Penn Asian Review Spring 2016 (Vol 6)

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The Penn Asian Review Board Consists of: Editor-in-Chief Anissa Tang Copy-editor Alexander Atienza Associate Editors John Grisafi Sabino Padilla Kevin Quimbo Treasurer Erika Hao

Penn Asian Review Especially Thanks

For their continued support.

For more information, please visit www.ceas.sas.upenn.edu

Dear Reader,

A multitude of scenarios can bring us to think of Asia. Perhaps it was the Chinese food you just had for lunch, or the passing mention of travel plans, or even attending one of the many cultural shows available.

Despite its prominence in our daily lives and on the news, Asia oftentimes seems a world removed. Even more often, it is thought of as Asia, the continent, a large and indivisible swath of land, even though it is composed of myriad unique countries, each with their own distinct cultures and histories. The Penn Asian Review was founded precisely to share knowledge from across the diversity that Asia has to offer. It is with this in mind that we are pleased to present to you the sixth volume of the Penn Asian Review.

Each article within, written by a fellow student at the University of Pennsylvania, has been carefully selected for its fantastic analysis of a particular facet of Asia. We hope that these stories help you discover more about Asia, be it about history, contemporary culture, or socio-economic trends. Our selection is focused around East Asia, and traverses the countries of Japan, China, and South Korea. Within these pages, you will encounter Japanese society as reflected in its film industry, as well as the Chinese government’s wrestling with climate change. You may learn more about China’s domestic issues, through an article on gendered rural-urban migration, or South Korea’s foreign outlook viewed specifically through the lens of K-pop. In our journey, we will also touch upon America, as we examine wartime cartoons about the Japanese. It is our hope that these articles may whet your own curiosity about Asia, and lead you to ask questions and start discussions.

Before we leave you to your reading, we would like to acknowledge the time and effort that both our staff and our writers have exerted to make this journal a success once again. We would also like to thank the Center for East Asian Studies and the Student Activities Council for their gracious sponsorship and financial backing. Lastly, we would like to thank you, reader, for picking up a copy of this journal, and for continuing to support us.

Happy reading!

Anissa Tang Editor-in-Chief

Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

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Table of Contents 5

K-Pop: The South Korean Spin on Foreign Relations Mia Leyland

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Subhuman, Inhuman, and Lesser Human: Depictions of the Japanese in American War Cartoons Carolyn Grace

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Popular Anxieties and Miyazaki’s Optimism: Concerns about the Youth and Future of Japan in Popular Culture of the Post-Bubble Economic Era John Grisafi

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The Changing Face of Chinese Migrant Laborers: Factors Prompting Women to Join the Rural-Urban Rush Rona Ji

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Domestic Issues, Global Implications: China’s Complex Interactions with Environmental Degradation and Climate Change Hannah Greene

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K-Pop: The South Korean Spin on Foreign Relations Mia Leyland

Introduction When cultural exchange is discussed, many think of orchestras, folk musicians, and traditional dance troupes, and while important, their appeal is often limited. In the case of South Korea and Japan, efforts to improve political relations have been powerfully aided by popular culture. A phenomenon labeled Hallyu (한류), or the “Korean Wave,” has helped improve Japanese attitudes towards South Korea, and vice versa. Over the past ten years, South Korean pop culture – music, movies, television shows – has become enormously popular in Japan. The multibilliondollar music industry alone has had an enormous effect on people’s attitudes towards each other, and has great potential in continuing to heal wounds left by historic events between nations.

Borrowing styles from pop, hiphop, rap, rock, R&B, electronic, and more, for the past decade, South Korean popular music has continued to dominate the Asian music industry. Commonly referred to as “K-Pop,” Korean popular music is marketed as pop and dance music performed by idol groups who have been gaining increasing popularity since the 1990s among the youth of not only South Korea, but China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and perhaps most surprisingly, Japan. While the history of Asia shows a tendency for nations Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

to limit the flow of cultural production and consumption from neighboring countries of historical and cultural similarity, the Korean Wave is an indication of the changing cultural and economic arenas, both globally and locally.

[1] However, the question remains, where the United States and Japan used to control the Asian pop culture scene, what is it about South Korea that is attracting the Asian masses?

Arguments of K-pop as a passing fad are beginning to lose ground, as its supremacy over Asian pop culture remains strong, if not getting stronger. Theorists suggest that South Korea is leading the world towards dream societies of icons and aesthetic experiences through economic policies based on popular culture.[2] In this paper, I will examine the history of South Korean popular music in order to argue that the South Korean government’s support of K-pop and other cultural trends has positively affected the South Korean economy and political relations.

Prior to the 1990s Over thirty-five years of Japanese colonial rule meant that by the 1960s, South Korean and Japanese culture had some level of overlap, which was evident in its popular music. In general, East Asian music was marked by use of the pentatonic scale, as opposed to the Western diatonic scale, and the

singing style consisted of emotive wails and melismatic expressions.

[3] While urban Koreans were beginning to be exposed to Western music forms during the postLiberation period, from classical to popular genres, the preceding influence of Japan was seen in the prevalent popular music called “trot.” This Korean genre was effectively a variant of Japanese enka (演歌), which stylistically resembles Japanese traditional music, with the performer dressed in traditional ethnic or conservative western clothing, exhibiting little movement.

However, it should be noted that the 1960s saw the emergence of popular American music such as jazz, blues, pop, and rock, brought via United States military camptown bars and dance halls.[4] While one may question the continuing popularity of Japanese-style music after Japan’s brutal colonial rule of South Korea, the music was much more familiar and representative of South Korean cultural sensibility, routed in Confucian ideals, than the music of the West, and thus prevailed.

The 1970s was a time of rapid economic growth, authoritarian politics, substantial social disorder, as well as a taste of what the Korean Wave would swiftly become in the next three decades. Cho Yong-pil emerged as a popular trot singer and gained relative fame in Japan with the continuation of the pentatonic scale and singing with little movement.[5] Still, cultural exchange remained small as the South Korean government banned both “conservative” music (i.e. trot for its Japanese influences) and “progressive” music (i.e. rock for its association with corruption).

The government used nationalism and Confucian ideals to justify 5

the culturally restraining policy, claiming that such music was too “loud” and “political.” As South Korea moved into the 1980s and 1990s, it began focusing on its popular entertainment through musical variety shows featuring gayo (가요, popular songs) and the widespread popularity of noraebang (노래방, karaoke), transforming singing and listening to popular music into a national activity.[6] One of the poorest nations in the world just a generation before, South Korea was equivalent to many European countries by the 1980s.

The nation owed its transformation in part to the urge to export goods while importing few; from 1965 to 1985, South Korea’s gross domestic product increased at about ten percent per year.[7] However, international trading partners pressured South Korea into opening its markets to foreign competition and following the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, there was a huge influx of foreign consumer goods. While the decrease in the politicization of everyday life allowed citizens to be exposed to the outside world, there was a conscious effort to make the most “Korean” choices by consumers. In a very nationalistic endeavor, citizens made decisions that were in the best interest of the country in fear that the imported goods were infiltrating their economy and culture.

[8] Similarly, instead of simply importing rap, hip-hop, reggae, or punk in the 1990s, music was “produced within a certain cultural context” to be “made Korean.”[9] 1990s Previously a media monopoly controlled by the state, the 1990s 6

served as a stage for increased political liberalization and the development of the South Korean music industry into what it is known to be today.[10] While the ballads and ballad-based pop music characteristic of Asia remained favorable during the 1980s, a major shift in South Korean media occurred during the 1990s that lead to a Hallyu takeover. As of the 1990s, South Korean film and television was largely dictated by foreign media, with Hollywood being eighty percent of the Korean film market. Domestic products were seen as substandard and foreign companies were outperforming Korean media production companies. A 1994 Presidential Advisory Board on Science and Technology report compared the total revenue of the blockbuster, Jurassic Park, to the foreign sales of 1.5 million Hyundai cars, at which point the government established the Cultural Industry Bureau within the Ministry of Culture and Sports to make media production a greater priority as a “national strategic industry.”[11] Now in need of their own music culture, the growing population of young Koreans who grew up in large Western cities like New York and Los Angeles seemed to have an answer. This group of people helped revolutionize the Korean entertainment industry with the introduction of hiphop, rap, and R&B.[12] Credited with popularizing rap in South Korea and thus transforming the music scene, three-member boy band, Seo Taji and Boys, blended hip-hop, rap, techno, dance, rock, soul, ballad, and even some elements of Korean traditional

music into new rhythmic styles that were predicted to fail. Instead, their first album, “Nan Arayo” ( 난 알아요: I Know), released in March 1992, was one of the fastestselling records in the history of Korean music, landing at number one for a then record-breaking seventeen weeks. “‘Since Seo Taiji, the syncretism of a wide range of musical genres in one album has become commonplace in Korea.

What has come into existence is a hybrid but distinctively Korean pop style.’”[13] Furthermore, the group introduced dance as a critical component of musical performance, which continues to be a trademark of South Korean popular music.[14] [15] The post-gayo genre of music was “distinctly contemporary and western in sensibility and sound,”[16] yet experienced various localization strategies. For instance, there was not as large of a market for American rap in South Korea due to its more traditional moral conservatism. As a result, rap style was used to express opinions on subject matter that revolved around local and national issues, such as South Korean culture and education. “Classroom Ideology,” released by Seo Taiji and Boys in 1994, as its name suggests, exhibited perceived problems with the education system in South Korea: Enough. Enough already. (Enough) Enough of that kind of learning.

(Enough) I’m satisfied. I’m now satisfied.

(Satisfied) Every morning at 7:30 we are forced into a little classroom.

All nine million children are forced to learn the same things.

In classrooms closed off by four walls, In the dark that eat away at us,

I am wasting my youth.

I will make you into a better you.

You will step on the child sitting next to you to get what you want.

You can be a better you.

Why don’t you change?

Why do you wander in your youth?

Why don’t you change?

Why do you want others to change instead?[17]

As the translation shows, this sense of rebellion was borrowed from foreign styles of rap, but the lyrics are not necessarily offensive and provide a “new language to express nationally specific anxieties.”[18] Until this point, apart from a few classical musicians and trot singers, the idea of exporting South Korean popular music would have been seen as odd, but coming into the twenty first century, Hallyu took Asia by storm.

2000s The term “Hallyu” was originally used to refer to wind coming from the Korean peninsula, but in today’s world, it is operationalized as the unlimited popularity of South Korean popular culture in Asia and beyond. Especially notable is not only the success of South Korean popular culture in Japan, but South Korea’s willingness to promote in Japan, with whom tension from just a few decades prior continue to persist, albeit less intensely. Efforts to expand into the Japanese market are evident in that BoA, a female solo artist under the entertainment company, SM Entertainment, was able to reach number one in Japan by 2002, just two years after her South Korean debut. SM Entertainment consciously sought to promote her as a quasi-local performer, singing in Japanese and Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

acting like a J-pop star. “South Korea’s success in exporting music to Japan was due not to K-pop but to J-pop; that is, SM Entertainment promoted BoA as a J-pop star – one who just happened to be South Korean.”[19] However, while BoA was a successful Korean star in Japan by the early 2000s, what truly began the Hallyu craze was a TV drama called Winter Sonata.

