Sociological Images

In an interesting example of cultural borrowing/appropriation sent in by Catherine H., the Korean all-girl pop band T-ara imitates stereotypes of American Indians in their music video for their (strangely catchy) song, YaYaYa.

It’s difficult (for me) to know how these stereotypes of native North Americans “work” in Korea. It appears to mean something to Koreans, otherwise why use the imagery and narratives, but what? And how should Americans who oppose the stereotyping (and erasing of modern) Native Americans talk about this “borrowing”?

To get some perspective, I turned to James Turnbull.  Turnbull is behind the blog, The Grand Narrative, where he writes about Korean Sociology through the prism of pop culture.  This is what he had to say:

First, please note that T-Ara’s Yayaya is actually just one of several recent Korean music videos that have used Native-American imagery, and by no means the most offensive at that. For a list, see here, which points out that Indian Boy by MC Mong is much more problematic.

Second, so many Korean groups are being formed these days – over 30 new girl-groups in 2011 alone – that their management companies (most well-known Korean groups are completely “manufactured”) are in a constant battle to gain media attention for them. One way to do so is to regularly come up with new “concepts” for the group, of which a “cute” one incorporating Native-American imagery is just one possibility of many.

But thirdly and most importantly, it is no exaggeration to say that Korea is one of the least politically-correct societies out there, particularly in the ways in which non-Koreans are represented in popular-culture.

Often, this is completely innocent, most Koreans being ignorant of the connotations of Blackface for instance, or the passions Nazi imagery arouses in Western countries, to the extent that both are regularly found in popular culture and advertising. Indeed, I was especially struck once by reading of university students performing in Blackface at a festival because they thought Black audiences would like it, and would appreciate the interest in “their culture”. As the person who saw this wrote, this was not “offensive” per se, but it was certainly shocking.

Alternatively however, the ignorance can be willing. For example, last year the the Korean Overseas Information Service (KOIS) part of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, produced an expensive “Visit Korea” ad which played on the likes of CNN and BBC World and so on, but which relied so heavily on patronizing stereotypes of non-Koreans that it would likely have put off more potential tourists than attracted them. Non-Koreans in the KOIS were consulted in the making however, and did warn the producers of this, but unfortunately their advice was rejected, either because a) Korean advertisers are notorious for producing things that would appeal primarily to Koreans, despite the actual target audience, and/or b) it didn’t jibe with the advertisers’ perceptions of non-Koreans and their wants or needs. (Both are persistent problems with Korean tourism advertisements.)

Finally, for the source of those perceptions, consider Korea’s extremely exclusionary “bloodline”-based nationalism andextremely homogenous population (less than 3% of Korea’s population are “foreign residents”, a third of which are ethnic Koreans from China). Consequently, Korean society is really only just beginning to grapple with the concept of multiculturalism, albeit with much urgency because of the sudden huge influx of brides from Southeast Asia in the last decade or so, with the populations of many rural communities close to becoming a third or even half non-ethnic Korean. Certainly, a great deal of progress has been made in integrating them and acknowledging what their cultures have to offer, but when Korean school textbooks extolled the virtues of being an ethnically homogenous society until as recently as 2006 (and see here for how Blacks and native-Americans were portrayed in school picture dictionaries at that time), then I’m sure you can appreciate that much still remains to be done to prevent prejudice against them, especially in how non-Koreans and cultures are portrayed in the media.

Which to be fair, nobody outside of Korea was at all concerned with until K-pop became popular!

Thank you, James!

We’re happy to hear your thoughts in the comment threads. The video (I apologize for the ad):

See also, Are They Racist or Are We Ethnocentric?

For the last week of December, we’re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2011.

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The US economy faces a number of challenges—among them a lack of job creation and an ever-growing trade deficit. Many policy-makers believe that encouraging business innovation is the best response to these particular challenges. Sounds plausible but experience suggests otherwise.

The best example of why simply encouraging business innovation is not the answer for our employment and trade problems is Apple and its iPhone.

The iPhone was introduced in 2007 and has been incredible successful.  U.S. sales soared from 3 million units in 2007 to over 11 million in 2009.  Global sales topped 25 million in 2009.

While the iPhone is designed and marketed by Apple, almost all the phone’s components are produced by foreign companies operating outside the United States.  These components are then shipped to China where Foxconn, a Taiwanese company, oversees their assembly and their export to the United States and other countries.  As a result, the iPhone generates few jobs in the United States.

