The Chinese story is different from the Japanese but ends up in a rather similar place. For thousands of years, Chinese dress was deeply entwined with social hierarchy, being one of its more important and visible expressions. Only the emperor, for example, was allowed to wear yellow; his sons were required to wear golden yellow, while nobles wore blue-black. [357] As Valerie Steel and John S. Major write:
Clothing was considered a matter of great importance in ancient China. It was an instrument of the magical aura of power through which the emperor ruled the world: in addition, it served to distinguish the civilized from the barbarous, the male from the female, the high from the base, the proper from the improper — in short, it was an instrument of order in a society dedicated to hierarchy, harmony and moderation. [358]
It is not surprising, therefore, that the 1911 Revolution, which overthrew dynastic rule, was also the occasion for a sartorial revolution. The demise of the Qing court led to the dissolution of the old rules. Foot-binding for women, which had persisted for a thousand years, disappeared as did the tradition of male queues (hair worn in a long ponytail), which had been introduced by the Manchus. Chinese dress had been the subject of growing Western influence after the Opium Wars and the establishment of the treaty ports, but the rise of nationalism after 1911 made Western dress more problematic for both sexes. [359] The result was a hybrid, the most famous example being the woman’s qipao, better known in the West as the cheongsam, which combined Chinese, Manchu and Western elements, and which became indelibly associated with Shanghai in the 1930s. Its heyday was between 1930 and 1950, though it persisted for rather longer amongst the overseas Chinese, especially in Hong Kong. [360]
The 1949 Revolution ushered in a new sartorial era. The Communist regime regarded the old styles of Chinese dress as a relic of the feudal past. In their place, the regime encouraged an egalitarian mode of dress that was loosely based around the Sun Yat-sen uniform, wrongly described in the West as the Mao suit. The Sun Yat-sen uniform, featuring a high-collared tunic, was, like the qipao, a hybrid style, and drew on Japanese, German and Soviet military influences. The ubiquitous Maoist style of dress, in contrast, was partly inspired by the traditional trousers, tunic and black cotton shoes of the Chinese peasant. There were no government edicts concerning dress, but the new Maoist style clearly reflected the egalitarian principles of the regime, as well as the poverty of the country. [361] Only after 1978 did this state of affairs slowly begin to change to the point where Chinese cities are now overwhelmingly dominated by Western-style dress. [362] The Maoist style of dress has almost entirely disappeared, as has the Sun Yat-sen uniform previously worn by government officials — to be largely replaced by the Western suit. The only element of traditional Chinese dress that persists amongst ordinary people is the Chinese jacket, which still remains popular, especially amongst the old. Trousers are very widely worn by women, more so than in the West, which is in part a continuation of a much older Chinese tradition, trousers never having had the masculine connotation they once did in the West. [363] Otherwise there is little evidence of traditional Chinese wear, in either traditional or modernized form, for men or women. The only exception is a recent minor revival of the quipao amongst waitresses and hotel staff.
Various designers have sought to reintroduce traditional themes into modern Chinese dress. The best known example is David Tang’s Shanghai Tang label, but it has experienced only limited success, with the clothes in its Hong Kong shops mainly bought by Westerners. Blanc de Chine, another Hong Kong firm, has similar ambitions, as does Shiatzy Chen in Taipei. Designers like Vivienne Tam, Amy Chan and Anna Sui — based mainly in the West — have also explored the use of Chinese elements in their designs. Notwithstanding these efforts, the striking feature of modern Chinese dress — certainly in contrast to India — is how Westernized it is and how little it incorporates traditional Chinese elements. [364] Over the last decade, meanwhile, various features, such as the distinctive Chinese-style collar and buttons, have become increasingly conspicuous in Western women’s fashion, reflecting the growing influence of a Chinese aesthetic. [365] In addition, the enhanced importance of the East Asian market has also led to a small rise in the use of models from the region in Western fashion. [366]
Why have the Japanese and Chinese so comprehensively abandoned their sartorial traditions? Clearly the influence of Western modernity — in this case primarily European — has extended to what people choose to wear. If people want to be modern they feel they must dress in a Western way: Western dress is the sartorial badge of modernity. Another frequently offered explanation is practicality: that traditional forms of dress are seen as largely impractical for modern living. But that does not explain why traditional elements have not found expression in a popularized and modernized form: that is what, after all, has happened with the relentlessly innovative tradition of Western dress. Long dresses and petticoats, doublets and breeches, top hats and tails, may all have disappeared, along with much else, but the Western tradition of dress thrives and prospers. In the Japanese case, traditional (and simplified) forms of dress never came to be regarded as fundamental to the Japanese way of life, or Japanese ‘realm’, [367] as Kosaku Yoshino puts it, unlike language, food, sake (rice wine) and tatami mats, for example. As a consequence, dress was one of the elements that the Japanese were prepared to forsake and see Westernized as part of the process of post-Meiji modernization. In China, in contrast, traditional forms of dress were condemned to virtual extinction by their association with the old dynastic order. After 1978, it was a relatively short sartorial journey from the ubiquitous style of dress of the Maoist era to the Western styles of today.