No one would have predicted the remarkable popularity of the 2002 KBS drama series, Winter Sonata.

However, the 2003 release of the TV drama on Japanese television became an overnight sensation that caused a frenzy in Japan, and South Korea emerged as Asia’s pop culture leader. South Korea, previously more concerned with protecting itself from cultural domination by Japan and China, was suddenly faced with the spillover effects of a heightened interest in South Korean culture.

In fact, “The phenomenal success of Winter Sonata has swept across Asia, making history along its path such as melting the cultural barrier between South Korea and Japan, heightening the South Korean image and promoting tourism to the peninsula.”[20] People began moving from the soundtracks of these dramas to Korean popular music, whose songs were beautiful and familiar; “K-pop songs are often seen as showing a fuller affinity for the region’s character, and to express more soulfulness than Western music.”[21] By the late 2000s, K-pop was unquestionably the driving force of Hallyu. The genre itself is now interwoven with the structure of South Korea’s economy, society, and culture. Its government actively promotes K-pop, treating

idol groups as cultural ambassadors with the expectation to act as representatives of the country.[22] Modern-day K-pop has intensified the tones of hip-hop, R&B, electronica, and various genres as they gain popularity internationally.

Unfortunately, K-pop is infamous for created idol singers’ music in an industrial fashion through entertainment companies that care more about the individual’s likelihood of appealing to the modern boy and girl fans as an attractive creation.[23] However, in more recent years, idol singers such as G-Dragon of boy band Big Bang and Yong Jun Hyung of boy band B2ST have gained extraordinary respect as successful composers and producers, both with multiple number one hits for their respective groups and themselves.

Ultimately, however the music is produced, there is no denying its addictive nature and popularity throughout all of Asia. “It is that newness that makes K-Pop interesting. The innovation that the genre brings to the music world lies much in the relatively extreme ways in which the Korean music industry produces its content.”[24] As South Korea stays at the top of the Asian music market, entertainment companies are using nationalmarket differentiation as a tactic to gain fanbases abroad; today’s idols release songs in different languages, namely Korean, Japanese, English, and Mandarin, as well as having nation-specific names. For instance, the girl group internationally known as Girls Generation, uses the name “Sonyo Sidae” (소녀시대) in South Korea and “Shojo Jidai” (少女 時代) in Japan. “From its traditional role as a censor, the government has become a promoter of popular 7

culture,”[25] and with South Korea now on a global stage, there seem to be no signs of stopping.

Conclusion It is easy to dismiss pop culture. By definition, however, it connects with common folk, and as such, it has laid the foundation for improved bilateral relations between Japan and South Korea. While Japanese listeners have showed a positive response to ethnic Korean singers in the past (i.e. trot singers), it was believed that mainstream Japanese listeners would oppose and refuse Korean singers. Perhaps it was South Korea’s economic rise or democratic politics, but in the eyes of Japan, the general image of South Korea was enhanced. One scholar stressed the incredible effects of Hallyu, claiming that: One can say that Winter Sonata has done more politically for South Korea and Japan than the FIFA World Cup they co-hosted in 2002.

In an effort to overlook their bitter historical past, both governments promoted cultural exchanges before the World Cup event, but it was not until the huge success of Winter Sonata in Japan that a passion for all things South Korean was triggered.

[26] Studying Hallyu in Japan, a survey asked respondents in Japan and South Korea whether they believed that it was good that Japanese people are liking Korean culture.

A majority of respondents from both countries believed it was, and especially in South Korea, nearly one-third of the respondents checked “Strongly Agree.”[27] Indeed, the spread of Korean culture is being encouraged by both 8

the Japanese and Korean public, and negativities are beginning to melt.

K-pop has shown that popular culture can have more implications than just earning currency, especially when looking at its political relations with its neighbors in past decades. Korean pop stars have truly contributed in the improvement of South Korea’s foreign relations: BoA, who made the cover of the French Le Monde in July 2002 as an icon of cultural exchange between Korea and Japan, were invited to the two countries’ summit conference in June 2003 in Tokyo; Japan was responsible for a brutal occupation of Korea during the period between 1910 and 1945.

[28] One cannot, of course, pretend that animosity has completely disappeared – as constant news over disputed territory has shown, problems between the two nations continue – but real progress has been made. As we have seen in this case, popular music can be used as a tool to positively impact international relations.

1. Woongjae Ryoo, “Globalization, or the Logic of Cultural Hybridization: The Case of the Korean Wave,” in Asian Journal of Communication (2009), 137.

2. Jim Dator and Yongseok Seo, “Korea as the Wave of a Future,” in Journal of Futures Studies (2004), 31.

3. John Lie, “What Is the K in K-pop? South Korean Popular Music, the Culture Industry, and National Identity,” in Korea Observer (2012), 341.

4. Lie, “What is the K in K-Pop?,” 343.

5. Lie, “What is the K in K-Pop?,” 344.

6. Lie, “What is the K in K-Pop?,” 348.

7. Sarah Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave: Globality in the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of South Korean Popular Music” (Senior thesis, Vassar College, 2012), 10.

8. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 11.

9. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 9.

10. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 11.

11. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 11-12.

12. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 12.

13. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 15.

14. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 15.

15. Lie, “What is the K in K-Pop?,” 350.

16. Lie, “What is the K in K-Pop?,” 349.

17. Tony Mitchell, “Appendix: Song Lyrics,” in Global Noise: Rap and Hip-hop outside the USA (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2001), 255-256.

18. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 16.

19. John Lie, “Seoul Calling,” in K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea (Oakland: University of California, 2015), 101.

20. Ryoo, “Globalization, or the Logic of Cultural Hybridization,” 140.

21. Ryoo, “Globalization, or the Logic of Cultural Hybridization,” 140.

22. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 20.

23. Ch’ang-nam Kim, “Korean Popular Music in the Era of K-Pop: After the Late 1990s,” in K-pop: Roots and Blossoming of Korean Popular Music (Hollym International Corporation, 2012), 124-125.

24. Leung, “Catching the K-Pop Wave,” 7.

25. Lie, “What is the K in K-Pop?,” 359.

26. Ryoo, “Globalization, or the Logic of Cultural Hybridization,” 150.

27. Yasue Kuwahara, “Hanryu: Korean Popular Culture in Japan,” in The Korean Wave: Korean Popular Culture in Global Context (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 214.

28. Doobo Shim, “Hybridity and the Rise of Korean Popular Culture in Asia,” in Media, Culture & Society (2006), 30-31.

Subhuman, Inhuman, and Lesser Human: Depictions of the Japanese in American War Cartoons Carolyn Grace

In 1942, Leatherneck, the official magazine of the United States Marines, ran an unusually wild comic strip. It featured an unkempt white solider who was infuriated that his canteen of liquor had been shot out of his hands by the “slant-eyed jerks” and “jaundiced baboons” of the jungle. Seething, the soldier charges into the jungle and returns with four dead creatures, tied by their tails and hanging from his shoulders. They have the bodies of monkeys and the faces of humans, specifically humans of Japanese nationality.

“They’re a bit undersized,” says the soldier, “‘but I got four of ‘em!!”[1] The emergence of Japan as a dominant power in Asia during the Second World War threatened not only the Western presence but also the entire foundation of white supremacy upon which European and American expansion had formed. This triggered a rather fearful – and borderline apocalyptic – reaction from the Western media. The Hearst newspapers in New York declared the war in Asia totally different from that in Europe because Japan was a “racial menace” as well as a cultural and religious threat. Should the country prove victorious in the Pacific, there would be “perpetual war between Oriental ideals and Occidental [ones].”[2] Before Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

were already more hated than the Germans in the United States, and the events of December 7 only exacerbated this sentiment.

Americans saw them as a different race and species from themselves, and naturally American mass media depicted them as such.

Songwriters, filmmakers, war correspondents, and other outlets all drew from a series of stock images that presented, more or less, the same stereotype of the Japanese. [3] However, the domain that arguably made the largest impact on the American representation of the Japanese was that of the illustrator. Cartoonists and animators provided visuals that complemented the thoughts, feelings, and words that white Americans associated with this “inferior” ethnic group. In doing so, they communicated certain messages about race that had not been explicitly stated until that time. The primary sources examined in this paper – cartoons and animated short films – are examples of the general physical and psychological depiction of the Japanese in American public illustrations and the various types of artistic contributors. Together, they tell us much about the overall American attitude towards the Japanese.

In the 1930s, even though the United States had not yet entered the war, they were already in a heated conflict with Japan that stemmed partially from extreme

imagery. In September of 1931, Japan invaded China on the grounds that the Chinese had blown up part of the Japanese-owned Manchurian railway at Mukden. In fact, the incident had been planned strategically by the Japanese in order to provide justification to go to war with China.[4] By 1932, fighting between the two countries made it to Shanghai[5] and this was met with extreme hostility from America, who already began considering Japan as a greater potential enemy than any European nation.[6] To make matters worse, the media relayed the horrors of the vicious urban warfare in words, pictures, and newsreels. The New York Times described in horrid detail the bombing of civilians, and told of Japanese soldiers firing indiscriminately at the survivors.

Americans were outraged at the news, and their prejudice against Japan carried through to the Pacific War. The national public sentiment was agreed that something had to be done about Japan. [7] The Japanese did not seem too worried, for they knew that the United States harbored isolationist behaviors. They greatly underestimated, for example, the effect of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese believed that Americans would see the bombing as a forced defensive move from Japan in response to the actions of FDR. But the events of December 7, 1941 instead provided the Allies with the greatest propaganda weapon that no amount of Japanese advertising skills could counter – the stab in the back.[8] An editorial cartoon from the Evening Public Ledger, a daily 9

newspaper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, echoes this message of betrayal and lays the foundations for how the media chose to represent the Japanese. The cartoon was designed with ink and crayon

by Charles Henry Sykes and published on December 9, 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It depicts a man who has leapt out of his bed, gun in hand, just in time to see a smaller man make his escape out of an open window with a long, unknown object in his hand.

The words “Japanese Infamy” lie just above his head. The word “Congress” is written on the back of the older man’s dressing gown, and “Unity” is inscribed on his gun.

The caption for the entire cartoon reads, “No time lost here.”[9] This tagline is incredibly fitting, for it was only a day prior to the cartoon’s publication when the U.S. Congress declared war on Japan, which happened immediately in reaction to the Pearl Harbor attack. The government, symbolized here by the man with the shotgun, certainly did not lose any time in reacting to the “crime” that was committed against them. And according to Sykes, Japan, represented by the small man, is well known for causing such evil deeds, even though it does not specify the past incidents. However, this most recent act – presumably, Pearl Harbor – seems to have been the worst of them all, for the “unity” that once existed between the United States and Japan is now brandished as a weapon against Japan.

In this cartoon, Sykes takes great care to emphasize the criminal and cowardly nature of the Japanese.

