Hear the NPR broadcast and see the following article at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5300970 South Korean Culture Wave Spreads Across Asia
March 26, 2006
Forget Desperate Housewives or Survivor. In Asia, The Jewel in the Palace and Winter Sonata are the must-see television shows. South Korea is cashing in on a marketing push that has made its soap operas and pop stars wildly popular across Asia. Is this simply canny branding? Or is it an attempt to forge a pan-Asian identity to compete with mainstream U.S. culture? In a rainy afternoon in Shanghai, hundreds of people, mostly women, wait outside a pharmacy for the appearance of Lee Young-ae, a South Korean television starlet. This is the visible proof of what's being called the Korean Wave -- a wave of enthusiasm for South Korean pop culture that's sweeping Asia. On television Lee Young-ae is a doctor in The Jewel in the Palace, a historical soap opera set in the past. The actress was in Shanghai to publicize a popular Korean product -- the medicinal ginseng root. But in essence she was really selling the whole idea of Korea -- the country, the culture and the products. The Korean Wave's impact is so great that people from around the region are traveling to Seoul to have plastic surgery -- they want to make themselves look like their favorite Korean soap opera stars. "Over the last three years, there's been a 30-percent increase in foreigners coming to have plastic surgery," says Dr. Chung Jong-pil, who works at the Cinderella plastic surgery clinic in Seoul. "It's all because of the Korean wave. A lot of Chinese and Japanese have surgery to make themselves look more like Koreans." But a backlash against the Korean wave may be beginning. A Chinese news magazine has accused the South Korean government of wanting not just to spread Korean culture, but to present itself as the essence of Asian culture. And the Chinese media is reporting plans to limit the amount of airtime given to Korean dramas.
See Korean TV Dramas page for more info on The Jewel in the Palace.
An article from a Japanese newspaper began like this, "Korean actor Bae Yong-joon did what some of his countrymen have dreamed of for decades: He conquered Japan." Bae Yong-joon is the hero of a Korean TV drama called Winter Sonata, which scored huge ratings in Japan.
The article at: http://www.kbs-america.com/sub/sub_forfans.html explains the origins of the Korean Wave.
This is an excerpt:
What is Korean Wave (Hanliu)?
The Korean Wave, a.k.a Hallyu or Hanryu, was first introduces in the late 1990s in China referring to the popularity of Korean culture in foreign countries. It was initiated when the exported Korean TV dramas and remakes of pop music became popular in China and Hong Kong. Following this trend, a number of Korean pop music singers and actors and actresses made their debut in neighboring countries and started gaining recognition. Since then, the Korean Wave has been sweeping across countries in Asia, mainly in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and Vietnam. Actors and actresses, such as Bae Yong-Joon, Choi Ji-woo, Kim Hee-sun, Won Bin, and Jang Dong-gun are now international stars, dominating the entertainment market in Asia. The boom of Korean entertainment has increased demand for Korean products, and more people are interested in Korean culture and the language.
KBS played a major role in the advent of the “Korean Wave” with dramas such as Fall in My Heart and Winter Sonata. Fall in My Heart was extremely popular in Taiwan raking first its time period among all cable networks. Viewers were drawn to the drama's pure love and picturesque cinematography, elements which could not be found on their local dramas. “Fall in My Heart” introduces new stars to Taiwanese people.
Unlike many Asian countries that had already been swept by the Korean Wave, Japan was recently affected by the Korean Wave with the fever of the KBS TV drama Winter Sonata. This heart-warming love story became one of the biggest hits in Japan creating the Winter Sonata sensation throughout the country. The drama was first aired on a satellite channel maintaining a small but steady popularity. Then, NHK decided to broadcast the drama on its channel, making it available for more viewers. As a result, the drama turned out to be a huge success in Japan, rebroadcast three times. Winter Sonata fever is now all over the country, melting the hearts of Japanese female viewers, who have fallen in love with this gentle and affectionate story. Winter Sonata reminds of pure, forgotten love, which is no longer found in Japanese dramas.
For the first time, after the release of the movie Shiri in 2000 and the World Cup in 2002 the Japanese people started th show an interest in Korea culture. However, it was Winter Sonata that truly started the Korean Wave in Japan. Japanese viewers describe Korean dramas as energetic and exciting while maintaining traditional values. It is this uniqueness which cannot be found in today's Japanese dramas. According to the viewers, Korean dramas remind them of their dramas in the 1970s and the 1980s, thus letting them reminisce of older times. Furthermore, unlike the current trend of Japanese dramas that tend to neglect older generations, Korean dramas attract a wide range of audiences, from teenagers to people in their 90s.
The 11/2004 NYTimes article at: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F50710FE35580C718DDDA80994DC404482 points out:
Over the last decade, South Korean cinema has gone from relative obscurity on the world stage to hotter than hot, at least on the film-festival circuit. Unfortunately, festivals and venues like universities have also often been the only places you could catch up with this rapidly emerging national cinema since many of the best Korean films never secure distribution here. All of which makes the series ''The Newest Tiger: 60 Years of South Korean Cinema,'' which opens today, a must-see event for committed and casual cinephiles alike.