A similar picture of Western influence holds throughout North-East Asia, including South Korea and Taiwan. Much the same is true of most of South- East Asia as well. The main exception is Malaysia (and to a lesser extent Indonesia), where a majority of Malay women now cover their head with the tudung (headscarf) and wear the baju kurung (a Malay style of dress consisting of sarong and upper tunic). With rapid urbanization and in a highly multiracial environment, this represents a strong statement of cultural identity. In part the style represents a return to Malay tradition, but it is also an appropriation of various Islamic traditions, which have been given a distinctively Malay flavour by the use of strikingly bold colours: [368] Malays have a highly developed sense of fashion, certainly when compared with Indian and especially Chinese Malaysians, with their somewhat drab mimicry of Western dress codes.
If Western dress has been widely adopted in China, Japan and elsewhere for the reasons outlined, why has this not been the case in India, or amongst Malay women, for example? It would seem that in both instances religion has played a crucial role in sustaining traditional forms of dress. A distinctive feature of both China and Japan — and North-East Asia generally — is the lack of any strong tradition of organized religion. This contrasts markedly with India, where Hinduism and to a lesser extent Islam, for example, exercise an extremely important cultural influence. In both, dress plays at least two roles: first, it is a reflection of religious teaching, not least in the rules governing gender dressing, and second, it may act as a means of distinguishing followers of a religion from others. Both these considerations, for example, apply to Malay women and also to Punjabi men, with their uncut hair and turban. Religion has proved a formidable obstacle to Western-style dress in South Asia, whereas in China and Japan it barely constitutes a factor in dress codes.
Tokyo fashion shows use many white models, as well as Japanese, but rarely anyone of darker skin. Comme des Garçons only ever uses white models at its shows. [369] White models are common at Hong Kong fashion week, along with Chinese, but there are rarely, if ever, black or brown models. The local fashion magazines — which are often versions of Western magazines like Vogue or Elle — carry text in the vernacular but the models are overwhelmingly white. [370] A majority of fashion advertising in Hong Kong — though no longer in Japan — uses white (rath
er than Chinese) models, as does Giordano, the local equivalent of Gap; black or brown models are never to be seen. A walk around the underground shopping mall beneath People’s Square in central Shanghai paints a not dissimilar picture: the advertising mainly features Chinese models but there are plenty of Caucasians and never anyone of darker skin. In India, on the other hand, the models on the catwalks and in the fashion magazines are overwhelmingly Indian, usually of fair complexion. [371]
In an interview with Yang Qingqing, a beauty expert and cult figure amongst Shanghai women, I sought to understand the profusion of white models and the total absence of models with darker skin.
Chinese culture is very open. We can accept things from outside. When we look at a foreigner we will be more tolerant of their beauty. But if they are Chinese we will be more critical. Maybe distance generates an appreciation of beauty, that’s why we like Western features. [372]
Despite my best efforts, she refused to be drawn on why this apparent openness did not include women of darker skin. Mei Ling, a Taiwanese beauty expert who advises Max Factor and acts as a consultant to Chinese pop singers and film stars, was altogether more forthcoming:
In Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland, Chinese girls like white skin products. They think white is beautiful. People have a dream and it is about the West. We are yellow, but we don’t want to be. For Max Factor, Lancôme and the rest, every season it is the same colour — white. It is very boring. We try and sell them a new colour each season, but they just want white. Asians like white skin. For seventy years — the period of make-up — the choice has always been the same — white. Because of the shape of the Chinese face — a small nose, high cheek bones, narrow eyes and absence of facial hair — skin is more important to the Chinese than to Westerners. [373]
There is a huge demand for such whitening products amongst Chinese, Japanese and Korean women and they dominate cosmetic advertising on television and in the press. [374] It is estimated that the Japanese market for whitening products was worth $5.6 billion in 2001, with China (the fastest growing market) valued at $1.3 billion. Much of the advertising aimed at Asian women by Western cosmetic companies uses images and narratives with implicit references to the aesthetic ‘inferiority’ of the ‘dark’ and ‘yellow’ skin tones of Asian women. [375] It is not unusual to see Chinese and Japanese women smothered in white foundation cream and looking — to Western eyes — somewhat ghostly. The racial subtext of all this is clear: black is repel lant, yellow is undesirable and white is good. The desire for whiteness takes other forms. On a sunny day in China, Japan, Singapore and elsewhere, it is very common to see Chinese or Japanese women using parasols and umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun; they do not want to have tanned skin. [376]
The Japanese have long sought to distinguish themselves from other races in East Asia, especially the Chinese. In manga comics and animation films, the Japanese portray themselves in a highly Westernized manner, with big (sometimes blue) eyes, brightly coloured — even blond — hair and white skin, even though black hair, narrow brown eyes and a yellowish skin are more or less universal. [377] Generally lighter than the Chinese, they like to see themselves as white; certainly not yellow, which is how they perceive the Chinese and Koreans. For both the Japanese and the Chinese, black skin has a highly negative connotation and it is not uncommon to see black people portrayed in a derogatory way. [378] A popular advert for San Miguel beer in Hong Kong around 2000 featured a black person as little more than an imbecile. According to Mei Ling, ‘They don’t like to see black skin, only white skin, in the make-up catalogues that I am responsible for compiling.’ [379] A senior executive for one of the top American film studios told me that there was little demand in the region for Hollywood films or TV series with black stars. The most popular look on Japanese or Chinese television or in film might best be described as Eurasian — Japanese or Chinese with Western features. Jackie Chan is a case in point. For both Japanese and Chinese women, white boy-friends can enjoy a certain cachet, but the same is certainly not true of black or brown partners: they are an extremely rare sight and any such decision would require great courage.