The small man’s dress is all black with one of the darkest shades 10

belonging to the mask he wears over his eyes in order to hide his true identity. This adds an element of mystery as well as weakness to the already nefarious depiction of the Japanese. The small man is afraid to reveal himself, unable to take responsibility for the trouble he’s caused. Yet even though the small man is masked, it is possible to make out the slanted shape of his eyes and the round stubbiness of his nose, underneath of which lies a short, trimmed mustache. His physique is rather primitive looking for a human, a characteristic that fellow cartoonists and animators would use for various intentions.

his work as an editorial cartoonist for PM, the left-leaning New York City daily newspaper, from early 1941 to 1943. Geisel was charged with exhorting America to go to war with Hitler, thus his idea of cartooning, like propaganda, was an art of persuasion.[11] Geisel’s first PM cartoon to depict the Japanese was featured on June 13, 1941. By this point, Japan and the United States had been engaged in long negotiations that would ultimately end without success in late November. The two countries were exploring the possibility of moving away from confrontation, but Hitler clearly wanted the Japanese involved in the war.[12]

Creators of anti-Japanese imagery tended to produce an array of representations, mostly because their views of the nation and its people were constantly shifting.

On the one hand, cartoonists and animators would portray the Japanese as an inherently inferior people, emphasizing their primitivism, childishness, and collective mental and emotional deficiency. Yet early on in the Pacific conflict, when the Japanese shocked the world by taking hundreds of thousands of prisoners throughout colonial Asia, another stereotype came to the page and screen: the Japanese superhuman, capable of extreme discipline and intense combat skills. Above all, these different representations denoting superiority and inferiority transcended race and represented America’s larger opinions of the “Self and Other” concept.[10]

What is more important to note is Geisel’s depiction of Japan. The country is represented as a comic opera figure, sporting a decadent uniform and a hat with a gaudy topping. He wears heavy glasses over slanted eyes and has a long, thin mustache. He speaks in very broken English, or “Pidgin.” He looks and sounds ridiculous, as he would to many Americans at the time. Certain aspects of Geisel’s Japanese would become traits that all cartoonists and animators would also exaggerate. For example, the Pidgin English appears in later cartoons, as do the slanted eyes, the round glasses, and trimmed mustache.[13] The word ‘Jap’ becomes almost commonplace terminology. These various traits would be reshuffled and combined with different contexts by illustrators and animators to produce changing messages throughout the course of the war.

Theodor Seuss Geisel – better known as “Dr. Seuss,” one of the most recognized cartoonists in the world – presented this duality in

Geisel displayed the bizarre nature of the Japanese in other ways as well, ones that were more monstrous than humorous. In a

PM cartoon from October 1942, Geisel creates a far more twisted depiction of the Japanese. This particular image was made in reaction to the death threats issued by the Japanese after they had captured eight members of the American Doolittle’s Raiders.

Again, Geisel presents the same, perplexed-looking Japanese face with jagged teeth. But the figure has arms that end in lobster claws

– one of which is squeezing a human figure – and legs that end in bear paws. He is fully equipped to slaughter, as proven by the three dead figures that lie on the ground next to him. A skull hangs from his top hat, and the Nazi and Japanese insignia decorate his coat.

He declares hypocritically to the reader, “I appeal to the civilized world in righteous protest… against American barbarism and inhumanity,” in a direct jab at the announcement made by the Japanese that the Doolittle pilots were the ones with the cruel, inhumane attitudes.[14] In this cartoon, Geisel decided Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

to blur the boundaries between man and beast when depicting the Japanese, a tactic employed by many fellow cartoonists and animators. The merging of propaganda and caricature portrayed the Japanese as grotesque, evil creatures, which did not always have bearing on the reality of their “racial” (or human) stereotype. Rather, these kinds of depictions distorted physical

features and iconic symbols in attempts to incite hatred.[15] Such imagery further dehumanized the Japanese and solidified the dividing line between “Self ” and “Other.”[16] Emphasizing the ‘subhuman’ nature of the Japanese became common practice amongst American illustrators. Often, cartoonists and animators turned to images of apes and vermin to convey this idea. They depicted the Japanese as animals, reptiles, or insects; popular creatures included monkeys, baboons, gorillas, dogs, rodents, vipers and rattlesnakes, cockroaches, and other large

clusters of vermin to evoke the idea of “the Japanese herd.” U.S. Ambassador Joseph Grew described the Japanese this way, calling them “easily led,” like sheep, by their authorities. U.S. Army magazine Yank referenced the “sheep-like subversiveness” of the Japanese as well, calling them “stupid animalslaves.”[17] The herd concept did not refer solely to the incompetent or blind obedience of Japanese people, but also implied their incessant, looming presence.

Geisel has his own unique depiction of the herd mentality. In a PM cartoon published on December 10, 1941, he draws Uncle Sam under siege by hundreds of slanteyed cats with leering grins in “Jap Alley.” Uncle Sam has one cat by the neck, but the mass of felines is closing in on him. One cat has even leapt towards him, though he does not seem to be aware of it. This could potentially be in reference to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which had happened only days previous. Uncle Sam is noticeably concerned. “Maybe only alley cats,” he exclaims, “but Jeepers! a hell of a lot of ‘em!”[18] It appears as though knocking out one cat alone will not amount to much, for hundreds more will continue to encroach on his space.

The image of the herd applied to vermin and insect depictions as well, taking the perspective that the Japanese were a pest to get rid of, a unique – but still unwanted – kind of infestation. In a series of Leatherneck comic graphics that depicted common ailments suffered by the Marines in the Pacific, one image featured the “Louseous Japanicas,” a grotesque insect with slanted eyes and protruding buckteeth. The description 11

explained that the first serious outbreak of this pest was noted on December 7, 1941, at Honolulu. The passage also describes the Marines’ assignment in great detail: “the giant task of extermination...

Flamethrowers, mortars, grenades and bayonets have proven to be

an effective remedy. But before a complete cure may be effected the origin of the plague, the breeding grounds around the Tokyo area, must be completely annihilated.”[19] Indeed, what stood for mass destruction of the Japanese people was communicated as exterminating or hunting down vermin. Various metaphors such as these provided a linguistic softening of the killing process.

In February 1945, The New York Times ran illustrated advertisement by a U.S. chemical company that showed a soldier blasting through a path of Japanese defenses with a flamethrower. The ad bore the heading, “Clearing Out a Rat’s 12

Nest.”[20] The most common caricature of the Japanese by far was the ape or monkey. This depiction had already become ingrained in Western thinking by 1941, so it was only natural for illustrators to reflect this popular sentiment. As

evidenced by other drawings of the Japanese as half-man, halfcreature, depictions blending the ape and the Japanese person together were commonplace.

Many illustrators called such beasts “Japes” or “monkeynips.”

Time magazine ran a cover portrait pertaining to the Dutch East Indies in which such a “Jape” dangled from a tree in the background. American fondness of apish imagery was so prominent that cartoonists and illustrators often portrayed the Japanese not just as apelike, but as plain apes.

The American Legion Magazine published a cartoon of monkeys in a zoo with the sign, “Any similarity between us and the Japs is purely coincidental,” posted in

their cage. At the end of 1944, with the bombardment of Japan just beginning, The New York Times reproduced a cartoon of a battered and bawling ape with horn-rimmed glasses and buckteeth.[21] The Times reprinted a similar cartoon earlier that year on February 6, in tandem with an article about the improving Pacific offensive. The cartoon, entitled “Japan Reaps the Harvest,” was drawn by Vaughn Shoemaker for the Chicago Daily News. The accompanying piece “We Open Our Major Offensive in the Pacific” detailed how a U.S. fleet blasted Japan from their naval base near the Marshall Islands, secured Kwajalein atoll, and was now looking to move towards the Philippines and Tokyo.

[22] The cartoon shows a jungle scene, with a monkey bound in rope leaning against the foot of a large palm tree. The word “Japs” is written across the rope. The monkey’s face mimics that of the Japanese human caricature; its eyes are slanted with beady pupils, its nose is squashed, and its buckteeth protrude out from under its lips.

Drops of sweat stream off the monkey’s brow, and its feet are failing in the air, indicating that it is having a lot of difficulty breaking free. Its eyes look fearfully up at the palm tree, from which three large coconuts, bearing a strong resemblance to bombs, are falling.

The “coconut” in the middle bears the phrase “U.S. Mid-Pacific Offensive,” and it is heading straight for the monkey.[23] Like many other cartoons that use the simian image of Japan, this illustration portrays the monkey – and therefore, the Japanese

people – as an animal that is easily duped and intimidated. It was not smart enough to avoid the ropes in the first place, and it is not smart enough to know how to escape them now. The very nature of the ape being trapped indicates the lack of civil composure exercised by the Japanese; they are too wild and, thus, should be restrained in order to protect civilized people.

In the final months of World War II, anticipating the occupation of Japan, the U.S. Navy Pacific Command presented a booklet that related these concerns and apelike stereotypes to Japanese “atrocities.” Cartoonists and animators intensified their depictions, scrapping their picture of the average little “Jape” as comic relief for a blood-soaked beast, half-man and half-monkey.

In April 1943, when news broke that some of the Doolittle pilots had been executed, a subsequent cartoon was published depicting the Japanese as a massive, slobbering gorilla labeled “Murderers of American Flyers,” a huge pistol of “Civilization” pointing at its head.

The Navy used this illustration as evidence that such violent animal imagery was directly related to Japanese atrocities. It is important to note, however, that the simian personification existed independently of such atrocities, though they certainly factored into the larger metaphor. But by and large, illustrators used the ape in a way that portrayed the Japanese as ridiculous rather than savage.[24] These depictions did not exist solely in the realm of print media; animators also drew heavily on the stockpile of stereotyped images.

Animated film shorts thrived upon the comic portrayals of Japanese Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

people. Using the standard cartoon depiction of the buck-toothed Japanese from various print media, film shorts added on to the basic stereotype by including the speech patterns and certain actions of the Japanese. These animations began being released in June 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. government established the Office of War Information (OWI) as the sole contact with the Hollywood film industry. Per presidential order, the OWI was to undertake campaigns that enhanced public understanding of the war at home and abroad, and it was in charge of handling all matters with the press, radio, and motion pictures.

As a result, studios were strongly “encouraged” by the government to produce pictures that praised the virtues of democracy and simultaneously condemned totalitarianism.[25] Cartoon shorts generally presented an antagonistic view of the Japanese but used humor as comic relief to keep its audience interested in the messages presented. For this reason, these animations almost always depicted the enemy as either a buffoon or a superhuman.

One of the most popular animated film shorts of this type was a Looney Tunes creation from Warner Brothers Pictures entitled Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips.[26] Directed by Friz Freleng and written by Tedd Pierce in April 1944,[27] this eight-minute animated short demonstrates how caricature can facilitate a host of well-known racial clichés and concepts about the Japanese and the Orient in general.[28] Set “Somewhere in the Pacific,” the short film opens with Bugs

floating adrift in a crate, waiting for some sign of land. He finally spies an island and swims ashore, only to find that this “Garden of Eden” is occupied by Japanese soldiers.

Upon arrival, Bugs encounters a barefoot, buck-toothed soldier who tries to attack him with a sword, but he escapes by cleverly disguising himself as Japanese Emperor Hirohito. Back on the island, Bugs runs into a bit of trouble with a giant sumo wrestler. He quickly gets the upper hand by playing to the wrestler’s gullibility and lust by dressing up as a geisha. Finally, in an attempt to rid the island of the Japanese once and for all, Bugs drives up a Good Humor ice cream truck and hands out ice cream bars (with hand grenades inside them) to incoming soldiers.[29] The Japanese enemies are clearly presented as laughable characters in Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips.

