather focused on their body.

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Kinema Junpōsha writes that Mihara often played a role of an enchantress. In contrast to the elegance of Japanese film stars, the sensuality and wildness of the glamorous actresses seemed to be the attraction to audience in Hong Kong and Japan.

In the early 1960s, sexy women were not yet a common role in Hong Kong films, according to Kar and Bren (2004: 277), a programmer for the Hong Kong Film Archive and co-author of the book Hong Kong Cinema. They argue that popular female figures in Hong Kong films in the 1950s and early 1960s were a good wife and mother. It was not until the late 1960s that soft pornographic movies started to appear in Hong Kong (p277). In this regard, it is likely that Hong Kong imported sensual films from overseas including Japan. Images of sexy Japanese women, which are in fact found in today’s mass-circulated papers in Hong Kong, can be traced back to the year 1960.

4.2.2 Large availability of Japanese Women’s Images

The majority of the articles on Japanese film stars in Wah Kiu Yat Po featured actresses in their mid-twenties. The total number of articles featuring Japanese actresses was 22, that of articles on actors was three and there were ten articles that featured both actress and actor. Although movies by world famous director Kurosawa Akira (黒澤明 ) were shown in Hong Kong, the newspaper rarely ran photographic images of the famous leading actor Mifune Toshiro (三船敏郎) in its entertainment section. There were two other famous Japanese film actors in the 1960s; i.e. Ichikawa Raizo (市川雷蔵), who mainly acted in period dramas and Katsu Shintaro (勝新太

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郎), best known as the actor who played “Zatoichi (座頭市)” in the series of films by the same name set in the Edo Period. However, the paper did not carry as many articles about the two famous Japanese actors as Japanese actresses.

Similarly, more Japanese women rather than men were used in Japanese products advertisements in Wah Kiu Yat Po in the 1960s. The major Japanese advertisements were home products such as shampoo and detergent and home appliances such as electric fans and rice cookers. The paper ran a number of advertisements for Kao (花王 ), one of the biggest personal hygiene and healthcare product companies in Japan. One of their advertisements in Wah Kiu Yat Po was an advertisement for shampoo. The woman in the Kao shampoo advertisement of Figure 17 appears to be in her twenties.

Another Kao advertisement in Figure 18 portrays a mother who washes her child’s hair.

Figure 17: An advertisement of Kao shampoo Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 19 April 1960, Section 2/Page 4

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Figure 18: An advertisement of Kao shampoo Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 6 August 1960, No2/Page 1

Since Kao sells shampoo and laundry detergent, the target consumers were housewives and young women in Hong Kong. Although it cannot be concluded that these women in Kao advertisements were Japanese, it is worth noting that women in the advertisements were probably housewives. Similarly, the advertisement of Japanese bath salt which portrays a woman who is likely Japanese, says the bath salt is for home use (Figure 19).

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Figure 19: An advertisement of Japanese bath salt Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 26 November 1960, Section 1/Page 4

In this regard, the woman in the bath salt advertisement seems to be a married woman in her mid-twenties to early thirties, and was not particularly glamorous. In contrast, todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s advertisements for Japanese personal hygiene products and cosmetics in Hong Kong showed images of young Japanese women in their teens or early twenties. In the 1960s, it was not common to frame teenage girls in advertisements of Japanese home products.

Airline advertisements in the 1960s framed Japanese women as traditional women. Japanese women in kimono were shown in advertisements of Japan Airline (JAL), targeting Hong Kong people with higher income. A flight attendant in the JAL advertisement is nicely dressed in kimono (Figure 20), and serving Japanese tea.

Figure 20: An advertisement of JAL Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 12 February 1965

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It seems that the advertisement projected “Orientalized” traditional Japanese women for appealing foreign customers. According to Said (1978), the late professor of English and Comparative Literature at Colombia University, the Orient were framed in Western literature as inferior, mythical, and sexual. The advertisements of JAL in the 1960s seem to employ Japanese women’s images framed as traditional and submissive by Western perspectives. Emphasizing “Japanese-ness” may have been one of the strategies to attract Hong Kong passengers. The JAL office was located in one of the finest hotels in Hong Kong, Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon. In 1965, travelling overseas was not leisure available to most citizen in Hong Kong. Since this advertisement is written in Chinese and put in Chinese-language newspaper, its target customer was Hong Kong Chinese, but the advertisements targeted people with higher income, such as executives.

Images of Japanese women in advertisements in the 1960s are framed to appeal to the target consumers. Based on the Japanese advertisements, the major customers of Japanese products in Hong Kong were people who could afford flights to Japan, Japanese electronic products, and movies, and housewives who purchase personal hygiene products. The target consumers of Japanese products were not particularly young people. Therefore, Japanese women framed in Japanese products advertisements in the 1960s were mainly housewives, mothers or women probably in their mid-twenties to early thirties.

4.3 UNATTAINABLE TO APPROACHABLE: SHIFT FROM MOVIE STARS TO TV STARS IN THE 1970S

The girl-next-door type of Japanese women started to appear in the 1970s in place of beautiful film stars. The change in Japanese women’s images developed alongside the change to the economic and social situation in Hong Kong. The fact that movies were replaced by television also became a major factor in promoting younger and more approachable Japanese women.

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4.3.1 Mothers in Electronic Product Advertisements

As discussed in chapter 2, the economic and social situation in Hong Kong started to improve in the late 1970s when the economy took off. Imports from Japan also increased heavily in 1970. As Table 8 indicates, the amount of imports from Japan in 1960 was 941 million Hong Kong dollars.

Table 8: Imports from Japan 800 0 700 0 600 0 500 0 400

HK dollars

0 300

(million)

0 200 0 100 0

0 196

196

196

196

196

197

197

197

0

2

4

6

8

0

2

4

Source: Hong Kong Annual Report

It leapt to 4,188 million Hong Kong dollars in 1970, which is almost 4.5 times the amount in 1960. In 1975, imports from Japan increased to 6,991 million. Along with the increase of imports from Japan, advertisements for Japanese electronic products became prevalent in Wah Kiu Yat Po in the 1970s.

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Japanese electronic product advertisements stripped images of “mothers”. It is difficult to identify if they were Japanese or Hong Kong Chinese, however, it is worth noting that the women in an advertisement for a Mitsubishi washing machine and a Panasonic advertisement (Figure 21) are again a mother as the advertisement for a Kao shampoo in 1960.

Figure 21: (Left) An advertisement for a Mitsubishi washing machine Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 21 January 1970 (Right) An advertisement for Panasonic (formerly National) Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 28 January 1975

Most of the Japanese electronic products in the 1970s were still mainly for family use.

Rice cookers, TV sets, and electronic fans were common items. Therefore, advertisements framed women as “a mother”, who uses home appliances.

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4.3.2 Replacement of Entertainment Media: From Movies to Television

In 1967, Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), first free-to-air broadcaster, started in Hong Kong. A subscription television service offered by Rediffusion Television, now known as Asian Television Limited, was already available in 1957.

With free-to-air television, however, any household in Hong Kong with a TV set could enjoy free TV programmes. By 1971, the diffusion of TV set surpassed 70 % of the population (Hong Kong Annual Report, 1971). Later, Rediffusion was offered a freeto-air television service license and ended its service as cable TV in the same year.

With the start of free-to-air television broadcasting, Japanese TV programmes such as popular TV drama “V is Our Sign”, were imported to Hong Kong. When it was broadcasted on TVB in 1970, Mrs. Lee, former police officer, was 16 years old. She still remembers how exciting the TV drama was. Her parents were not happy that their daughter was enthusiastic about Japanese TV drama because of their complex feeling towards Japan which invaded Hong Kong during World War II. However, she said she fully enjoyed the show which talked about young female volleyball players who make great efforts to win the match. Japanese women in this TV drama were framed as young and also hardworking.

When Tokyo Olympic Games were held in Japan, TV had already over taken cinema as the major entertainment in Japan. The Japanese movie industry was in decline since the early 1960s. According to Yomota (2000: 161), the largest box office record was 1.1 billion people in 1958 and it dropped to 51 million people in 1963. Nothing could stop the decline of the movie industry in Japan. By 1971, some of the biggest movie studios Nikkatsu (日活), Daiei (大映), and Shin Toho (新東宝), had to close down their studios (p161). The main reason for the decline of Japan’s movie industry was the start of terrestrial television broadcasting which had begun

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14 years earlier than in Hong Kong. The diffusion of TV sets in Japan reached over 70% in 1965 in Japan. In Hong Kong, 70% of the households owned a TV set in 1971 ďź&#x2C6;Hong Kong, Annual Report 1971ďź&#x2030;. According to Schilling (1997), the first event that boosted television sales was the royal wedding of the then Crown Prince Akihito and the princess Michiko in 1959. The second event was in 1964 when the Tokyo Olympic Games were held. People in Japan changed from black and white TVs to colour TVs to watch the Olympic Games.

Table 9: Television in Japan 1953

The first terrestrial broadcast by NHK, Japanese public broadcasting

1959

Television sales increased thanks to people's interest in watching Royal Wedding

1960

30% of households owned a black and white television Many people in Japan made the shift from black and white television to colour one to

1964

watch Tokyo Olympics

1965

74.5% of households owned a colour television

Source: Schilling (1997)

Table 10: Television in Hong Kong 1957

The first subscription television offered by Rediffusion Television

1967

The first free-to-air television begins

1971

The diffusion of TV set surpasses 70% of the population

Source: Hong Kong Annual Report

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4.3.3 Young Japanese Female TV Stars Replace Elegant Film Stars

Images of Japanese women in Wah Kiu Yat Po started to shift from Japanese film stars to young and approachable TV stars in the 1970s. For example, the paper reported about a visit from 18-year-old Nakayama Mari who appeared in “V is Our Sign” in 1971 (Figure 22).

Figure 22: An article about Nakayama Mari who visited Hong Kong.

Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 16 January 1971

Nakayama was young, and child-like with pigtails tied high up on her head. These TV stars were generally younger than film stars in the 1960s. They also looked more approachable compared to unattainable cinema beauties.

Hong Kong newspapers “stripped” images of young women, when a Japanese teenage singer also appeared in the newspaper in the mid-1970s. In Japan, early teenage girls started to appear on TV in the beginning of the 1970s. One of the most notable teenage stars in the 1970s was Yamaguchi Momoe who debuted at the age of

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14. Figure 23 is an advertisement of a movie starring Yamaguchi, and also starring Miura Tomokazu (三浦友和) who later became her husband.