Two economists, in an Asian Development Bank working paper, examined the iPhone 3G production process in some detail.  The table below, taken from their study, highlights the main suppliers and the costs of the components they produce for a single phone.  Most of the components are supplied by Japanese, South Korean and German firms, although there are also some U.S. suppliers (although who knows where they actually produce their compnents).

The total component cost of an iPhone in 2009 was $172.46.    Workers in China assemble the iPhone, but because their wages are low the assembly cost per phone (labeled manufacturing costs in the table below) is quite small, only $6.50 a phone.  The total production cost per phone is $178.96.

Because the iPhone is assembled in China all sales in the U.S. mean an increase in Chinese exports (even though the phone is largely composed of inputs produced outside of China) and an increase in U.S. imports.  In 2009, China exported more than $2 billion worth of iPhones to the United States.  Thus, the iPhone, because of the Apple’s production strategy, also adds to the U.S. trade deficit.

Apple is not alone in embracing China as its production base.  China is now the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods. And, as the chart below shows, the share of Chinese exports that are labled high technology is growing.  This trend has encouraged many analysts to claim that the U.S. is now locked in fierce economic competition with China.

However, as we see next, more than 80% of China’s high technology exports are actually produced by foreign companies operating in China.  Moreover, these foreign companies have significantly increased their control over this production.  In 2002 foreign owned firms that were 100% foreign owned (which means that they had no Chinese partner) accounted for only 55% of Chinese high technology exports.  In 2009 they accounted for 68%.

Why do so many transnational corporations choose to locate production in China?  The answer is obvious: profits. Apple again serves as a good example.  The table below, taken from the Asian Development Bank working paper cited above, shows Apple’s profit-margin on the iPhone.  In 2009 it was a whopping big 64%.

Struck by the size of Apple’s profit-margin, the authors of the Asian Development working paper considered whether the iPhone could reasonably be made in the United States.  As they note:

The role of the PRC in the production chain of iPhones is primarily the assembly of all parts and components into the final product for re-shipment abroad. The skills and equipment required for the assembly are very basic and there is no doubt that American workers and firms are capable of assembling iPhones in the US. If all iPhones were assembled in the US, the US$1.9 billion trade deficit in iPhone trade with PRC would not exist. Moreover, 11.4 million units of iPhone sold in the non-US market in 2009 would add US$5.7 billion to US exports.

For the sake of discussion, they assumed that assembly line wages in the U.S. are ten times higher than in China.   Given that Chinese production workers earn roughly $1 an hour, that is not an unreasonable assumption.  The higher wages would mean that the total assembly cost per phone would rsie to $65 and the total manufacturing cost would approach $238.  If Apple continued to sell the iPhone for $500, the company would still earn a very respectable 50% profit margin.

Moreover, as the authors point out:

In this hypothetical scenario, iPhones, the high-tech product invented by the U.S. company, would contribute to U.S. exports and the reduction of the U.S. trade deficit, not only with the PRC, but also with the rest of world. More importantly, Apple created jobs for U.S. low skilled workers; those who could not be the software engineers needed by Apple. Giving up a small portion of profits and sharing them with low skilled U.S. workers by Apple would be a more effective way [than depreciation of the exchange rate] to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and create jobs in the United States.

Of course, shifting production to the United States would mean that Apple would earn less money and there is little reason to believe that the company is prepared to sacrifice its profits for the good of the country.  If we want to tackle our employment and trade problems were are going to have to do more than promote more attractive conditions for business.

For the last week of December, we’re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2011. Originally cross-posted at Scientopia.

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I came across this fascinating poster advertising tea at The Coffee Bean in Irvine, CA.  The ad features tea leaves balled up into small tea “pearls” and spilled into a person’s palm (text and analysis below):

Text:

Three minutes to fragrant perfection.

It takes a full day to hand-roll 17 ounces of our Jasmine Dragon Pearl Green Tea.  But in just three minutes you can watch these aromatic pearls unfurl gracefully into one of the world’s most soothing and delicious teas.

This ad suggests that others’ toil should enhance one’s experience of pleasure.  The fact that it takes a significant amount of human labor to “hand-roll” tea leaves into balls — an action that is in no way asserted to change the taste of the tea — is supposed to make the tea more appealing and not less.  We are supposed to enjoy not just the visual, but the fact that others worked hard to produce it for us.  A whole day of their labor for just three minutes of curly goodness.

This is a rather stunning value pervading U.S. culture.  Luxury may be defined not only as pleasure, or as the consumption of the scarce, but as the “unfurling” of others’ hard work.  What could be more luxurious than the casual-and-fleeting enjoyment of the hard-and-long labor of others?