They are simple-minded and irrational in behavior, which allows Bugs to trick them with ease.

Their eyes, noses, and mouths are exaggerated to create an impression of primitiveness. These characterizations present a figure not unlike that presented in the illustrations previously discussed, some odd combination of man and beast. What separates the motion picture representations of the Japanese from the static print ones, however, are the additional opportunities for further “othering” of the Japanese.

Language plays a key role in this revamped depiction. In Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, the Japanese speak Pidgin English at best and straight gibberish at all other points. The soldier that Bugs first encounters talks in a loud, high-pitched, nasal tone. “That-a no Japanese 13

General,” the soldier whispers when he discovers Bugs’ disguise.

“That-a Bugs Bunny...He no fool me!” The type of language used on the English-speaking side is also quite telling. There is a good amount of particularly derogatory slang interspersed throughout the dialogue of the short film. Besides using the usual “Japs,” Bugs calls the Japanese a handful of other names including “bowlegs,” “monkey face,” and “slant eyes.” Undoubtedly accomplishing “othering,” these racial epithets audibly support the visual clichés in the film that differentiate the Japanese from Americans.[30] Other shorts focused more on the behavior of the Japanese, such as Commando Duck. Released by Walt Disney Studios in 1944, Commando Duck recounts the mission of Donald Duck parachuting into the jungle to wipe out a Japanese airfield. The seven-minute animated short was directed by Jack King and was undoubtedly the most blatantly anti-Japanese Disney cartoon during the war. As he travels down the river in search of the base, a hoard of Japanese snipers - including one disguised as a slant-eyed, buck-toothed tree - try to wipe him out. They send a series of bullets his way, but each one misses him, leading Donald to think the whirring noise around him is just the jungle’s mosquitoes.

However, he soon realizes he is being attacked, and Donald paddles harder trying to distance himself, but instead paddles closer and closer towards a waterfall. His raft gets caught beneath the falls and fills up with water until it finally explodes - luckily enough, right by the airfield.[31] This animated film focuses 14

primarily on Donald and his assignment, but it does have moments where it directs attention to certain Japanese mannerisms.

As always, the Japanese are shown with their stock stereotyped features, but there is greater focus on their interactions rather than their appearance. As one sniper prepares to shoot Donald, another stops him quickly, saying, “No, no, no wait please! Japanese custom say ‘Always shooting a man in the back’ please.” The language is slightly distorted, as has been observed in other films, but the addition (and repetition) of “please” is new to this representation of the Japanese.

Disney appears to be mocking a part of Japanese culture, the politeness or respect with which fellow Japanese persons constantly treat each other. In an earlier scene, for example, a soldier bumps into one of his comrades and quickly apologizes: “Oh I beg my pardon. I bow my stomach at you very reverent.” In these two instances, Disney manages to critique the physical, mental, and emotional values of the Japanese people.

After Pearl Harbor, government authorities viewed the construction of a Japanese enemy in print and audio-visual media as essential to the war effort.[32] Cartoonists and animators alike worked hard to create the most salient and striking rendition of the enemy as possible, be it man or beast, tame or wild. American citizens latched on to these representations of the Japanese, ultimately informing public sentiment about the Japanese ‘national character’ during the war. Yet out of all the various

images produced during the war, not one attempted to represent the humanity of the Japanese. The Japanese were shown as subhuman, inhuman, and lesser human to Americans. The missing element that these illustrators failed to depict, or chose not to, was the perception of the Japanese enemy as a human like oneself.[33] 1. John Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, (New York : Pantheon Books, 1986), 86.

2. Dower, 5-7.

3. Dower, 8-9.

4. Anthony Rhodes, Propaganda: the Art of Persuasion (New York : Chelsea House Publishers, 1976), 243.

5. Meirion and Susie Harries, Soldiers of the Sun (New York : Random House, 1991), 159.

6. Rhodes, 243.

7. Harries, 161.

8. Rhodes, 257.

9. Charles Henry Sykes, “No Time Wastes Here,” The Evening Public Ledger, December 9, 1941 10. Dower, 9-10.

11. Richard H. Minear, Dr. Seuss Goes to War: the World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel, (New York : New Press, 1999), 6 & 12.

12. Minear, 117 & 139.

13. Minear, 117 & 139.

14. Minear, 120 & 152.

15. Daniel Bernardi, Classic Hollywood, Classic Whiteness, (Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 284.

16. Dower, 82.

17. Dower, 9, 81, 83.

18. Minear, 120 & 125.

19. Dower, 91.

20. Dower, 89 & 91.

21. Dower, 84-88.

22. Hanson W. Baldwin, “We Open Our Major Offensive in the Pacific,” The New York Times, February 6, 1944.

23. Vaughn Shoemaker, “Japan Reaps the Harvest,” The New York Times, February 6, 1944.

24. Dower, 86.

25. Bernardi, 283.

26. Dower, 84.

27. Michael S. Shull and David E. Witt, Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films, 1939-1945, (Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, 2004), 220.

28. Bernardi, 285.

29. Shull and Witt, 220-221.

30. Bernardi, 286.

31. Shull and Witt, 221.

32. Fuller, 124.

33. Dower, 9.

Popular Anxieties and Miyazaki’s Optimism: Concerns about the Youth and Future of Japan in Popular Culture of the Post-Bubble Economic Era John Grisafi

As is the case with any nation and people, the popular culture of Japan is influenced by and has influence on the issues that concern country.

Following the burst of the highgrowth bubble economy of the 1970s and 1980s, Japan entered the “Lost Decade” in the 1990s.

Japanese popular culture during this time exhibited various anxieties regarding the future of Japan, especially the ability of Japan’s youth to effectively and sufficiently produce for and lead the country in the future. But some Japanese scholars, notably director Miyazaki Hayao, demonstrate a more optimistic view of the youth and the future. Thus, while many popular culture works show concern about perceived “problems” regarding Japan’s youth, many others reflect a deep, more positive outlook.

The economic bubble and the post-bubble economy In the 1960s up until the 1980s, Japan experienced rapid economic growth. Economic growth in Japan reached average rates of 10% in the 1960s, 5% in the 1970s, and 4% in the 1980s.[1] During the 1980s especially, Japan achieved such success that it was perceived as a threat to “the Western-dominated economic order” and a serious challenge to the American economic hegemony.[2] Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

But in 1989, the Japanese economy slowed considerably. Growth rates during the 1990s and 2000s were relatively low compared to the preceding decades, “averaging just 1.7%” in the 1990s and reaching a low of -2.0% in 1998.

[3] In the 1990s, during a state of malaise frequently known as the “Lost Decade,” some Japanese understandably began to question the their economic system and the shape of Japan as a whole.[4] The collapse of the bubble economy deeply impacted Japan, resulting in a shift from an optimistic attitude and self-perceptions of limitless potential to a “debilitating air of anxiety” and a “perception of national peril” encompassing “virtually all aspects of Japanese contemporary society.”[5] Scholar David Leheny wrote that for many Japanese, “[by] the end of the [1990s], the question had largely become one of what had gone wrong with Japan.”[6] Whereas 1980s Japan saw itself climbing up to the top spot in the world, post-bubble Japan has grown increasingly worried about its place relative the United States, as well as its economically prosperous neighbors, China and Korea.[7] Demographic shift and concerns about youth and productivity In the late twentieth century, Japan faced a demographic shift

which has influenced present-day anxieties. The life expectancy in Japan has risen from “just over 50 for men and just under 54 for women in 1947 to a combined average of 81.9 in 2005.”[8] At the same time, Japan’s birthrates fell to 1.57 by 1989, which is a subreplacement birthrate.[9] This combination of increased life expectancy and low birthrate has resulted in Japan experiencing the aging population phenomenon.[10] As Japan’s population continues to age, more young people will bear greater burdens of providing for more elders.[11] This, in addition to the country’s shrinking population, has created high expectations for the amount and quality of work the younger generations must do to ensure a bright future for Japan. Thus, older generations have developed many concerns regarding the youths of Japan.

Shifting demographics and unproductive sexuality Primarily, the behavior of Japan’s youth is the focal point of anxiety about them and their role in building Japan’s future. First, in order to examine this issue, it is important to understand Japanese sexual reproduction and childrearing. The falling fertility rate in Japan in recent decades is the very reason for both the decreasing size of the population as well its rapidly growing elderly demographic. Thus, unproductive sexual activity or otherwise “deviant” sexual behavior is received negatively because it does not satisfy the main purpose of sexual reproduction. It also does not contribute into raising children who are productive members of Japanese society.

15

The 2004 Japanese live-action film Air Doll, directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, shows an example of unproductive sexual activity. It displayed the use of an inflatable doll for sex in lieu of sex with another human being.[12] The film revolves around an air doll named Nozomi who comes to life and questions the meaning of her own existence. In one scene, Nozomi speaks to an old man on a bench.

The old man talks about an insect which essentially exists as no more than a vessel for reproduction and has little in its body to support life beyond that purpose. It dies once it has accomplished the task of reproduction. In the film, the old man suggests that humans, too, are little more than vessels who exist for the purpose of reproducing and raising children. Nozomi, as an air doll, is capable of sexual activity, but is incapable of sexual reproduction.

In this sense, she is “empty” both literally (being filled with air) and figuratively in that she can engage in sex but cannot possibly reproduce, and thus exists solely for unproductive sexual activity.

[13]

Concerns about unproductive and non-contributing youth groups Among the most prevalent of the labels applied to youth who are regarded as problematic in Japan are those related to their perceived lack of productivity. These include the NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), the freeters, the parasite singles, the school refusers, the hikikomori (those who withdraw from most social interaction), and the otaku.

[14] The concern over youth in 16

particular and especially with regard to their fulfillment (or failure to fulfill) their roles as productive and responsible members of society shows anxiety about Japan’s future in the postbubble economy.

Modern Japanese culture has applied numerous labels to groups perceived outwardly as being unproductive or otherwise not “properly” contributing to society.

“Parasite singles,” young adults who continue to live off their parents instead of getting careers, are considered to be a drain.

[15] “Freeters,” people who are unemployed or underemployed have often been vilified in the media.[16] Reputedly among them are youths “indifferent to solid career aspirations or good work opportunities and drift from one contingent job to another.”[17] The term NEET, introduced from Great Britain, refers to those “not in employment, education, or training,” which is viewed as a non-contributing status.[18] The majority of both of these groups are between ages 15 and 34.[19] But these groups and other problem groups are themselves aging, contributing to anxieties about the future of Japan as unproductive youths appear to grow into unproductive adults.[20] Thiam Huat Kam, a scholar at the National University of Singapore, described the word otaku as “a label applied to individuals whose consumption is perceived and judged to have compromised certain values in contemporary Japan.”[21] Kam further argues “that ‘otaku’ is a label that is applied to people who fail to consume in ways productive of capital, as required by an advanced

capitalist Japan.”[22] Japan, both formally and informally, has demonstrated concern over the behavior of otaku. According to Kam, “subcultures identified as ‘otaku’ have been observed to be the most obvious targets” of the 2010 amendments to the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Wholesome Development of Youth.[23] Kam interviewed a group of Japanese university students in order to develop an understanding of the public perception within Japan of the otaku subculture.[24] One of points the students made about otaku was that they apply their creative energy to obsessing over their hobbies rather than doing productive endeavors. According to Kam, this is reflective of “a more general sentiment that hobbies and leisure activities, and the imagination they stimulate, should be treated as means of relaxation (ikinuki) rather than objectives (mokuteki) in themselves.”[25] Of course, other definitions of otaku do exist which do not precisely match with that developed by Kam or held by the students whom Kam interviewed. For example, Tomiko Yoda, described otaku as “a name given to one type of subcultural subject, typically young males who are obsessed with particular elements of popular culture but indifferent to their broader social and historical contexts.”[26] The 1997 animated film Perfect Blue, directed by Kon Satoshi, provides an example of popular negative perception of otaku. The film depicts an extreme case of an otaku, devoting his mental and creative energy into a non-productive and even dangerous obsession in a way seen as detrimental to society and

as deviant behavior.[27] These definitions, too, convey a perception of a person too obsessed with his or her hobbies that he or she is consequently not participating according to society’s expectations, and is thus not contributing in the “right” way.

