Friday Chino-Latino

What's up with the reggaetón videos tipping at Chinese/East Asian images of late? Is it a reaction to the burgeoning China-Latin America economic connection?

This aside from reggaetón's Bollywood influence, which in the case of Tito El Bambino, can be traced directly to Luney's sister Inés Saldaña, a Dominican deeply immersed in South Asian culture.

Arcángel's video "Pa Que La Pases Bien" features the image of a plane traveling from China to Colombia to Russia to PR. His partner is, from some angles, Asian-looking. And then there's dancers dressed in, um, coolie costumes. (Granted, there's also some stereotypical jíbaro and cossack figures, but still).

One of the earlier chinoiseries in popular Latin music is Tito Puente's "Hong Kong Mambo" and this El Gran Combo jala-jala song "Ojitos chinos."

And then there's the commercial popularity of salsa, merengue, bachata and now reggaetón in Japan, the Philippines, etc. Of course, the grand prize is Chinese audiences and a piece of the new Chinese prosperity.

Calle 13's song "Japón" used stereotypes of Asians (including pronunciation, Orientalist images and a repeating guitar line) to poke fun at Latinos' unwillingness to distinguish between different nationalities and the growing importance of Asia as a market.

And then there's this wildly offensive video (though the beat works) of "Bachata China con Flow" by El emperador de la bachata y los dragones de Boca Chica, a novelty song which nods to an increased Chinese migration into the DR (the DR has a long-standing Chinese immigrant population, since the 1940s, but it has increased greatly in the last few years, as the DR has become a popular jumping-off point for undocumented migration into the U.S. and has become a good investment opportunity on its own).

Comments

[w&w]

and, of course, the riff (and other melodies) from "ojos chinos" have shown up in a couple reggaeton tracks, including tego's "dominicana" -- always wondered whether there was some way in which tego was transferring el gran combo's orientalism to the DR.

[marcelo]

Really interesting; maybe as stereotypical as some of the references are, it's evidence of positive movement on a cross-cultural learning curve. Even García Márquez, in "Cholera," refers to Chinese people who "couldn't be told apart," by the cartageneros, the oldest and dumbest stereotype in the book, except maybe the one about digging to the other side of the earth ...

[Caro]

Wayne, I'd totally forgotten about the Tego quote. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it when I heard it. Would love to hear from Tego what was it about the riff he thought fit.

Marcelo, I've just started thinking about this. I think some of it is long-standing orientalism; some of it is "chino cool" from Bruce Lee down (which of course is conflated with J-cool of manga etc.). But I think that the market always prompts folks to let go of whatever prejudices they might have, at least in making room to represent.