Figure 23: A movie advertisement of Yamaguchi Momoe.

Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 31 November 1976

The advertisement printed only images of young Yamaguchi. She debuted as a singer, but also appeared in “Red Serial Dramas” (赤いシリーズ) as an actress from 1974 until 1980 in Japan. In the 1970s in Hong Kong, other Japanese singers such as “folk singer” Tanimura Shinji (谷村新司) and pop singer Itsuwa Mayumi (五輪真弓) were also popular. However Yamaguchi was much younger than them. When the movie made a theatrical release in Hong Kong, Yamaguchi was only 17 years old. In addition, Yamaguchi was an approachable girls-next-door as I discussed in chapter 1.

Mr Wong, who was in early teens when Yamaguchi’s songs were introduced to Hong Kong, recently purchased her “Legendary Collection” album released in Hong Kong.

He recalls she was very popular in Hong Kong in the 1970s. She was the only very young singer, therefore she became popular in Hong Kong where young stars were not yet in the mainstream of the entertainment industry.

Apart from young and approachable Japanese singers, JAL advertisements still framed images of Japanese women as traditional. One model, probably in her twenties, wears a kimono. It is worth noting that the model in the advertisements does

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not look straight into a camera, but looks away somewhere, which seems to give an impression that she is shy or modest (Figure 24).

Figure 24: Advertisements of JAL (From left) Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 17 April, 19 August and 18 December in 1970

In Goffman’s dramaturgy, this nonverbal sign, i.e. withdrawing her gaze, shows submission and dependency. As a result, the advertisements seem to give an impression that Japanese women could be submissive and dependent. However in today’s Chineselanguage newspapers, the majority of Japanese women’s images do not portray traditional women unless they introduce traditional Japanese culture. While “traditional” Japanese women were not a common frame, it is important to note that there have been images of traditional and submissive Japanese women from time to time in JAL advertisements since the early 1960s.

The number of articles reporting Japanese female entertainers suddenly decreased in the 1970s. Unlike in 1960 when the newspaper regularly reported on Japanese film stars, there were no articles on Japanese entertainers in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1970 and 1975.

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4.4 YOUNG AND KAWAII JAPANESE WOMEN GO MAINSTREAM IN HONG KONG MEDIA

The frames “young” and “kawaii” of Japanese women start to be widely available during the 1980s. Thanks to the foundation of economic stability and the demand for entertainment media that took off in the late 1970s, young people in Hong Kong started to spend money on consumer goods such as portable audio players and entertainment such as cartoons and pop music. For example, Wah Kiu Yat Po carried an advertisement of Sanyo’s portable cassette player with an image of young and lively woman probably in her late teens or early twenties (Figure 25).

Figure 25: An advertisement for Sanyo’s portable cassette player Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 17 April

There was a demand for young entertainers. However, Ms. Wu recalls that most local stars were usually well-trained entertainers who were over 30 years old. To supply entertainment for young Hong Kong people, Japanese pop songs were imported from

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Japan. While the frame “young”, as in teenagers and women in early twenties, began to be formed in the 1970s, it was mid-1980s when kawaii Japanese female entertainers became more prevalent in Hong Kong.

4.4.1 Kawaii Japanese Teenage Idols

Kawaii idol Matsuda Seiko also became popular in Hong Kong. She was one of the most popular idol singers along with Kondo Masahiko, and Nakamori Akina in Japan. Wah Kiu Yat Po put an advertisement of her film “Eve in a Summer Dress” in 1985 (Figure 26).

Figure 26: A movie advertisement of “Eve in a Summer Dress” starring Matsuda Seiko Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 8 February 1985, Section 5/Page 1,

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Mr. Hui, a man now in his mid-thirties, and in the music industry, excitedly told me that her songs were popular in Hong Kong as well as in Japan in the mid-1980s.

Ming Pao reported on how popular Japanese idols were in Hong Kong (Figure 27).

Figure 27 : An article talking about Japanese popular culture in Hong Kong Source: Ming Pao, 2 May 1985

Japan experienced a teenage idol boom in the 1980s. Starting from the 1970s, music programmes on TV became popular and many teenage singers debuted. Most of these idols debuted when they were 15 or 16 years old. Their youth, freshness, and charisma attracted a young audience in Japan, and also in Hong Kong.

4.4.2 Young, Approachable Japanese Women in Magazines

Japanese magazines, especially entertainment magazines and fashion magazines, began to play an important role in fostering an image of young and approachable Japanese women in the 1980s. It is crucial to understand most teenage girls in Hong

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Kong read Japanese entertainment magazines as well as Japanese fashion magazines.

When I talked to Hong Kong women in their thirties and early forties about Japanese fashion magazines, they usually mentioned they used to read entertainment magazines first then started to also read fashion magazines. For them, Japanese entertainment magazines were necessary to obtain information about these Japanese teen idols. In the 1980s, Wah Kiu Yat Po seldom carried articles on Japanese stars. The paper terminated its publication in January 1995. Instead, Heibon (平凡) and Myōjō (明星), Japanese entertainment magazines, were imported from Japan and fulfilled the curiosity of young Hong Kong people. Today, Japanese magazines mean Japanese fashion magazines to most Hong Kong young people. However, young people in Hong Kong in the 1980s also read Japanese entertainment magazines. They ran many photographs of popular idols, their profile and the lyrics of their newly released songs. Three Hong Kong women in their thirties, who are big fans of Japanese fashion magazines, were also fans of these Japanese idol singers.

In fact, the Japanese magazine which teenage girls in Hong Kong first bought was not a fashion magazine, but an entertainment magazine featuring Japanese idols. Like Ms. Wu who went to a small parallel import stores where they only sell posters and records of Japanese singers, to buy a Japanese magazine, teenage girls in Hong Kong went to a similar type of store to buy Heibon or Myōjō. Japanese magazines were slightly more expensive than local magazines, but Hong Kong girls still wanted to buy them. However, they could not afford to buy records of Japanese singers, therefore they often rented records instead of buying them. Ms. Wu also listened to Japanese popular music in the 1980s. She also rented a record and played it at home.

Her family had a record player in the living room, therefore the family members – mother, father and her two younger sisters – had to listen to the same music. She was crazy about Japanese singers because they were young.

Ms. Ho in her mid-thirties and working in the financial industry, remembers there were almost no young stars in Hong Kong at that time. She says local stars in Hong Kong had to be well-trained in the entertainment industry therefore they were not

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young anymore when they became famous. Although Hong Kong youngsters started to be able to afford entertainment, Hong Kong entertainment industry could not provide young and fresh stars. Instead, TV stations imported TV programmes from Japan featuring Japanese idol singers to fulfil their needs. Japanese youth culture was stripped in Hong Kong. In this regard, the frame “young” Japanese women began to be prevalent.

The Japanese women who appeared in Japanese fashion magazines looked more approachable to young Hong Kong women. Japanese fashion magazines and entertainment magazines were both popular. Ms. Wu says that she went to a small store in Tsim Sha Tsui, a major shopping area in Hong Kong in order to buy Japanese fashion magazines. She also went to a bookstore that sold Japanese fashion and design books and magazines. “Japanese fashion magazines at that time were very useful to me”, she says. “A magazine called JUN had paper patterns for dress as I didn’t have to make them on my own.” She thought Japanese design and fashion were more advanced than those of Hong Kong. In addition, there was no fashion magazine for teenagers in the 1980s in Hong Kong. Japanese fashion magazines were the only magazines Hong Kong teenagers could read in the 1980s. For many Hong Kong young women, Japanese models seemed easier to imitate in regards to fashion. Images of Japanese women available in these fashion magazines for young readers were not supermodels who walk runways for high-end fashion, but rather girls-next-door type of young women. Thus, Japanese models look more approachable. While Japanese actresses in the 1960s were beauties, approachable Japanese female models in fashion magazines were more likely described as kawaii in terms of their facial feature and fashion style. One of the most popular Japanese fashion magazines in Hong Kong, non-no, seems to use mostly teenage models who have round face and eyes. They are kawaii and approachable, but not beautiful so that teenage readers find it easy to imitate their make-up and fashion style.

The overall emphasis on Japanese youth culture, including animation for children in Hong Kong, seems to be influential on developing the frames of young and kawaii Japanese women. The 1980s was the beginning of a boom for Japan’s youth culture.

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The Japanese animation “Doraemon” about a robot cat started its broadcasting in 1981 in Hong Kong (Trends in Japan, 2000). Chinese-language paper Ming Pao occasionally ran print version of Doraemon (Figure 28). “Dr. Slump”, a story of a little girl genius, was another popular Japanese animation in Hong Kong.

Ming Pao put an advertisement of the shows in a concert hall in Kowloon (Figure 29).

Figure 28: Japanese cartoon “Doraemon”. All the dialogues are translated into Cantonese.

Source: Ming Pao, 2 May 1985.

Figure 29: An advertisement of “Dr. Slump” shows Source: Ming Pao, 17 February 1985.

Children in Hong Kong began to consume a large number of Japanese cartoons in the 1980s. These children in Hong Kong who grew up watching Japanese cartoons,

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according to Nakano (2002: 239), later become a big consumer of Japanese TV dramas in the 1990s.

4.5 SUMMARY

The frame of “young” Japanese women has developed since 14-year-old idol Yamaguchi Momoe became popular in Hong Kong in the 1970s. It continued to develop through the idol boom in the mid-1980s and the spread of Japanese trendy dramas in the late 1990s. Japanese youth culture was stripped to fill in the void of youth culture in Hong Kong.

The mid-1980s was also a critical point where kawaii Japanese women became more prevalent when burikko idol Matsuda Seiko appeared. As Hong Kong young people began to gain spending power in the mid-1980s, they craved for young and approachable stars and fashion models whom they could aspire to.

In conclusion, images of Japanese women have been framed as “young”, “cute” and “sexy” gradually throughout history and the frames developed particularly after the mid-1980s when youth culture bloomed both in Hong Kong and Japan. In the next chapter, I explore the influence of mass-circulated on framing Japanese women as young, kawaii and also sexy.