[or] she might do.”[31] Thus, in the late 1990s, many in Japan had come to see children as potentially dangerous rather than purely innocent.

It was in this context that the 2000 Japanese live-action film Battle Royale, directed by Kinji Fukasaku and based on the 1999 novel by Koushun Takami, was produced.

Fears of destructive and The film serves as an example of dangerous youth an imagined extreme reaction to anxieties about the younger Beyond the concerns that young generations. The film depicts an people may not be properly unlikely near-future scenario contributing to society are even of Japan, in which society is so greater fears that some youth may concerned with the problems of even be destructive and dangerous due to their “strange” and “deviant” the youth that the government periodically forces classes of behavior. As Tomiko Yoda wrote, middle school students to fight one “[t]he moral panic over the status another to the death. This was seen of the younger Japanese in the latter part of the decade was further as the best way to channel youth aggression and eliminate potential reinforced by incidents that were problem youth.[32] While this publicized as signs of serious troubles afflicting teenage boys.”[28] film, of course, depicts an extreme scenario which is unlikely to occur, Yoda specifically describes the example of the 1997 case of “Shōnen it demonstrates just how far the Japanese imagination was able to A” (Youth A). Shōnen A is the go with this idea within just three designation publicly given to a fourteen-year-old boy who adopted years of the Shōnen A murders.

It combines fears of the capability the odd penname of Sakakibara of young people with increasing Seitō and commited five murders of other children.[29] This incident awareness in Japan about the nation’s declining prosperity. It is resulted in increased fears of youth unlikely that this film would have crimes as well as increased calls made as much sense had it been for revision of the child protection released a decade earlier. provisions in Japan’s Juvenile Law. This was partly due to the fact that police never revealed the real name of Shōnen A because of the A positive outlook on youth and protections provided by this law. the future [30] Scholar Andrea Arai quoted The examples above show various educator Kawakami Ryōichi, in ways in which Japanese anxiety translation, during the aftermath regarding youth and the future of this incident by saying that “it have manifested in popular wouldn’t be at all unusual that culture. These examples show that parents…would embrace a strong some Japanese are clearly worried sense of uneasiness about what about the behavior of the younger their child is thinking, or what he generations. Thinking long-term, Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

the fate of Japan and the world are also of great concern when the country’s children and young adults will be the primary producers and leaders. Not all producers of Japanese cultural content, however, are pessimistic. Perhaps one of the most well-known Japanese directors and animators, Miyazaki Hayao, appears to have a very positive outlook, seeing the youth as hope for the future.

Miyazaki Hayao’s 2001 animated film Spirited Away features an example of one of the effects of the post-bubble economic slowdown as an element of the plot. When Chihiro’s family arrives accidentally at an abandoned amusement park, Chihiro’s father comments that there used to be many amusement parks but they were abandoned after the economy went bad, referring to the bursting of the bubble economy at the end of the 1980s.

[33] But while Miyazaki clearly acknowledges Japan’s economic status in the 1990s and 2000s as being less prosperous than that of preceding decades, he appears to retain his optimism regarding the younger generations. In Spirited Away, Chihiro’s parents appear greedy, focused on consumption and too confident due to their perceived economic prosperity as they eat the food left out with little concern for its intended purpose and self-assured that “credit cards and cash” will take care of any problem.[34] Quoting “social critic” Takashi Tachibana, Shiro Yoshioka has also argued that the character of Kaonashi (“NoFace” in the English translation) is another representation of Japanese attitudes from the bubble economy.

According to Yoshioka, Tachibana said that “Kaonashi’s rapaciousness 17

is also shocking. That, I think, is nothing but representation of Japan during the era of bubble economy.”[35] Yamanaka similarly noted that Kaonashi’s key attribute is “an insatiable, indeed monstrous, lust for consumption” and that Kaonashi “finds money to be the most powerful way to win the workers’ favor.”[36] Chihiro, on the other hand, is a quite different character with a different approach. Much of the plot of the film revolves around Chihiro working hard and learning more about herself, as well as gaining a deeper respect for the world around her, in order to save her parents from the predicament they put themselves in through their own narrow-minded consumption.[37] In this way, Chihiro’s parents could be representative of Japan in the decades of the bubble economy as well as its extant older generation that had grown accustomed to high economic growth and were supremely confident in that regard.

[38] Chihiro, then, would represent the youth. This allows Miyazaki to demonstraste with great confidence that the younger generation is, in fact, the best hope for the future, and for Japan. Yamanaka argued that “Chihiro’s success in recovering her true name and thus her true identity is a metaphor for the possibility that her audience can discover what it means to be Japanese in a time of cultural, economic and spiritual malaise.”[39] Optimism about young people and even the pinning of hope for the future on them is nothing new for Miyazaki. In Miyazaki’s 1984 film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (based on the manga which he began in 1982), many of the adults were driven by personal 18

ambition for power and behaved aggressively and destructively.

But Nausicaä, a young girl, had a more open-minded and hopeful outlook. Ultimately, she was shown to literally be the savior of humanity.[40] While this film predates the burst of the economic bubble, the consistency in Miyazaki’s work over time shows that his optimism has not been reduced by Japan’s economic woes.

Hiroshi Yamanaka noted that Miyazaki’s protagonists are “almost always boys or girls” and that his anime “affirm life.” But Yamanaka claims that it “would be incorrect to say that [Miyazaki’s approach] is because of his optimistic view of human nature,” based on the fact that he is “quite sensitive to wickedness and stupidity, which seem ineluctably part of human nature.”[41] However, optimism is not an ignorance of the negative traits of humanity or even an unwillingness to show these traits.

[42] On the contrary, the fact that Miyazaki is clearly aware of the negative traits of humanity but depicts a young protagonist overcoming them in the end is a demonstration of his optimism and faith in human nature, especially in the youth.

All in all, contemporary Japanese popular culture demonstrates a range of concerns and fears but also optimism and positivity regarding Japan’s current state as well as its future. Many popular cultural works often reflect current anxieties of the post-bubble economy and reveal ways in which many Japanese worry about the future. But at the same time, the works of Miyazaki and others can also demonstrate, amidst recognition of very real problems,

that the future can be bright and the youth may well be the greatest hope. Miyazaki’s works have been especially popular and have often been identified with Japan.[43] The fact that Miyazaki’s work is so popular and so frequently viewed as representative of Japan can be a positive sign that, despite anxieties evident in Japanese popular culture, there is significant optimism for the future.

1. “The World Factbook,” Central Intelligence Agency. https://www.cia.gov/library/ publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ ja.html. (retrieved December 10, 2015).

2. Michael Schuman, The Miracle: The Epic Story of Asia’s Quest for Wealth (New York, NY: Harper Business, 2009), pp. 3, 206-209.

3. “The World Factbook,” Central Intelligence Agency. https://www.cia.gov/library/ publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ ja.html. (retrieved December 10, 2015; Schuman, p. 209.

4. Schuman, pp. 213-214.

5. Gilles Poitras, “Contemporary Anime in Japanese Pop Culture,” in Mark W. MacWilliams, Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime (New York, NY: Routledge, 2008), p. 55; Tomiko Yoda, “A Roadmap to Millennial Japan,” South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 99, No. 4 (Fall 2000), pp. 630, 633, 649.

6. David Leheny, Think Global, Fear Local: Sex, Violence, and Anxiety in Contemporary Japan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), p. 28.

7. Schuman, pp. 206-209, 213-214; TuukkaToivonen and Yuki Imoto,”Making Sense of Youth Problems,” in Roger Goodman, Yuki Imoto, and Tuukka Toivonen, A Sociology of Japanese Youth: From Returnees to NEETs (London: Routledge, 2012), p. 2.

8. Roger Goodman, “Shifting Landscapes,” in Goodman et al, p. 162.

9. Ibid.

10. Toivonen and Imoto, in Goodman et al, p. 3.

11. Ibid.

12. Air Doll, directed by Hirokazu Koreeda (Asmik Ace Entertainment, 2009), DVD. 13. Ibid.

14. Amy Borovy, “Japan’s Hidden Youths: Mainstreaming the Emotionally Distressed in Japan,” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry (2008), pp. 552-576; Goodman, in Goodman et al, p. 168; Thiam Huat Kam, “The Anxieties that Make the ‘Otaku’: Capital and the Common Sense of Consumption in Contemporary Japan,” Japanese Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2013), pp.

39–61; Toivonen and Imoto, in Goodman et al., p. 2; Kosugi Reiko, “Youth Employment in Japan’s Economic Recovery: ‘Freeters’ and ‘NEETs’,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, May 11, 2006. http://www. japanfocus.org/-kosugi-reiko/2022/article. html (retrieved December 11, 2015); Yoda, p. 656.

15. Goodman, in Goodman et al, p. 168 16. Ibid; Reiko.

17. Yoda. p. 656.

18. Reiko.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Kam, p. 39.

22. Kam, p. 41.

23. Kam, p. 41.

Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

24. Kam. 25. Kam, p. 45.

26. Yoda, p. 652.

27. Perfect Blue, directed by Satoshi Kon (Rex Entertainment, 1997), DVD. 28. Yoda, p. 634.

29. Arai, p. 846; Leheny, p. 59; Yoda, p. 634 30. Leheny, pp. 58-61.

31. Arai, p. 847.

32. Battle Royale, directed by Kinji Fukasaku (Toei Company, 2000), DVD. 33. Spirited Away, directed by Hayao Miyazaki (Walt Disney Home Entertainment, 2001), DVD; Shiro Yoshioka, ”Heart of Japaneseness: History and Nostalgia in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away,” in MacWilliams, pp. 258259.

34. Spirited Away; Yoshioka, in MacWilliams, pp. 258-259.

35. Yoshioka, in MacWilliams, p. 258.

36. Hiroshi Yamanaka, “The Utopian ‘Power to Live’: The Significance of the Miyazaki Phenomenon,” in MacWilliams, p. 242.

37. Yamanaka, in MacWilliams, p. 253.

38. Yoshioka, in MacWilliams, pp. 258-259.

39. Yamanaka, in MacWilliams, p. 238.

40. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, directed by Hayao Miyazaki (Walt Disney Home Entertainment, 2004), DVD; Eriko Ogihara-Schuck, “The Christianizing of Animism in Manga and Anime: American Translations of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,” in A. David Lewis, Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels (New York, NY: Continuum, 2010), pp.

