10 Module 9: Popular Culture in East Asia

📍Make sure to check the Additional Media Playlist at the end of the Module. Many videos or articles will enhance your understanding of the written text and offer new insights on East Asian Humanities.

INTRODUCTION

Popular culture comprises aspects of culture relating to entertainment, excitement, diversion, enjoyment and self-cultivation, especially those phenomena that cross social, economic, age and other divisions to touch large populations. It tends to be associated with urban life, but modern communications send new ideas, trends, memes and television shows around a country—and often the globe—almost instantaneously, amplifying both the reach and the impact popular culture.  Historically, East Asia’s greatest expressions of popular culture are associated with periods of stability and wealth when merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and other “middle class” people, those with means and leisure, enjoy and explore life beyond paid work and other subsistence activities. While what we define as folklore is largely “homemade” at the local level, popular culture tends to involve more complex levels of commodification and dissemination through mass media. (See Module 7 for many examples of traditional performance genres that are part of the popular culture heritage of East Asia.)

In East Asia, up to the early 20th century, popular culture might mean public staging of plays or storytelling by professionals; large-scale festivals and associated opportunities for the consumption of food, incense, firecrackers, floats, and other festival paraphernalia; the printing and dissemination of woodblock print images, opera librettos, song lyrics, and pulp fiction.

Whole districts of many cities were given over to the specialty consumer goods that give life flavor, such as shops for tea, tobacco, jewelry and cosmetics, wines, antiques, gaming equipment, musical instruments, herbs and spices, snacks, handicrafts, antiques, items to support hobbies such as flower arranging, bonsai trees, and pets, and other goods that required discretionary income. Other urban areas might offer entertainments that ranged from acrobatic spectacles, musical ensembles, storytelling, plays, and animal acts. Many major urban centers had districts featuring restaurants, wine shops, tea houses, and a variety of other entertainments.

With the introduction of the electronic age in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mediums for popular culture expanded into the realms of film, radio, and television. Beginning with innovations in transistor technology in Japan in the 1950s, the technology industries of countries in East Asia have competed vigorously and sometimes dominated the development, production, and sale of generations of technology products from products like the Sony Walkman to high tech cameras, computer games, DVD technology to computer hardware and software; and more recently,  robotics, virtual reality devices, and multisensory videogames. The popular culture scene in East Asia today as in most of the developed and developing world also includes pop music, live concerts and clubs, fashion, videogames and gaming culture, comic books, and anime videos, athletic events, and vibrant film industries. For individuals, technology has brought a wealth of tools and opportunities for self-expression, artistic production, and social networking—from platforms like TikTok to live-streamed gaming, cell phone photography to fashion blogging—all of which contribute to and help define a networked, increasingly global, but endlessly diverse popular culture. For nations, popular culture can contribute to increasing global influence through “soft power” and the input of popular culture into local and national economies is enormous.

POPULAR CULTURE IN CHINA

Records of China’s rich history of popular culture date from the Zhou period (1046-771 BCE).  Periods of the Han, Tang, Song, and Ming were noted for the volume and variety of popular cultural expression. Many of the traditions from these eras continued in recognizable forms into modern times and strongly influenced culture in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

In the Tang dynasty, urbanites had access to a full range of entertainments that included carnivals that are said to have their origins in national drinking feasts promoted by the first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi (Benn 2002: 154-157). By the Tang period, such state-sponsored events celebrating momentous occasions came to involve feasting, drinking, parades, and sideshows on the main city streets. According to ancient sources, as many as 30,000 singers, dancers, and other entertainers might be commissioned to perform at these events and festivities could last from three to nine days. During these parades, giant floats—some filled with musicians and rising to 5 stories high—were drawn down the streets. Such floats, often on the platform of a cart, may have been inspired by Buddhist practices in India and came in many shapes. Some were made to look like mountains, boats (powered by people walking inside), elephants, or even rhinoceroses.  Eventually, even private families sponsored their own floats. Though the huge floats eventually died out in China (smaller ones survived in some areas), the floats used in community festivals in Japan today are direct descendants.