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CHAPTER V SELECTING IMAGES OF YOUNG, KAWAII AND SEXY JAPANESE WOMEN: FROM 2000 TO THE PRESENT

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This chapter examines how editors in Hong Kong frame images of Japanese women as “young and kawaii” from 2000 to the present. First, I examine the background of Hong Kong newspapers, focusing on the launch of the mass-circulated Apple Daily. This paper has upset the market equilibrium by setting the price lower than other newspapers. It brought severe competition in newspaper market in Hong Kong. Furthermore, the success of this tabloid led other newspapers, to copy its editorial style. As a result, many newspapers including quality papers became more infotainment due to the influence of the Apple Daily.

Images of young and cute Japanese women are emphasized even in quality Chinese-language newspapers such as Ming Pao. The majority of Japanese female stars who appear in the paper are women below 25, including teenage girls. These female stars are usually young and cute actresses who appear in Japanese trendy dramas or Japanese pop (J-pop) singers.

One of the frames, “sexy” Japanese women that once appeared in Wah Kiu Yat Po in the 1960s, began to re-appear in print media since the launch of mass-circulated paper Apple Daily in 1995. Apple Daily, being a sensational tabloid, uses images of sexy Japanese women to attract readers. There are two major reasons why sexy Japanese women are emphasized in the paper. First, the Apple Daily is an infotainment newspaper that wants to acquire as many readers as possible. Second, the paper obtains entertainment information from Japanese weekly magazines which mainly portray sexy Japanese women.

It seems that who appears and who does not appear in Hong Kong print media are the key to understanding the selection process. In fact, certain types of Japanese female stars do not appear in print media in Hong Kong. Female comedians, TV talk show hosts, actresses and singers over 30 years old rarely appear in newspapers.

Japanese female models in their mid-thirties or older do not appear in high-end

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cosmetics advertisements for mature women. Based on the analysis on who appears and who does not appear, I would also like to investigate the nature of Chineselanguage newspapers in Hong Kong and their editorial policies which influence the selection process.

5.1 CHANGING MEDIA MARKET IN HONG KONG: THE LAUNCH OF APPLE DAILY AND ITS INFLUENCE

The launch of Apple Daily in 1995 by media conglomerate Next Media changed other newspapers in Hong Kong. The paper even brought a new frame of Japanese women’s images and influenced on Japanese women’s images in other newspapers.

Jimmy Lai, who became successful in the garment business set up Next Media and began publishing Next Magazine in 1991. The magazine, which thrives on “sex and violence” (Lee, 2000: p306), influenced the mass-circulated newspaper Oriental Daily News (東方日報) and as a consequence, it published the similarly gossip-oriented magazine Eastweek. Its colourful and eye-catching layout was modelled after the USA Today which has the widest circulation in the U.S. (ibid). The success of Next Magazine led Lai to launch the entertainment-oriented Apple Daily in June 1995.

Before the Apple Daily was launched, the major mass-circulated press were the Oriental Daily News and Sing Pao (成報, Success Daily). However, since the launch of Apple Daily, the Oriental Daily News matched it with substantial investment and these two dailies became the Big Two with the largest circulation in Hong Kong (p310; HKABC, 2006). Because their influence over the newspaper market became

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bigger, many other papers, even quality papers, followed their infotainment editorial style (ibid).

The Apple Daily also triggered a competitive price war. During the first month of its launch, the paper sold at HK $3 per copy, which was a 60% discount (Lee, 2000: p306). In early 1996, the Oriental Daily News followed the price-cutting by the Apple Daily and reduced the price from HK $5 to HK $2 per copy (p307). Most papers had kept the cartel-set price, but they had to lower the price to compete with each other after the Oriental Daily News sharply cut its price. The first price lasted for six months and the newspaper price was set to HK $5 per copy in July 1996 (p308). According to the Hong Kong Journalists Association, there were two more rounds of price-cutting before March 1999. When The Sun, another mass-circulated newspaper was published by the Oriental Daily News, the Apple Daily again lowered the price from HK $5 to HK $3. This time, most papers did not follow the price war, but the launch of Apple Daily and the competition clearly disturbed the market equilibrium.

The Apple Daily’s “gossip-crime-sex” formula (Lee, 2000: 306) affected the editorial style of other newspapers including the quality papers. The Apple Daily pursues its commercial goal, which is to sell more papers, rather than to pursue journalistic ideal to provide quality news to readers. In 1995, its entertainment pages consisted of three pages for Hong Kong entertainment news and some other Chinese entertainment news from mainland China and Taiwan, a page for international entertainment news and movie schedule, and another one page for TV schedules. The paper has been reporting on Hollywood and Japanese stars almost every day in its international entertainment section since its launch. Now their entertainment section is doubled; 10 pages for entertainment news every day and two spared for international entertainment news. Since 1995, the paper even provides soft pornography in its “Night Life” section. Its approach to sensationalism led many papers to follow more entertainment news and to copy the layout of Apple Daily. Lee (p310) argues that

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quality newspapers including Ming Pao, slowly applied the “attention-grabbing pictures and headline” that mass dailies use. Currently, even the party press Ta Kung Pao (大公報) and Wen Wei Po (文匯報) look similar to the

Apple Daily in terms of the colourful layout and use of pictures.

5.2 YOUNG AND KAWAII JAPANESE WOMEN IN MING PAO

The editors in Ming Pao frame Japanese women as young and kawaii in the entertainment section. Although the paper is known as a newspaper of record in Hong Kong, it has devoted five pages to entertainment section from October 2000 to now.

The entertainment section is divided into four local pages and one page of international news. Local entertainment news reports on mostly Hong Kong stars and sometimes stars from Taiwan and mainland China. International entertainment section generally carries articles of Hollywood stars and Japanese stars, and occasionally of Korean stars. The space that Hollywood stars and Japanese stars occupy on the one page of international entertainment news is almost the same. Hollywood and Japanese entertainment are the two major news that Ming Pao often reports about. Japanese stars usually take up half the page of international entertainment news. This means the quality paper Ming Pao gives one tenth of the entertainment section to Japanese entertainment news almost every day.

Ming Pao seems to have Apple Daily-ized itself in terms of layout and the amount of entertainment articles to survive in a competitive media market in Hong

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Kong. Ming Pao has tried to borrow some tactics from mass-circulated papers to be more attention-grabbing. Probably there was no choice for Ming Pao since there were three rounds of competitive price cutting initiated by Apple Daily before March 1999 and the paper stayed away from the last two rounds of the price war (HKJA, 1999).

Therefore, it must have been crucial for Ming Pao to change its editorial policies to attract more readers. In this regard, October 2000 may have been a critical turning point for Ming Pao. Since October 2000, the paper has started to put out more articles on international entertainment, focusing particularly on Hollywood and Japanese entertainment. The name of the international entertainment section has changed from “Movie and TV information” to “Entertainment from the East and the West” as well.

International entertainment section used to be only half the page and the rest was a timetable of TV programmes and introduction of TV series. Figure 1 is a page for international entertainment section on 10th July, 2000. The paper reported on Hollywood stars every day in 2000, but articles on Japanese stars appeared only occasionally. From January to September in 2000, the number of articles on Japanese female stars varied from 3 in March to 17 in September. It increased to 25 in October 2000 as the paper began to print Japanese entertainment news almost every day.

Figure 30: Left: An article on Matsushima Nanako (middle). Source: Ming Pao, 10 July 2000, C5.

Right: An article on Morning Musume (middle). Source: Ming Pao, 2 September 2000, C6.

In October 2000, the small international entertainment section was transformed into a full page of articles with photographs of Hollywood and Japanese stars. Ming Pao also began to apply a more dynamic layout similar to that of Apple Daily. Before, international entertainment articles were usually divided into three or four squareshaped parts. The photographic images were also cut into a square shape. In contrast,

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the international entertainment section on 3 October 2000 put images of two Japanese actresses on the top half of the page, Actress Uehara Takako (上原多香

子) and Matsu Takako (松たか子), who was 17 years old and 23 years old respectively when they appeared in the article, show their while body, not only their face (Figure 31). As larger photos of entertainers were used, the section was enlarged into one page.

Now Ming Pao seems to follow the layout that Apple Daily usually does for Japanese entertainment news.

Figure 31: Matsu Takako (right) and Uehara Takako (left).

Source: Ming Pao, 3 October 2000, C5.

The average age of Japanese female stars in Ming Pao and Apple Daily in 2000 is 3 years younger than that in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960. It did not decrease dramatically because Japanese actresses in the late twenties and early thirties who became popular in the 1990s still appear in the newspapers. The average age of Japanese female stars in Ming Pao in 2000 was 21.8 years old, which is three years younger than that in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960. They are in their mid-teens to early twenties, except for those who became popular through TV dramas such as actress

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Fujiwara Norika (藤原紀香), Matsushima Nanako (松嶋菜々子) and singer-actress Sakai Noriko (酒井法子) (Table 11). Fujiwara appeared in the Japanese TV drama “Love Generation” in 1997 and Matsushima was in “GTO” in 1998, which also became popular in Hong Kong. Sakai is an actress who used to be a popular idol in the late 1980s in Japan and the early 1990s in Taiwan and Hong Kong. She appeared in the TV drama “Hitotsu Yane no Shita” (ひとつ屋根の下, Under the Same Roof) in 1993 which was also broadcasted in Hong Kong. Sakai who appeared in one of the most popular Japanese trendy dramas thus appears in Chinese-language newspapers.

Japanese actresses and actors who played a main role in these trendy dramas in the late 1990s, although they are in their late twenties or early thirties, appear quite frequently in Chinese-language newspapers in Hong Kong even today.

Table 11: Top 10 Japanese Female Stars in Ming Pao in 2000 by Frequency Number Name of articles 6

Morning Musume

6

Fujiwara Norika

Name Japanese (Name Chinese) モーニング娘 （Morning 娘）

in in

Age in 2000

16.5

藤原紀香

29

松嶋菜々子

28

深田恭子

18

5

Matsushima Nanako Fukada Kyoko

5

Hamasaki Ayumi

5

Utada Hikaru

5

Sakai Noriko

酒井法子

29

4

Tomosaka Rie

ともさかりえ （友 坂理恵）

21

3

Uehara Takako

上原多香子

17

3

Suzuki Ami

鈴木亜美

18

6

104

浜崎あゆみ (濱崎歩) 宇多田ヒカル （宇多田光）

22 17

What significantly changed from the 1960s is that teenagers were more prevalent in 2000. As Table 14 indicates, the majority of news on Japanese female stars consists of women in their teens and in early twenties.

