Female become stronger? (by Nicole Au)

In our society, there is a binary opposition between male and female, it seems men should be strong, independent, aggressive, rational and tough while women are weak, dependent, submissive, emotional, and tender. It is because the process of socialization, since we were children, parents and the education of school through cartoons, clothes, school regulations, etc. to make us recognized that male should be masculinity and female should be femininity. In the cartoons that produced in early century (about 1885), the male roles were always acted as a hero to save their lovers or the world, and the female roles were always saved by the male. But it seems have a change for this trend in nowadays cartoons.

 

Cartoons that produced in early century, for examples “Snow White and The Seven Dwarf”, “Sleeping beauty”, “Peter Pen” were very popular Disney cartoons, seems every child had seen them, but have you found that there is a formula for all of them? That is “Hero save the beauty”.

 In the “Snow White and The Seven Dwarf”, a princess called Snow White lived with seven dwarfs because of her stepmother wanted to kill her and therefore the seven dwarfs could protect her. But at last, she was still given a poisoned apple by her stepmother, and then she fell down, look like she was dead, so the seven dwarfs put her into a glass coffin. One day, a prince came and saw the beauty of Show White, he found that he loved her and so he took her back his country. Show White vomited the apple out and woken up on the way that they went back to the prince’s country. It gave the image of female was weak, dependent and irrational, because she needed to be protected by the seven dwarfs. She stayed at home to clean the house while the seven dwarfs went out to work. It also stated out female is submissive group. 

In the “Peter Pen”, a girl called Wendy was always saved by Peter Pen. One time when she was forced to jump into the sea, Peter Pen saved her so that she had not fallen into water and dead. This showed female were protected by male, they are dependent on men.

 

From the cartoons that were produced in modern time, the female roles no longer dependent on male, they were stronger and they can guard themselves, even the world or country. For example, “Mulan” (1998) was talking about a girl called Mulan who saved her father from death in the army. At last, she won the war and became hero, all the citizens kneel down to her. It is a quiet different story because saved the country was a female, it seems to tell us female were not needed to protect by male anymore or maybe they can save the world.

Nowadays in Hong Kong, women were not simply stay at home to do the housework and take care of the children, but also go out to work. They have a dependent economy capability and their own career and they do not need to rely on the men anymore, so I think women nowadays are stronger than before. This can be reacted in the cartoon.

T-shirts (By Iris N. Y. Yip)

Nearly every people wear T-shirts nowadays. Normally, a T-shirt consists of two short sleeves, a probably round-shaped collar and the main centre. The components are very simple. However, the price of T-shirts can vary from ten Hong Kong dollars to over thousands of dollars. Why can the price be so different and not unified? One biggest reason is ‘brand’. Prices of T-shirts from famous brands could be very high. On the other hand, the prices of T-shirts sold at shops of Fa Yuen Street, Mong Kok could be much lower.

What so good for those expensive t-shirts except famous brand names? Special styles? Better qualities? Nicer designs? As we know, mass production would lower the cost of a product. The big companies produce a large amount of T-shirt, yet they sell them at an expensive price! That appears to be illogical. No doubt, the rental of their shops and the cost of advertisements might be very high, but they can still earn a lot.

Although there are T-shirts of good quality, wonderful designs and cheap prices, people are still willing to buy those expensive T-shirts of famous brands. What are the attractions of the famous brand T-shirts? All T-shirts look similar and with the same components. They only differ in colour and in logo design. For better profits, companies have to create differences continuously such that the consumers have the illusions that what they have consumed are special and different from others, although they are the same. Consumers like such feeling of novelty. For the producers, the pool of disposable consumers income is limited. Companies have to enlarge the market share, in order to earn more disposable income from the market. They do so by creating novelty for their unique products.

According to the theories of Marxism, ‘when the company owners firmly controlled both the production and distribution process, their ideas would receive greater attention and dominant the thoughts of the subordinate groups’. This is also true, for the effects of famous brand names on consumers. The theory explains why those brand names can set up such high prices for their ‘normal’ T-shirts. With huge resources spent on advertisement, the consumers are attracted to accept their type of ideologies and consume their products, without noticing that they are exploited (i.e. buying a product in a much higher price).

