Forget the G8 summit.
Who needs world leaders and politics when you have SMAP making their first foreign performance in Beijing, China?
http://www.asahi.com/culture/update/0916/TKY201109160536.html
To celebrate 40 years of “normalized” Japanese and Chinese relations, the Japanese and Chinese government made the ultimate peace offering by bringing Japan boy-band-legend SMAP over to Beijing. The article quotes,
“Through the strong emotions of this SMAP performance, we can try to rebuild Japan-China relations and hope for improved relations.”
This may sound a bit strange, but I think this performance is, literally, quite symbolic. Masses of SMAP fans gathered in Beijing to cry, scream, and shout for their beloved Kimura Takuya, and China is the first live, foreign performance SMAP has done since the 1980’s.
It’s strange to think that music, especially a boy band of this sort, can count as any form of international band-aid… but it does.
I was listening to Chinese radio the other day when I heard the announcer say: “And now, a new hit song from the band SMAP… in Chinese!”
I didn’t want to believe it at first, but when I heard the ear piercing, god awful Chinese from SMAP come blasting through my radio, I knew that the world had suddenly changed. SMAP is singing in Chinese, on Chinese radio, and performing in China. Is Japan going to keep marketing toward China like this, or is this just a one time thing? Is this how Asia fixes its international conflicts?
You know, Backstreet Boys is still wildly popular here in China. Maybe we can just fix all the Chinese-American problems with them singing “Larger Than Life” or “Backstreet’s Back” by bringing them to the Olympic Stadium in Beijing.
Or not.