136-146; Ian DeWeese-Boyd, “Shōjo Savior: Princess Nausicaä, Ecological Pacifism, and The Green Gospel,” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 2009), pp. 1-13.

41. Yamanaki, in MacWilliams, pp. 246-247.

42. The second definition for “optimism” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.”

43. Jolyon Baraka Thomas, Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime, and Religion in Contemporary Japan (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2012), p. 6; Yamanka; Yoshioka.

19

The Changing Face of Chinese Migrant Laborers: Factors Prompting Women to Join the Rural-Urban Rush Rona Ji Abstract The changing “face” of the Chinese rural-urban migrant population is, in fact, a product of socioeconomic ideals and central policymaking. China’s 30-year economic miracle has its roots in the Chinese Communist Party’s state policies advocating for investing in the manufacturing sector. Millions of undereducated rural laborers have flowed into factories since Deng Xiaoping initiated sweeping economic reforms in 1978, opening Chinese markets to global enterprises.

The need to provide income for family consumption often drives the movement of undereducated rural migrants, generally farm workers, to migrate. Initially, the majority of rural-urban migrant workers were men who sought a more lucrative mode of living in the city. As China’s economy gradually begins to shift toward a servicebased economy, however, more and more young Chinese women from poor rural families are joining the migrant work force. However, due to existing Chinese Communist Party policies and changes in China’s role in the global economy, rural-urban migrant workers are disproportionately located in lowskill sectors.

Introduction After the end of the Chinese 20

Cultural Revolution in 1976, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began a decades-long policy reform journey that resulted in the opening of China to world markets. The prominent results were reflected in China’s double-digit growth rate in the years immediately following Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 economic reforms.[1] The CCP’s policies gave priority to marketization and decollectivization, which propelled China onto the world stage.[2] A societal expectation that Chinese people should be able to afford more lavish goods and services followed these changes and began a wave of rural-urban labor migration that has continued to this day. As China’s tertiary sector[3] expanded, more ruralurban migrants turned towards service sector jobs.[4] This has attracted an influx of female rural-urban migrant laborers at an unprecedented rate, who now bear the burden for providing income for their family’s consumption.

As of the data collected during the 2000 census, 52% of Chinese migrant workers are female,[5] a process known around the world as a “feminization” of migration.

Overall, the complex interplay between policies that promoted modernization in China in the past several decades encouraged an increasing number of rural women to seek work in urban areas.

“Feminization” of Migrant Labor as a Global Phenomenon The increasing proportion of women migrating to urban areas for work is a phenomenon seen around the world as changes alter the composition of the modern work force. Following the labor shortage during World War II and throughout the 20th century, women have begun to work for pay outside the home at an increasing rate both in developed and developing countries. In America alone, the percentage of females actively participating in the labor force jumped to 60% in the 1990s, as compared to 20-30% before 1950.

[6] However, men have long been regarded as the “breadwinners” in the family in many cultures, while women were expected to focus on domestic tasks and child-rearing to ensure the smooth running of the home.[7] Even as the gender ratios of the workforce have begun to even out globally, the movement of women outside of the house has not necessarily liberalized them from the domestic sphere.

Women have seen an increase in job opportunities in the service sector, working as domestic workers to fill in the role often left open by another woman who has left the place of homemaker to join the workforce.[8] The resulting chain reaction is especially problematic for lowwage female workers, as many women are trapped in a cycle of poverty within the care economy framework. These women often work as nannies or domestic help to other families to bring back income for their families, but must in turn leave their own children and chores to other women back home.

[9] In Latin American countries,

Chilean families are especially fond of employing Mexican immigrant maids and Peruvian nannies, a result of cultural views of these workers as “natural mothers” or “submissive.”[10] Even so, women working as domestic laborers often do not enjoy legal protection and can be fired abruptly for small mistakes or mistakes in communication.[11] All around the world, these labor standards not only perpetuate the view of women as the less dominant sex, but also create a slew of difficulties for female migrant laborers.

A similarly gendered view of labor is present in the manufacturing sector, which has seen an increased number of employed female laborers. The prevalence of the assembly line in manufacturing jobs simplified work procedures, and factory owners around the globe took to employing women, a source of cheap labor as a result of long-time social and economic oppression.[12] Cultural anthropologist Aihwa Ong’s research has shown that in apparel, electronics, and textile industries, especially those of developing nations, women are considered “secondary workers” and receive much fewer compensation and promotion opportunities than men.

[13] Even so, women are expected to work long hours under harsh conditions to contribute to their family’s finances, and thus take these positions willingly. Ong notes that in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea, all growing Asian economic powerhouses boasting manufacturing sectors made up of more than 40% female employees, a cultural view of women as being less able to contribute productively than male Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

workers persists.[14] A similar socio-economic double standard can also be seen in industrializing Malaysia, where the increasing prevalence of young female migrants working in the highly visible export industry has led to waves of community backlash in the conservative Muslim community.[15] The growing expectation that women should help share the family’s financial burden has contributed to the increasing number of women who have joined the labor force.

However, more often than not, social stigmas complicate the on-the-job challenges faced by migrant women workers. These forces combine to create a complex set of community expectations.

When considered together with China’s complex economic development policies, these socioeconomic factors can help explain the growth of an underprivileged population of female migrant laborers.

Motivations for Rural-Urban Migration in China: Studies have shown that Chinese youth from rural regions are increasingly drawn to cities with hopes for personal development and to find a means to escape the cycle of poverty that has plagued many farm families for generations. Despite these hopes, these laborers often take unskilled and underpaid jobs in urban areas, in industries that are highly gender segregated. Typically, Chinese migrant men mainly working in construction and women flock to factory and domestic jobs.[16] These findings are reflective of general trends that have identified that younger rural women, up to 75% of those in the 16-20 year old

age range, have begun specializing in “off-farm” sectors, which increasingly take them away from their families.[17] Furthermore, many researchers note that the chief form of communication between Chinese migrant workers and their families during their time in the cities is the remittances they send to their natal households.[18] Hence, the lives of Chinese migrant workers can be very isolating and trying, especially for the growing number of youth that spend their time working far from home.

Reasons for migration stem from a two-pronged “push” and “pull” combination, which cites a lack of job availability and changes in labor allocation due to technological advances. Many young migrants seek out new jobs because of push factors, usually from rising costs of farm operations, a decreasing need for labor input as old machinery fall into obsolescence, and a lack of resources in rural areas where the job market is relatively stagnant.

[19] The pull factors include the attractiveness of comparatively higher urban wages, as well as the lure of better consumer experiences in terms of facilities and entertainment.[20] In particular, female rural-urban migrant workers reported a higher identification with “push” factors.[21] Considered in the context of the patrilineal norms common in rural Chinese society and the devaluation of women who “left” the family once married, it is clear many rural women face a lack of options back home. However, a degree of personal satisfaction and liberalization has been known to prolong the job stints that many women took away from home.

Migrant women expressed that receiving their first paycheck was 21

very powerful, allowing them to feel as if they were taking care of themselves and making their own consumption decisions.[22] Although these women send the majority of their pay home, the psychological impact of working in an urban setting was one of several forces that contributed to the feminization of migrant labor in China.

Chinese Socialism and the RuralMigrant Community The CCP’s promotion of gender equality in the modern age has created an unrealistic ideal for rural women, who aspire to become breadwinners for their family despite the many societal constraints that make it difficult for them to achieve these goals.

Beginning with the urban commune program from 1958 to 1961, the CCP aimed to draw women into the workforce by delineating roles for each person as a “member of the work unit,” rather than based on gender.[23] The danwei system promoted by the CCP also helped erode some pre-Communist era gender restrictions and establish the norm of women working outside of the home. Labor was considered an important commodity, and the incentives such as childcare provided by the workplace helped encourage urban women to exit the home.[24] What is especially important, however, is that many benefits associated with the danwei system were only available to urban women, but the societal perceptions towards women as productive members of the workforce changed for Chinese society as a whole.

Hence, rural women had to bear the brunt of both social and economic expectations. These expectations heightened the dreams of many 22

young rural women, who wished to determine their own lifestyles rather than meekly accept arranged marriages determined by their families. [25] Many young women dreamed simultaneously of providing for their families by migrating to cities for work and of achieving personal satisfaction, a sentiment that seems to be confirmed by the return of worldly and sophisticated migrant women from cities for the holidays.[26] To young women who have never been far from home, the prospect of leaving home for work is, in many cases, more glamorous than the reality.

Furthermore, reforms to the Chinese hukou household registration system have been integral to the growth of the modern rural-urban migrant population. First implemented in 1951, the hukou system became more tightly regulated in 1955 in response to an influx of farmer migration to cities.[27] Unlike many social policies, Chinese citizens could not easily apply to change their residency from rural to urban areas, and the hukou of a child was determined by the mother’s status.[28] The hukou system was designed to divide the rural and urban population for easy control by restricting access to welfare and education.

The tight regulation of population movement, as well as China’s extremely protectionist economic policies in the 1950s through mid-1970s, effectively kept labor migration to a minimum. The original stance of the CCP was to promote the good of the country over the good of the individual, a goal that prioritized agricultural workers as active members of a

people’s commune no matter the gender. Thus, the hukou system made it so that the CCP could easily track the whereabouts of workers.

However, since the 1980s, the establishment of a flexible “bluestamp” urban hukou directly contributed to the growth of the rural-urban migrant population.

Unlike full “red-stamp” urban hukou, the blue-stamp version required possessors to pay a fee to their local government and restricted some rights that holders were entitled to compared to other urban residents.[29] The changes in policy reflected an understanding by the central branch of the CCP that keeping an available work force bound to a single region was simply no longer profitable to the economy.

The commodification of the hukou system became an informal legitimization of rural-urban migration, as in the pre-reform era one needed connections and bribery to obtain a “back door” urban hukou.[30] Rather than risking an instable relationship between farmers and local governments by preventing population movement, the move to amend the hukou system benefited the CCP both socially and monetarily. Hence, further amendments were made to the system in August 1998 to ease the restrictions on migrants’ spouses and dependents to acquire formal urban status.[31] This clearly promoted the process of ruralurban migration and, combined with other economic changes, did indeed lead to a boom in the ruralurban migrant population. Even so, at the same time that reforms to the hukou system promoted an increase in rural-urban migration as a whole, the system disproportionately created disadvantages for rural

women. Female rural migrants were often seen as less desirable for formal urban jobs even compared to their male migrant counterparts who were prized for their cheap labor. [32] Not only were female migrants relegated to undesirable jobs, gender-wage discrimination was also more prevalent in lowwage positions.[33] Essentially, structural changes implemented by the CCP allowed for ruralurban migration to grow as a social phenomenon, but served to continue the unequal treatment of rural Chinese women as members of the workforce.

Ties between Financial Sector and Rural-Urban Migration Changes to China’s banking system altered the systems of financial planning used by rural families and increased the ease at which migrant workers could send wages home.

A slew of government reforms targeted the network of rural credit cooperatives, which were small credit agencies and the dominant type of financial institution in rural areas, operating in about 60% of China’s total townships.

[34] The lack of economies of scale for commercial financial institutions operating in rural areas was a great concern for China’s large banks, as it is much more profitable to operate in urban areas with high customer turnover.