T-shirts is so popular that nearly everyone wears. But its price can vary a lot. T-shirts of famous brand names are sold with huge profits. Some people like to purchase products of famous brand names because they create novelty, which continuously makes them feel that they are different. On the other hand, the companies that produce famous brand name products have huge resources. They can control both the production and distribution process, hidden with their own ideologies that dominate the thought of the consumers (i.e. purchasing their products is good). Consumers are being exploited, when they accept these ideologies. They start and continue to purchase the expensive products.

Iris N. Y. Yip

References:

Differences prices of different ‘brands’

1. http://www.bape.com/
2. https://www.chocoolate.hk/
3. http://www.thepancakes.com/mailorder/hongkong.htm
4. http://princessdiane.com/shop/tee.html
5. http://www.freewebtown.com/tenderhk/main.html

Hong Kong Popular Music (By Stephanie Chow)

Have you ever noticed our local music? It is so popular nowadays that most local teenagers like it, and we have a lot of new singers coming out each year to fit in this fast changing city. Hong Kong, this fast changing city requires new ideas every minute. One minute, it’s promoting R&B music, and the next moment, it’s promoting Hip Hop music. Among all these, the Cantonese Popular music has fought a long battle and now is still standing firm in this society.

In the past, people were more obsessed of Western music, especially the popular Western band, Beatles. People at that time thought listening to Western music is such a high class thing and having a good taste. So how about Cantonese pop music? It was not popular before as people preferred local pop music was treated as low class and having bad taste. Later, when Cantonese pop music was more developed, we had teen idols, and were mostly well like by teenagers. Cantonese pop music was then getting more and more popular, and it has become common to the public, it is no longer a low class thing to Hong Kong people. According to Raymond Williams, he suggested popular culture is a culture which most people prefer it. By referring our case, I guess Cantonese pop music has become a popular culture since that time.

Later, we even have 4 Heavenly Kings; they are Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok and Leon Lai. Besides, we also have Faye Wong as a famous female singer. Moreover, Jacky Cheung and Faye Wong were able to sell their music internationally. Hong Kong people were proud of them, and also our local pop music. Our local pop music is not a low class thing anymore and it has shifted to a upper class as time goes by.

So have you ever noticed the change of lyrics in our Cantonese pop music? It used to be written like a poems and words used there were more elegant and formal like literature. However, we can see that lyrics written nowadays are totally different from the past. Today, we have most lyrics written in informal words, the words are like what we speak instead of what we write. Of course, we still have formal lyrics now, but do you see that we have developed new ideas from our old culture?

However, the Cantonese pop music is not in a good situation as many people nowadays just download music from the internet. The sales of local music is a disaster. The songwriters and singers are depressed by this situation. If this situation continues, I afraid we can’t keep our Cantonese pop music long. It is such a shame that we’ve developed new technologies and we use them to destroy our own cultures, cultures that we’ve spent a lot of them to develop them. If we love our local cultures, we just have to protect them. Singers in Hong Kong are working very hard in order to keep themselves fresh and new to the audience. It is believed that Hong Kong is such a fast changing city, however, people should always remember what we gain today is the reward from we have tried very hard in the past.

Reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantopop

Octopus Card let you spend more (by Patrick Lee)

There is a discourse that using Credit Card causes a lot of debt. However, in my own opinion, Octopus is also a device that let us spend more. The logo of Octopus is the symbol of number eight, “8”, also a mathematical symbol “infinity”, means “infinite” possibilities in official explain, but in my own opinion, it may also remind us that if we use it carelessly, we will spent infinite by using Octopus Card.

Nowadays, Octopus Card is very convenient in Hong Kong, not only use it for transportation, but also can use in fast food shop, supermarket and car parking, or even use it for login campus, library or residents. Accordingly, there are more than 95% of 16 – 65 years old Hong Kong citizen using Octopus.

Compare with other electronic payment system, Octopus are more convenient than other system like Credit Card or EPS. Octopus only need put upon the receive machine and wait until a “do” sound, it can also automatically add value in the card linked with personal bank account.

