I love Corey Hart! Who's Corey Hart? Heck, only the best 1980s era pop sensation to ever come out of Canada (or just about anywhere else, for that matter). Even way back when, when I was just a young pup, growing up in the 80s, I was positive that most of Hart's work was way, way underrated. Even and especially a crowd pleasing chart topper like Sunglasses at Night, (http://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/corey_hart/Corey), surely his most recognizable hit, had me convinced right from the start that the man was nothing less than an artistic genius.
I've even remained a big fan of Corey Hart over the years since I first became hooked on his music. Because unlike many of the less substantial pop tunes that came and went in the 80s, I've always found a great many of Hart's songs to not only be thoroughly entertaining, but also highly interesting, as well as more than a little thought provoking.
In particular, Hart's now classic single, "The Boy in the Box," from the album of the same name, has always held a great deal of fascination for me. The now classic video, originally produced to help market the song, is of course showcased above. It's naturally featured here on Will's Journey to the East because, whatever character Mr. Hart happens to be portraying, is obviously supposed to either be somewhere in the fabled orient, or is perhaps even in a Chinatown somewhere. Maybe even in Hart's native Canada, where the video was most likely shot.
Either way, while belting out his carefully worded, perhaps self expressive tune about teenage and twenty something feelings of alienation, we are treated to a series of really rather disturbing images of Hart mixing and mingling with a cast of Asian and mixed Asian or Caucasian faces. The portrayal of many of the characters in the video might even be considered to be offensive to many Asians by early 21st century standards of political correctness.
But is the depiction of these characters really "racist?" Hmmm. Naturally, being a long time Corey Hart fan, I would personally argue that neither the song nor the video are representative of any particularly racist points of view, and are almost certainly a mere reflection of the decidely less racially charged bygone world of the 1980s. Quite unlike, that is, the often highly racially charged, and socially blackmail laden era that we all (black, white, tan or otherwise) seem to nowadays be forced to endure.
But then, what do I know, right? I'M A WHITE MAN! But then... I'm a white man who has long term (six years in total) resided in two different Chinese speaking nations. Well, one pseudo "nation," Taiwan, is supposed to only be a breakaway province of China.
And you know how those crafty, authoritative Mainland Chinese like to call all the shots. Yes, sir, Mr. Beijing, sir! I think what you think! I say what you say! Hell, they've even blackmailed us Americans (and most other countries too) into agreeing with their stance on "the Taiwan Question." But... oops! I go too far! It's THEIR little Asian civil war, after all! I'm just a spectator. A tourist, even!
"Get Thai'd! You're talking to a tourist whose every move is among the purest. I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine." Oops! Wrong 80s pop song. Those lyrics in fact come from the Murray Head version of One Night in Bangkok."
Anyway... once again, who the hell am I?
Oh! I'm just a white man. I'm a white man who's now caught up in yet another Asian civil war. This time, I'm in Korea, of course. NOT North Korea, mind you! I'm just trying desperately to stay chilled down here in the sunny south of the peninsula. Hell, I'm just here to obverse. You know, just trying to take the whole grand Korean drama in. And not be overly judgmental in the process, of course. Or... anything... like... that.
And, GOD FORBID that I should ever come off as being "racist!" What an ugly word to constantly be throwing around! It's... it's... so horrible! To think that any group of human beings could possibly be so... so... terribly judgmental and so shamelessly seek to label other groups of their fellow men and women like that!
So, can it be? Can Corey Hart's classic video depicting characters of Asian (and also Caucasian) origin be... be... "racist?" God forbid, no!
Well, I do know that even though the video doesn't specifically tell us (with a caption or otherwise) just exactly what part of Asia (or even a Chinatown somewhere) that the imagery is supposed to take place in, that I personally have in fact had very similar experiences to what Mr. Hart is depicted as having to endure in the video. SERIOUSLY!
You see, here's the thing: Most people (white, male or otherwise) simply can't walk ANYWHERE in most parts of western Shanghai, China without being FOLLOWED (as in STALKED) by clawing, grasping, covetous, really quite rude locals, who get up in your face when you're just waiting for the green man to let you know you can finally cross the street and escape the more or less begging Chinese hordes.
Because those nasty Chinese street sellers know you're from a country where people actually follow rules. They know you're going to stand there until the stoplight says you can finally get the hell away! So they follow and harass you, often getting uncomfortably close, shouting in your face at the top of their lungs, about their counterfeit hand bags and other crap they DEMAND that you buy.
Wanna fight back? Sure! Go ahead, there's always a group of Chinese lurking somewhere nearby, who are more than willing, just waiting really, to beat the hell out of an uppity, lone, defenseless looking white boy. Or "bad foreigner," as the case may in fact be.
In fact, in my experience in Shanghai, China, in particular, there were literally hundreds of thousands of leering, sneering toothy grinning people just up in my face every time I tried to go just about anywhere. Rude? That simple little four letter word hardly even begins to cover the depth of the depravity of the phenomenon, I'm afraid.
But the vast majority of people in Mainland China are just so poor and needy, right? Well, I guess, but you just KNOW instinctively in many situations, that those are NOT in fact kind smiles that your unabashed stalkers are brandishing. That is in fact the look of a hungry, passive aggressive predator.
