Cancel Culture Club #2: Turning Japanese

Welcome back to the Cancel Culture Club, where we look at old records that might not have aged particularly well.

I'm very excited that we have even more top bloggers joining the Cancel Culture Club Committee this time, and they'll be debating whether the tune below is past its politically correct sell-by date...

Now, the question was raised, pretty early on in the responses, about why the heck I'd even nominated this particular song. And so answer that, I'm pleased to welcome the venerable Swiss Adam to the Committee. I've been reading Adam's blog now for many years and I consider him one of the best writers on the web, because even though the music he features isn't always to my own taste, he writes about it so well, with such intelligence and passion, that I never fail to be entertained.

Anyway, Adam's going first today because he voiced the opinion I would have offered if anyone had asked me about this song before last week...

Years ago I used to DJ for people's 30ths and 40ths and sometimes their weddings. You could throw in a load of late 70s/ early 80s post- punk 7" singles- Dexys, The Specials, The Jam etc and everyone danced. You could throw on the odd one they'd forgotten about and people would love it. The Vapors' Turning Japanese was one of these, always went down well, clearly a well remembered and loved song. I'd think twice about it now. 

I don't think The Vapors were racist, not intentionally, but viewed through a 2020s lens the idea that you'd write a song about screwing your face up (at the moment of climax when masturbating let's not forget!) and compare it to the facial feature of an ethnic group is, well, pretty racist. I'm sure that if you played the song at a 60th it'd go down well and few people would notice or care- and if it did come up in conversation that it could be construed as racist they did they might mutter that cancelling Turning Japanese is PC gone mad or woke madness. But they'd be wrong. And also I don't think I'd play it.

Is Turning Japanese equivalent to the Black and Minstrels? Not sure but I don't feel especially comfortable with it. As a comparison I recently bought a cheap copy of Ernest Hemingway's To Have And Have Not (I read For Whom The Bell Tolls again this summer and loved it). To Have And Have Not has racist language almost from the first page that is era- appropriate but also pretty shocking to read now, the causal use of the N word and a racial slur for Chinese people. It made me feel a bit uncomfortable reading it. Playing Turning Japanese makes me feel similar although arguably its not as overtly racist as the words used in the Hemingway novel. 

OK. That's what I would have said... if not quite as eloquently. I like a bit of Hemingway from time to time, but yes, that language can get in the way of enjoying a good yarn, even when we tell ourselves it's just representative of "different times". The same could also be said of Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling... and let's not even start on Enid Blyton, shall we?

But at this point, I can see a number of you jumping up and down waving your hands like that annoying kid in class who always knows the answers and wants to correct the teacher. Settle down. You'll get your chance. One at a time. Let's start with Ernie,  shall we...?

I think I must be missing something because I'm struggling to work out why this is on your list at all. No anti-Japanese sentiments or tired stereotypes in the lyrics - in fact no reference to Japan at all apart from the title. No cringeworthy attempts at a fake Japanese accent. No dressing up in Japanese costume unlike notorious cultural appropriator Aneka. There is a short cod Oriental riff at the start of the song but the same goes for Aneka again, 'Kung Fu Fighting', 'China Girl', 'Sumahama' by The Beach Boys and many more. And according to the writers its not even a heavily disguised song about masturbation as used to be rumoured. So what's the problem?

Ernie raises a few points here which we'll cover in more detail below, but let's start with the elephant in the room, shall we? The idea that Turning Japanese is a bizarre and insensitive euphemism for facial contortions related to self-abuse... I was about to say we should call our expert witness, but he's not an expert on... erm... that. He's an expert on The Vapors.

Here's Martin... 

Full disclaimer, I write this as someone who loves The Vapors, has seen them live a couple of times and placed their debut album on his "Every Home Should Have One" master-list. So I'm quite far from impartial on this one.

Now I've got that out of the way, let's deal with the possibility of the subject matter being a cause for cancellation. The idea that the song is about self-gratification is really just an urban myth, confirmed by the songwriter, Vapors vocalist Dave Fenton, in a recent-ish interview. Besides, if that was a good reason for cancelling a song, there'd be plenty of others joining it.

I'm going to stop Martin there - don't worry, he'll be back - because the issue isn't really "should a song about masturbation be cancelled?", it's "should a song that compares masturbation to racial stereotyping be cancelled?".  

Many of the songs we'll look at in this series will feature racial stereotyping and / or prejudice that was far more commonplace and accepted back in the 60s, 70s and 80s... as I'll let George elaborate on below...

Rol, this is now my Singalong Song whilst Walking the Dogs, replacing Young Girl, although the dogs refuse to join in, and are more interested in sniffing poo. 