However, the advantages are also the disadvantages because of the securities. The conveniences of Octopus Card lead to conveniences of spending, not only the signature or password procedures skipped, but also to urge consumer to spend without thinking. When we spend by credit card, we need to check the bill, and signature to confirm; when we spend by EPS, we also need to type the password; even when we use cash, there are times we consider the amount during we count the bank note. But the appearances of Octopus totally change the trading procedure, since the amounts are small, the environments are in hurry, people sometimes haven’t got enough times to think, but have already connected to receiver machine. Furthermore, the amounts spend in Octopus Card are small, it is so convenience that people spend without checking, until the value in the card is zero.

Despite taxi, Octopus can solve all the travel expends in Hong Kong, having lunch and dinner in fast food shop, buying magazines in convenient shop, preparing the commodity in supermarket, paying the car park’s bills, and finally entering the resident by using the card. Also, Octopus developed a rewarded system, provide coupons and discounts in supermarket, restaurants, or products, Octopus developed a huge system that the trading procedure are in a short period of time. People’s habit have shift by using Octopus rather than cash or other systems.

Nowadays, the global are actively promoting wireless electric payment system used in transportation fee and trading without change, but there are not much cities that as successful as Hong Kong that Octopus Card dominate the market and hence increase the conveniences and widely used.

There is no doubt that Octopus Card is so useful in Hong Kong. However, using Octopus rather than cash brings the problems that we need to eliminate the change and the wrong counting situation; the value counted in the card cannot easily change. And people will spend more due to the value is too small and the procedure is too short that people won’t think deeply.

Teenagers attracting by the “idol drama” (By Stella Lai)

Living in Hong Kong, there are different entertainments for the rest; such as go to the cinema enjoy the movie, having the karaoke with friends. However, watching the TV drama is the most simply and no need to pay the extra fee. Watching the TV drama already became one of their habits in the daily life. Beside of the TVB’s drama, many people like watching the foreign dramas, especially Taiwan drama.

Most of the Taiwan’s dramas are relate to love story, and say as “idols drama”(偶像劇) which is act by the popular idol, they have a smart and pretty appearance. Moreover, this may attract the teenager’s audiences. For example, there are the Taiwan’s drama called “Meteor Garden”(流星花園) was very popular in Hong Kong few years ago. The drama was acted by F4, who are the four guys Jerry Yan, Vic Chou, Vanness Wu and Ken Chu, the actress was Barbie Hsu. This story was adapt by the Japanese comic, it talking about the boy love the girl and they overcome different kind of issues to get together. Then, the drama was hit in the mass and released the sound-tracks CD and the adapted novel.

From time to time, there are lots of other idols dramas came out, as the culture industry was working here, like the Hanazakarino Kimitachihe (花樣少年少女) which presented recently. It also adapt by the Japanese comic called “For You in Full Blossom” which performed by the members of the boys group “Fahrenheit” and Ella Chen. The drama also talking about the love story, the girl like the guy and after a sort of questions, then get together happily. In addition, they released the portrait and the sound-track CD also because the TV play was success.

The culture homogeneity acted here as the industry produced the standardized products that are the story adapted by the comic, and there is a good example shown before. So, the productions produce it in the same way to get safe and get hit in the mass. For the homogeneity, the formulas of the tales are similar as well, like they would employ the stars to perform, outline the love story and the couple which come over lots of difficulties. Furthermore, the novel and the other related commodities came out too.

The “idols drama” is seldom produced in the Hong Kong industry, but there is lots of such production in Taiwan. And it gets the attention in Hong Kong as well. By looking the Taiwan’s creation, employ stars in the production as the phenomenon. Dyer (1998) states that, “Stars are widely regarded as a vital element in the economic” (P. 10). Again, the stars used to promote the play and they can grab the attention of the audience. This is why the drama would become well-known, for instance of “Hanazakarino Kimitachihe” performed by the member of Fahrenheit and this may get the audience’s eye on it.