Table 12: The percentage of articles on Japanese female star according to the age, Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960 (left) and Ming Pao in 2000 (right)

Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960 unknown 5%

Ming Pao in 2000

teenagers 5%

30s and older 1% 25-29 yrs old 25%

teenagers 37%

20-24 32% 25-29 58% 20-24 yrs old 37%

Among 88 articles on Japanese female stars, there were 33 articles covering Japanese teenage female stars, another 33 articles on women in their early twenties, and 22 articles on women in their mid to late twenties. There was only one article on a Japanese female star over 30, which was an article on 35-year-old singer Nakamori Akina (中森明菜). She was popular in Japan and Hong Kong in the mid-1980s. The average age of Japanese women in Ming Pao is only three years younger than in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960. However, the percentage of articles reporting female teenage stars increased from 5.2% out of 38 articles in the 1960s among the articles on Japanese women to 37% in 2000. In addition, while women from 25 and 29 years old occupy nearly 60% of articles featuring Japanese female entertainers in Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960, in 2000, more than 70% of articles on Japanese female stars in Ming Pao featured teenage girls and women from 20 to 24 years old.

Actresses in their late twenties and early thirties who used to appear in trendy dramas with popular male idol Kimura Takuya in the late 1990s appear in Chinese

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newspaper’s entertainment section as though they were still leading actresses in Japan. In fact, Kimura remains as the leading character in trendy dramas today, however the actresses who played the heroines in dramas with him have been replaced by younger actresses. When Kimura first acted in the serial trendy drama called Long Vacation in 1996, his partner was portrayed by Yamaguchi Tomoko (山口智子), who is now 43 years old. A year later, he appeared in the drama Love Generation with actress Matsu Takako and Fujiwara Norika, who are now 30 and 35 years old respectively. In 2004, Kimura played a leading part in Pride with younger actress Takeuchi Yuko, who turned 27 years old in 2007. I did not find articles on Yamaguchi in newspapers in Hong Kong today because she has rarely appeared on TV in Japan since the late 1990s. However, Chinese-language newspapers often featured Matsu and Fujiwara in its entertainment section in 2005 even though they are not particularly young. Images of Japanese actresses who appeared in trendy dramas for young audience are likely to be sliced despite their age. Some of these female stars still actively appear in print media in Japan while others are not particularly popular anymore.

Ming Pao editors seem to put an emphasis on the cuteness of Japanese women, as well as their youth. The paper puts a number of articles on kawaii Japanese singers and actresses. For example, Morning Musume (モーニング娘) who recorded the most appearances in the paper in 2000, is considered a cute idol group. Morning Musume is an all-girl Japanese pop group that often changes its members. “Musume” means daughter or girl in Japanese therefore members are mostly teenagers and women in their early twenties. The group is characterised by the youth of its members, high-pitched voices, and matching girlie costumes. According to a NHK survey in 2000, Morning Musume is particularly popular among teenage boys and girls and also among men in their thirties. Fukada Kyoko (深田恭子), who ranked second in Table 13, is also a young and kawaii actress who debuted at the age of 15. Her big eyes, her soft

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and slow way of talking make her look like an innocent girl. The survey by NHK pointed out that Fukada is popular among men. In the survey, men in their twenties and thirties chose Fukada as their favourite female star, but none of the age group from female respondents in their twenties and thirties chose her. Another popular figure is singer Hamasaki Ayumi (浜崎あゆみ) who also has big and round eyes. Unlike Morning Musume and Fukada, Hamasaki is more popular among women. She is a fashion leader and a charismatic singer, especially for high school girls. However, Japanese women may also consider her as kawaii. Indeed, she has been a cover model for Japanese teen girls' magazine Cawaii (an alternate spelling of kawaii).

Second, Ming Pao chooses cute pictures of Japanese female stars rather than choosing “sexy” pictures. Although the paper increased the number of articles on international entertainment news and changed the layout to look more similar to Apple Daily, Ming Pao seldom puts images Japanese women in bikinis or provocative dresses as Apple Daily does. The former editor of Apple Daily thinks this is because Ming Pao tries to differentiate itself from Apple Daily and maintain its reputation as a newspaper of record. Based on Goffman’s dramaturgy (1979), these nonverbal behaviours are considered “submissive”. Acting a subordinate role, Japanese women look also cute in the entertainment news articles. Matsu in Figure 14 sits with both legs stretched. She seems relaxed and her back is not very straightened up. Another small photo portrays her moving and this makes her look casual and not stiff. Selfpresentation as such seems to make Japanese women look more approachable while Japanese film stars in the 1960s looked unattainable and beautiful with more fixed poses. This “approachableness” also seems to make Japanese women look cute.

In Ming Pao, young actresses in Japanese trendy dramas that are popular in Hong Kong, and young pop singers are the major frames of Japanese women. They are also portrayed as cute and submissive, rather than powerful or elegant. This is because young people in Hong Kong began to consume Japanese youth culture in the mid-

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1980s and later, Japanese youth culture made more penetration into Hong Kong in the 1990s due to the spread of Japanese trendy dramas in the form of pirated VCDs.

5.3 SEXY JAPANESE WOMEN IN APPLE DAILY

Editors of Apple Daily frame Japanese women partially as “sexy”. Being famous for offering sensational news, Apple Daily chooses images of Japanese women which can easily attract attention from readers. Many photographic images in Apple Daily display Japanese female stars in bikinis, underwear, or dresses that expose a lot of skin. However, this does not mean the Japanese female stars in the paper are all sexy stars like ”playboy playmates”. There are two types of sexy Japanese women who appear in the entertainment section of Apple Daily. One is actresses younger than early thirties and the other is young female models mostly in bikinis.

Apple Daily often runs sexy images of Japanese actresses who were in trendy dramas in the 1990s, which young people in Hong Kong watched mainly in the form of pirated VCDs. Okina Megumi (奥菜恵) aged 21 in 2000, for instance, looks sexy by making a whole body-canting pose in clothing with a deep neckline and short in length that shows her thighs (Figure 32). Okina played a major role in trendy dramas in 1996 and 1998 with idol duos from Johnny’s Entertainment’s (ジャニーズ事務所,) “Kinki Kids” who are extremely popular in Hong Kong.

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Figure 32: Okina Megumi (right).

Source: Apple Daily, 8 January 2000, C21.

28-year-old actress Tokiwa Takako ( 常 盤 貴 子 ) in Figure 33, who became popular especially after appearing

in

smash-hit

drama

“Aishiteru

to

Ittekure” (愛してるといってくれ, Please Say that You Love Me) in 1995 is almost half naked with a wet clothe on. Actress Adachi Yumi (安達祐実) and actress-singer Fukada Kyoko (深田恭

子), aged 20 and 18 respectively in 2000, are both in underwear (Figure 34).

Figure 33: Tokiwa Takako. Source: Apple Daily, 3 July 2000, C7.

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Figure 34: Adachi Yumi (centre), Fukada Kyoko (above left), and Sato Eriko (below left). Source: Apple Daily, 12 January 2000, C 19.

Their images are in the section called “Entertainment Telescope” where large-sized images are printed and the text is shorter than the international entertainment section. Adachi appeared as a child in the TV drama “Hitotsu Yane no Shita” in 1993 with Sakai, a Japanese actress listed in the top 10 list of Japanese female entertainers in Ming Pao in 2000. Then, she appeared in the smash-hit TV drama “Ie Naki-ko” (家 なき子, Sans Famille) as a young heroine in 1994. A year later, she again played the leading part in the sequeal “Ie Naki-ko 2”. Fukada came to be known widely when she appeared in the TV drama “Kamisama, Mōsukoshidake” (神様、もう少しだけ, God, Please Give Me a Little More Time) with Japanese/Taiwanese actor Kaneshiro Takeshi (金城武) in 1998. These four actresses focus on acting, not modelling in sexy clothes. In fact, it is common for Japanese female stars to occasionally take sexy photographs for their calendar, photo book, or the cover of weekly magazines such as Friday that, according to Japan Magazine Publication Association (2006), target men in their thirties and forties. These sexy Japanese actresses’ images, mostly available in calendars, photobooks, gossip-oriented magazines and tabloids in Japan, are particularly prevalent in Apple Daily. Although they may occasionally take sexy photographs for some magazines and photobooks, these sexy photographs do not appear in widely distributed quality newspapers in Japan.

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In order to attract an audience, photos of Japanese female stars and the content of an article do not always coincide. For example, the article in Figure 35 (right) talks about actress Okina, who won “Best Pearl Dresser 2000”. The small photo shows her in a black dress with a pearl necklace, but the bigger photo with the headline portrays her in a suggestive pose. Another example is the article in Figure 4. The title of this article is “Tokiwa Takako stayed in Hong Kong for five days, and went back to Japan without much energy”. However, a picture of a half-naked Tokiwa is featured instead of her photos at the airport. Sexy images are chosen in order to get attention from readers even if they are not relevant to the content.

A second type of sexy Japanese women in the entertainment section is “gravure idols” (グラビアアイドル). The term “gravure” comes from the term “photogravure”, a type of intaglio printmaking. Gravure idols are young models, usually in their late teens and early twenties who pose in bikinis and provocative dresses. They often appear in magazines whose core readers are men. For example, Sato Eriko (佐藤江梨 子) in Figure 34 in the bottom left and Shaku Yumiko (釈由美子) in Figure 35 were popular gravure idols in 2000, who both later became actresses. Sato was 18 years old and Shaku was 22 years old in 2000. Both of them wear little clothes and make suggestive poses. Japanese gravure idols posing in a sexy manner mainly for Japanese middle-aged male readers often appear in entertainment section of the Apple Daily which does not specially target men in Hong Kong.

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Figure 35: Shaku Yumiko. Source: Apple Daily, 13 July 2000, C19.

The paper has been using images of gravure idols in its “Night Life” section which usually contains two pages talking about sexual issues and pornography every day since its launch in 1995. Based on articles in the “Night Life” section in 2000, the image of sexy gravure idols in their late teens to early twenties such as Harada Aki (原田亜希 ) and Horikoshi Nori (堀越のり) in Figure 36 usually occupy one third of the top half in the section.