For the last week of December, we’re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2011.

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In Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, Ori and Rom Brafman discuss a contestant on Qui Veut Gagner des Millions?, the French version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, who asks the audience for help with the question, “Which of these revolves around the Earth?” His options are the sun, the moon, Venus, and Mars. While it might be surprising that he doesn’t know, more shocking is the result of the audience poll — 56% say the sun:

How can we explain this? The easiest answer, and the video’s title, is that French people appear to be stupid, or were never informed about the Copernican Revolution. But the Brafmans have an explanation based on different cultural attitudes toward reality shows and, ultimately, ideas about fairness.

The general outlines of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? are the same regardless of country. But distinct cultural patterns have emerged in how audiences act when asked for help. In the U.S., contestants can count on the audience’s goodwill; regardless of the question asked, audiences appear to do their best to help contestants out and the Brafmans report that data shows the audience is right over 90% of the time. I must admit it had never occurred to me that audiences would do anything other than try to be helpful. Though I don’t watch game shows now, as a kid I regularly watched The Price Is Right, among others, with my family, and we always inherently rooted for the contestant, cringing if they seemed to make a bad choice and rejoicing if they won big. We truly wanted these complete strangers to win.

But not all national audiences are so cooperative. When the show was introduced in Russia, contestants quickly learned to be wary of asking the audience for help because Russian audiences frequently mislead them, intentionally giving the wrong answer. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the players or the questions they ask for help on.

In France, audiences seem to fall in the middle. They don’t regularly attempt to trick players, as Russian (and according to my googling, Ukrainian) audiences do. But unlike U.S. audiences, they don’t seem willing to help under any circumstances, either. They appear to intentionally give the wrong answer if the contestant asks for help on a question the audience perceives as too easy. If they think the player ought to know the answer they give the wrong response, apparently thinking the contestant deserves to lose if they’re so stupid. In the video you can hear audience laughter when Henri decides to go with the results of the audience poll.

Ori and Rom Brafman suggest this relates to notions of fairness, which have been shown to vary widely by culture. They say that in the U.S., we think it’s fair for people to win large sums of money even if they seem dumb, while in France, there is more concern about whether the individual deserves to win. They consulted historians of Russian society who suggest audience behavior there results from a general mistrust of those who gain sudden wealth. However, they provide no data to directly connect the audience members’ intentional wrong answers to cultural perceptions of fairness more broadly, so I’m somewhat hesitant about this theoretical leap. If you’re an enterprising grad student looking for a dissertation topic, perhaps you can take this project on and get back to me with your results.

But I think this topic is also interesting for the way it highlights the intersection of globalization and local cultures. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, like other reality shows such as the various varieties of Idol, are international franchises (Millionaire is owned by Sony), designed to be easily transferable to and implemented in many countries with the same basic blueprint — simply add local talent and you’ve got a successful TV show. But as the variation in Millionaire shows, differences inevitably creep in as a global product or process is used or interpreted on the local level, sometimes in superficial ways but other times to a degree that significantly alters the original product.

Thanks to Kelly V. for the tip about the book!

The photos below, borrowed from the Boston Globe, reveal a (Christian) Christmas that is decidedly global in nature, not strictly Western at all.

A Christian Iraqi refugee in Jordan:

“Happy Christmas” is written in Hindi on the forehead of a Hindu man in Allahabad, India:

Palestinian men attend Catholic mass on Christmas day:

A Catholic Christmas Eve in Nepal:

Santa Claus in New Delhi, India:

Christmas mass in Myanmar:

Indonesian children sing Christmas carols:

Cross-posted at Reports from the Economic Front.

Although Republicans and President Obama are said to disagree about economic policies, there is one initiative that they both enthusiastically support: free trade agreements.  President Obama single-handily resurrected the free trade agreements with Korea, Panama, and Colombia from political oblivion; they were ratified by the U.S. Congress in October.

Now he is eagerly pursuing a new multilateral agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (involving Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the U.S.).  Significantly, as Public Citizen reports, “a leaked document revealed that the Obama administration signed a special pact to keep all documents relating to the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement negotiations secret.” 
One might ask why the leaders of so many countries are anxious to sign such agreements, agreements which not only lower tariffs but also strip away the powers of governments to regulate international investment, production, and capital flows.

One answer is the enormous economic power of transnational corporations (TNCs), the main beneficiaries of these agreements. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development:

TNCs worldwide, in their operations both at home and abroad, generated value added of approximately $16 trillion in 2010, accounting for more than a quarter of global GDP. In 2010, foreign affiliates accounted for more than one-tenth of global GDP and one-third of world exports.