Is this song somehow offensive? I don’t see it as being deliberately so, and it is surely not in the same league as that childhood rhyme “Chinese, Japanese, hairy knees, what are these?” That reminds me there was a boy in our year nicknamed Chinky because of the supposed shape of his eyes (not that I could see it, and I knew him for about 4 years in secondary school). Everyone called him that (possibly even the teachers, this was the 1970s!!), and he did not seem to be troubled by it - it wasn't one of those slekkit nicknames some boys had, one boy had to put up with being referred to as dolt. 

George raises very valid points about the culture we all grew up in, a culture in which comedians and light entertainment types (Mike Yardwood springs to mind) would regularly black up or stretch/narrow their eyes to take the mickey out of people from different races, a culture in which "Chinky" wasn't seen as a racial slur, just the Chinese takeaway down the road... a culture which I can't help but feel that those buffoons who are currently spending so much time buying cheap British flags (imported from Taiwan) to hoist up their local lamp posts as a demonstration of their "patriotism"... a culture which those guys wish we could go back to. And let's face it, those guys would be first in line to defend our right to keep listening to Turning Japanese... which almost makes me want to disagree with them on principle. But two wrongs don't make a right, as my dad always used to say, and to paraphrase Billy Bragg, it's possible to find common ground even with racist gammon-heads if we acknowledge that nothing's black and white (much as they might wish it was), just a myriad shades of grey.

Here's C, to pick up this particular line of thought, expressing her own confusion in how to answer today's question...

But, oh, I found 'Turning Japanese' a bit tougher, perhaps because I think you can come at it from different angles, whereas 'Young Girl' was very specific. First of all, there was word on the street (or my college days refectory to be more precise) that it was about masturbation, and a distasteful correlation between either an orgasmic facial contortion, or even the notion of going blind due to too much of the above - and (arghh, I don't feel good even typing this out) the perceived stereotype shape of East Asian eyes... That theory therefore makes it really racist in the clichéd, casual way that many of us grew up with, where different racial physical characteristics were so often referred to in thoughtless, jokey ways. It's horrible to think now how normalised that was, but at the same time (certainly in my circles) there was no actual malicious intent, it really was more puerile and, without social media and all that, it was relatively confined too. Whilst that certainly doesn't make it ok I'm hoping to give it some context. Anyway, that was a theory that I heard and was no doubt the worst, most derogatory, interpretation of the song. Not the masturbation bit, I think we can handle that (no pun intended) but the crude association with a different ethnic eye shape. However, it was just one interpretation, one that was grasped upon by immature teenagers who wanted to shock and be shocked. Much like I said about 'Young Girl', perhaps that theory said more about the listener than the songwriter?

This is why I invited you guys to contribute to this feature - you're able to express my own thoughts so much better than I can ever manage myself! Thank you, C. 

Many people referred in their replies to this interview with Dave Fenton (lead singer and songwriter for The Vapors), so I think it's worth asking him whether Turning Japanese was a reference to the pleasures of the hand or not...

“It was weird when people started saying it was about masturbation. I can’t claim that one! That happened when we went to America – for some reason they thought it was an English phrase for masturbation. I thought that was quite interesting, and it made people talk about the song and created more interest, so it didn’t hurt I don’t think, but that wasn’t the intention. It was just a love song."

If in doubt, blame the Americans. (Sorry, Brian! See how easy it is to slip in to casual racism, even in jest?) 

For a final word on the matter of onanism, I'm very please to welcome our first truly international member of the Cancel Culture Club Committee... Walter! Very pleased to have Walter join us, because as we all know, our German friends are very serious and forthright people who love order, punctuality, beer and pretzels... 

Damn it, Rol - stop the racial stereotyping! Actually, I got those examples from the website of The Munich Business School who were keen to tackle and debunk stereotypes associated with their country. But it just goes to show, racial stereotyping is still very much alive and well. And I say that as a miserable, antisocial Brit with bad teeth who loves queueing, fish & chips and football hooliganism.  

Sorry, Walter. Thank you for getting involved... 

After listening to the song again and watching the video, I can't find anything that could be associated with cancel culture. There have been plenty of songs about masturbation, and I don't know of any that are offensive, inappropriate, or discriminatory in any way. If we've reached the point where intimate lyrics are no longer allowed to be sung, then perhaps it really is the end of the world.

Very good point, Walter. There are many, many proud wankers in the world of rock, from those who sing about it openly, both male and female...