Figure 36: Above: Harada Aki. Source: Apple Daily, January 2000.

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Below: Horikoshi Nori. Source: Apple Daily January 2000.

Gravure idols in the soft pornography section are in bikinis or underwear. The photographs usually show either their whole body or the upper part of their body in order to show their curves. The difference between gravure idols in entertainment section and the soft pornography section is that in the former, they are used to highlight the article. Readers of this section may be men or women. In the “Night Life” section, there is an introduction of a gravure idol with a photo, name and measurement. The articles in this section are openly sexual and largely for male readers.

The most important criteria for choosing an image of Japanese women is “young” and “sexy”, according to a 28-year-old former male editor who was in charge of the Japanese entertainment section of Apple Daily in 2003. “The more revealing, the better”, he says. Indeed, as Figure 35 to 39 show, many articles on Japanese female stars carry photographs of Japanese women in bikinis, underwear, and provocative dress. The former editor says by having a large picture of young Japanese women with little clothing, it is easy to attract attention from the audience.

According to him, editors do not always choose photographic images that coincide with articles written on the same page, because photographs matters more than texts in order to attract readers’ attention. In fact, the former editor says sexy pictures of young Japanese women appeal not only to men, but also to women. He thinks sensational photos can also arouse female readers’ curiosity.

Japanese women in Apple Daily are not only sexy, but also young. The average age of Japanese female stars in the entertainment section of the paper in 2000 is 22 years old, which is almost the same as that of Ming Pao (21.8 years old) and three years younger than that of Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960. In 2000, the paper covered Japanese actresses and singers aging from their mid-teens to mid-thirties. However, the

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majority of Japanese female entertainers in the paper are in their teens or in early twenties (Table 13). As in Ming Pao, the exceptions are Japanese actresses who appeared in trendy dramas in the 1990s.

Table 13: Top 10 Japanese Female Stars in Apple Daily in 2000 by Frequency The number of articles Name

Japanese name ( Chinese name ) 藤原紀香

Age in 2000

50

Fujiwara Norika

46

Fukada Kyoko

深田恭子

18

44

Utada Hikaru

宇多田ヒカル

17

26

Hamasaki Ayumi

24

Matsushima Nanako Hirosue Ryoko

23

Morning Musume

23

Yuka

23

Matsu Takako

20

SPEED

26

浜崎あゆみ (濱崎歩) 松嶋菜々子 広末涼子 モーニング娘 (Morning 娘) 優香 松たか子 (松隆子) SPEED

29

22 27 20 16.5 20 23 17

Young editors working for the entertainment section are one of the reasons why images of young Japanese women are particularly prevalent. The former editor of Apple Daily says fresh graduates are usually assigned to the Japanese entertainment section first. It is considered easy for editors with less experience to handle Japanese entertainment news. The former editor says the average age of the reporters for Japanese entertainment news is around 25 years old or even younger.

The theme topic is already decided by a senior editor, therefore what they have to do is to look for sensational photos and articles on Japanese entertainers from Japanese magazines that the newspaper purchases, and make the layout.

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In contrast, Japanese male entertainers in Apple Daily are not as young as female stars. The average age of Japanese male stars in 2000 is 26.5 years old. The paper mainly puts articles on idols from Johnny’s Entertainment, an agent that trains and promotes male idols in Japan. For example, a duo Kinki Kids, SMAP member Kimura Takuya ( 木 村 拓 哉 ) and other members of SMAP, who all belong to Johnny’s Entertainment, very frequently appear in Apple Daily. Unlike female entertainers, male teenage stars were limited to only singer-and-actor Takizawa Hideaki (滝沢秀明) who was 18 years old and an idol group Arashi (嵐), whose average age was also 18 years old in 2000. If not from Johnny’s Entertainment, articles usually reported on handsome actors in their late twenties such as Sorimachi Takashi (反町隆) and Takenouchi Yutaka (竹野内豊) who were in popular Japanese TV dramas in the late 1990s with actress Fujiwara and Matsushima. Regarding Japanese male entertainers, it seems Apple Daily tends to select articles on either idols from Johnny’s Entertainment or actors in Japanese trendy dramas which would be recognized by Hong Kong audience. The actors, however, are restricted to those younger than their mid-thirties.

5.4 READERS GAP BETWEEN HONG KONG AND JAPAN

The major sources of entertainment news come from the Internet, weekly magazines and daily sports newspapers in Japan. The former editor says editors in charge of the Japanese entertainment section usually refer to the Japanese weekly magazine Friday published by Kodansha (講談社). “Sports shimbun” (Sports Newspapers, スポ ーツ新聞), are similar to tabloids in the U.S. and U.K. Japanese men usually buy Sports shimbun at kiosks or convenience stores, while quality papers are mostly distributed as subscriptions in Japan. Sports shimbun run articles about sports, particularly baseball, popular sports in Japan. They also contain pornography pages. Sports Shimbun and weekly magazines for male readers are the print media that portray gravure idols in Japan.

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The Apple Daily refers to Friday, another weekly magazine Shūkan Gendai (週間 現代) and tabloid Sankei Sports (サンケイスポーツ). An article above in Figure 37 talks about Suzuki Honami (鈴木保奈美), a Japanese actress. The headline says that her nudity was exposed and the movie company filed a law suit against the magazine, asking for HK $7 million. According to the text, this gossip originally came from Shūkan Gendai.

Figure 37: Suzuki Honami. Source: Apple Daily, 29 March 2000, C18.

The second article in Figure 38 portrays Kimura Takuya and singer Kudo Shizuka (工藤静香) who is now his wife, returning to Japan from a trip during the holiday. The article described their trip as a “premarital trip” and it printed a detailed schedule of their trip. At the bottom, there is an original article from Sankei Sports in Japanese.

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Figure 38: Kimura Takuya and Kudo Shizuka returning Tokyo.

Source: Apple Daily, 15 March 2000, C27.

It is worth noting that the core readers of weekly magazines and sports newspapers that print gravure idols are largely men over 30. According to Sankei Shimbun (産経新聞), publisher of major sports newspaper Sankei Sports (サンケイスポ ーツ), over 70% of their readers are men and almost 80% of the readers are between 30 and 60. Japanese weekly magazines for both male and female readers, according to the classification of Japan Magazine Publishing Association, are also widely read by men.

The majority of the readers are over 30. On the other hand, Apple Daily is also read by young people in Hong Kong. A survey conduced by the University of Hong Kong in 2005 showed Apple Daily was the most read newspaper among undergraduate students (The University of Hong Kong, 2005). In fact, although the second most read newspaper was a quality paper Ming Pao, almost 60% of the undergraduate students read the Big Two tabloids, Apple Daily and Oriental Daily. It seems that the impact of tabloids upon young readers in Hong Kong is quite large.

5. 5 JAPANESE WOMEN WHO DO NOT APPEAR IN HONG KONG PRINT MEDIA

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In general, Japanese female stars over their mid-thirties are out of the frames of Japanese women in Hong Kong newspapers. Ming Pao and Apple Daily report about various Japanese actresses and singers regularly. However, Japanese female comedians and TV talk show hosts of any age, and actresses and singers over their midthirties do not appear in these newspapers. In fact, these female stars are popular in Japan, according to the survey “Sukina Tarento Rankingu” (好きなタレントランキング , My Favourite Entertainers) by Nihon Hoso Kyokai (日本放送協会, Japan Public Broadcasting). Japanese female stars who do not appear in Ming Pao and Apple Daily but ranked in the “My Favourite Entertainers” top 10 in 2000 are singer Wada Akiko (和田アキ子), comedienne Hisamoto Masami (久本雅美), actress

Yoshinaga Sayuri (吉永小百合), TV show host Nakamura Tamao (中村玉緒) and Kaminuma Emiko (上沼恵美子) (Table 14).

Table 14: “My Favourite Entertainers” Top 10 in Japan 2000 Name

Name 1 2 3

Japanese

Matsushima Nanako Wada Akiko Hisamoto Masami

4

Hamasaki Ayum

5 6

Genre

Age in 2000

松嶋菜々子

Actress

27

和田アキ子

Singer/ TV show host

50

久本雅美 i

in

Comedian/ TV show host

40

浜 崎あゆ み

Singer

22

Fujiwara Norika

藤原紀 香

Actress

29

Yoshinaga Sayuri

吉永小百合

Actress

55

Singer

15

Actress/ TV show host

61

7

Morning Musume

8

Nakamura Tamao

118

モーニング 娘 (Morning 娘) 中村玉緒

9

Utada Hikaru

宇多田ヒカ ル

Singe r

17

(宇多田 光) 10

Kaminuma Emiko 上 沼 恵 美 子

TV show host

45

Source: NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute According to NHK, singer Wada is supported by boys under 12, women aging from 40 to 69, and men in their fifties and sixties. Comedinne Hisamoto is particularly popular among women in their thirties and forties and men in their forties. Since Yoshinaga was a popular actress in the 1960s, her supporters are both men and women over 50.

Like Yoshinaga, actress Nakamura is more recognized by men over 60.

Although these stars are supported by different age and gender groups, they are widely recognized in Japan. However, since 2000, they appear neither in newspapers or Japanese advertisements in Hong Kong. This is probably because they are older than 40 years old and because most of them are TV show hosts. Highlighted are Japanese female stars that overlap with those who appeared frequently in Ming Pao and Apple Daily in 2000. By comparing those that did not overlap, it is clear that the two newspapers focus on young actresses and singers in their teenage and in their twenties.

