Tradition and reality blend for many Asian women

By Yenni Kwok

JAKARTA (JP): Oppressed yet liberated. Docile yet feisty. Motherly yet flirtatious. These are the characteristics of Asian women that emerge in The Japan Foundation's Asian Cartoon Exhibition titled Asian Women in the Eyes of Cartoonists.

Inami Kazumi, the Foundation's assistant director for cultural affairs, said that men from the West, as well as those from Asia often have stereotypical attitudes of Asian women.

"Women are supposed to be friendly, patient and obedient to their husbands," he said, but "in fact, while there are similarities, there are also differences among Asian women."

Indeed, the exhibition has many diverse themes. The diversity can be attributed to the 14 cartoonists' backgrounds as they -- ten men and four women -- come from different generations and different nations.

They are from Brunei Darussalam, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan -- all known as ongoing battlegrounds for women's rights. Each country is represented by one artist, except Japan, which is represented by four artists. Their works, totaling 104 pieces, were exhibited in Tokyo last year, and will be exhibited in Semarang next month, and in Denpasar in January.

The exhibition, organized in cooperation with the Indonesian Cartoonist Association, was opened yesterday by Minister of Women's Affairs Mien Sugandhi and runs through Nov. 28 on the 2nd floor of Summitmas I, Jl. Jend. Sudirman, Central Jakarta.

One of the most common portrayals of the cartoons is the superwoman syndrome, where women are supposed to do household chores and earn money. Almost half of the illustrations by India's Pochampally Sridhar Rao underscore this issue. In Problems of a Typical Working Woman, Rao depicts a female office employee writing on her right hand and cooking with her left hand while carrying a smiling baby on her back. Meanwhile, her male coworkers say: "Poor Girl. She has to look after both the office work and domestic chores."

Interestingly enough, most of the cartoonists perceive marriage, a traditional institution, as a "trap" for women. In Obstructor, Choi Jung Hyun, of Korea, shows that a woman's responsibilities to her children, her husband, the home and pets prohibit her from pursuing her own career.

In fact, tradition is never friendly to women, as depicted by Arun Watcharasawat of Thailand, the only artist who draws only in black and white. A woman kneels to avoid getting injured by the sharp ends of the word Tradition, which serves as the title of the piece. In The Pain of Tradition Preservation, Watcharasawat also sees that preserving the tradition is analogous to forcing a woman to bend her fingers backwards; it is unnatural and painful.

While some women are obedient enough to have their fingers bent, some are too "stubborn" to accept any more oppression. Mochamad Fauzie captures the growing consciousness of Indonesian women wanting to fight for their labor rights in Women and Their Rights. In short skirts and high heels, the women, holding banners and posters, bark at riot police while the boss is terrified, shaking behind the police's shields. In that piece, Fauzie also portrays Marsinah, a labor activist who was tragically killed in May 1993.

Contemporary and non-traditional issues indeed are the characteristics of Fauzie's pieces. He is the only cartoonist who raises the double standards issue in Indonesian society. In Woman's Virginity, the husband says to his newly wed wife, "You are not a virgin anymore..." The wife simply answers, "Yeah... and how should I check your virginity status?"; an answer that simply sends the husband into a state of shock.

Poh Yih Chwen, the youngest participant, represents young, modern Singaporean women, who are depicted in manga (Japanese comic)-like colorful drawings. The 19-year-old female cartoonist clearly shows her sympathy for women who work outside the house. For example, in Documentation, a woman has to sneak out of the kitchen to go to the office. Her piece, Behind a Successful Career Mother, There Is Usually a Maid, depicts a woman who leaves for work smiling as a maid takes care of her two children.

She criticizes women who are brand-minded (What to Wear?) and diet-obsessed (Sorry I am on a Diet) but she is not a traditional, "finger-bending" woman at all. In A Really Rare Species, she invites our sympathy for the red-faced, embarrassed woman who has to endure many silly comments directed at her "unusual appearance," as she is clad in a jacket and trousers and is on her motorbike.

Brunei cartoonist Malai Yunus Malai Yusof has an unsympathetic view of women. In The Helping Hand, a sexy lady's car breaks down, but she does not have to do or know anything because her beauty invites a line of men ready and willing to help her. Or, in Body Trend, he shows a slim, size-4 woman who turns into such an obese eyesore a year after their marriage her husband is disgusted. Final Exam shows a female student taking an exam thinking about getting married instead of graduating.

Another unsympathetic depiction of housewives also come from a Japanese female cartoonist. Satonaka Machiko's pieces, however, have different tones than Yusof's. Relying on manga-like conversations to point out the hidden irony, her pieces invite an ironic smile as they are more subtle than Yusof's slap-in-the- face criticism.

Unfortunately, Satonaka's pieces are neither translated into English nor Bahasa Indonesia. You have to know Japanese in order to understand the irony of her pieces. But here are the summaries. In I'm a Very Modest Mother, a "modest" mother wants her baby son to be healthy, make good grades, get into a good university, get a good job in a first-class company and marry a girl who will take care of the mother. In A Day in The Life of A Good Wife, the hard-working husband leaves his wife at home, thinking what a good wife she is. In fact, she has an affair with a younger man and manages to convince her husband what a devoted wife she is by serving him some supermarket's precooked dishes every night.

Who says that all Asian women are docile and oppressed creatures? This exhibition certainly proves otherwise and at the same time highlights the similar yet different characteristics of women throughout the region.