By Anna M. Park
The little girl with the bulbous head, enormous brown eyes and red flowers in her hair addresses the viewer: “Do you wanna know how I say ‘happy’ in Chinese?”
Pause.
“Gao-xing (kai-SHING’),” she answers. “Say gao-xing!”
She stares expectantly, compelling her preschool-aged audience to follow. “Super!” she affirms, then breaks into song. “We’re going to China. I feel so happy! Gao-xing, gao-xing, gao-xing!”
It’s Kai-lan’s Great Trip to China, the latest one-hour special featuring Kai-lan Chow, the 5-year-old animated star of Nickelodeon’s cartoon hit Ni Hao, Kai-lan. In the first eight minutes of the show, she says “gao-xing” 23 times. She sings the gao-xing song another half-dozen times throughout the episode.
It’s a word loyal viewer Lila Kim is not likely to forget. The 4-year-old is gao-xing every time she watches her favorite show. “She loved it from day one,” says her Korean American mother Susan Kim, a resident of Los Angeles. “She knows more Chinese words than Korean, and claims to know how to do tai chi.”
Lila has a lot of little people company. Since Ni Hao, Kai-lan premiered on Nickelodeon’s preschool-oriented channel, Nick Jr., in February 2008, it has consistently ranked one of the top five children’s shows overall and is a highly popular series in the Nickelodeon portfolio, second only to the more established Dora the Explorer.
That Nick Jr. phenomenon and its male counterpart Go, Diego, Go! first introduced bilingualism to mainstream America almost a decade ago. Thanks to these shows, a new generation of preschoolers has been exposed to more cultures and language on television than any before it. They are counting “uno, dos, tres” as often as “one, two, three.” Now, they may be adding “yi, er, san” to their lingo.
And it only makes sense, considering that, after Hispanics, Asians are the fastest growing ethnic population in America, according to the U.S. Census. As early as 2042, Census projections predict, minorities in this country will outnumber whites.
But Kai-lan wants to do more than just teach a few words of Mandarin. The show emphasizes the idea that “being bicultural and bilingual is being American,” according to its official website, NickJr.com. Featuring culture beyond mere food and festivals, it tackles such East Asian issues as group harmony and intergenerational relations. Kai-lan’s grandfather is featuredprominently in every episode.
All that wrapped up in a cute package of bobble-headed characters.
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Culture Class
In a climactic scene from Kai-lan’s Great Trip to China, a baby panda is afraid to get on a boat. After some inquiry, Kai-lan discovers that the boat is “something new” that the panda’s never tried before. Kai-lan’s animal friends (whose voices are provided by an ethnically diverse group of child actors) recall their own experiences of being afraid to try something new. “But then I tried them, and I liked them,” says Tolee, the koala. “When you’re scared of something new,” Kai-lan and her friends sing, “here’s what you can do. Just try it because you might like it!”
While the plots are somewhat formulaic, reminiscent of Dora episodes that neatly package problem, resolution, foreign-language vocabulary and a catchy tune in under 30 minutes, child experts credit the series for showing a main character whose worldview is informed by East Asian values.
“Kai-lan tries to see how the other person thinks, and does not have black-and-white views of the world,” observes Los Angeles-based Meme Rhee, a psychotherapist specializing in intercultural issues.
It’s a reflection of the East Asian value of taking “the perspective of others to maintain harmony in relationships with other people,” according to the show’s curriculum. That may be a bit too deep for the show’s target audience of 2- to 5-year-olds, who probably glean something much more practical from it.
There’s “an automatic feeling of kinship and connection” Asian American children have with the show, suggests Anna Lau, associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She specializes in parenting and mental health care in immigrant families. Her daughters, 6 and 2, like Kai-lan, call their paternal grandfather from Taiwan “yeye.”
“They don’t hear anyone else calling their grandparent ‘yeye,’” says Lau, a second-generation Chinese American.
“Just the idea that everyone around you doesn’t necessarily speak English is a big step in seeing the world from a global perspective,” says Teri Weiss, senior vice president of production and development at Nickelodeon Preschool Television. “I think with the popularity of Dora and now Kai-Lan, more and more children are proud to demonstrate that they speak languages other than English, and at a very early age see bilingualism and multiculturalism as assets.”
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Parental Guidance
And it’s not just the kids who appear to be benefiting from the show. Mary Cha was thrilled to find an “Asian alternative to Dora.” The mother of two says she loves “seeing Kai-lan’s face on television and on clothes at Target,” referencing the merchandise from backpacks to toys that now carry the animated star’s image.
As children of immigrants, many Asian Americans grew up struggling with identity issues. Now themselves parents to a new generation of Asian American children, they may still struggle with feelings of marginalization, says Lau. The very existence of a show like Kai-lan, with its positive, appealing portrayals, can help foster a sense of inclusion for Asian Americans of all ages. The show also provides a platform from which parents can address—and hopefully preempt—some of those identity issues with their own kids.
“I didn’t live in an area with a lot of other Asians, so I didn’t have a lot of people to relate to,” says Susan Kim, who grew up in Huntington Beach, Calif. “I had to figure everything out on my own.” After her daughter Lila started watching Kai-lan and Dora the Explorer, the 4-year-old got curious about her own heritage and the different backgrounds of people around her. Kim wanted to convey the right message. “I emphasize that being different makes her interesting, so she is quite proud to be Korean,” says Kim.
