Hong Kong Video Soaps Command Big Following in U.S.

Elderly housewife Leung Wan Chou shops at convenience stores and celebrates Thanksgiving since immigrating to the United States, but when it comes to soap operas she heads to Chinatown to rent a Cantonese version of “Dallas.”

Leung is one of thousands of Asian-Americans whose years in this country have failed to wean them from their love of Hong Kong-style dramas.

“I have to watch several tapes (of Cantonese soaps) every night. Otherwise I can’t sleep,” said Leung, who has moved to a middle-class neighborhood outside Chinatown since emigrating 20 years ago from Hong Kong.

Chinatown waiter Hui Ming Kee likes to spend the days of his life watching such popular soaps as “Man in a Net” and “Family Feud” (no relation to the American TV program), both based loosely on “Dallas.”

In one sitting in his one-room apartment, he watched seven three-hour tapes without interruption, said Hui, adding that the tapes are his major form of entertainment.

A stream of Asian-Americans, who lease 900 tapes in an average week in one Chinatown rental shop, nearly cleared the shelves of the 110 tapes in the “Family Feud” series one weekend, the manager said.

“They nearly emptied out our inventory of the more popular tapes just before Thanksgiving weekend,” said Lily Yee, supervisor of the Hong Kong TV Video shop in Chinatown.

The locations are strictly Hong Kong in most tapes and the soaps reflect such Confucian ideals as loyalty to the family, respect for one’s parents and dedication to work.

Shops renting the tapes are springing up in cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. And with more and more Asian cultures taking up the practice, imported tapes in Cantonese are now dubbed in Mandarin, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai. Some include Korean subtitles.

“Overseas Chinese don’t want to be completely cut off from their roots,” said Ernest Wu, director of family counseling at Christian Social Service.

Escape From Pressure

“Watching Hong Kong soaps offers Chinese immigrants an escape from the constant pressure of adjusting to a new environment,” he said.

“Chinese tend to hold on to their cultural roots, no matter where they are,” said Wong Lai Ming, a program coordinator of Self Help for the Elderly, a social service organization. Each afternoon, dozens of Asians arrive to view Cantonese TV soaps that it shows at two centers in San Francisco.

“These programs are extremely popular with our children,” Wong said.

Most of the tapes are imported from Hong Kong and are produced by the Hong Kong Television Broadcast Corp., or TVB.

Six Rental Shops Opened

TVB first attempted to enter the U.S. market seven years ago when it awarded the distribution rights to its videotapes to Hong Kong TV Video Program Inc., a San Francisco company. Hong Kong TV has since opened six rental shops in the city and provides the tapes to more than 100 dealers in other cities.

At Hong Kong TV stores, customers must pay an initial $180 or $360 fee, which allows the customer to take home from 70 to 170 tapes, a few at a time.

Tape distributors in San Francisco’s Chinatown said neither TV stations in Hong Kong nor the few independent producers in Hong Kong and Taiwan can rival TVB’s dominance in the U.S. market.