Among the entertainment acts at such festivals were itinerant performers who usually plied their trades in marketplaces or the private mansions of the wealthy.  These included acrobats, jugglers, wrestlers, illusionists (including vanishing acts and acts involving the dismemberment and reassembly of a magician’s body parts), animal acts, dancing, small-scale theatrical performances, puppets, and storytelling. Forms of many of these activities are still practiced in China today. Chinese acrobats, for instance, are regularly part of international entertainment acts, such as Cirque d’Soleil.

Modern popular culture started in China in the late 1920s and early 1930s in Shanghai. Shanghai was the country’s most open international city at the time because of a tradition of international trade and capitalism and residential districts known as the “foreign concessions” that were enclaves for foreign businesspeople and adventurers. As in Japan, jazz, Hollywood, radio advertising, and the expansion of Western-style newspapers and publishing techniques had an enormous impact during this period. Young women, sometimes smoking and scantily clad, were the subject of many advertising campaigns for tobacco and other luxury goods manufacturers. This freewheeling “party” was winding down by the mid-1930s, however, with the full-scale invasion of China by Japan. After years of war and conflict that ended with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Western-influenced popular culture was to remain out of political fashion for the next several decades.

In 1940, American polyglot singer and social justice activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976) sang in Chinese and English a song written by activist playwright Tian Han with music by the composer Nie Er in New York City. The song is entitled “March of the Volunteers” (Yiyongjun Jinxingqu), which was a rousing cry for the Chinese people to “rise up” (qilai/chee lai) and throw off the shackles of oppression. The song had originally debuted in a 1935 film called Children of Troubled Times, and became popular during the Nationalist era. In 1949, the song was adopted as the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China. In 1941 Robeson cooperated with the conductor of a Chinese youth chorus named Liu Liang-mo to record the record album “Chee Lai: Songs of New China.” (cflac.org.cn)

Nie Er (left), a composer from Kunming, and playwright Tian Han (right) collaborated on the “March of the Volunteers.” Tian Han composed the words in everyday vernacular Chinese. The original first line goes, “Arise, all those who wish not to be slaves.” (In 1978, the lyrics were revised to reflect the political agendas of the day.) Nie Er died at age 23, at sea near Japan soon after composing the music. Tian Han, a powerful artistic voice in the New Culture Movement of the 1920s and 1930s, died during the Cultural Revolution in 1968. He was posthumously politically “re-habilitated” and like Nie Er, is remembered for his accomplishments in China today. (Wikipedia)

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), images of workers, peasants, and soldiers displaying “revolutionary zeal” were the central themes of poster iconography, along with images of Chairman Mao at various stages in his life. Poster art on traditional and contemporary themes is still common in China, and, along with calendars, sells especially well during the New Year’s festival.

Strait-laced, highly politicized social policies dominated from the late 1940s until the early 1980s. By the late 1980s, what had been a trickle of international books, art, music, popular entertainment, the internet, and ideas entering China had become a flood. Popular culture evolved rapidly as the economy boomed throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. Expressions of sometimes youthful vigor and imagination grew in a political atmosphere that was more tolerant of entertainment for its own sake and public displays of individual creativity just at a moment when globalized media and technology were providing new outlets for consumption and expression. By 2018 a craze for historical drama series, inspired by “Korean Wave” successes, peaked in China with the widely watched “The Story of Yanxi Palace,” about the lives and intrigues of imperial palace women. The government eventually weighed in and asked serial drama producers for more relevant content. In 2021 more government oversight was exercised on social media platforms, including fan sites, individual celebrities, and restrictions on major media companies.  There were guidelines promulgated on time spent on online gaming for those under 18, and a pushback against the androgynous look among young male celebrities influenced by K-pop and J-pop stars.  All these efforts have been made to tame what has been characterized in state pronouncements as  “chaotic” situations in social media and entertainment industries thought to have negative influences on consumers.

POPULAR CULTURE IN KOREA

Popular culture has a long history in Korea. With the founding of the city of Seoul in 1399, large markets were established at various parts of the city. Today, hints of the past in the form of traditional pastimes can still be found near the old market areas of South Gate Market (Namdaemun) and East Gate Market (Dongdaemun), though the remnants of the old gates are now surrounded by high-rise buildings. The popular Insadong area is filled with small shops featuring antiques and consumer goods of ages past, tools for calligraphy and appreciating tea, traditional meals and snacks, tailored traditional clothing (hanbok), and art and handicrafts.