Additionally, the industry is still creating different kind of dramas which fit the features of culture homogeneity and predictability in the market for the mass. But audiences still have their own choice to select whether watch or not.

Are pop stars commercialized in pop music culture? (By Genki Mak)

 

In the culture of Hong Kong pop music, idol worship becomes a universal act. Majority may have their own idol to worship such as Eason Chan and Leslie Cheung. Different age groups of artists may reach different fans. I think media show that pop stars are being commercialized. Music market mainly targets teenagers as consumers. Teenagers’ consumptions are much more than the elder age groups though they have no economic source. The market continuously pushes new singers to diversify choices of consumers. If the singers become popular, the market will gain a lot of profits. Pop star seems to be a product for consumption. I am going to focus on how teenagers consume on artists with products in Hong Kong pop music culture.

I see many new singers appear on the media every year. It is very difficult to guess which type of singers can reach consumers’ needs. In recent years, I think Twins is a successful example to show that how new singers become popular. After Twins is being well-known, many fans spend their time and money on Twins. Whenever Twins attends a function, fans will go there to support them, even though they often need to queue up for long hours in order to get their signatures. Moreover, they will buy Twins’s CD and watch their movies in cinemas. They even purchase many products which are related to Twins. In fact, we knew Twins by media. Media introduced and promote Twins to us. For example, Twins promotes themselves with products in advertisements. Twins attracts us to buy the products through media. Consequently, media is a connection tool between pop stars and us. Many people accept Twins to be their idol because of popularity. Moreover, Twins attract us to purchase the products through their promotions, and they help the market to gain profits. Therefore, I think people are not simply worshiping idols, they are also consuming the products and pop stars. 

 I think concert can obviously show how people consume on their idols. I went to Hong Kong Coliseum to enjoy Miriam Yeung’s concert with my friend last week. When my friend bought tickets, people had already queued up earlier waiting to buy the tickets of Miriam’s concert. Sometimes, people may even queue up overnight because they want to get a better seat closer to their idols. When I arrived at Hong Kong Coliseum, I realized that there are so many people in which most of them were teenagers. When the concert was finished, many people queued up to buy souvenirs. I knew the products were expensive, but people were still willing to buy them. Therefore, from the concert, I find out that people do not simply appreciate the idols, but they also unconsciously increase consumption of products related to idols.  

In my opinion, in the culture of Hong Kong pop music, the singers are being commercialized. Most of their songs are composed as karaoke songs for the mass. However, media diversify the singers to let us choose our idols. Furthermore, market sells the products related to idols for us to consume. They generate a popular phenomenon that when we worship idols, we consume their by-products at the same time. People are increasing the consumption, and make the pop singers commercialized.  

  Genki Mak

Everything is easy come and easy go in Hong Kong – by Karen

People in Hong Kong are changing fast, everytime when people find some interesting stuff, it will be the the hottest topic and everyone will follow the trend without thinking,  even a culture or any stuff, it is easy come and easy go in hong kong. After a period of time, it will no longer even mention by people and report by the media, and it’s the time to come out another culture or stuff again. It is a cycle, people keep chasing and forgetting.

I remember when i was still studying in secondary school, there was a time rock music was very popular in Hong Kong, you could see many girls or guys were wearing a punk look on the street, even we could see such styles on the magazines. And i could see many new shops were selling punk stuff at that time. Some people love japanese rock culture, and some people love the western one. But less than 2 years, i couldn’t see such phenomenon again because another culture came out again, which is hiphop culture from America. I think it last a bit longer than rock culture because at least i can still see some people wearing hiphop on the street now, when this culture came to Hong Kong, many people around me were crazy about it, they listen to hiphop music and wear hiphop clothes, singers like Jordon Chan (陳小春) also suddenly changed his style and wear hiphop too. We don’t see much hiphop shops few years ago, but now, we can find it in Causeway Bay, Mong Kok or come other places. We can see people run their business by following the trend too. But it is very obvious that people are changing again, we can see less people love hiphop now. And also another example which is “i’m not a plastic bag”, at the moment when this bag came to Hong Kong, people gave high price to buy it even it doesn’t worth that price and everyone want to own one, but a few months later, even no one will mention it again, also i can’t see any stars or singers wear it again.