The Buzzcocks - Orgasm Addict

The Divinyls - I Touch Myself

Green Day - Longview

Cyndi Lauper - She Bop

...to those who have clearly made it their mission statement in life. Bono, Sting, The Gallaghers...

Cheap shots, I know. I can't help myself sometimes.

Let's get back to the serious debate, and Walter is about to introduce our second bone (no pun intended) of contention...

However, the cultural appropriation at the beginning of the video is a different matter. I would argue that the portrayal of a geisha is not racist per se. And repetition certainly does not justify it.

Ah yes, cultural appropriation. Seems like a good time to bring Martin back into the debate...

So I guess the real issues to be addressed are racial and cultural stereotyping. Lets start with the so-called Oriental riff that features throughout the song, which Wikipedia describes as "as a trope to represent the setting or people of East or Southeast Asia." It also identifies use of the riff in Western culture dating back to Dvorak in 1889, right up to Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John in 2006. Not that this excuses anything,,, but it does establish the riff as shorthand for anybody wanting to evoke the East.

Then there's the video. A Geisha, Samurai swords, and more. A visual cliché, then. But this was 1980, a time when many pop videos were visual clichés, merely ham-fisted exercises in literal visual interpretation. Would a Japanese person find the video insulting or derogatory, I wonder? What I can say is that the song was a minor hit in Japan at the time, although that probably had little to do with the video. To me, an archetypal Western gaijin , the video feels like something that would be fun, not insulting ... but I can also see how someone from Japan might have a different view.

Where am I going with all this? The song, I think, can still be enjoyed - if nothing else, the riff is a memorable hook, as Dvorak knew. And the lyric is largely incidental - as Dave Fenton himself said, "I couldn’t find the lyrics. Then I woke up in the middle of the night with that ‘turning Japanese’ line, so I wrote it down and fell asleep again. It could have been anything! It could have ended up as Turning Portuguese." That's good enough for me - if it had been Turning Portuguese would we be having this discussion? As for the video - well, I can see how that might be more problematic, but would point out that it would mostly be forgotten now if not for YouTube. So ditch the video as a product of a less nuanced time, and enjoy the song all you want, I'd say. And if really bothers you, explore the rest of parent album New Clear Days instead, much of which is equal or superior to the band's most famous track.

Well, I for one will definitely be doing that, Martin - in fact, I've just added the album to my in-car memory stick, so I will be sampling its delights on my way to and from work for the next few weeks (along with all the other bobbins that's on there). 

Cultural appropriation is a real can of worms though, isn't it? If we look at the history of rock 'n' roll... well, would any of it really exist without a huge dollop of cultural appropriation? Where do we even begin with that one?

Now, I interrupted Martin halfway through his reply earlier, and I did the same to C. Apologies to both of you, but I was trying to tackle one topic at once. Anyway, here's C with the rest of her reply...

So, putting that particular explanation aside, some may think it's racist to refer to another ethnic/national group at all in song. I'm probably not qualified to say because of my own ethnicity, but I think we'd be creating all sorts of problematic restrictions if we started cancelling blanket references like that. There are obvious reasons why some would be far more offensive than others too, and I hope we can differentiate. I don't feel that this one falls into that category; he could have replaced Japanese with Polynesian or Venezuelan or Bhutanese for example and I'd have thought the same. He's just namechecking a culture here which is very different to his own to explain his feelings of 'strangeness', and that seems to me to be the point.  

Conclusion: I wouldn't cancel this. At the time it was nothing more than a catchy, powerpop one-hit-wonder; in retrospect it sounds naive and ill-advised, but perhaps more daft and nostalgic than anything. Just don't watch the clichéd video!

There's a steady line of thought here that we should cancel the video, I think, not the song... although I imagine if you turned on UK Gold or Dave or whatever it's called now most afternoons, you'd probably find far more offensive gubbins still being aired from the same era. Or maybe not - maybe they edit it all out? I don't know because I have a job.

Time for Alyson to have her say, and as always she does an excellent job of summarising and responding to many of the main points in today's question (as an English teacher, I would always give Alyson a Grade 9). 

Well, here we are with a very different style of song to consider this time, albeit one that was just as successful upon it’s release right at the start of the ‘80s. It’s a new wave/power pop offering similar to many other songs from the era by artists such as The Jam, The Jags and others. Again, what could be the problem with it? Because the singer believes he is “turning Japanese” since he split with his girlfriend, it directly conjures up a racial stereotype, which in today’s world makes us feel very uncomfortable. Did it make me feel uncomfortable back in 1980? No, not really, although I did very much feel uncomfortable with the Scottish folk singer Mary Sandeman dressing up as a kind of Geisha Girl the following year on Top Of The Pops, when she sang Japanese Boy. She took cultural appropriation to a whole new level with that one and now has to distance herself from it.