Table 15: “My Favourite Entertainers” by Age and Gender Male Name

Female Name Japanese

Morning Musume モーニング娘

119

in

Name in Name

Japanese

Morning Musume モーニング娘

7- 12 yrs Hamasaki Ayumi 浜崎あゆみ old Wada Akiko

和田アキ子

Hamasaki Ayumi 浜崎あゆみ 13- 19 yrs old

Hirosue Ryoko Matsushima Nanko

広末涼子

Twenties

松嶋菜々子

Matsushima Nanko

松嶋菜々子

Matsushima

Amuro Namie

優香 松嶋菜々子

深田恭子 モ Morning Musume ーニング娘 Yuka

松嶋菜々子 安室奈美恵

Nanako

松嶋菜々子 浜崎あゆみ

Hamasaki Ayumi

Thirties Fukada Kyoko

Nakayama Miho Matsushima Nanako

中山美穂 松嶋菜々子

Hisamoto Masami 久本雅美 藤原紀 Fujiwara Norika 香

優香

Matsushima

Matsushima

Nanko

松嶋菜々子

Nanako

松嶋菜々子

Hisamoto Masami

久本雅美

Wada Akiko

和田アキ子

Fujiwara Norika

藤原紀香

Hisamoto Masami 久本雅美

Yoshinaga Sayuri 吉永小百合 Fifties

Hamasaki Ayumi 浜崎あゆみ

深田恭子 Yuka

宇多田ヒカル

Matsushima

Fukada Kyoko

Forties

Utada Hikaru

Nanako

Matsushima Nanko

Hamasaki Ayumi 浜崎あゆみ

Matsushima Nanko Wada Akiko

120

Matsushima Nanako

松嶋菜々子

松嶋菜々子

Wada Akiko

和田アキ子

Yoshinaga Sayuri 吉永小百合

和田アキ子

Sixties

Nakamura Tamao 中村玉緒 和 田アキ子 小 Wada Akiko 林幸子 Kobayashi

Wada Akiko

Sachiko

Tetsuko

Mori Mitsuko

Tendo Yoshimi

和田アキ子 天童 よしみ 黒柳徹子

Kuroyanagi

森光子

Yoshinaga Sayuri 吉永小百合 Source: NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute

5.5.1 Japanese Women in Cosmetic Advertisements

Along with entertainment articles, advertisements in Hong Kong do not carry images of popular female entertainers above 30 in the list of NHK’s Top 10 “My Favourite Entertainers”. For example, 62-year-old Yoshinaga, one of the most renowned actresses in Japan since the 1960s, appears in a Japanese advertisement for a TV set called “AQUOS” manufactured by Japanese electronic company SHARP from 2001 to 2007 (SHARP, 2007). On the other hand, in Hong Kong, Yoshinaga does not appear and only a photo of the product is used in the advertisement. From 2000 to 2005, most of the Japanese advertisements which can be found in Chinese-language newspapers in Hong Kong are advertisements of electronic products. These advertisements rarely portray Japanese women. Usually there are only pictures of product itself or product photos with non-Japanese models. On the other hand, cosmetic advertisements in women’s fashion magazines in Hong Kong are filled mostly with young Japanese women. Morean (1996: 200), professor of Copenhagen Business School, claims that magazines can act as a customized advertising agent that can appeal to specific consumers more than newspapers.

Japanese cosmetic advertisements frame Japanese women as young and kawaii.

The process of making advertisements for Japanese consumer goods in Hong Kong is more complex than that of writing Japanese entertainment articles in Chinese-

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language papers. While it is editors who strip the images of Japanese women for newspapers, head companies in Japan, a local office in Hong Kong, and advertisers such as Dentsu and Hakuhodo are involved in making advertisements. However, Japanese women who appear in cosmetic advertisements are still young and kawaii, like those in Chinese-language papers.

Japanese advertisements in womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fashion magazine JESSICA published in Hong Kong increased largely from 2000 to 2005 (Table 3). JESSICA is a fashion magazine targeting women in their twenties and thirties, and most widely read in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Audit Bureau of Circulation). Japanese advertisements in JESSICA are mostly cosmetic advertisements although there are a few advertisements for watch or electronic products. I categorized advertisements in the magazines into four according to the original place of a product, which are US, Europe, Japan and Hong Kong. I have also calculated the average number of advertisements monthly in four categories (Table 16).

Table 16: Number of advertisements in JESSICA in 2000 and 2005 50 45 0 40 0 35 0 30 0 25 0 20 0 15 0 10 0 05 00

2000 2005

US

Europe

Japan

Hong Kong

European and Hong Kong advertisements occupy the majority of advertisements in JESSICA. However, Japanese advertisements increased most based on the average number of advertisements per month. Compared to 2000, there are 9.9 times more

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Japanese advertisements in 2005 while European and Hong Kong advertisements increased only two to three times.

Images of young Japanese women increased largely in cosmetic advertisements in JESSICA. Only two Japanese women appeared in JESSICA in 2000; actress Matsushima Nanako and model Umemiya Anna (梅宮アンナ) who were 27 and 28 years old respectively in 2000. Matsushima appeared in advertisement for MAX FACTOR, which is owned by Procter & Gamble Japan, a personal hygiene company based in US. She has been a well-recognized Japanese female star among young Hong Kong people since the late 1990s courtesy of trendy dramas in which she appeared, such as “GTO” and “Majo no Jōken” (魔女の条件, Forbidden Love) . In 2000, she was one of the most popular Japanese female stars that Ming Pao carried article about. Umemiya was in Shiseido advertisement. She had been a charismatic model for young women’s fashion magazine in Japan called JJ in the 1990s.

In 2005, 13 Japanese actresses and models appeared in Japanese cosmetic advertisements in the magazine (Table 17).

Table 17: Japanese models in cosmetic ads in JESSICA 2005 Name Name

Japanese

in Age

in

2005

Matsushita Nao

松下奈緒

20

Chiaki

栗山千晶

21

Yamada Yu

山田優

21

Fukada Kyoko

深田恭子

23

Katase Nana

片瀬那奈

24

Ebihara Yuri

蛯原友里

26

Kuriyama

Hasegawa

123

Kyoko

長谷川京子

27

Yada Akiko

矢田亜希子

27

Ito Misaki

伊東美咲

28

Kanno Miho

菅野美穂

28

華原朋美

31

Ryoko

篠原涼子

32

Amami Yuki

天海祐希

38

Kahara Tomomi Shinohara

There were no teenagers, and more than half of them were older than mid-twenties. A 38-year-old actress Amami Yuki (天海祐希) is an exception among young Japanese models in cosmetic advertisements. She was in an advertisement for the wellestablished personal hygiene company, Kao. She has been a model for Kao’s “Otona no UV” (大人の UV, Adults’ UV) line that sells skin care products and sun block cream most probably targeting Japanese women in Amami’s age group. However, it is still quite rare to see Japanese women in their thirties in cosmetic advertisements. Images of women in their twenties seem most likely to be brought to Hong Kong. One of the advertisements featuring images of Japanese women is Shiseido’s new cosmetic line “Maquillage” launched in 2005. As in Figure 39, its advertisements in Japan and in Hong Kong are exactly the same, except the Japanese text is translated into Chinese.

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Figure 39: Advertisement of Shiseido “Maquillage” for spring 2006.

(Left: Japan/ Right: Hong Kong)

The models are Ito Misaki (伊東美咲), Shinohara Ryoko (篠原涼子), Ebihara Yuri (蛯原 友里) and Kuriyama Chiaki (栗山千秋). Their ages range from Kurihara at 21 to Shinohara at 32. They are all popular models and actresses in Japan. Ito has been a Shiseido model since 2001. She became to be widely known after she appeared in the TV drama “Densha Otoko” (Train Man, 電車男). Actress Shinohara, former singer, ranked at the top of the “My Favourite Actress” poll for Japanese women from 13 to 49 years old. The survey was conducted in 2006 by Japanese company Oricon Inc., best known for its music charts. Ebihara is a charismatic fashion model who often appears in women's fashion magazine CanCam. Many Japanese “OL”s (Office Ladies) dream about dressing like Ebihara and clothes she wears in the magazine sell very well.

Model-actress Kuriyama is famous for starring in Hollywood movie “Kill Bill”, directed

by Quentin Tarantino. In 2006, Japanese Marketing company Info Plant Co. Ltd. conducted a survey of 300 women between the ages of 18 and 49 about cosmetic products. According to the survey, 70% of the women below the age of 30 like to use Maquillage cosmetics. Maquillage is a cosmetic line that targets women mostly in their 20s and also in their thirties.

Model-actress Ito Misaki is an unique example of a well-recognized Japanese female star in Hong Kong. In autumn 2001, The Shiseido’s advertisements for young people’s cosmetic line replaced Umemiya to Ito (Figure 40).

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Figure 40: Ito Misaki in Shiseido “pn” advertisement. Source: JESSICA, May 2005, p42.

“Pn” is the predecessor of Maquillage. JESSICA printed its advertisements portraying Ito. She has been a Shiseido model for over five years even after the new cosmetic line Maquillage was launched. Her full name became more well-known when she appeared in the TV drama “Densha Otoko” in 2005. The story of “Densha Otoko” came originally from a thread written by an anonymous user on 2channel (２ちゃんねる), a Japanese internet forum. It became so popular that the story became a novel, movie and TV drama. It features a Japanese “otaku” ( お た く ), a person with obsessive hobbies particularly comics. Ito played the leading part whom the otaku, the leading character falls in love with.

When the TV drama started in Japan in July 2005, six articles were carried on “Densha Otoko” and Ito by various Chinese-language papers including the party press Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, and Apple Daily in the same month. The TV version of “Densha Otoko” was broadcasted in Hong Kong in April 2006 (Ming Pao, 2006) on TVB Chinese Jade Channel which achieves an average of 85% of television audience share during the prime time viewing hours (TVB, 2007). However, even before the broadcast in Hong Kong, Chinese-language newspapers carried articles about her. This is probably because notably Apple Daily has been a guidebook of Japanese

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youth culture. The paper often reports on popular Japanese trendy dramas which are not broadcasted in Hong Kong. It actually does not matter if it is on air in Hong Kong or not because young people can refer to the Apple Daily and buy the pirated VCDs or download from unofficial sources quite soon after TV dramas are broadcasted in Japan.

The articles about Ito increased to 15 in December when she appeared in another TV drama called “Kiken na Aneki” (危険なアネキ, Dangerous

Sister). The newspapers which reported about her include the Apple Daily, Ta Kung Pao, Wen Wei Po, mass-circulated The Sun, Sing Tao Daily, Headline Daily (頭條日 報 ) and a free paper called am730. In this regard, it can be said that Chinese-language papers play an important role to decide who goes mainstream in Hong Kong.

5.5.2 No Japanese Women in High-End Cosmetic Ads for Mature Women in Hong Kong

Even in Japanese high-end cosmetics advertisements targeting women over midthirties, older Japanese women are not used as models while young Japanese women in their mid-20s appear in Japanese cosmetic advertisements. For example, JESSICA ran advertisements for Shiseido’s “REVITAL” in 2005. “REVITAL” is a cosmetic line targeting women over 40 years old. The advertisement used a Hong Kong actress Vivian Chow (周慧敏), who was 38 years old in 2005, as a model (Figure 41), while the original advertisements in Japan only use photos of the product.