One of the reasons is the media influences us too much, when they keep repoting what’s hot, it is understandable why people want to chase it and own it, and i had such expirences too, few years ago, Blythe dolls were very popular in Hong Kong, i guess most of the girls have heard of that, and i was their little fan too, i addicted to it at that time and i spent almost $2000 to buy a few of them, but now they are only in my drawer and i won’t even take them out, i want to sell them out, but there’s no market now, and no one wants my poor dolls now, and i ask myself why this trend can’t last for a bit longer?? Or should i say what else can last longer in Hong Kong? We can see first we love japanese and western culture, and later we had korean culture, and seems lately people love Taiwan stars, so i wonder what’s the next.

Gachapon (by Claudia Fung)

     

Gachapon (扭蛋) is a Japanese onomatopoeia; this word comes from the sound of opening it with “gacha”. The concept of gachapon comes from America, at the first beginning; there is chewing gum or candies inside the gachapon machine and it is for children mainly. When this concept goes into Japan, Japanese enhance and glorify it and reconstruct the gachapon developing into the toys gachapon now you see today. Nowadays, gachapon is popular. There are toys, figures for display, small gadget for use inside a plastic capsule. In Hong Kong, you can get a gachapon easily because the gachapon machines set outside most of the convenience shops; also there are lots of gachapon shop in the large shopping malls. However, the gachapon is just one of the earning tools for the large companies.  

Gachapon builds up a collection culture as there are different set of special cartoon figures. The figure always comes from Japanese comic, video game or animation. The printed feature is included in the plastic capsule and usually come with a series collection of figure thus increase people’s desire to collect them. In fact, it must have a full set of cartoon in each machine but it is difficult to collect a full set without knowing what the gachapon will be. When a coin goes into the machine till the gachapon comes out, there is no body knows what the gachapon is. When a person loves the figure very much, he will put the coin inside continually until he gets it. At that time, he may get more than one figure which he does not want. Without knowing what the next gachapon is, he has already consumed large numbers of coins in that machine and he is really fall into the trap which is prepared by the large companies. As the example of the gachapon exhibition in Hong Kong, it detrudes lots of limitation of figures, it makes people get into crazy to turn them out. It is one of the earning money tools to push people to get their products.  

The gachapon is a standardized product. It has a plastic capsule outside and includes toys inside. According to the culture homogeneity, it becomes a formula that the gachapon should be the toys. Nowadays, you are difficult to see the chewing gum gachapone machines between the streets. On the other hand, it is a predictability product. When it success in the Japanese products, the big companies, such as Disney also have the Mickey mouse’s gachapon. At the same time it have different version of the gachapon, such as the Christmas, Halloween and summer, etc. One of the formulas of different version is success; they will provide another similar version to the consumers. The toys series is one of the successful formulas as people buy them continually.  

To conclude, gachapon produces the consumerism. If you want to have the full set figure, you will continually to pay and gachapon until you get it. During the process of you want to get it, you consume a lot of toys that you do not really want; also, during the process of you gachapon, the large companies earn a lot on you.

The queue up culture in Hong Kong (by Wilson Wong)

When you living in Hong Kong, you must have experienced a popular culture, what is that? It is the queue up culture. You must try to queue up for paying money, waiting for the bus, waiting for the train, even waiting for the “free gifts”. In this busy city, we had wasted a lot of time for queuing up, so, this action is good for us or not? If not, what else can we do to decrease the time of queuing up?

When we were young, our teacher told us queue up is a virtue, we should not cut the line, we need to line up in order, if not, and people around you will think that you are impolite. We learnt this concept since we were young; we keep it in our mind deeply, and we thought that queue up is normal. When we are growing up, we seem queue up for everything, “queue up” this term is becoming a norm to us.

It cannot be denied that queue up is a virtue, the social order can be maintained, and there is less conflict or argument about the problem of who come first, who wait here first. For example, at the lunch time, people are queuing up to buy lunch, however, if someone cut the line, the people who line up at the back must not satisfy about the action of him or her, people may be mad at him or her, even scold as well. Due to this action may lead people mad at others, no one will try to cut the line. They will follow the norm, “queue up”.