The writer of Turning Japanese, Dave Fenton, maintains the song is all about the cliches of youthful angst. Drawn from his own experience, it’s supposed to be about a teenager pining over a photograph of his ex-girlfriend in his bedroom, and who is experiencing feelings that are new to him, turning him into someone else. This led to the chorus we perhaps now take umbrage at. As expected, if you check out the internet, the lyrics are supposedly a euphemism for a practice many a teenage boy would partake in, alone in their bedroom (although I reckon every song could have a euphemism if you looked hard enough for it). But Dave says they’re not, which I’ll go along with. If he had admitted to that however it would have been banned by the BBC and achieved even bigger sales!

I’m also going to go along with Dave’s story that the “Turning Japanese” line suddenly came to him at 4 in the morning, when he realised it would sound just right for the song’s chorus. It describes turning into someone totally different from your usual self, and better than that, it was “phonetically fantastic”. That’s my phrase by the way - I can’t imagine him having used any other nationality for the chorus as it just wouldn’t scan the same (Turning Chinese? Turning Mexican?) and wouldn’t have had the hard syllables suited to a post punk kind of song. I also really don’t think it would ever have been meant as a racial slur.

So, Rol, no long-winded anecdote from me this time about the “times” but I’m also going to give this song a pass. For the record, it was a hit in Japan back in 1980 as well as around the rest of the world, so no offence taken back then. To be fair I don’t hear it often nowadays, if at all, and I doubt if many DJs would choose it for their playlists so it might just naturally slip out of circulation. I would however cancel Japanese Boy by Aneka/Mary Sandeman, a very different kind of animal (hope it’s not on your list).

Thank you, Alyson. Obviously Japanese Boy was on my longlist for this feature, as were some of the tracks Ernie mentioned earlier. We might return to those songs at some point in the future.

Aneka - Japanese Boy

Oh, and while we're on the subject of Japanese Boy... here's George's final word on the subject...

Back to the song: It’s certainly a million billion times better than Japanese Boy, and I don’t remember any of The Vapors donning kimonos or waving samurai swords or grasshoppers about. Maybe they did. Did the songwriter simply choose “Japanese” because it was one of the few three-syllable countries he could think of? I don’t think Turning Portuguese really would have made the song any better, and Mexican doesn’t allow itself to be stretched slightly in the way of Japanese/Portuguese/Taiwanese.   

I say NO to cancelling it. And not just because of the Kirsten Dunst video.

Kirsten Dunst video?

Well, yes, Turning Japanese was a hit in Japan. More than once, it seems. 

To tell us a little more about that, I'm very pleased to welcome another new contributor to the CCCC... the Blogfather himself, JC from The Vinyl Villain. I'm tickled pink to have JC join us (although now I'm starting to wonder if the phrase "tickled pink" might contain some kind of racial stereotyping I wasn't previously aware of).

Just like Martin before him, JC is quite an expert on The Vapors...

I have a very long relationship with 'Turning Japanese', and would be appalled with any suggestion that it be binned or banned for being of an offensive nature.  I would have first heard it a few months before it was a huge hit as I saw The Vapors open for The Jam at the Glasgow Apollo in late 1979 - and very good they were too, being a band just similar enough to the main act to more than hold the attention of a young and excited male-dominated audience.

'Turning Japanese' didn't stand out too much from the rest of the set, other than it sounded as if it had a bit more of a catchy chorus than most of the others - it certainly had a fair number of the audience dancing at their seats (the Apollo was a venue where the bouncers dealt unceremoniously with anyone who ventured into the aisles or down towards the actual stage).

When it started getting played on the radio a few months later, I had instant recall of the gig.  It's a great tune, tailor-made for the radio stations back in 1980, and with producer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven at the helm, it really did have many traits of a Jam tribute-band.  It's a single I still have to this day (albeit I had it, lost it and then repurchased it back in the late 00's).  Singer David Fenton claims the song isn't about wanking and instead is about his confused state of mind after being dumped by his girlfriend.  I'm not so sure, but then again, if a ban is suggested on the basis of its sexual content, then some great tunes would also have to be added, not least 'Orgasm Addict' by Buzzcocks, 'St Swithin's Day' by Billy Bragg and 'City Sickness' by Tindersticks. 

If it is on the basis that it is offensive to the people of Japan, then I'd ask everyone to take into consideration a cover of the song by the Kirsten Dunst (yup, THAT Kirtsen Dunst). 

