China's J-lovers
By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
2009-08-11 09:51
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Last Tuesday night, Noriko Sakai (酒井法子) left home with her 10-year-old son. The police and her employer launched a nationwide search. Sakai is a Japanese pop singer and actress. It is reported she was desperate and could be suicidal after her Don Juan of a husband was arrested for possessing illegal drugs.
It is a story that naturally made the headlines in Japan, but it also filled many Chinese hearts with anxiety. People left words of hope and blessings on Chinese Web forums.
All this because Sakai starred in Hitotsu Yane no Shita (同一屋檐下) and Heaven's Coins, two of her drama series that were aired in China in the early 1990s. Her album Smile soon followed. She then starred in a Panasonic commercial customized for the Chinese market, in which she chirped the jingle in Chinese.
Her innocent smile and unique way of pronouncing Chinese words endeared her to a whole generation of Chinese TV watchers.
Sakai is not alone. She is among a cadre of Japanese entertainers with a sizeable following in China. Their fame on this side of the East Sea is not always recognized in their homeland because China's importation of entertainment products was haphazard in the early years. Even so, they achieved an outsized influence because there was less competition on the Chinese tube.