Popular art in North Korea closely follows the dictates of the country’s leaders. Much of it is propaganda art, influenced by the Socialist Realism developed in the former Soviet Union and China. Mass-produced posters of “revolutionary” scenes, such as the images of people working on land once owned by an oppressive landlord, are common. The late leader Kim Il Sung is the subject of many posters, wall paintings, statues, and other public art works. A whole genre of North Korean political popular art is devoted to anti-American themes.

With the growth of democratic institutions in South Korea since the 1980s, pop culture developed to the point that Korean pop music and other forms of popular culture became increasingly the rage in other parts of East Asia and farther abroad. Korean pop music and fashion models have become ubiquitous sights and sounds in China. Korean pop culture represents a new model of individualism and sophisticated consumerism that is an acceptable blend of East and West. This “Korean Wave,” (Hallyu) introduced below, is a major “soft power” measure of South Korea’s development and has placed the country high on the world pop culture stage via social media, the aggressive cultivation of talent, and industry and government interest.

 

In 2018, BTS (Behind The Scenes) was named Korea’s Tourism Ambassadors in recognition of their international popularity. Since then, their images have been used in Seoul’s annual tourism campaigns, but in 2023 one of the group’s members, Kim Taehyung, became the sole BTS member to be featured in their “Seoul, Make It Yours” campaign.

The Korean Hallyu Wave has spread across India, and is especially popular in the Northeast.  And around the world, “K-pop Random Play” dances are held in public spaces, where anyone can join and dance along to K-pop songs. The “soft power” engines of music, serial dramas, and the cosmetic/fashion industry are especially powerful drivers of the craze.

During the first two decades of the 21st century a craze for cartoon art in South Korea developed in recent. Between 2000 and 2020, the market for Disney and Japanese animation figures started to shrink and Korean flash animation figures, such as Mashimaro, Pucca, Boomba, and Monya, each with a distinguishing style and characteristics, led a new trend in East Asia. They are seen in different types of merchandise including toys, clothing, cell phone decorations, and stationery and so on, similar to the long-standing Japanese phenomenon of Hello Kitty.

POPULAR CULTURE IN JAPAN

The high point of popular culture in traditional Japan was the Tokugawa period, spanning from the early 17th century down to the mid-19th century. During this time Japan was at peace and isolated itself from the outside world. While elements of traditions from the earlier periods such as the slow-moving Noh drama and the highly stylized tea ritual were appreciated by members of the aristocratic and samurai classes, the liveliest venues for popular culture were the urban districts frequented by the rising merchant class. This was especially so in Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka, where performance traditions of all sorts (drama, storytelling, and puppet plays) flourished, as did markets for handicraft items, woodblock prints, public baths, tea and wine drinking shops, and of course food.

The Gion district of Kyoto is still known for its professional geisha entertainers, who apprenticed for years as maiko, rigorously learning the arts of singing, playing musical instruments, dancing, poetry, calligraphy, preparing tea, and  conversation, originally to entertain merchants and other males of means. The profession is struggling to find recruits among young women today who will follow the rigorus training regimen.

The Gion district of Kyoto, once famous for its culture of geisha entertainers (called “geiko” in Kyoto dialect) was originally a hub for religious pilgrims seeking lodging while visiting the region’s many temples.

During the Meiji period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the first wave of print and film media swept Japan. By the 1920s a jazz craze hit Tokyo, and so-called mo-ga or “modern girls” imitated American flappers by wearing short skirts and fashionable hats, smoking cigarettes, and dancing the Charleston with their male cohorts.

Since the 1950s, Japan has increasingly absorbed and “remade” pop culture from the United States and Europe, expanding Japanese popular culture into every variation of rock and roll dance crazes, teen idol music, game shows, love hotels, cartoons, and so on. This dynamic of appropriation of foreign influences and re-casting within Japanese social contexts, dubbed “J-pop,” has in turn created influences on popular culture realms globally that remain strong today.

