TOWARD A NEW ASIAN ORDER : A WORLD REPORT SPECIAL SECTION : Culture : In the East, Pop Audience Gets Icons of Its Own : * More than half of Asia’s population is under 24. And though they still buy American, they’re also embracing local heroes.

Madonna and Michael Jackson, make way for Dick Lee.

Lee is 36 years old, an ethnic Chinese raised in Singapore who sings in colloquial English and is financed by a Japanese recording company. His music blends pop funk beats with Asian instruments and playful titles like “Mad Chinaman.” In lighter moments, he raps in English and sings in Japanese about falling in love with a sukiyaki baby. But his main message is far more meaty:

This is Asia/This is where we’re from;

We’ll sing in one voice/And we’ll sing one song.

Our separate lands/Are one from now on.

We are Asians/And we’ll sing one song.

The West may not know Lee yet, but growing legions of pop music fans from Tokyo to Taipei, Hong Kong to Singapore, do. Indeed, Lee is the first Asian pop artist to hit the charts all around the Pacific at the same time. And, in appealing for Pan-Asian pop cultural unity, Lee stands as the clearest symbol yet of an intriguing shift afoot in the music halls and fashion boutiques, the bookstores and consumer product marts of the Pacific Rim:

Popular culture in Asia, so long dominated by the West, is looking back East.

“I grew up with ‘Leave it to Beaver,’ and I can’t deny the Western influence on our pop culture, “ said Lee, rakishly dressed in magenta suit and polka-dot tie during an interview in Tokyo. “But now we’ve caught up with the West and it’s time for us to create our own Asian style and sound.”

The shift may be too small to declare a trend, but it is too large to be ignored. It is hardly about to displace the United States, which still reigns as the chief exporter of music, film and fast food. But after years of cultural domination by Levi’s and Coca-Cola, Marlboros and Madonna, Asian youth are beginning to find cultural icons in their own back yards.

Lee of Singapore and Sandy Lam of Hong Kong travel the region and sing of Asian unity. Thailand’s first bona fide pop megastar, Thongchai (Bird) McIntyre, got his start with a hit album in 1984, “Made in Thailand,” and has since encouraged fans to be proud of their own culture and products.

MTV Asia, broadcast by Star TV of Hong Kong, last year began airing Asian artists and special programs highlighting the best music videos and dance spots in the Pacific Rim. While Cable News Network may still be the international news network of choice, the Japan Broadcasting Co. (NHK), Japan’s equivalent of Britain’s BBC, has begun satellite broadcasts in the region, scoring hits with news about sports, fashion, music and culture.

Fashion designers Issey Miyake of Japan and Ichinoo of South Korea are joining ranks with two dozen other Asian designers to try to make the twice-yearly Tokyo Collection the Paris of Asia. Japanese department stores are springing up throughout Asia, spreading a distinctive style of retailing and such wares as Japan Creative’s designer chopsticks, favored by the smart young set in Taipei and Hong Kong.

Children from Seoul to Singapore are snapping up Japanese comic books and cartoon videos. “Dragon Ball,” a Japanese action cartoon, was so popular in Seoul that South Korean authorities finally banned it early this year, afraid it would corrupt young morals. But if comics are out, Japanese videos are in--”City Hunter” and “Seven Dragon Pearl” in Taipei, “Dragon Ball” and “Super Mario” in Seoul.

“My dad brought a video copy of ‘Dragon Ball’ from his trip to Japan,” confided Nam Min Hyok, a fourth-grader at Hakdong primary school in Seoul. “I made a copy for my friend, and he made several copies for his friends. We love to watch it. It’s exciting.”

Overall, Chinese communities throughout Asia share soap operas, musicians and food, an integration that is intensifying as commerce and communication blossom among China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. But Japan is the pacesetter for a Pan-Asian pop culture, being the only nation with the financial muscle and well-developed media, marketing and merchandising systems necessary to assume that role.

Older Asians may despise Japan for its military aggression of the past, and the former colonies of South Korea and Taiwan still maintain official restrictions on Japanese film and music. But those wartime grudges don’t seem to influence Asia’s youth.

“From my experience as a promoter, Japan is the leading reflector, if you will, of the latest pop culture,” said Daniel Lu, president of Satellite Television Marketing Inc. in Taipei.

In Taiwan, Lu said, fashion designers fly to Tokyo to copy Japanese designs. Young people devour trendy Japanese magazines and comics--so much that “the (local Chinese) media has been calling Taiwan youth culture a ‘subculture’ of Japan,” he said. In Thailand, researchers even have a name for Japan-worshiping youths ages 13 to 20: Dek Tot.

More than half of Asia’s population is under age 24, a situation that may accelerate the acceptance and absorption of Japanese-defined pop culture.