However, based on a famous saying in Hong Kong, “every second is money!” if we spend too long on queuing up, is it means that we lost a lot of money already? I think that is not true, for example, we queue up for buying lunch, although we waste some time, we get the food later on. In this case, our aims for queue up is want to get the food, we need to pay afford on it, that is waiting for buying lunch box, if you willing to spend time to wait for it, you can get the lunch box finally. It is showing that there is no “free lunch” in this world. Same as studying, we got a good result since we need to pay a lot of afford on our study, if you are not studying hard, you cannot get a good result.

But there is a strange phenomenon in Hong Kong, which is people are willing to queue up for something that they do not necessarily need. For example, some people saw a long queue on the road, they will queue up the line first; however, they do not know what they are queuing for. Finally, when they got the souvenir or the free gifts which they do not need, they will throw it away immediately, why are they willing to do it?

 Because they do not want to suffer looses, they had a thinking in their mind, that is ‘everyone got a “free” gifts, so I should get one too.’ If the things which they got are not useful for them, they can throw it into rubbish bin, they thought they were not suffering looses at least. But think deeply, they are already suffered looses since they queued up, they were wasting the time to get the things that they did not need. It is different from queuing up for buying lunch box, because people can get what they need, it is not the same as queue up for something that they do not need.

Actually, queue up is really important in our society, however, if we queue up for everything, we will waste a lot of time. We need to decide which one we need to queue rather than queue up just because of we do not want to suffer looses.

Canton pop music culture (by Ivy Cheung)

  It is an obvious fact that the sales of the records of most of the pop singers in Hong Kong has declined. The sales of most of the pop singers’ records are not satisfied usually. It cannot be denied that the appearence of the internet is really affect a lot to the market, it is especially ture when these programmes come out – Winmx, BT, and foxy. It is an easy and a convenient way for people to download songs from there.  

  The music culture of Hong Kong has faced a big chanllege since the later period of 1990  as the inetnet has developed in speed. The stores which sell CD records, for example: HMV, are not the only for the customers to buy the singers’ reocrds. Nowadays, people can download songs from those P2P “point to point” programmes easily – WinMX and foxy are the two most famous and popular P2P download programme among the youngsters in Hong Kong. They can then shared what they have downloaded with others after using those programmes. Although it is illegal to download songs and movies from those programmes, “free of charge” is attrative to lots of people which made them willing to take the risk.  This is one of the important foctors that cause the decline of the sales of the records.

  In addition, most of the people claimed that the other reason which causing them not to buy the singers’ records is due to the quality of the pop singers. They think that some of the pop singers are no longer worthful to buy their CD records now as the main theme of most of the songs are similar or even the same with others – all about love between men and women. “Love songs” become the main stream of the music market in Hong Kong. Mostly, pop singers will only sing love songs in their CD records, in stead of other types of songs. As most of the songs are similiar, therefore, customers would like to choose to get the songs which they liked to listen from other ways rather paying money to buy the whole record.

  Recently, more people would like to listen songs which not sings by the pop singers. These type of singers would create and produce their own songs, publish in the internet and let other people to download or to pay for their songs. In Chinese, we called thses type of singers - 網絡歌手.  These type of singers will sing songs which about friendship and families. “Love songs” is not the only type in their records. Morever,  lots of people claimed that these singers have more protential and their quailty of singing is much more higher than the others pop singers. KellyJackie is an example of these types of singers. She is well-known to the youngsters.

  Pop singers in Hong Kong nowadays are usaully emphazised on their outlook rather than on their quality of singing. Also, their company would like to include lots of coupons and gifts in the singers’ CD records, the cover and packing of the records should be attractive and delicate. These are the ways of the singers and their companies would like to use in order to attract the consumers to buy the records. Music is not the only element in the music culture in Hong Kong and the selling point of the pop singers are no longer the quality of their singing anymore. That is absolutly ture the pop music culture will continue to decline if there is no change in the singing and of the pop singers.