This was recorded in 2009 as part of a wider art exhibition shown at the Tate Modern in London called 'Pop Life' with the actress accepting the invitation to collaborate with the artist Takashi Murakami in creating a fun, and yes, utterly frivolous piece celebrating anime and fashion, two important aspects of Japanese culture, particularly among young people - and not solely in Japan as any trip to a branch of 'Forbidden Planet' here in the UK would soon demonstrate. 

So, if people in Japan are happy to have the song used in celebration... I rest my case'

Thank you, JC. And it turns out you're not the only one to have seen The Vapors live back in the day... though I suspect the venues were different.

Here's the wonderful Mr. John Medd (I don't know why I feel I always have to preface John's name with Wonderful, it just seems like the right thing to do)...

I've always liked this throwaway three-minute slice of new wave. I saw them live around this time when they supported the Jam (apparently Bruce Foxton discovered them in his local pub) and they were electric.

Is it catchy? Yep. Is it of its time? I think so. Is it about wanking? Er, no. (Seek out the Who's Pictures of Lily if that's what you're into.) That said, there is one creepy line that always jars with me: 'I want a doctor to take a picture so I can look at you from inside as well.' It was the 70s. They did things differently there.

Surely that's the ultimate in romance, John - wanting to know what the object of your affection would look like inside out? Beauty isn't just skin deep, etc. etc. Nothing creepy about that. Erm...

The Who - Pictures Of Lily

John wasn't the only contributor to mention that inside out line though. Let's welcome the Wonderful Khayem (you're all wonderful to me) from Dubhed, another top new contributor. What do you reckon, K?

Turning Japanese by The Vapors is firmly embedded in my memories of being at primary school and bouncing up and down to the likes of this and, er, Super Trouper by ABBA at someone’s birthday party.

Did I listen to the lyrics then, apart from the chorus? Not really, although the line about the narrator getting a photo of the object of his desire’s insides stuck. I assumed then as I do now that this is a reference to an X-ray, although it seems that there are as many interpretations of that as there are regarding the true meaning of the song’s title.

Calling a song Turning Japanese didn’t seem at all unusual to this 9-year old. Repeats of Monkey and The Water Margin were on constant rotation on TV and to me it was just another pop song with a killer riff and catchy chorus.

Several decades later, it’s been a staple of post-punk and new wave compilations, even though it’s squarely in the (guitar) pop camp.

I think the musical motif bugged me the most. I was clearly a critical child as I found it annoying that there needed to be a “Japanese” chord sequence to underline the song’s title. A couple of years later, Thompson Twins did the same with their single Lies, and that bugs me too. And don’t get me started on Japanese Boy by Aneka, a #1 hit in between both songs.

Although the songwriter has since tried to (over) explain that it’s not a racist lyric, it’s also merely…an okay song and probably doesn’t need even the time that we’re spending on it now.

It’s a fair bet that the lyrics were scribbled down pretty quickly - not every song has been agonised over, drafted and redrafted.

I’ll undoubtedly listen to Turning Japanese again and again, though it’s at it’s best when heard alongside the likes of Do Anything You Wanna Do, Another Girl Another Planet, 2-4-6-8 Motorway and, of course, The Sound Of The Suburbs.

Thank you for your contribution, K. And although you only indirectly raised it, your mention that Dave Fenton "has since tried to (over) explain that it’s not a racist lyric" did make me question... if only for a second... what else would you do if your biggest (and only) hit was in danger of being cancelled because it was perceived as having outdated attitudes.

Just when we thought we'd got this sorted!

Which brings us full circle back to Swiss Adam, who was as kind enough to open the debate today by voicing the concerns I'd initially had about this tune. I didn't just want to run Adam's comments without letting him know that some of you would be disputing them. So I messaged him with a brief summary of the replies. Here's his response...

That's all very interesting. I'm not sure where that leaves me - if the song's urban myth and the band's explanation is correct then I don't think I've got much to add. Except don't believe urban myths, question everything etc.  

If you want to run my piece as the prevailing orthodoxy and then have everyone else counter it then be my guest.

Thank you for that, Adam. And yes - as Fox Mulder would say - Trust No One... question everything!

And thank you to everyone for making this another fascinating installment of the CCC. I'm honoured by the time you all put into this, and I think it's making for a really excellent debate. Debate like it should be, respectful and reasoned, not like the kind of name-calling, knee-jerkism and heckling we see so often in the political world these days.

The Cancel Culture Club will reconvene in a couple of weeks time. If you've not yet joined in, but would like to be a part of the debate, message me or leave a comment below.