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Figure 41: Vivian Chow in Shiseido “REVITAL” advertisement.

Left: JESSICA, April 2005, p44.

Right: JESSICA, October 2005, p38.

Similarly, a Japanese model is replaced by Hong Kong actresses over 30 in advertisements for SK-II, skin care products developed by Japanese MAX FACTOR, instead of adapting the same advertisements from Japan. SK-II, known as a high-end product, is usually considered as a brand for women over 35. Japanese actress Momoi Kaori (桃井かおり) began to appear in its advertisement in 1995 when she was 43 years old. Momoi is an actress who has been in numerous TV dramas and movies in Japan, however the TV dramas she appeared in are not trendy dramas. She also played a supporting role in Hollywood movie “Memoirs of Geisha” in 2005. She was a SK-II model for 10 years, but the company decided to use a younger model, Koyuki (小雪) aged 29 in 2005, to appeal to younger consumers in their twenties and thirties in Japan (Figure 42). She debuted as a model and later became an actress. She is known for starring in Hollywood movie “The Last Samurai” with Tom Cruise in 2003. She has also acted in TV dramas since 1998 when she debuted as an actress, but most of them did not achieve high audience ratings.

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Figure 42: Koyuki in SK-II advertisement. Source: MORE, December 2005, p214.

In place of the two Japanese actresses, SK-II advertisements in JESSICA in 2005 portrayed Hong Kong female stars; i.e. 35-year-old Sammi Cheng ( 鄭秀文 ), 37-yearold Karen Mok (莫文蔚), and 43-year-old Carina Lau (劉嘉玲) (Figure 43).

Figure 43: Advertisements of SK-II Left: Sammi Cheng. Source: JESSICA, May 2005 (no page number).

Right: Karen Mok. Source: JESSICA, September 2005, p12.

They are all well-recognized actresses in Hong Kong, who mainly appear in movies.

They may appeal more to Hong Kong female consumers than Japanese actresses above 30, who are not well-known because they seldom appear in Chinese-language newspapers. For the high-end cosmetic products such as REVITAL and SK-II, older Japanese female stars do not appear in their advertisements. Instead, Hong Kong

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actresses in their thirties and forties who are more likely to be recognized by Hong Kong women of their age appear in the advertisements.

Japanese women, either young or old, do not appear in advertisements for skin care products companies entered Hong Kong market in the past few years, such as FANCL and DHC. FANCL has established FANCL Asia (PTE) Ltd in Singapore in 2000 (FANCL Japan, 2005). The company has already opened 10 stores on Hong Kong island, 12 in Kowloon, and 5 in the New Territories. DHC Hong Kong Limited was established in 2004, and has opened 9 stores in Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui, major shopping districts in Hong Kong (DHC Hong Kong).

Both FANCL and DHC do not use Japanese models although they are used by teenage girls and women in their twenties. They are popular among young women probably because their products are reasonably priced. Their products were formerly only available by mail-order. Now there are shops where costumers can actually see the products, but internet-order is also available. Young Japanese models are not used in the advertisements in Hong Kong. Regarding FANCL, Japanese women do not appear in the advertisements in Japan either and the company uses the productsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; photographs in the advertisements (Figure 44).

Figure 44: FANCL ad in a Japanese fashion magazine. Source: MORE, December 2005, p380.

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Instead of bringing the same advertisements, FANCL has localized its advertisements using Hong Kong female stars, such as actress Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and well-known models Sofie Rahman (李嘉慧), Vanessa Yeung (楊崢), Katy Chow (周汶錡), and Eunice Chan (陳嘉容). Eunice Chan, for example, has been a model for

French cosmetics CLARINS in Hong Kong since 2005. In 2005, the youngest models among the five were 29-year-old Leung and Chow, and the oldest was 33-year-old Yeung. Female stars in FANCL advertisements in Hong Kong are a few years older than Japanese female stars in advertisements in 2005, whose average age was 26 years old. Hong Kong female models were used instead of Japanese in FANCL advertisements probably because consumers may feel they can also obtain a beautiful skin like those models who share a similar type of skin with Hong Kong women. Five Hong Kong women in their early to mid-twenties told me that using Hong Kong models seemed to be more effective for skin care product advertisements.

Figure 45: FANCL advertisements Left: Gigi Leung. Source: JESSICA, June 2005, p108.

Right: Four well-known models in Hong Kong. Source: JESSICA, August 2005, p72.

DHC in Hong Kong does not use Japanese female models either. In Japan, the company uses Japanese female stars in their advertisements in Japan such as a 40year-old celebrity Kano Mika (叶美香), 30-year-old Fujisaki Nanako (藤崎奈々子) and Yamakawa Erika (山川恵里佳) who were both gravure idols. A 19-year-old Japanese top model, Anne (杏) who walks runways for fashion shows in New York and Tokyo appeared in DHC advertisements in 2005. However, DHC Hong Kong used an unknown young model, probably in her late teens or early twenties with a popular Taiwanese singer Jay Chow (周傑倫) (Figure 46).

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Figure 46: DHC advertisements in Japan (left) and Hong Kong (right).

Left: Anne in Japanese DHC ad. Source: MORE, December 2005, p376.

Right: Unknown female model with Jay Chow. Source: JESSICA, February 2005, p28.

DHC seems to use popular Asian male stars instead of female stars to attract Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s young female consumers. In 2006, the company used Korean pop singer Rain who is well-known throughout East Asia in its advertisement. However, the nationality of female model who appeared with Rain in the advertisement is not identical. DHC is considered as a competitor of FANCL, given that they both sell similar skin care products and dietary supplements. DHC may have used popular Asian male stars instead of well-known Hong Kong actresses to attract young female consumers in Hong Kong. In addition, some of the Japanese models in advertisements in Japan are young, but they are not well-known in Hong Kong since they do not appear in trendy dramas, and as a consequence they do not appear in Chinese-language newspapers. As the company was new to the Hong Kong market, it localized their advertisements rather than using Japanese models who do not have star power in Hong Kong.

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5.6 SUMMARY In conclusion, Chinese-language newspapers and cosmetic advertisements frame Japanese women as young and cute. Both in Ming Pao and Apple Daily, young women below 25, including teenagers occupy more than 70% of the articles featuring Japanese female stars. Being threatened by the mass-circulated tabloid, Ming Pao seems to have “Apple Daily-ized” itself in order to attract more readers. Ming Pao, although it is known as a quality paper in Hong Kong, changed their international entertainment section to look more dynamic as in Apple Daily and increased the amount of articles on Japanese stars.

Apple Daily frame Japanese women partially as “sexy”. In order to attract readers’ attention, images of young and sexy Japanese women are put in the paper despite the fact that target audience of the original sources in Japan is largely different. Japanese magazines and newspaper that editors in Apple Daily refer to are read by Japanese men over thirties. Japanese women in these print media in Japan look kawaii and sexy because they are portrayed for men. In contrast, this paper is supported more by young people in Hong Kong. Therefore, sensual images of Japanese women created originally for Japanese men over thirties are consumed by young Hong Kong people of both genders.

In contrast to young, kawaii and approachable Japanese women, images of Japanese female comedians, TV show hosts, and actresses and singers over 35 are not included in the frames of Japanese women’s images. Popular female entertainers in Japan according to the NHK survey overlapped with only half of the Japanese female entertainers frequently featured in Chinese-language newspapers. The NHK survey ranged from a teenage idol group to a TV show host over 60. However, the majority

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of Japanese female stars who appear in newspapers in Hong Kong are young actresses in trendy dramas and young J-pop singers.

As a result, frames of Japanese women are mostly restricted to young actresses who appear in Japanese trendy dramas and young pop singers. Both are usually under 30. This is even more emphasized because Chinese-language newspapers seem to act as a powerful agent to decide which Japanese female stars go mainstream in Hong Kong. For instance, Ito Misaki, a Shiseido model and actress started to be recognized among young Hong Kong people probably thanks to the repetitive articles in Chineselanguage papers about her recent TV drama â&#x20AC;&#x153;Train Manâ&#x20AC;?. Being a bridge between TV and the Hong Kong audience, Chinese-language newspapers seem to have a powerful role in deciding the frames of Japanese womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s images in Hong Kong.

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CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION

In this thesis, I attempted to examine how Hong Kong print media have been constructing stereotypical images of Japanese women. In the Introduction part, I described the preconceived image that young Hong Kong Chinese people have towards Japanese women as being “kawaii”, and that their suspicion about whether I am really Japanese. Before coming to Hong Kong, nobody, even in France where I spent a year, raised such a question. This consequently leads to my hypothesis that Hong Kong media shapes how Japanese women are viewed and the audience who are exposed to the media are likely to have fixed images on Japanese women. In order to investigate what served as the basis upon which they constructed the images of Japanese women, and how they have been formed over the past five decades, I examined the entertainment section of Chinese-language newspapers including Wah Kiu Yat Po, Ming Pao, and Apple Daily and advertisements in these three newspapers and in women’s fashion magazine JESSICA. I traced images of Japanese women

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back to the mid-1950s when the business relationship between Hong Kong and Japan re-started after the Second World War. Newspaper articles over a year’s span were examined, every five years from 1955 to 2005 in order to understand how Japanese women’s images have been changing in Hong Kong print media.

To have a better understanding of what kind of Japanese women’s images are selected in Hong Kong print media, I adopted the concept of “strip” from Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974). Adopting the “strip”, I attempted to identify what kind of Japanese women’s images are sliced out and what are excluded. I found that images of young and kawaii Japanese women are mostly “stripped” and emphasized in today’s Hong Kong print media, while other Japanese women’s images are left out. Images of Japanese women in Hong Kong are indeed stereotypical. I examined international entertainment articles with images of Japanese female stars throughout the year 2005 in Ming Pao. I noticed that youth and cuteness are emphasized in images of Japanese women in Hong Kong print media. In Japan, images of Japanese women available in print media are diverse. From teenage actresses in TV commercial to enka singers in kimono and to middle-aged comediennes in variety shows, all are shown frequently in Japan.

