Silicon Asia
East Asian Media Culture from 1983 to the Present
East Asia is home to some of the world’s oldest societies and newest economies – an explosive contradiction, which has generated one of the most innovative media cultures of the late 20th century. What is not widely appreciated, however, is how quickly and thoroughly the process of multinational integration has proceeded in East Asia. Today the region is a nascent superpower, with an incomparable industrial base and leading positions in some of the most significant markets of the 21st century (computers, cellphones, videogames). East Asia is also an increasingly integrated cultural and political space, with striking similarities to the European Union. The founders of the European Community had the wisdom to realize that the future of Europe lay in integration, social justice, and peaceful dialogue with its neighbors. Today’s nascent East Asian community must decide not whether to follow the path blazed by the EU, but how far – and how fast – it wants to catch up.
In retrospect, Hong Kong was the key incubator of the East Asian media, the test-chamber which anticipated developments elsewhere in the region. The Hong Kong cinema fused national cultural traditions (Chinese opera and martial arts) into international hybrids (the Cantonese wuxia film), and eventually staged true multinational productions (John Woo’s late 1980s thrillers). The Japanese media experienced something similar, as international forms such as the made-for-TV anime series and samurai adventure gave way to the cosmopolitan anime and manga productions of Hayao Miyazaki (Laputa: Castle in the Sky in 1986 and Nausicaa 1982-1994) and Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma½ (1988-1992), before culminating in canonic multinational classics such as Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke (1997) and Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995).
Today, East Asia’s mediatization is being complemented by a pervasive informatization, thanks to the spread of cellphones, media devices, computers and videogames. This expansion of infrastructure has been more than matched by a flood of programming, ranging from Beat Kitano to Iron Chef, and from Legend of Zelda to Devil May Cry. This class will track the convergence of the East Asian media and the information culture, a.k.a. the birth of Silicon Asia.
I. Legacies of the Developmental State
While the financial excesses of Japan’s Bubble economy grabbed most of the headlines of the 1980s, mainland China and Vietnam were quietly transforming their one-party states into sophisticated developmental states. The result was an ongoing boom which gradually began to wean East Asia from its previous dependence on US markets and technology.
Media
Can Xue, Yellow Mud Street (1983)
Yimou Zhang, Red Sorghum (1987)
Yimou Zhang, Judou (1988)
Yimou Zhang, Raise the Red Lantern (1989)
Hayao Miyazaki, Nausicaa (manga series 1982-94)
Pham Thi Hoai, Nine Down Makes Ten (1997, written earlier)
Ang Li, Butcher’s Wife (1979)
Texts
Nikkei Weekly: “Burying the Past”, “South Korean Youth Soak Up Japanese Culture” (2000)
Seki Mitushiro, “Beyond the Full-set Industrial Structure” (mid-1990s)
John Kotter, Matsushita Leadership
Biography of Kim Dae-Jung (must find)
Alice Amsden, Asia’s Next Giant (1989)
Alice Amsden, “Taiwan in International Perspective”, in: Taiwan’s Enterprises in Global Perspective. (1992) Ed. N.T. Wang.
Robert Wade, Governing the Market
David Friedman, The Misunderstood Miracle
Michael Gerlach, Alliance Capitalism (1992)
II. Multinational Speculations
When the Japanese real estate and stock market bubble finally burst in 1991, Japan entered a period of deceptive stagnation. Though official growth rates slowed to almost nothing, the economy was quietly transforming itself from an industrial to a service-sector economy. Japan’s industrial giants began to retrench and expand elsewhere in Asia, and intra-Asian trade and financial flows expanded briskly. The negative side of this increased interdependence was revealed in 1997, when a currency crisis gripped Southeast Asia, nearly bankrupting Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea overnight. Just when things seemed bleakest, an unlikely consortium of East Asia’s governments and the major European major banking groups stepped in with a vast bailout package (Japan bailed out its keiretsu banks, Singapore bailed out Indonesia, China bailed out Hong Kong, and the Eurobanks bailed out pretty much everyone.) The region had been rescued from a major meltdown, but what would the future hold?
Media
Toriyama, Dragonball Z (the Frieza saga)
John Woo, A Better Tomorrow (1986)
Hayao Miyazaki, My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
John Woo The Killer (1989) Allegories of export-platform industrialization
John Woo Hard-boiled (1991) From export-platform form to East Asian content
Wong Kar-wai Chunking Express (1991)
Texts
Richard James Havis and Alexandra A. Seng, “The Road to Hollywood” in: Asiaweek (August 29, 1997)
Democracy movements in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore
Shigeto Tsuru. Japan’s Capitalism: Creative Defeat and Beyond.
Vietnam: doi moi and rural industrialization
Alex Taylor III, Fortune, “How Toyota Defies Gravity” (Dec 8, 1997)
Zhang Yimou: Interviews. Ed. Framcis Gateward, UP Mississippi, 2001. Note especially pp. 11-14, where he describes the making of Red Sorghum.
III. Keitai Communism
Since 1999, East Asia has rebounded in more ways than one. The manic-depressive cycle of financial euphorias and economic crashes typical of the 1990s has given way to a renewed spirit of pragmatism and intra-Asian cooperation. The region is increasingly looking at the European Union as a model of civic engagement, cross-border diplomacy and economic cooperation. Free trade agreements now bind together the region, reformist governments have emerged in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, while China, Malaysia and Vietnam continue to power ahead.
Media
Edward Yang, Yi-yi (2001)
Anno, Evangelion (1995) Post-Bubble micropolitics, East Asian geopolitics
Hayao Miyazaki, Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001)
Satoshi Kon, Tokyo Godfathers (2002)
Case studies: Iron Chef
Biography: Beat (Takeshi) Kitano
Devil May Cry Capcom
Texts
W. Mark Fruin, Knowledge Works: Managing Intellectual Capital at Toshiba. (1997)
Sigvald Harryson, Japanese Technology and Innovation Management (study of Canon)
Laurie Lande, Asian WSJ, “Hong Kong Readies Official Pension Plan” (Nov 19, 1998)
Takabumi Suzuoki, Nikkei Weekly “Pearl River Delta” (Apr 3, 2000)
Tokyo-Mitsubishi Review Vol. 5, No. 2 Feb 2000 “Hong Kong Draws Lessons From Crisis to Boost Competitiveness”
Profile: Jong Yong Yun, CEO of Samsung
“Revitalization of Asia”, Toyoo Gyohten, Economic Review, Published by International Commercial Bank of China (Taipei). (2000)
Zhongguancun business park in Beijing (web)
Akahibara district in Tokyo (web)
ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (2004)
Case study: Legend’s rise and buyout of IBM’s PC division, resulting in Lenovo
Case study: Sony’s Cell chip and the making of the PS3