The Western form — above all, skin colour, the defining signifier, but also other Caucasian features such as fair hair, large eyes and height — has had a profound and enduring impact on East Asian societies over the last two hundred years. It is something that is rarely commented upon and yet it is more pervasive, more psychologically far-reaching, and more fundamental in terms of identity, than most questions normally discussed in this context. For a Japanese to look in the mirror and wish to see a white person, or to emphasize those features which resemble those of a Caucasian — not easy given the profound physical differences between the two — is a powerful statement of self-image, of how a person feels about him or herself, of their sense of place in the world. It is not uncommon for the Japanese to feel physically inadequate in comparison with Westerners, complementing the sense of national inferiority and insecurity discussed in Chapter 3. The Chinese harbour similar emotions about their physical appearance, but this is less common than amongst the Japanese.
It would be wrong to regard the predilection in East Asia for whiteness, however, as simply a product of Western influence. The desire to be white also has powerful indigenous roots. For both the Japanese and Chinese, whiteness has long carried a powerful class connotation. If you are dark, it means you work on the land and are of a lower order; such a prejudice is deeply embedded in their respective national psyches and has been accentuated by modernization and urbanization, with white a symbol of urban living and prosperity and brown a metaphor for the countryside and poverty. Perceptions of different skin colours are used to define and reinforce national differences, as well as relations between races in the same country, and even between different shades within the same race. Since the Meiji Restoration, skin colour has been used by the Japanese to distinguish them from their Chinese and Korean neighbours. More widely, this hierarchy of colour is reproduced in the relationship between the fairer North-East Asia and the darker South-East Asia, and within South-East Asia between the indigenous population, the Chinese diaspora and the smaller Indian diaspora, for instance. More or less everywhere in East Asia, skin colour is a highly sensitive subject that arouses powerful feelings, perceptions and prejudices, with a near-universal desire to be fairer. The power of the Western racial model is precisely that it reinforces and interacts with very long-established indigenous views about colour. I will return to these themes in Chapter 8 in the context of China.
Food
It is fashionable to cite the spread of McDonald’s in East Asia as a sign of growing Westernization. In 2008 there were 950 McDonald’s stores in China (the first being opened in Shenzhen in 1990) and in 2004 there were approximately 3,500 in Japan and 300 in Malaysia. Starbucks, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut also have numerous outlets in the region: in 2008 KFC had more than 2,200 stores in China and in 2006 Pizza Hut had 140. A 1999 memo on fast food by McCann Erickson, which handled the advertising account in China for McDonald’s, set out its appeal as follows:
It’s about modernity. The fast-food restaurant is a symbol of having made it. The new ‘Western’ fast-food restaurants (though predominantly the Golden Arches) become status symbol locations for the new middle class. It becomes initially their link with showing that they can live the Western (read usually ‘American’) lifestyle. [380]
The combined total of all US fast food stores, however, represents a very tiny fraction of the restaurants and eating places in these countries. They may attract a great deal of publicity but this gives a distorted picture of eating habits in East Asia. The overwhelming majority of people continue to consume the food indigenous to their country. Almost everyone taking lunch or dinner in Beijing or Chongqing will invariably eat Chinese food; the same can be said of the Japanese. Western fast food — including the most popular Western fast food of all, the sandwich — lives at the margins of mass eating hab
its. Nor do Western-style eateries enjoy a monopoly of the idea of fast food. On the contrary, Chinese and Japanese fast food restaurants — familiar to Westerners in the guise of sushi bars and noodle bars, for example — are infinitely more common.
In his seminal study Food in Chinese Culture, K. C. Chang suggests that ‘the importance of food in understanding human culture lies precisely in its infinite variability — variability that is not essential for species survival.’ [381] People from different cultures eat very differently; even within the same culture there is usually considerable variation. [382] Furthermore, people display enormous attachment towards the food that they have been brought up on and with which they are intimately familiar. The instincts are tribal: in the food hall at the National University of Singapore, I was struck by how the Chinese students ate Chinese food, the Indians ate Indian, and the Malays ate Malay, with little crossover. The same can be said in the West: we might like the occasional Indian, Chinese or Mexican meal, usually heavily adapted for the local palate, but our staple diet is Western — breakfast, lunch and dinner.
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