In Hong Kong, however, print media do not strip images of Japanese singers and actresses over 30 who do not appear in TV programmes targeting a young audience.

Comparing NHK’s top 10 popular Japanese female stars and Japanese female entertainers who frequently appeared in Hong Kong print media, I found that only young and kawaii stars overlap and others are excluded. Japanese comediennes, female MCs and TV personalities in variety shows basically do not appear in Hong Kong print media, even if they are young. Images of these types of Japanese female entertainers such as singers and actresses for mature audience, comedians and TV personalities are rarely sliced out. In Japan, they ranked in NHK’s top 10 favourite stars list and are widely recognized. Instead, images of young and kawaii pop singers and actresses have been stripped from Japanese popular culture and reproduced in print media in Hong Kong.

Stripping images of young and kawaii Japanese women began along with the rise of young people’s consumption power in Hong Kong. Between the 1940s and 1960s in Japan, young people had little consumer power. During that period, female movie

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stars were not teenagers. According to Masubuchi (1994: 34), there were basically no teen idols from the 1940s to 1960s because young Japanese people were not yet the major consumers of popular culture. Moreover, Japanese standards of beauty followed that of Hollywood. Japanese film stars were characterized by their sharp features such as almond shaped eyes, tall noses and slender faces, which made them look more like Hollywood stars. They were unattainable beauties with grace and glamour. When Hong Kong began importing movies from Japan in the mid-1950s, images of Japanese women in the international entertainment section of Wah Kiu Yat Po were mostly those of elegant movie stars.

When young people gained consumption power in Japan in the 1970s, Japanese youth began to support more approachable stars whom they felt an affinity to. In the 1970s, kawaii ordinary girls started to become stars. They debuted while they were still in their mid-teens. They grabbed the hearts of young Japanese people with their freshness and youth. Towards the 1980s, the kawaii Japanese girls were even more prevalent as the entertainment industry began to mass-produce teen idols. Female teenage stars during this idol boom in the 1980s often embodied youth and what western scholars characterized as “child-like cuteness”. They often presented themselves as immature girls in pastel coloured frilled dresses which many male supporters may have found kawaii. As the Japanese entertainment industry found packaged idols lucrative business, kawaii teenage idols became prevalent in Japan’s media in the 1980s.

In Hong Kong, the rise of young people’s consumption power played a key role in stripping more images of young and kawaii Japanese women. In the late 1970s, young people in Hong Kong started to become an important segment of consumers of popular culture thanks to the economic take-off. According to Tsang (2004: 170), the Hong Kong government could spare its budget for social services, including education, due to the economic development in the late 1970s. More educated employees in the workplace, a solid foundation as a trading port, and the beginning of stock exchanges established by local entrepreneurs transformed Hong Kong into a

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financial centre. The economic take-off enabled young people to consume popular culture. However, there were not many young local celebrities in Hong Kong in the 1980s. The entertainment industry for young Hong Kong people was not yet established. In order to fill this void in the entertainment industry in Hong Kong, Japanese popular culture, such as cartoons and pop music for young audiences were sliced out from Japan. Thus, images of Japanese women in popular culture, which were stripped and brought to Hong Kong, were also young and mostly kawaii. As Japanese popular culture for young people has been imported to Hong Kong since the 1980s, slicing images of young and kawaii Japanese women continues today in print media in Hong Kong.

Japanese women are highly visible in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chinese-language mass-circulated dailies compared to Wah Kiu Yat Po in 1960. Print media in Hong Kong has become more entertainment-oriented since the launch of bi-weekly Next Magazine in 1991 and Apple Daily in 1995, both owned by Next Media. The tabloid Apple Daily, famous for its sensational headlines and photographs, influenced other newspapers, including other tabloids such as its competitor Oriental Daily and quality papers such as Ming Pao, in terms of editorial style in the entertainment section. A large number of articles on Japanese entertainment began to occupy Ming Paoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s international entertainment section starting from October 2000, probably due to the influence of Apple Daily. The section puts a surprising amount of emphasis on introducing images of Japanese women rather than Japanese men. In 2005, more than 70% of Japanese entertainment articles in both Ming Pao and Apple Daily in 2005 were dedicated to reports on female stars. On the other hand, among all articles about Hollywood celebrities in 2005, Ming Pao gave 42% to female stars and 30% to male stars.

In addition, recent Chinese-language papers tend to strip more images of young Japanese J-pop singers and actresses. In 1960, 58% of the articles featuring Japanese female stars in Wah Kiu Yat Po reported on Japanese women between 25 and 29 years old. Teenagers and women between 20 and 24 years old occupied only 37%. In 2000 in Ming Pao, 37% of articles on Japanese female stars featured teenagers and another 37% featured women between 20 and 24 years old. In other words, articles featuring Japanese female stars under 25 years old doubled in 2000, compared to

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1960.

Today’s Hong Kong print media tend to strip images of former teenage idols in the 1980s and actresses who used to play leading parts in trendy dramas in the late 1990s. These are an exception to the types of women usually featured in Hong Kong print media. For example, singer Matsuda Seiko, one of the most popular teen idols in the mid-1980s in Japan and Hong Kong, appeared a few times in these Chinese-language papers even though she is now 42 years old. Today’s Chineselanguage newspapers therefore report on her occasionally for readers in their thirties and forties who may feel nostalgic about their youth by reading her articles.

However, in Hong Kong, Japanese female stars who were part of Japanese youth culture introduced to Hong Kong are repetitively portrayed as the celebrities in print media.

Apple Daily strips images of Japanese women which specifically target salary men. Japanese “gravure idols” in bikinis who are often portrayed in Japanese weekly magazines for young to middle-aged men, for instance, regularly appear in both the international entertainment section and “night life” section of Apple Daily. Again, images of young and sexy Japanese women are used to attract readers’ attention.

According to the former editor for the Japanese entertainment section of Apple Daily, their editorial policy was “the less clothes, the better” as an attention grabbing tactic.

Editors in charge of the Japanese entertainment section of the paper collect images of Japanese women from magazines targeting middle-aged Japanese men which tend to portray sensational photographs. Although Apple Daily is popular also among university students, the core reader of the Japanese magazines that the paper refers to are Japanese men over 30. Since sexy, pornographic Japanese women’s images appear every day with the explanation of “night life” in Apple Daily, young Hong Kong men who read the paper seem to relate young Japanese women with soft pornography. In Japan, these pornographic images constitute only a part of the spectrum of Japanese women’s images. However, images of sexy Japanese women are portrayed in Hong Kong tabloids whose readers are more diverse.

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Young and kawaii Japaense female stars who are mass-produced more for male audience continue to appear in today’s Japanese print media. Hong Kong print media stripes this type of Japanese women’s images repetitively as though they are the main stream stars in Japan. In 2000, Apple Daily and Ming Pao repetitively reported on allgirl J-pop group Morning Musume, who are probably more popular among Japanese men. According to a survey conducted by NHK in 2000, Morning Musume was most popular among girls and boys from 7 to 19 years old, and men in their thirties.

Morning Musume is a kawaii girl-next-door type idol group. Apple Daily also strips images of Japanese gravure idols who are portrayed as kawaii and sexy in order to satisfy men’s fantasies.

Japanese women who are kawaii to women’s eyes also appear in Japanese media.

In Japan, the meaning and usage of kawaii has evolved as consumption power reached a certain maturity. Young Japanese women do not need to be especially kawaii for men. They now want to be kawaii for themselves or for their female friends, rather than to appeal to men. They support young and kawaii female celebrities who are approachable enough that young women find it easy to imitate their fashion and makeup style. Images of such kawaii young Japanese women became prevalent in Japanese media such as cosmetic advertisements, fashion magazines and trendy dramas for young audience.

Hong Kong print media also strips images of young and kawaii Japanese women for female audience in its entertainment articles. For example, one of the most popular Japanese female stars in Ming Pao and Apple Daily in 2000 was Hamasaki Ayumi, a doll-like singer with a round face and round eyes. She is highly popular among Japanese high school girls. In Japan, these young and kawaii Japanese female stars are popular mostly among teenagers.

Apple Daily, in fact, chooses images of young Japanese female stars to attract attention from readers. Since its main goal is to boost the sales of the paper, they select headlines and photographic images to grab readers’ attention. The paper tries

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to show the audience what it is curious to read. In this regard, it can be said that stereotypical images are not constructed solely by mass media, but rather constructed through interaction between media and the audience. It is important to recognize that print media in Hong Kong constantly slice images of young and kawaii Japanese women and reinforces the relationship between Japanese women, and youth and cuteness. Kilbourne (1999: 59) argues in the context of American advertisements which portray women and teenage girls, the media has influence over the audience in constructing stereotypical women’s images even though this may occur at an unconscious level. Similarly, Hong Kong print media influences the audience in constructing images of stereotypical Japanese women. Since consumer-driven Apple Daily attempts to cater to consumers’ needs, audience’s feedback plays an important part in constructing Japanese women’s images.

The attention-grabbing editorial policy advocated by Apple Daily reinforced stripping images of young and kawaii Japanese female stars. Other newspapers followed Apple Daily and began to put more articles on young Japanese female stars so that they could survive in the competitive media market in Hong Kong. According to Lee (2000:10), even quality papers such as Ming Pao were affected by the competition. From October 2000 on, the paper increased the number and frequency of reports on Japanese entertainment and gave more space to Japanese entertainment articles. Representation of Japanese women in Hong Kong print media largely lies in images of young and kawaii Japanese women due to the tough competition to attract a wider audience.

Framing Japanese women repetitively as young and kawaii in print media leads the Hong Kong audience to construct fixed images of Japanese women. In Japan, images of young and kawaii Japanese women are only a slice of all Japanese women’s images. However in Hong Kong, this slice became a whole. This answers my question as to why many young Hong Kong people asked whether I am really Japanese. Young Hong Kong people I encountered judged me based on their stereotypical images of Japanese women. They probably thought my appearance and attitude do not

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resemble those Japanese women with brownish curled hair, white skin and big round eyes who appear frequently in Hong Kong dailies. Many Hong Kong people do not seem to be aware that there are many Japanese women who do not look like young and kawaii Japanese celebrities found in Hong Kong print media. Indeed, stereotypical images of Japanese women are unconsciously and dialectically constructed by mass media and audience in Hong Kong.

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Hearts at

30,

viewed

18

May 2006,

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