Take it to the bank

Further evidence of infantilism in Hong Kong culture: the Hello Kitty credit card, brought to you by Dah Sing Bank. Hello Kitty, it appears, also has a towheaded boy friend, Dear Daniel. Wouldn't it be cute if couples were to have one each? Why look, if you put the two cards together the oversized hearts toted by each of them are perfectly aligned. Incongruously enough, the platinum version of the Hello Kitty/Dear Daniel credit card appears to be as black as pitch, albeit with a freakish outline of the pair of them emblazoned upon it, so that's something.

It would be my opinion that anyone immature enough to want a credit card which sports images of Hello Kitty is too immature to be extended a line of credit.

Accessory after the fact

The relentless drive to infantilise women - with, apparently, our eager encouragement - continues with the launch of the Hello Kitty make-up line by MAC. Clearly I am out of step with what modern women want: I find all of this ("über-cute beaded charm bracelets" and "black plastic brush holder in shape of a Hello Kitty head") loathsome. It will go down a storm in Hong Kong.

They seek him there

The Sartorialist was a fashion insider in New York who now takes photographs of people he sees on the street (as a result he has received quite astonishing accolades: his eye is acute, his vision perceptive). He commented that it was all too easy to take pictures of people looking bad in their clothes. He could have been talking about Hong Kong, where what you could call neo-infantilism all too often seems to govern the way women dress, with lace frills, Hello Kitty, naive jewellery, and unintentionally funny garbled t-shirt slogans often featuring heavily - see for example:

TOO ORANGEY FOR PORN

I AM FULL STOMACH

SUNNY DAY HE IS WAIT FOR BUS

or

I AM PERFECTLY FLOWER

all of which irony-free statements I have seen on the streets of Hong Kong. Far harder, though, to find people who look good in their clothes.

His photographs are wonderful; the choices are sometimes interesting, occasionally perplexing, but always thoughtful and often accompanied by succint observations. He's currently featuring amazing pictures from a recent trip to New Delhi. Definitely worth a look.

Hello pity

I’ve commented before about the inexplicable proclivity of women in Asia for Hello Kitty and other infantile icons. Only in Asia would you see a top-of-the-range Mercedes with its back shelf packed with wince-inducing cuddly toys. In a Tokyo department store recently I saw the reduction to the absurd of this phenomenon: a display of Hello Kitty kitchen implements from toasters to microwaves, plus Hello Kitty bra-and-knicker sets (for adult women?) and an entire display of accessories and gewgaws dedicated to Hello Kitty’s evil twin, who bestrode the stand like a colossus complete with goth-style black cape and skull and crossbones logo. The evil effigy had not been graced with a name but clearly it was Hello Sickie.

I wouldn’t want to imply that I’m insulting the intelligence of Asian women but there is a huge market out there for this dross and the infantilism it encourages is to be deplored. As for the Hello Kitty vibrator - you couldn’t make it up.

The pictures (to follow) are not all that great – I took them in a hurry lest anyone think that I was snapping them in order, god forbid, to have them copied cheaply in China.