Babymetal, formed in 2010, has been described as a combination of heavy metal rock and roll plus the “cuteness” (kawaii) of Japanese “idol” culture, which focuses on teenage singers and girl groups, and the “cosplay” phenomenon discussed below.  The producers claim the group members are divinely inspired by the Fox God of Japanese folk religion. Members sometimes flash the folk hand gesture for “clever foxes” (kitsune). Magical foxes are “among the supernatural creatures called yokai,  also discussed below, along with the term “folkloresque”—which aptly describes Babymetal’s use of folk tradition.  One of Babymetal’s songs is entitled “Megitsume,” recalling shape-shifting female foxes. Images of giant fox heads are sometimes part of the elaborate stage sets which also feature intricately choreographed lighting that compliments the unrelenting athletic movements of the performers to the beat of heavy metal music.  At times, the spectacle seems to conjure the excitement of shamanistic rituals of the ancient miko shrine maidens and folk theater—resonating with the concept of “myth-ways” introduced in Module 1.  A backup band of young men, garbed in freakish other-worldly garb, and called the “Kami Band” (recalling the kami nature spirits) supply the instrumentals, replete with ghoulish antics on stage.  Over the years the composition of Babymetal has changed as members have moved on, but the high energy, head-banging sound of this iconic “kawaii metal” group continues.  The group toured with Lady Gaga in 2014 and has opened for a number of major Western bands. A major album, entitled Metal Hammer was released in 2016 and did well on North American and European music charts.

Other hard rock, metal, and pop bands that have drawn international attention over the last two decades include The Gazette, L’Arc-en-Ciel (Laruka), Dadaroma, and most recently, Band-Maid.  These and other groups often draw on eclectic aspects of Japanese popular culture, including the Visual Kei art and music movement (the latter a sort of “glam rock”), anime (cartoons), manga (comics), kawaii “cute” culture (rooted in the 1970s), Classic/Gothic Lolita costume play (inspired by Victorian-era dolls), and the maid cafe social phenomenon (cafes staffed by young women costumed as French maids).

The global influence of Japanese popular culture has been a major force since the post-WWII era of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Pop icons from film, comic books and cartoons such as the dinosaur-like creature Godzilla and the futuristic cartoon wonder Astro Boy gained momentum in this period. In the decades that followed Ninja Turtles, Pokémon, and Tekken became the pop “folklore” for millions of children around the world.

In recent years, tremendous creativity has been expended on the production of online video gaming worlds and the fantasy worlds of comics (manga) and cartoons (anime).  In a related phenomenon, the popular subculture activity known as “cosplay” (kosupure  in Japanese; a short form of “costume play”) has grown since the 1980s, stimulated by costumed science fiction fans in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. In urban spaces such as Harajuku Street in Tokyo, young people meet to dress up as fantasy characters from their favorite media. It is notable that the Japanese government launched a “Cool Japan” program in the early 2000s in hopes of capitalizing on Japan’s rich popular culture as soft power on the world stage.

Harajuku District is a hotspot for fashion shops, be it mainstream, offbeat, or cosplay.

Game-ified ways of shopping populate many urban streets in major Japanese cities like Tokyo.

MEDIA CASE STUDIES: Korean Wave, Early Chinese Pop Music and Film, Japanese Monsters

THE “KOREAN WAVE”

Since the year 2000 Korean popular culture has flooded the cultural stage of East Asia, and, increasingly the rest of the world.  Known as the “Korean Wave” (or Hallyu), Korean films, music videos, soap operas, historical dramas, beauty products, celebrities and fashion have generated a buzz that draws in diverse audiences from young to middle-age, and even older. South Korean film directors, actors, musicians, and dancers have become known not only in Korea, but in Japan, China, Taiwan, throughout Southeast Asia, Northeast India, and many other places.  In recent years superstar groups EXO and Blackpink dominate magazine covers, cell-phone screens, and pop music charts around the world. In terms of its impact in East Asia, some critics have suggested that the upscale, sophisticated, and sometimes blatantly materialistic image cultivated by young Korean performers directly appeals to many youths in Asia who see Korean pop culture as a comfortable, though indirect, way to engage with Western culture—and vice-versa for followers outside East Asia.