Everyone who has been there knows about Macdonald's, the Coke and Pepsi billboards, the omnipresence in your hotel room television of CNN and the theatres with many of the latest American films. The young people have opinions on icons such as Michael Jordan, Britney Spears and Jackie Chan. In Japan those I talked to had a strong loyalty to their own singers and were hard pressed to place many western examples on their top ten lists. It was amazing to ride the noisy subway at rush hour in Hong Kong and witness half of the passengers using their cell phones, many of them equipped to receive E-Mail. First stop, Hong Kong.
Most people speak basic English.
My first assignment was to address an assembly of 200 teachers, some of them members of the newly formed Hong Kong Association for Media Education. I gave a series of observations and provocations on combining theory and practice, giving an expanded definition of media literacy, and offering some practical advice on promoting the critical need to maintain a grass roots initiative. That was a toughie to handle in two minutes. Their program in teacher training and research seems very comprehensive and progressive. The latter were suspicious of media.