“We’ve heard, time and time again, how older generations of Latinos and Asian Americans felt shame having to translate for their parents or grandparents who did not speak English,” says Nickelodeon’s Weiss. “Consequently, their native tongues were not a source of pride.” A show like Kai-lan helps to counter such feelings by empowering children who grow up in bilingual homes, she says.
“I think [Korean] culture and language are still a big part of our lives, especially since most of us are second-generation with first-generation parents who can hardly speak English,” says Esther Min, co-founder of Little Seouls boutique, an online store that sells Korean and Asian cultural products for kids. “[Korean American parents] are definitely into preserving the heritage, whether the kids are interested in it or not.”
When Min’s 6-year-old son first began watching Kai-lan two years ago, picking up quite a bit of Mandarin words, she made sure to teach him that there was a difference between Korean and Chinese. This also provided a foundation to more easily explain to him later why he, with ancestors from Asia, didn’t have “yellow hair” like his white friend, she says.
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A Different View
Response to the show hasn’t been all positive, however. A few comment boards on parenting and adoption websites questioned the round shape of Kai-lan’s eyes. Some complained that it set an “unrealistic standard” for Asian American children.
Parents interviewed for this story either were relieved to see that Kai-lan didn’t have stereotypically “narrow” eyes or didn’t notice the eyes. “I always thought the characters in the show looked a bit like Hello Kitty characters. Who doesn’t like Hello Kitty and her friends?” says Kathy Choi Lee, founder of Kokoliving.com, a website for Korean American mothers.
Indeed, Karen Chau, the Chinese American creator of the Kai-lan character, says that her artistic rendering of the fictitious girl is influenced by the Hello Kitty and Hayao Miyazaki aesthetic.
“Kai-lan’s face falls well within the tradition known as ‘Asian Pop,’” says Weiss, though she does acknowledge that “some have been critical of that tradition’s use of exaggerated eyes.” Interestingly, in the airport scene in Kai-lan’s Great Trip to China, not only do the Chinese characters have subtly varied shades of skin color, the eye shapes differ as well, from half-circles like Yeye’s, to circular with the slightest tilt at the edge, to Kai-lan’s oblong shape.
Weiss says that the exaggerated round eye shape and size “actually help us to depict emotional facial expressions through animation. Since we have an emotional intelligence curriculum, Kai-lan’s facial expressions are an important element in its execution.” Weiss also cites the large team of consultants—educational, cultural and linguistic—behind the show who “help us make certain that we depict Chinese and Chinese American culture in a valid and sensitive way.”
“People are going to complain one way or the other,” says Lau. The more important consideration, she adds, is the fact that Kai-lan is a positive Asian American female protagonist at the forefront of a popular children’s show. “Having that in your formative years can set you on a trajectory of seeing Asian Americans as positive and included.”
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The ‘We’ Generation?
Today’s children’s programming landscape is a far cry from the days when some Asian Americans had to imagine the Wonder Twins superheroes from the All New Super Friends Hour, with their dark hair and eyes, were Asian. (In “reality,” they were from the planet Exxor.)
“Whenever I saw an Asian character on a cartoon show back in the ‘80s, they always stood out,” says Andy Park, a Los Angeles-based 34-year-old father. Of the half-dozen Asian cartoon characters he can recall, most were sidekicks who did martial arts, like Quick Kick from G.I. Joe and Master Splinter (an anthropomorphic rat) from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Times have certainly changed. “We are no longer a minority anymore in most major cities in California,” says Min.
Still, a show like Kai-lan is far from the norm. While there are more Asian faces on television than ever before, many are still used mainly in supporting roles, says Lau. “Asians have to be in the forefront of shows, not just background color,” she says.
That’s why the benefits of Kai-lan are so significant.
But ask Jade-Lianna Peters, the 13-year-old Chinese American who is the voice of Kai-lan, about being a role model for Asian Americans, and you won’t get an answer informed by ethnic consciousness. After a moment’s hesitation, she will list what makes Kai-lan a role model: She’s outgoing, helpful and giving. Nothing about her ethnicity.
Perhaps it’s just too much for an adolescent to grasp. Or it could be that these more universal, humanistic traits are more valuable to her, says Lau.
For Choi Lee, the importance of a show like Kai-lan lies in teaching her two boys, 3 and 1, to see beyond ethnicity.
“The bigger issue might not be in their ethnicity, but in their character, no matter where they are raised,” says Choi Lee. “If a show like Ni Hao, Kai-lan can teach them moral lessons of confidence, respect, kindness, patience and how to manage their emotions, I think they’ll have a healthier self-identity as Asian Americans.”
That may just be the reality for a whole generation of kids, like Cyan Park. At 20 months old, she’s already a fan of Nick Jr. programming, including Kai-lan. Her paternal grandparents speak to her in Korean; her maternal grandparents in Cantonese. Her New York-born father uses English. Her mother, an ethnically Chinese native of Honduras, mixes Spanish with English. She drinks leche (Spanish for milk), goes ko-ja (Korean for sleep), and calls her cousin koko (Cantonese). She says “please” and “help” using American Sign Language.
It may be a while before she picks up any Mandarin from Kai-lan. But when she does, she too can be happy, haengbokhae, feliz and gao-xing.
