Chō Kyō - The search for the beautiful woman: a cultural history of Japanese and Chinese beauty

The Search for the Beautiful Woman

Series Editor: Mark Selden

Crime, Punishment, and Policing in China edited by Brge Bakken

Woman, Man, Bangkok: Love, Sex, and Popular Culture in Thailand by Scot Barm

Making the Foreign Serve China: Managing Foreigners in the Peoples Republic by Anne-Marie Brady

Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in China by Anne-Marie Brady

Collaborative Nationalism: The Politics of Friendship on Chinas Mongolian Frontier by Uradyn E. Bulag

The Mongols at Chinas Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity by Uradyn E. Bulag

Transforming Asian Socialism: China and Vietnam Compared edited by Anita Chan, Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, and Jonathan Unger

Bound to Emancipate: Working Women and Urban Citizenship in Early Twentieth-Century China by Angelina Chin

The Search for the Beautiful Woman: A Cultural History of Japanese and Chinese Beauty by Cho Kyo

Chinas Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: Master Narratives and Post-Mao Counternarratives edited by Woei Lien Chong

North China at War: The Social Ecology of Revolution, 19371945 edited by Feng Chongyi and David S. G. Goodman

Little Friends: Childrens Film and Media Culture in China by Stephanie Hemelryk Donald

Beachheads: War, Peace, and Tourism in Postwar Okinawa by Gerald Figal

Gender in Motion: Divisions of Labor and Cultural Change in Late Imperial and Modern China edited by Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson

Social and Political Change in Revolutionary China: The Taihang Base Area in the War of Resistance to Japan, 19371945 by David S. G. Goodman

Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power edited by Laura Hein and Mark Selden

Women in Early Imperial China, Second Edition by Bret Hinsch

Chinese Civil Justice, Past and Present by Philip C. C. Huang

Local Democracy and Development: The Kerala Peoples Campaign for Decentralized Planning by T. M. Thomas Isaac with Richard W. Franke

Hidden Treasures: Lives of First-Generation Korean Women in Japan by Jackie J. Kim with Sonia Ryang

North Korea: Beyond Charismatic Politics by Heonik Kwon and Byung-Ho Chung

Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society edited by Hy V. Luong

Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States by Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu

The Indonesian Presidency: The Shift from Personal towards Constitutional Rule by Angus McIntyre

Nationalisms of Japan: Managing and Mystifying Identity by Brian J. McVeigh To the Diamond Mountains: A Hundred-Year Journey through China and Korea by Tessa Morris-Suzuki

From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China edited by Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang

Wife or Worker? Asian Women and Migration edited by Nicola Piper and Mina Roces

Social Movements in India: Poverty, Power, and Politics edited by Raka Ray and Mary Fainsod Katzenstein

Pan Asianism: A Documentary History, Volume 1, 18501920 edited by Sven Saaler and Christopher W. A. Szpilman

Pan Asianism: A Documentary History, Volume 2, 1920Present edited by Sven Saaler and Christopher W. A. Szpilman

Biology and Revolution in Twentieth-Century China by Laurence Schneider

Contentious Kwangju: The May 18th Uprising in Koreas Past and Present edited by Gi-Wook Shin and Kyong Moon Hwang

Thought Reform and Chinas Dangerous Classes: Reeducation, Resistance, and the People by Aminda M. Smith

The Inside Story of Chinas High-Tech Industry: Making Silicon Valley in Beijing by Yu Zhou

Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com

10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

Copyright 2012 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cho, Kyo, 1953 author.

[Bijo to wa nani ka. English]

The search for the beautiful woman : a cultural history of Japanese and Chinese beauty / Cho Kyo ; translated by Kyoko Selden.

p. cm. (Asia/Pacific/perspectives)

Translation of: Bijo to wa nani ka : nitchu bijin no bunkashi / Cho Kyo. Tokyo : Shobunsha, 2001. 464, x, p. : ill. ; 20 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4422-1893-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4422-1895-6 (electronic) (print)

1. Feminine beauty (Aesthetics)JapanHistory. 2. Feminine beauty (Aesthetics) ChinaHistory. I. Selden, Kyoko Iriye, 1936 translator. II. Title.

HQ1220.J3C5313 2012

305.40952dc23

2012032384

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

I t may be hard for Western readers to believe, but from 2011, double-tooth attachment has become a fad among Japanese girls. Double-tooth attachment involves covering normal canine teeth to make them look more pointed and less straight. Around the time baby teeth are replaced by permanent teeth, children often have an uneven dental alignment. They look sweet when they smile with double teeth. This is why, from long ago in Japan, double teeth were regarded as a symbol of beauty, or sweetness, in young girls. Following the popularity of some recent doubled-toothed young stars, this became a big fad. Teenage girls now rush to cosmetic dentists to have artificial teeth attached to their neatly aligned natural teeth. Naturally, orthodontists have been quick to take advantage of this unexpected windfall. Preparing two types of teeth, removable and semipermanent, and projecting double-toothed stars, orthodontists have waged large-scaled campaigns. A pair of artificial teeth costs $200 at minimum, ranging up to $1,000. Despite the cost, the flow of visitors continues. While schoolchildren often visit orthodontists for teeth straightening in the West, where double or oblique teeth are associated with Dracula, Japanese teenage girls now seek to mis-align their teeth so as to appear pretty or cute according to the new fashion.

Another distinctive example of Asian aesthetics is the skin-whitening boom in China. Chinese have long admired white skin. Throughout the modern era, white Westerners were considered to represent ideal beauty, and Chinese womens desire for white skin intensified. The Chinese well know that tanned skin is viewed as beautiful in the West. It is beyond Chinese peoples comprehension that Western women sunbathe or go to tanning salons. By contrast, to minimize exposure to the sun, Chinese women generously apply sunscreen cream and wear broad-rimmed hats low over their face when going out, even in early spring. Even that is not sufficient, and Chinese women now are buying skin-whitening cosmetics as if there was no tomorrow.

Today, with the progress of globalization and the development of telecommunications, cultural information races instantaneously across the world. If one wishes to know what people overseas are wearing and what their tastes are, information is readily at hand. In fact, Western fashion magazines and clothes are widely available throughout East Asia. There nevertheless remains a great gap in aesthetic sense between East and West. What is the reason behind that?