“Kids have much more in common with youth culture than national boundaries,” said Don Atyeo, general manager of MTV Asia in Hong Kong. “They are looking for role models to emerge. They don’t relate well to the Western sort of rip-offs.”

The expansion of Japanese department stores throughout Asia--firms such as Sogo, Seibu, Mitsukoshi and Tokyu--has helped promote Japanese consumer brands. Shu Umemura and Shiseido cosmetics, Kenzo clothes and Hello Kitty trinkets are becoming as well-known as Clinique, Calvin Klein and Mickey Mouse. The Japanese department stores--as well as magazines and media networks--also play a key role in filtering Western culture and consumerism to Asians.

Eventually, the Japanese brands will end up displacing the American giants, some analysts predict.

“For most people, America is halfway to heaven. The big West, California. . . . That is reflected in jeans and Coca-Cola and Marlboros,” said Kenneth S. Courtis, chief strategist for Deutsche Bank Capital Markets (Asia) Ltd. “You will see that over the 1990s, those brands of American culture start being replaced by the new icons of Japan. It’s already occurring in cars and electronics. “

Courtis has not quite figured out what modern values Japan will convey through its pop culture, but he speculated they might be related to self-sufficiency, an idea embodied in the Sony Walkman.

To be sure, Japan has not extended its reach throughout the entire Pacific Basin. American culture remains firmly entrenched in the Philippines, for instance. Even as karaoke bars have sprouted there, they are mostly filled with Filipinos singing “Feelings.” During the recent election campaign there, a former Cabinet minister played “The Marines’ Hymn” on his harmonica at Senate campaign rallies, while Fidel V. Ramos, a leading presidential candidate, chose “La Bamba” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

And many Filipinos still resist Japanese influence, partly as a result of ethnic pride.

One peeved private businessman in Beijing, reflecting a widespread attitude there, had this to say when he was asked about Japanese influence in China: “What Japanese influence on Chinese culture? You mean Chinese influence on Japanese culture!”

Fast food may be the one area where the Chinese will grudgingly rank the Japanese over other foreigners. Yoshinoya, a fast-food restaurant serving yakitori, tonkatsu and other dishes with rice, has been far more successful than the Carl’s Jr. hamburgers, Golden Skillet chicken and Dairy Queen operating in the same building on swanky Wangfujing Street in Beijing.

“Japanese food is more similar to Chinese traditional food than ours,” one Dairy Queen employee lamented.

In other areas, the Asianization of pop culture may be an inevitable consequence of the regionalization of trade. Intraregional trade within Asia now outstrips trans-Pacific trade, and culture has followed commerce.

Mitsubishi Electric Corp., for instance, is financing Dick Lee’s pop operetta--a musical about breaking away from Western culture to pursue an Asian identity, set to debut in Tokyo in August. The musical, “Nagraland,” features a Japanese producer, Indonesian director, Singaporean costume designer and Malaysian choreographer.

Hachiro Hayashi, Mitsubishi’s manager of corporate image operations, said the firm embarked on the project to enrich its ties with Southeast Asia beyond a purely economic relationship. The firm employs 10,700 local workers in the region at such facilities as a color TV factory in Singapore and air conditioner plants in Thailand and Indonesia.

Other Japanese firms have been quick to employ Asian stars to help market their products. The Fuji Photo Film Co., for instance, uses Thai superstar Bird in its ads. Fuji also sponsors events for Grammy Entertainment, Bangkok’s most important talent production company, which handpicks, trains and promotes stars such as Bird and Add Carabao and is now negotiating with Hong Kong actor Michael Wong.

Asia’s fashion designers are also appealing to Tokyo to take the lead in developing a springboard to launch Asian artists regionally. That was the main conclusion of a special symposium for Asian designers held two years ago by organizers of the Tokyo Collection.

But little progress has been made, because Asian designers still lack the money to participate in the pricey world of haute couture. And, said Tokyo fashion promoter Hiroko Katsuragi, the Japanese themselves still look toward Europe and America as the real centers of fashion in the world.

Still, designers such as South Korea’s Ichinoo have taken a deliberate stand against following the West. In her designs, Ichinoo uses traditional Korean fabrics, flowing shapes and Asian bands and ties rather than the buttons and fitted forms prevalent in the West.

Led by the Queen of Thailand, who has single-handedly revived interest in indigenous crafts by wearing traditional silk dresses to official functions, Bangkok’s designers have also begun combining Thai silk with modern European designs. One pioneer, Paris-trained Rayib Sethabutr, can’t keep up with demand among her mostly Thai clients and is so popular among Japanese that she is considering opening a joint-venture store in Tokyo.

“For so long, there has been a misconception that Western was good, Asian was inferior,” designer Ichinoo said during an interview in Seoul. “But now we are beginning to appreciate our own uniqueness.”