Consider the following news items by which Asia is making the headlines:
In a 2007 “mockumentary” book entitled Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook, journalists Patrick Macias and Izumi Evers chronicle girl culture street fashion in urban Japan from the late 1960s to 2007, ending with what they call “cute overload.” There, as an example of this overload, stand two young women in various shades of pink from head to toe: shocking pink hair adorned with multiple pink barrettes, fuzzy pink kitten earmuffs, pink baby doll dresses, mismatched pink knee-high socks, and pink laced shoes. Around one woman's neck hangs that icon of cute: Sanrio Company's flagship character since 1974, Hello Kitty. Among the barrettes in the other woman's hair is, again, Kitty. Standing at the entrance to Harajuku—the commercial mecca of street youth culture in Japan—they pose, leaning into each other, hands clenched, kitten-paw-style, at their...
