David Atkinson
Think Hong Kong. Think towering skyscrapers to rival Manhattan. Think scoffing noodles at 2am under the glare of flashing neon. Think rubbing shoulders with Filipino hookers and Triad gangland crime bosses in seedy late night drinking dens straight out of Blade Runner. Think again.
Ask any Chinese-bred Hong Kong resident what image symbolises life in the Special Administrative Area of China and mention a small, fluffy pink cat with pointy ears that labours under the moniker of Hello Kitty. Ever since this cutesy feline arrived in Hong Kong from its native Japan in 1997, Hello Kitty merchandise has taken Hong Kong by storm.
Her face is everywhere. In HK, Hello Kitty rules OK. According to the official web site for Kitty’s Japanese manufacturers Sanrio (www.sanrio.com), “Hello Kitty was born in London in 1974, weighs as much as three apples, likes baking cakes and small, cute things, candy, stars, goldfish.”
Sanrio are laughing in the face of Asia’s worst post-war recession and all the way to the bank with sales growing at 40% annually and profits expected to reach a value of 125,1 billion yen by the end of the year. There are currently 13 000 officially licenced Kitty products on the market and the company is increasing its range by a factor of 600 new product lines per month.
On a typical Hello Kitty day their Hello Kitty alarm clock wakes them before cleaning their teeth with a Hello Kitty toothbrush, slipping into their Hello Kitty underwear and tucking into Hello Kitty noodles from a Hello Kitty bowl. You get the idea.
But what makes Hong Kong Kitty fans unusual is the fact that Kitty’s core market is not made up of sappy schoolgirls but 20 to 30-year-old educated female office workers. When Japanese credit card company Aeon Credit Services signed up the beribboned one for their shocking pink Hello Kitty International Mastercard with a promise of a free Hello Kitty doll for each applicant, they received over 100 000 forms. Nearly all came from professional 20-something women.
Merchandise best-sellers include a toaster which leaves an imprint of Kitty’s face on your bread. In the last six months alone, sales have generated 1,2 billion yen for the company. Kitty has also been made child ambassador to the UN Children’s Fund in Japan.
If this all sounds unbearably cutesy, it should be added that Hong Kong’s current favourite cartoon character is made of shit and hangs out in the sewers with a piglet called McDull.