words yvonne teh

Forget Donald Tsang, a cute white, perhaps mouth-less, cat rules Hong Kong.

Not everyone has heard of Hello Kitty. This may be particularly difficult to believe in this part of the world where one can walk into any Watsons outlet and buy a range of Hello Kitty items officially sanctioned by Sanrio, including a Hello Kitty decorated toaster that tosses out toasted bread with Hello Kitty’s face on it and a telephone complete with a Hello Kitty design as well as caller ID capabilities. However, some people still don’t know what Hello Kitty is, let alone consider it common knowledge that the (almost) ubiquitous cat was born on November 1, 1974, is the same weight as three apples, is five apples tall and believes “You can never have too many friends.”

Nor does everyone want to get acquainted with Hello Kitty. That is a sad fact fans of the friendly feline occasionally have to admit when their well-meaning efforts to spread the gospel of Hello Kitty are rebuffed or, worse, greeted with derision. Especially when they may have gifted (in the Hello Kitty-approved spirit of giving) a Hello Kitty emblazoned something to a friend or family member. Still, as much as some of these detractors might wish it to be otherwise, at work, home or just when out and about, it’s increasingly difficult to find a Hello-Kitty free zone here in the HKSAR. That familiar little visage can currently be found on over 22,000 products, including, probably most notoriously, a vibrator or – as Sanrio, Hello Kitty’s parent company, calls it – ‘personal massager’!

So we have to face it, the Fragrant Harbour may be home to a Disneyland and, over in Shatin’s New World Plaza, an older, less-heralded Snoopy World. It also may have spawned its own cute cartoon characters (notably McDull, the brighter McMug and associated inhabitants of the animated world created by Alice Mak and Brian Tse). Ocean Park’s newest pair of giant pandas Le Le and Ying Ying may have been responsible for at least a mild case of panda mania in recent months. But in terms of sheer pervasion, it’s hard to buck the idea that Hong Kong – where Sanrio established an official subsidiary back in 1994 – is the land of Hello Kitty.

Walk into a convenience store or supermarket here to get a drink or some edibles and you’ll see Hello Kitty’s recognizable visage on bottles, cans, packets and other containers. Go into a bakery and you’re liable to find at least one Hello Kitty face peering back at you from a cake. Check out floral arrangements and bouquets in even the most basic flower shop and chances are you’ll be presented with more than one Hello Kitty-patterned option to choose from. Look around you when in a crowd and, invariably, at least one person – and it could be someone young or old, male or female – will be wearing or carrying a piece of Hello Kitty-themed merchandise. And when it rains, you’ll find you’re never far away from a Hello Kitty umbrella.

Granted there are other places in the world, particularly Asia, where this critter, who Sanrio’s President, Shintaro Tsuji, had originally thought of calling Hi Kitty, also enjoys such a high degree of popularity. And it’s true enough that Japan could lay a major claim to being the land of Hello Kitty since it’s where ‘Kitty Chan’ was created, Sanrio is headquartered and the world’s one and only theme park dedicated to Hello Kitty, Sanrio Puroland, is located. But for that matter, so too could England, where the white cat is supposed to have been born and currently resides with the rest of her family: father George, mother Mary Bell and identical twin sister Mimi (who distinguishes herself by wearing her bow on the opposite side to that of her more famous sibling).

However, whereas there have been signs of Hello Kitty brand fatigue in the Land of the Rising Sun in recent years (even though Sanrio Puroland attracts around 1.5 million visitors annually and is one of the country’s top attractions), marketing initiatives featuring this cute cat and her ever-growing band of Sanrio companion creations remain many and popular in Hong Kong. Also, while Hello Kitty does have stereotypically English attributes like a love for hosting tea parties, it would be unimaginable for the London Underground to play host to an officially sanctioned, legally valid Hello Kitty wedding like that held at the MTR Hong Kong station on Valentine’s Day this year. Almost unbelievably, Hello Kitty and her tuff-haired boyfriend, Dear Daniel, served as bridesmaid and best man, for good measure!

Furthermore, it has surely only been in Hong Kong that an A-list actor has deigned to appear in public looking like Hello Kitty’s beau. And should you draw a blank as to who it was, cast your memory back to the time Simon Yam affected a tuff-haired hairstyle. Ring any bells? Oh, okay, then, here’s dropping the tease to cite a August 16, 1999 piece from the Singapore Straits Times in which the popular thespian confessed to having combed his hair to look like Dear Daniel to make his Hello Kitty fan wife, international model Qi Qi, happy! And also told how he had ordered a custom-made life-sized Hello Kitty doll for her in the hope that “when she is working overseas, she can hug the doll and think of me...”

Returning to the present: the sense that the moon-faced cat logo turned pop cultural icon has successfully invaded the HKSAR is strengthened by the slew of Hello Kitty-themed promotions currently running, with companies as diverse as the MTR (with its Hello Kitty Heroes Collection), McDonalds (with its Hello Kitty and friends plush capsules) and Chow Sang Sang (with glittery pendants and figurines in the Hello Kitty ‘Around the World’ Pure Gold Collection) hawking Hello Kitty-related products at their various branches around town. Additionally, it’s hard to escape knowing that this month, Hello Kitty’s Fantastical Adventure, the interactive musical show with the famous feline as Princess Kitty of Happiness Land, comes to town.

But wait a minute, I hear you ask, how can Hello Kitty star in a musical when she has no mouth? One possibility is that Hello Kitty and the other performers (who include Dear Daniel, and the dark Sanrio character favoured by rebellious types, Badtz Maru) would mime their way through the show. Yet Yuuko Yamaguchi, the designer of Hello Kitty for the bulk of the kawaii creature’s 33-year existence, has stated that the cat does have a mouth. It’s just that, often times, it’s hidden by Hello Kitty’s fur!

If you don’t believe that and your own personal searches for Hello Kitty’s mouth all come up empty, try videos like Hello Kitty: Santa’s Magic Hat for visions of Hello Kitty with a mouth and – even more surprisingly, considering she’s officially English – an American accent in a Christmas adventure with Mimi and a few of their friends.

Still, while we’re on the subject: strangely enough on Sanrio’s official website, there is no official denial that Hello Kitty is without a mouth. Instead, on its Frequently Asked Questions page, the official response to the query “Why doesn’t Hello Kitty have a mouth?” is “Hello Kitty speaks from her heart. She’s Sanrio’s ambassador to the world and isn’t bound to any particular language.” Which perhaps explains why the largely silent kitty cat has struck a chord with most denizens of Asia’s World City, whatever their mother tongue.