User:Hippietrail/Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles and Identities

Also in the early 1980s, Music TV emerged in the US and landed in Taipei around mid-decade. Due to the close contacts between the two countries, especially through linkages with the US West Coast Chinese communities, pirated copies of Music TV produced in the US were shipped over to Taiwan and quickly established their public presence in coffee houses. One of the first showing spots was called 'Wu-Ya Der Wuo' (Crow's Nest); the literal rendering is actually 'we're the world' —a signal for the appropriated inscription of American culture. Patrons drank their coffee and watched rock videos; music videos came to serve a promotional purpose for the cafes. Then, to accommodate different preferences of the patrons, a new form was created: a cafe would be divided into different sections, patrons in each section could then pick what they liked and watched together. Eventually, this form evolved into separate rooms, each with holding capacity ranging from two to 20 people. Ironically, as more capital was invested Music TV was eliminated; such venues were turned into places for watching movies on video. From mid-1980s on, the so- called MTV-centers, i.e., movie-tv centres, became the most popular form of entertainment. They almost displaced movie theaters, forcing many to close. The rapid development of the MTV-centers was made possible by the infrastructure provided by Taiwan's informal economy: pirated copies of anything a consumer requested could be quickly made available as the centers could reproduce the copies themselves. Up to 1991, this was still a common practice. However, with the subsequent imposition of legislation to protect intellectual property, the MTV moment was over.

In relation to movie theaters, MTV-centers provided not only more variety but also a sense of privacy. It is the latter which made MTV-centers so popular, especially for teenagers who were dating. For the same amount of money as going to the movies, one could see a movie, get a free drink and obtain desired privacy; once the door was locked, anything could happen. Significantly, the MTV-centers also 'renovated' the traditional sex industry which picked up this form so that soon consumers could go and watch porn videos with sex workers. MTV-centers thus became a problem for the parents and certain state authorities. For example, in 1990, the then Prime Minister, Hau Bo-tsun, openly stated 'good people will not go to MTV or KTV' (China Times, 26 August, 1990). The state intervened by imposing a surveillance device: on each door a window was fitted, so that the occupants could be watched from the outside. However, the moral 'concern' intensified. The result was a new government policy which required these places to be closed by 3 a.m. This was the compromised result of several rounds of negotiations between the business sector and the state, which initially proposed a 1 a.m. closing time.

With American MTV, local music industry also began to make music videos as advertising promotions for newly released pop songs. Not only was advertising style thus transformed, the growing popularity of video clips with images and songs paved the way for the KTV. The M(ovie)TV forms of entertainment space with karaoke and TV screen with moving images were all the elements necessary for business people to put together to create KTV. The initial 'trial' of simply taking over MTV spaces and putting in singing equipment proved to be a great success and grew immediately. One small technical difference between KTV and karaoke should be noted because it partly explains the instant popularity. With karaoke, performers have to know the songs well enough to sing along at the right pace; whereas with KTV, singers are prompted by the screen on when to sing and what to sing; the subtitles are gradually colored in, thus cueing singers as to when to sing the right lyrics. This makes a very significant difference: one does not have to know the song well to sing it. Hence more people can be incorporated into KTV's cultural space.

Given the different strands of singing practices in Taiwan elucidated earlier, it could be argued that as a cultural practice singing in general, and KTV in particular, is crucially about social memories. Singing particular songs brings people back to different moments in their life. The different song-preferences of the different generations reflect the historical moments that have been incorporated into the KTV culture. Picking a particular song to sing is indicative of one's generational belonging. Thus, when the more mature generations go to KTV, Japanese songs dominate their choices; that Japanese songs constitute an independent category is, of course, historically not accidental. On the other hand, Top 40 titles from the 1960s and 1970s are demanded by its own respective generations, for whom American pop is very much part of the local culture. For the younger still, neither Japanese nor English songs are chosen, instead local pop songs in Mandarin Chinese and Min nan are the most heavily consumed...