Even so, the growing economic inequality between urban and rural residents prompted decisive government measures designed to spark a growth in rural earnings by bringing larger banks to rural areas. As of now, the China Postal Savings Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in China, already has networks throughout both urban and rural areas.[35] Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

These changes to the banking sector have contributed to the ease of channeling funds from urban workers back to remote regions.

Additionally, rural financial institutions make loans that directly support the building of local infrastructures, which often do not receive any foreign direct investment (FDI). About 64% of rural loans were allocated to township and village enterprises in 1993, which meant that the money rural-urban migrants deposited at home directly contributed to the development of rural industries.

[36] The savings of migrant workers not only contributed to the building of family finances, but also to the economic health of the region, thereby providing a social undercurrent that prompted more young rural laborers to try their hand at an urban job.

Specifically, the growing population of rural laborers in need of work coincided with structural changes to China’s investments sector, which created an effective supply and demand for migrant workers. The opening of China’s markets to Western powerhouse countries allowed for more than $34 billion in FDI to enter Chinese markets by 1992, which directly contributed resources to China’s capital accumulation and development.

[37] By 1993, FDI contributed to the production of more than 30% of China’s total exports.[38] This resulted in significant changes to China’s manufacturing industry, which began developing at an unprecedented pace and required a steady stream of cheap labor to remain competitive in global markets. The macro-level changes to China’s export economy as a

result of increased foreign market influences, along with domestic investment and factory growth policies, ensured that Chinese manufacturers were easily able to draw on migrant workers to satisfy the heightened demand for cheap labor.

FDI in China’s services industry also contributed directly to the flow of female rural-urban migration. Specifically, the location of China’s tertiary sector is highly skewed, with the majority of FDI concentrating in highly populated Eastern cities and coastal areas.

More accurately, 84.37% of total FDI in China’s service sector in 2005 went to Eastern coastal cities.

[39] Moreover, China’ geographical spread is such that the majority of rural inhabitants live in the Western and mid-regions of China. The consistent flow of job opportunities and financial resources ensured that underprivileged migrant workers would come flocking to Eastern urban areas. Consider the case of Shenzhen, whose designation as a Special Economic Zone in 1979 brought in $1.7 billion of foreign capital investments by 1994.

[40] The influx of foreign-owned capital made Shenzhen extremely attractive to migrant workers, as the city’s undocumented migrant population grew from under 1% in 1979 to 72% of the entire city’s residents in 1992.[41] Most importantly, the prevalent view that service sector jobs were more suitable for women contributed to the feminization of China’s migrant labor population. The 1990 Chinese Census noted that the gendered division of Chinese rural migrant labor was especially prominent in the 15-24 age group, with 64% of migrant laborers being female.[42] 23

The interplay between government policies promoting technological investments and the expansion of consumption goods available to the public also created changes to the Chinese woman’s position within the family. Furthermore, demand for consumer goods such as washing machines far outstripped the planned production of the goods, with production speeding up between 1978-1982 to produce 2.5 million washing machines annually by 1982.[43] As families began viewing the possession of consumer goods as a measure of status, wellbeing, and eventually necessity, the changing standards of living in China became instrumental in the expansion of the population of female rural-urban migrants.

Gendered Manifestation of Macro-Level Policy Changes Manufacturing Industry The difficulty of securing a respected social status and identity has decreased the solidarity among Chinese female laborers in the manufacturing sector, making it harder for them to improve their working conditions. Urban dwellers tend to view female migrants as “dagongmei,” translated directly to “working sister” or “part-timer sister,” a derogatory term that is highly repulsive to many rural migrants.[44] Female factory workers have taken measures to distinguish themselves from other groups of migrant laborers, identifying mainly with small groups of workers who have similar education levels, marriage statuses, or performed similar unskilled or skilled tasks.[45] Chinese female migrant workers in the manufacturing sector work 24

under highly fragmented social conditions, which has made it difficult for them to unionize or collectively demand rights.

This has made it easier for factory management who are often unsympathetic to worker complaints and are quick to replace workers to take advantage of female migrants. Therefore, the lack of a common group identification can often lead to exploitation and alienation of female migrant factory workers, particularly those with little education and few resources at their disposal.

Sex Industry China’s opening of its economy to the global market has also accompanied a rapid expansion of the sex trade, which had been on the decline during the Maoist era. The pairing of economic reforms that increased the migrant population from 2 million in 1978 to more than 140 million in 2007 made it difficult for city governments to effectively regulate the actions of the migrant population.[46] For female rural-urban migrants in particular, a lack of education and poor family conditions were the two main reasons driving their migration to urban areas. In one study conducted by Min Liu, a sample of Chinese sex workers interviewed for fieldwork revealed that the average years of education undertaken by prostitutes was 8.2 years, with a quarter of women not having attained education beyond elementary school.[47] Moreover, the lack of sufficient skills and connections in the city tends to force these women into lower-tier and dangerous jobs.

A rural woman’s entrance into the sex industry is often a result of rape, deceit, or family pressure to pursue jobs that are more lucrative. In the case of Li Xue, she was raped by an acquaintance after working in the hair industry under the threat of beatings and trafficking, and she noted that once a woman was placed in this situation, it became difficult to extricate oneself.[48] Many women end up accepting prostitution as their lot in life, as the pay is often much better than laboring in factories. The average tip for a hostess who spends one hour entertaining a customer is between 200 to 400 yuan, nearly the entire monthly wage earned by other rural-urban migrants, and can be as high as 3000 to 4000 yuan a night for striptease performances.[49] A side consequence of the drive for urban migration is the phenomenon of female marriage migrations.

Although it is not the same as directly working in prostitution, the growing gender gap in China has led to an increased demand for brides. Notably, rural females have increasingly used marriage as a method of fighting against socioeconomic constraints. For rural women with little education and barred from cities without an urban hukou, marriage into a slightly better-endowed rural province is a step up.[50] These women are essentially entering into a social contract, with or without love, with their bodies as collateral. In essence, the growing feminization of Chinese rural-urban migration has pressed women with few resources at their disposals to turn to the commodification of their bodies.

Conclusion The modern Chinese economy demands hefty labor inputs for

low prices, but the ones suffering the most from these restrictions are the women who are forced to work under unhealthy conditions.

The poverty experienced by many Chinese rural-urban migrant women poses a threat not only to the health of these women, but also to their children and families.

In a study conducted in Shanghai, rural-urban migrant women reported that they would forgo prenatal treatment due to financial constraints, with lack of education being a notable barrier to accessing maternal healthcare knowledge.[51] While the policies implemented by the Chinese Communist Party beginning in 1978 have indeed paid off in economic terms, it is important to remember that numbers are not always an entirely accurate portrayal of standard of living. For Chinese women in rural locales, social norms, economic pressures, and a lack of resources have resulted in increased migration to urban areas in search of better lives. Although many of these women have achieved higher incomes, they have also made significant personal sacrifices.

1. Min Liu, Migration, Prostitution, and Human Trafficking: The Voice of Chinese Women (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011), 2.

2. C. Cindy Fan, “Rural-Urban Migration,” 25.

3. Often known as service sector 4. Hongmian, Guo, “Growth of Tertiary Sector in China’s Larges Cities,” Asian Geographer 21 (2002): 85.

5. Zai Liang and Yiu Por Chen, “Migration and Gender in China: An Origin-Destination Linked Approach,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 52, no. 2 (2004): 423.

6. Glenda Labadie-Jackson, “Reflections on Domestic Work and the Feminization of Migration,” Campbell Law Journal 31 (2008): 69.

7. Ibid.

Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

8. Ibid., 70.

9. Ibid.

10. Nicola Yeates, Globalizing Care Economies and Migrant Workers: Explorations in Global Care Chains (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 21.

11. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo “Blowups and Other Unhappy Endings,” in Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild (New York City: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc., 2010), 63.

12. Guy Standing, “Global Feminization through Flexible Labor,” World Development 17, no. 7 (1989): 1080.

13. Aihua Ong, “The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity,” Annual Review of Anthropology 20 (1991): 287.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., 292 16. C. Cindy Fan, “Rural-Urban Migration and Gender Division of Labor in Transitional China,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27, no. 1 (2003): 25.

17. Linxiu Zhang, Alan De Brauw, and Scott Rozelle, “China’s rural labor market development and its gender implications,” China Economic Review 15 (2004): 237.

18. Rachel Murphy, How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 11.

19. Ibid., 19.

20. Ibid.

21. C. Cindy Fan, “Out to the City and Back to the Village: The Experiences and Contributions of Rural Women Migrating from Sichuan and Anhui,” in On the Move: Women and Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, edited

by Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004), 184.

22. Binbin Lou, Zhenzhen Zheng, Rachel Connelly, and Kenneth D. Roberts, “The Migration Experiences of Young Women from Four Counties in Sichuan and Anhui,” in On the Move: Women and Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, edited by Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004), 225.

23. Norman Stockman. “Gender Inequality and Social Structure in Urban China,” Sociology 28, no. 3 (1994): 770.

24. Ibid., 770-771.

25. Dalia Davin, “Gender and Rural-Urban Migration in China,” Gender and Development 4, no. 1 (1996): 27-28.

26. Ibid.

27. Zhiqiang Liu, “Institution and inequality: the hukou system in China,” Journal of Comparative Economics 33 (2005): 135136.

28. Ibid., 136.

29. Ibid.

30. Kam Wing Chan and Li Zhang, “The Hukou System and Rural-Urban Migration in China: Processes and Changes,” The China Quarterly, no. 160 (1999): 839.

31. Ibid., 847.

32. Youqin Huang, “Gender, hukou, and the occupational attainment of female migrants in China (1985-1990),” Environment and Planning 33 (2001): 275.

33. Elizabeth Magnani and Rong Zhu, “The Gender Wage Differentials among RuralUrban Migrants in China,” Regional Science and Urban Economics 42, no. 5 (2012): 790.

34. Lynette H. Ong. “Greasing the wheels of development.” In Politics and Markets in Rural China, edited by Björn Alpermann (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011), 49.

35. Ibid., 49-50.

36. Ibid., 50.

37. Chung Chen, Lawrence Chang, and Yimin Zhang, “The Role of Foreign Direct Investment in China’s Post-1978 Economic Development,” World Development 23, no.

4 (1995): 701.

38. Ibid.

39. Yin Feng,“Foreign Direct Investment in China’s Service Industry: Effects and Determinants,” China: An International Journal 9, no. 1 (2011): 150.

40. Zai Liang and Yiu Por Chen, “Migration and Gender in China,”425.

41. Ibid.

42. C. Cindy Fan, “Rural-Urban Migration,” 31 43. Jean C Robinson, “Of Women and Washing Machines: Employment, Housework, and the Reproduction of Motherhood in Socialist China,” The China Quarterly 101 (1985): 43.

44. Nana Zhang, “Performing identities: Women in rural-urban migration in contemporary China,” Geoforum 54 (2014): 23.

45. Ibid.

46. Min Liu, Migration, Prostitution, and Human Trafficking, 6.

47. Min Liu, Migration, Prostitution, and Human Trafficking, 67 48. Ibid., 99.

49. Tiantian Zheng, “From Peasant Women to Bar Hostesses: Gender and Modernity in Post-Mao Dalian,” in On the Move: Women and Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, edited by Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004), 91.