The largest transnational corporations are from developed capitalist countries.  These corporations also tend to be among the largest and most powerful firms in their respective home countries.  At the same time, as the table below shows, their international operations now account for a majority of their assets, sales, and employment.  Looking at all TNCs, the United Nations reports that the value added by their foreign affiliates generated approximately 40% of their total value added in 2010, up from 35% in 2005.

The estimates of TNC production cited above, although impressive, actually understate transnational control over global economic activity.  At one time, TNCs only engaged in international production through establishment of foreign affiliates.  In some cases, the parent company and its foreign affiliates operated relatively independently, each serving a different market.

Now, transnational corporations generally rely on complex cross border production networks that involve the linking of production across many countries, with final sales often taking place in still other countries. Most importantly, these networks often include “independent” partner firms that undertake various activities according to an overall transnational corporate strategy.  While some of the partner firms may themselves be transnational corporations, many are not, which means that TNC controlled activity is greater than the combined activities of parent and affiliate firms.

Transnational corporations use a variety of so-called “non-equity modes” (NEMs) of control to direct the operations of their partner firms, with contract manufacturing and service outsourcing among the most important. Cross border activity involving NEM relationships is conservatively estimated to have generated over $2 trillion of sales in 2010.  The United Nations reports that some 18–21 million workers are directly employed in firms operating under NEM arrangements. Around 80 per cent of NEM-generated employment is in developing and transition economies.

As the following figure reveals, cross border production activity anchored by NEM relations now dominates a number of key export industries.  For example, NEM production now accounts for more than 50% of all toy, footwear, garment and electronics exports.

The production of the iPhone offers one of the best examples of the logic and operation of these transnational corporate controlled cross border production networks.  As the Asian Development Bank explains:

iPhones are designed and marketed by Apple, one of the most innovative U.S. companies. Apart from its software and product design, the production of iPhones primarily takes place outside the US. Manufacturing iPhones involves nine companies, which are located in the PRC, the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea), Japan, Germany, and the US. The major producers and suppliers of iPhone parts and components include Toshiba, Samsung, Infineon, Broadcom, Numunyx, Murata, Dialog Semiconductor, Cirrius Logic, etc. All iPhone components produced by these companies are shipped to Foxconn, a company from Taipei,China located in Shenzhen, PRC, for assembly into final products and then exported to the US and the rest of the world.

Not surprisingly, the division of profits, as shown below, reflects the overall hierarchy that structures this and other cross border production networks.

The importance of cross border production networks to transnational corporate profitability helps to explain why these corporations are such strong supporters of free trade agreements.  And, although I have focused on manufacturers, transnational retailers which sell the products produced by these networks and financial service companies which underwrite both the production and consumption of these products are also major beneficiaries and therefore powerful advocates.

The operation of these networks, the majority of which are centered in East Asia, have greatly contributed to the growth of global imbalances, marked by East Asian trade surpluses and U.S. trade deficits.  These imbalances were papered over, and global capitalist accumulation sustained only because of the debt-driven housing bubble which financed U.S. consumption.

The collapse of the bubble has led many analysts to call for a rebalancing of Asian and U.S. economies. However, rather than address this need, governments throughout the world, responding to dominant capitalist interests, continue to pursue new free trade agreements, a pursuit that if successful will only intensify existing economic and social problems and make needed changes harder to achieve.

Cross-posted at Bytes of China.

Oh how this Toyota Highlander advertisment is reflective of the new global order.  I saw this picture in Guangzhou’s domestic terminal. A Chinese couple is getting out of their Japanese brand car into what appears to be a private yacht. A white male greets them, taking their travel items and appears to be eager in their service.

This advertisement reflects a new Chinese imaginary — one that is global, expansive, unlimited, and exploratory. It also tells us who has the power to live out this imaginary. Ten years ago or even five years ago, I don’t think this advertisement would’ve existed. But now companies have turned to the Chinese consumer, encouraging them to participate in this lifestyle. The entire global economy right now depends on the Chinese elite and middle-class to spend. But how long can this go on for until we see the next crisis? For how long can each system create “value”?

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Tricia Wang is an ethnographer, sociologist, and researcher. She is on a Fulbright in China observing how digital technologies are mediating new conceptions of information and desire among youth & migrants. She is a student at UC San Diego’s PhD Sociology program.  She blogs at Bytes of China.

Thanks to Benjamin B. for the tip!