And just exactly why do so many people in Asia really HAVE to get all up in your personal space like that? Quite simply, because most people in Asia ('cause it has everything to do with their upbringing and overcrowded environment, and NOTHING at all to do with so-called "race"), quite simply don't even have a clue what they're doing to piss most foreigners off. Or don't they? Is CULTure then, really ever a good excuse to violate any individuals' personal space and other rights?
Even worse, many Asians in Asia don't even seem to have a clue that excessive interaction in the form of standing too close, shout talking, unwanted touching and the like, is also something that pisses people in their own country off! I think, innately, deep down, however, they do in fact know that. Well, the smarter ones among them know it, at any rate.
It is simply that, given the fact that most Asians have only ever known the personal freedom and identity robbing excessive stress that comes with overpopulation in pretty much any country or region, they simply never get the chance to even so much as think very deeply on the subject. And let's be honest. Many people have also quite rightly pointed out that people from other highly populated places, such as Mexico, for example, often seem to unconsciously behave in a somewhat similar fashion.
But what about that awful scene in the video, where Corey Hart tries to get himself a simple shave and a haircut? Well, in my own personal experience in Shanghai, China, whenever I'd attempt to sit down in a beauty shop chair, something horrifically similar would often happen. On this one particular day, in fact, I really just wanted to get my hair cut. And I pretty much knew what some of the all too numerous Chinese hucksters were going to try to do to "rich" foreign whitey if I dared to walk into this one particular establishment all by myself. But hey, I just wanted to get my damn hair trimmed.
So I sat down in the chair, and told the attendants in good, clear Mandarin Chinese, that that's all I wanted. I just wanted a trim. But they didn't listen. Oh, they heard and fully understood exactly what I was saying, but that wasn't what they in fact wanted. So the staff in that particular shop went into overdrive, whipping out several picture books to show me, "latest style in South Korea." Because that would obviously make more for their "rice bowl" if they could HOUND me into paying them more for a simple haircut.
Okay! I must in fact confess that I simply cannot stand most young male Korean hairstyles! Or... like virtually the ONLY one. To me, most young Korean men look so silly and yes, even GIRLY. Which is fine, I guess. If you're into that sort of thing. At any rate, I've had hairstylists try to give me cuts like that here in Korea, in fact.
First, they give you the old mop top hairdo, and then they try to comb it down into your face like the way all the excessively feminine looking Korean idols wear their hair nowadays. What can ya say, right? Fashion, right? But Will don't play that game. Like, as in... never.
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| And seriously, folks. This is a Korean MALE? Yikes! If he's gay, no problem, but maybe he's just plain creepy. |
But let's get back that 80s era Corey Hart video, shall we? You know, the one that could be misconstrued as "racist?" Or even mildly racially insensitive, at the very least.
Nope, sorry. NO, I simply could not support that point of view in any way, shape or form. Yes, the leering, sneering Asian characters who are all up in Corey Hart's face in the video do seem passively aggressively intimidating, but I honestly can say beyond the shadow of a proverbial doubt that I have in fact encountered very similar behavior in pretty much every Asian country I've ever lived and worked in for any appreciable length of time. In fact, I've even encountered that kind of behavior in the Asian countries where I've only briefly visited, as well.
But then there was Japan. Japan is the only place, in fact, that I've visited in Asia that I didn't see the kind of chaos, dirt, disorder and in your face passive aggression that is yes, admittedly, somewhat over-exaggerated in the video. In Japan however, I encountered a somewhat different kind of passive aggression. In Japan, I personally encountered a string of people one day who simply would not give me a straight answer when I asked them about where I could mail a letter.
The impression I got in Japan, of course, was not that they didn't understand my humble attempt at Japanese, but rather that they thought that I was yet another impossibly rude "gaijin," for perhaps even having the balls to ask them a simple question! How rude of little old whitey! Asking for directions in a foreign country? How dare I? I mean, you come to Japan, the land of the almighty rising sun, and dare to interrupt our obviously superior, self absorbed selves? Get outta town, foreigner!
Well, that's definitely the attitude I got from one Japanese guy in particular. The last person I asked for directions to the post office, in fact. It turned out, that he probably didn't even work in the building where I asked the question of him. Yet, perhaps even more telling, the postal facility in that particular building was just down the hall from where I asked this guy, just behind some none too obvious double doors. So, benefit of the doubt, right? Sure!
So, when I did finally find the post office hidden in that building, I went back up to this rude man ('cause yeah, even as a "stupid foreign," I get to have an opinion on the matter too) and told him where the post office in fact was in that particular building. You know, in case somebody else should happen to ask.
He was none too interested though. Nor did he seem all that tolerant of my second attempt to simply engage him in a manner that would almost certainly be considered to be polite in almost any truly modern country on Earth. Well, in all the countries that aren't just pretending to be "modern," that is.
But then, the Japanese are famous for not really being "Asian." "Japan is in Asian," I've often been told personally by many Japanese, "but we are not Asians. We are Japanese." Okay.... But then, that's another story, for yet another blog entry, I suppose.
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