Take the news from Indonesia. For the first time in the history of this secular
state - that has a deeply Muslim culture - a version of Playboy Magazine is now
going on sale there, though greatly modified from the sinful original available
here in the U.S. The lovely ladies are mostly clothed and the articles offered
in this first Indonesian edition appear to have enormous socially redeeming
value. This sanitized Indonesian version could prove a good test market of an
old joke in America - I only read Playboy for the articles.
I understand that Indonesia can be properly described as a moderate Muslim
state. Many women are seen in Western dress in public and various versions of
the Muslim faith are practiced. (Did I mention I like Indonesia very much?)
Even so, doesn't it strike you as a little odd that Playboy is available for
public consumption in the world's largest Muslim nation?
It seems that the next target of the Big Bunny's Asian publishing invasion is
India, the world's largest Hindu nation. Do we sense a trend here?
Then there's the Rolling Stones, one of the oldest performing Western rock
bands and still one of the most ribald. You have to hand it to those
sex-obsessed sexagenarians, especially leader Mick Jagger, 62, who still
prances around the stage as if shot from a steroid cannon.
The group held a sold-out high-voltage concert in Shanghai last week. But the
tickets were expensive by Chinese standards, the audience dominated by
well-heeled Shanghainese and foreigners.
It's true that the Ministry of Culture pruned the concert song line-up in
advance. Famous Stones' staples like Brown Sugar, Let's Spend the Night
Together and Honky Tonk Woman were banned. But somehow the government censors
missed excising (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, much to the evident delight of
the crowd.
Even so, Mao must have been rolling over in his grave over the very idea of the
Rolling Stones rocking Shanghai. This was not exactly the Cultural Revolution
the late Maximum Leader had in mind.
And so, one has to wonder whether the rest of Asia isn't more or less rolling
downhill like an amoral rolling stone. Take a look at Singapore, heretofore the
most superficially prurient place in the region.
You still cannot officially buy Playboy there, not to mention serious
pornography (though the place is reported to have a very lively underground,
about which I will reveal no secrets). But it does now offer tourists and
locals what they call bar-top dancing. This is a form of entertainment most
notably celebrated in the forgettable American film Coyote Ugly. The moving
tale of young girls who bulk up their bar business by dancing (clothed) on the
bar top.
Las Vegas or Los Angeles or New York is one thing but Singapore? Fact is, the
recent licensing of this kind of frisky cabaret was so un-Singapore that the
controversial go-for-it decision had to be rendered at cabinet level.
Speaking of Las Vegas, the city-state of Singapore is officially planning to
offer casino gambling, as well. So you really must ask yourself, Is Asia going
downhill?
I must confess certain truths to avoid the charge of rank hypocrisy. Some of my
best friends in the world work for Playboy and it is true that I have read the
magazine once or twice (though I won't say whether it is for the articles or
not). And of course, living in Los Angeles, a mere 55-minute flight from Sin
City, I have been to Vegas many times, and well, what happens in Vegas, stays
in Vegas.
Even so, we Americans have over the years been so over-exposed to lectures and
serious essays about the reality of Asian values and exposed to the possibility
that they may be superior to Western values that it comes as a bit of a shock
that Asian values may be getting closer to our own, faster than we thought
possible.
Or, instead of it coming as a shock, maybe it should come as a relief?
UCLA Prof. Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on InternationalPolicy, is
a veteran American journalist. Distributed by the UCLA MediaCenter.