50. C. Cindy Fan and Youqin Huang, “Waves of Rural Brides: Female Marriage Migration in China,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88, no. 2 (1998): 246.

51. Qi Zhao, Asli Kulane, Yi Gao, and Biao Xu, “Knowledge and attitude on maternal health care among rural-to-urban migrant women in Shanghai, China,” BMC Women’s Health 9, no. 5 (2009): 6-8.

25

across the greater region.[8]

Domestic Issues, Global Implications: China’s Complex Interactions with Environmental Degradation and Climate Change Hannah Greene Introduction As is the case in many other dimensions of China’s history, domestic politics and international relations, a large paradox exists with regard to its position on climate change. Though China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide in 2007, it is conversely becoming a world leader in production and usage of alternative energy sources.

[1] This essay will discuss the complex nature of each climatechange related issue that China faces today, first outlining domestic environmental concerns, then explaining the related international pressures and interactions that China experiences. This will be followed by an examination of the domestic initiatives China has taken to address these pressures, and the essay will conclude with an overview of the obstacles that China faces bureaucratically and societally in achieving these goals.

Domestic Concerns It is no secret that China is plagued with a plethora of domestic environmental issues, which contribute to the global acceleration of climate change. Primarily, China struggles to combat air pollution, said by Xi Jinping to be China’s “most prominent” challenge, as it contains 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world.[2] Such severe 26

air pollution provides a reminder of the trade-offs at the heart of China’s transition from developing country into a prosperous modern nation, accepting threats to life and health in exchange for economic growth.[3] Beijing in particular has experienced periods of “airpocalypse,” where levels of PM2.5, an air pollutant, peaked at 35 times the World Health Organization’s recommended limit for about a week, causing Beijing’s 21 million residents to wear masks and keep children inside.

[4] Though China’s pollution is no worse than London’s 19th century “pea soup” or Japan’s smog in the 1960s, it faces international pressures within the context of global warming.[5] Similarly, China faces severe environmental degradation from its involvement in the rare earth minerals mining industry, of which it controls 90% of the global market.[6] These 17 chemically similar elements are invaluable in the production of everything from Apple products to Raytheon Co. missiles, to, paradoxically, the majority of clean technology products, including hybrid car batteries and wind turbines.[7] The extraction of rare earth minerals in under-regulated mines has toxic byproducts, including waste gas, crude acid, and wastewater laced with cancer-causing metals. These liquid byproducts leach into rivers and aquifers contaminating water sources and destroying farmland

China also struggles to reconcile its skyrocketing domestic energy demands with both energy security and the pressure to invest in renewable sources. China quadrupled its GDP between 1980 and 2000, but also doubled its energy consumption, derived heavily from coal.[9] In the early 2000s, domestic crude oil production became insufficient for Chinese consumption, forcing Chinese companies such as the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation to begin buying abroad, developing a particularly heavy reliance on the Middle East.

[10] Beijing’s key energy security challenge remains managing domestic demand, as its total energy consumption growth rate has exceeded its GDP growth rate by as much as 5 percentage points.[11] China fears being disadvantaged internationally by falling behind with energy, so it will likely continue to strengthen ties with the Middle East in the coming years.

[12] China also faces daunting domestic environmental issues with regard to water. China’s sulfur dioxide emissions are among the highest in the world, creating a serious domestic acid rain problem, also affecting the Koreas, Japan and Hong Kong. An estimated 70% of China’s rivers and lakes are contaminated, exposing 300 million residents to non-potable water.[13] More than two-thirds of China’s 660 largest cities are reportedly water-stressed, as they depend on aquifers, which are being depleted due to the rapid salinization of soil. Glacial melt on the QinghaiTibetan Plateau is another serious concern, as the glaciers that feed all

7 of Asia’s great rivers have already shrunk by 21% and are continuing to melt at rapid rates.[14]

“allergic to numbers,” as it views absolute numerical carbonreduction targets such as those under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol as a cap on its economic growth.[19]

International Pressures and Interactions

However, the recent Paris climate summit showed a marked change in Beijing’s behavior towards climate issues in the international arena. In December 2015, 195 countries approved an unprecedented deal committing the participants to limit a rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius. UN President Ban Kimoon praised the deal as a “truly universal agreement on climate change” and a “historic moment,” of which China was a large part.

[20] President Barack Obama and Xi Jinping noted “close coordination” between their countries in negotiating these terms, as they also promised to work together toward successful implementation of the Paris deal.[21] China maintained its role as a representative for developing countries at the conference, ensuring that the implementation process would include “flexibility” for developing counties. Spokesperson from China’s Foreign Ministry praised the agreement as well, saying that it “gives full expression to China’s sense of responsibility as a major country in tackling climate change.”[22]

As David Shambaugh rightly stated, “There is probably no other dimension where China’s domestic governance has more of an impact on global governance (negative and positive) than environmental governance.”[15] China’s involvement in the battle against climate change is likely the most controversial globally. It has been a participant in every notable intergovernmental environmental conference since the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment.[16] Notably, it also participated in the 1992 Earth Summit, the 2009 Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change and follow-up conferences in Cancun and Durban. Though China was accused of sabotaging Copenhagen through obstructionist, economicminded actions, it was forthcoming in Cancun and Durban, agreeing to cut carbon emissions.[17] What is most frustrating to industrialized nations is that Beijing’s climate strategy is centered on energy development, which is driven by overall economic goals. China has thus opted to act in solidarity with G-77 nations, arguing that the industrialized world has a historical responsibility with regards to the climate change problem. As such, China has been consistent in its position that as a developing country, it will not take on any binding international commitments to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.[18] China has been described as being Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

Domestic Initiatives In response to its diverse domestic environmental issues, China has made a variety of efforts to clean up its act. Primarily, China has made legislative strides, passing over 40 national environmental protection laws since 1979. In

2007, the National Development and Reform Commission of the State Council enacted the National Climate Change Program, a comprehensive endeavor that affects a variety of production, consumption and environmental systems in China.[23] Just as notably, the first climate changerelated “white paper” document issued in 2008 ordered the closing of more than 2000 heavily polluting factories, and 11,200 coal mines.

[24] Beijing also issued the Medium and Long-Term Development Plan for Renewable Energy in China in 2007, pledging that 15% of the country’s energy should come from renewables by 2020, a target that it is on track to meet, or perhaps even exceed.[25] Beijing has also been a global leader in the clean-tech industry, with hopes that this would modernize its economy, bring environmental benefits, and increase energy security.[26] China recently surpassed the United States in total investments in clean technology, spending $34.6 billion in 2009.

China’s solar industry has also continued to grow, as it became a $12.9 billion industry in 2007 and the world’s largest producer of photovoltaic cells. Similarly, China has surpassed Germany as the world’s top wind turbine producer, and in 2011 accounted for 21.8 percent of all the installed capacity of wind energy in the world.[27] At the household and consumer level, China’s 2008 stimulus package included $3 billion in funding for electric vehicle projects in 13 cities, and raised fuel efficiency standards for urban vehicles to 36.7 miles-pergallon, a standard far more stringent than that of the United States.[28] 27

Obstacles to Improvement

Conclusion

Though the Chinese people and government alike have made strides towards improving China’s environmental outlook, many obstacles, both bureaucratic and societal in nature, still exist. Beijing faces formidable bureaucratic hurdles in enacting and implementing effective climate change legislation. Though Western democracies have touted Beijing’s “authoritarian-chic” top-down socialist implementation processes as enviable, possessing the ability to “concentrate resources to accomplish large undertakings,” hurdles do exist. Provincial and local governments complain that the central government’s new focus on energy interferes with their regions’ economic growth.

[29] Additionally, China’s primary environmental regulation body, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, is weak and lacks enough resources to oversee implementation.[30] The energy sector is notably disorganized, causing energy policies to be “vague and disjointed,” and difficult to enforce.[31]

Given the domestic and international momentum driving China’s progress in climate change prevention and mitigation efforts, it seems this conversation will only be growing in the coming years.

The size, historical complexity and political priorities of the nation will continue to present obstacles to sweeping climate change policy. Skyrocketing energy demands and consumptive preferences of an emerging middle class in particular will challenge this movement. However, if the outcomes of the Paris climate summit and recent policy discussions are any indication, China will continue to emerge as a global participant in the endeavor to address climate change.

Societally speaking, China’s 1.3 billion inhabitants desire and demand the modern energy services and consumption habits that Western nations enjoy.[32] It would be unconscionable, Beijing argues, to deny its citizens the right to a better life to accommodate the wealthier nations’ climate change desires.[33] Despite having increasing energy demands, Chinese citizens have, however, made green activism an exciting societal phenomena, with the emergence of an estimated 3,000 NGOs operating nationwide as environmental watchdogs.[34] 28

1. David L Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 149.

2. Ibid.; Natasha Khan, “Choking China,” Bloomberg QuickTake, December 7, 2015, 3, http://www.bloombergview.com/ quicktake/choking-china?ftcamp=crm/ email/2014125/nbe/beyondbricsNewYork/ product.

3. Khan, “Choking China,” 1.

4. Ibid., 2.

5. Ibid.

6. David Stringer, “China’s Rare Earth Toxic Time Bomb to Spur Mining Boom,” Bloomberg, June 4, 2014, 1, http://www. bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-06-03/ china-s-rare-earth-toxic-time-bomb-to-spur12-billion-of-mines.

7. Ibid., 2.

8. Ibid., 3.

9. Joanna I. Lewis, “China’s Strategic Priorities International Climate Change Negotiations,” Washington Quarterly 31, no. 1 (2007): 170.

10. Zha Daojiong, “China’s Energy Security: Domestic and International Issues,” Survival 48, no. 1 (2006): 180.

11. Ibid., 181.

12. Flynt Leverett and Jeffrey Bader, “Managing China-U.S. Energy Competition in the Middle East,” Washington Quarterly 29, no. 1 (n.d.): 190.

13. Shambaugh, China Goes Global, 149.

14. Ibid., 150.

15. Ibid., 148.

16. Ibid., 149.

17. Ibid., 152.

18. Lewis, “China’s Strategic Priorities,” 164.

19. Ying Ma, “China’s View of Climate Change,” Policy Review 161 (2010): 2; Lewis, “China’s Strategic Priorities,” 166.

20. Shannon Tiezzi, “China Celebrates Paris Climate Change Deal,” The Diplomat, December 15, 2015, 2, http://thediplomat. com/2015/12/china-celebrates-parisclimate-change-deal/.

21. Ibid., 3.

22. Ibid., 4.

23. Shambaugh, China Goes Global, 151.

24. Ma, “China’s View of Climate Change,” 3.

25. Ibid., 4.

26. Ibid., 2.

27. Shambaugh, China Goes Global, 152.

28. Ma, “China’s View of Climate Change,” 3.

29. Ibid., 5.

30. Danny Marks, “China’s Climate Change Policy Process: Improved but Still Weak and Fragmented,” Journal of Contemporary China 19, no. 67 (2010): 981.

31. Ibid., 977.

32. Lewis, “China’s Strategic Priorities,” 170.

33. Ma, “China’s View of Climate Change,” 2.

34. Marks, “China’s Climate Change Policy Process,” 981.

Penn Asian Review | Volume VI

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