Cutting across genres and themes, the 40-film program reaches back to 1949, a year after the establishment of the two separate governments, and works up to the present with the United States premiere of ''Low Life,'' the latest (his 99th!) from the leading auteur Im Kwon-taek. Among other delights not to be missed are ''The Power of Kangwon Province'' (2002) from Hong Song-soo, one of the more essential filmmakers working in movies, and ''The Housemaid'' (1960), a blast from the past from Kim Ki-young, a legendary B-movie maestro whose nom du cinema was Mr. Monster. (''The Newest Tiger,'' which includes ''Take Care of My Cat,'' above, written and directed by Jeong Jae-eun, runs through Dec. 7 at the Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center, (212) 875-5600. Admission: $10; $6 for Film Society of Lincoln Center members; $5 for 65+ at weekday matinees.) MANOHLA DARGIS.
See Korean Films page for more info about the legendary director Im Kwon-taek.
The article at: http://josephbosco.com/wow2004/2005/10/china-national-popular-culture.html explains the reasons for the power of the Korean Wave. An excerpt is copied immediately below.
“Korea Wave” Catches China Off Guard
By Lou Li
Song Feifei, an office lady who is well accustomed to her workday from nine to five, recently found her life in a total mess. She was late for work several times, which had never happened to her before. "It is all Dae Jang Geum's fault. I watch it every day till midnight. Then it is hard for me to get up the next morning." What Feifei referred to as Dae Jang Geum is a Korean TV series currently airing on the Hunan Satellite Television Network. Also known as The Great Jang Geum or Jewel in the Palace, Dae Jang Geum is a 2003 television soap opera produced by South Korean TV channel MBC, winning the highest ratings in South Korean television history at 54 per cent. It has been sweeping across much of the Chinese-speaking world, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese communities in San Francisco, Chicago, as well as in Malaysia. On the Chinese mainland, it proved to be on another good run, with an average rating of 8.6 percent on its debut, which ranked it as the most watched TV program in the country's 12 biggest cities during its time period. The big hit, starring the famous South Korean actress Lee Young-Ae, tells the true story of Jang-Geum, the first female royal physician who lived in ancient southern Korea, with its main theme being the heroine's perseverance against a backdrop of traditional Korean culture, such as its royal court cuisine and medicine.
"Korea Wave," or "Han liu" in Chinese, refers to the popularity of Korean pop music, TV dramas, movies, fashion, food, and celebrities in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and other regions in Asia. The term "Korea Wave" was first used by the Chinese press in the late 1990s, when Korean TV dramas and Chinese-language remakes of Korean pop music began to gain ground in mainland China and Hong Kong. As we all witness, it's recently reached a new climax with the airing of Dae Jang Geum. China is not alone in the heartland of the Korea Wave; so is Japan, Vietnam, and many other Asian countries. An article from a Japanese newspaper began like this, "Korean actor Bae Yong-joon did what some of his countrymen have dreamed of for decades: He conquered Japan." Bae Yong-joon is the hero of a Korean TV drama called Winter Sonata, which scored huge ratings and drew a large group of wannabes in Japan, including Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Experts offer several reasons for the Korea Wave phenomenon. Among them are the facts that most Asian countries share Confucian culture, that Korean culture professes nonviolence, and that the quality of Korean culture and communications have increased sharply in the past few years. In other words, fans embrace Korean cultural products because they convey similar Asian cultural sentiments in sophisticated packages. But the interesting point here is that China is the very birthplace of Asian culture centering on Confucianism, which almost all Asian countries look up to.
In Dae Jang-geum, the heroine learned Chinese classics and Chinese characters as a child and later studied traditional Chinese medical science to be a physician. Liu Changle, the board director of Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, said, "What South Korea does is to sell the essence of our culture to us. It is as if the user is charging the inventor." Yin Hong, a professor with Tsinghua University explained, "The Chinese culture and the Korean culture overlap in many ways, which lays the foundation for mutual communication. On the other hand, compared with Korean pop culture which had early on borrowed good elements of Western culture, Chinese pop culture lacks originality, a weak point at which Korean pop culture breaks through." "Our generation is fond of such family-themed Korean TV series because the stories remind us of the past and the traditional ethical values people adhered to at our time, which we cannot find in our domestic TV and theatres," a retiree from Beijing said.
At the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2002, renowned Chinese film director Feng Xiaogang told the audience, "As a filmmaker, I have to say we all need to be vigilant of the fact that Korean films are coming. We must spare no efforts to catch up with them." Feng's words deserve serious thought. Three years later, also in Shanghai, South Korea was the biggest winner at the Shanghai International TV Festival, having been awarded the top honor, "Best TV drama," and successfully sold dozens of films and TV dramas to China. At the festival, China bought one hundred million RMB worth of programming while selling only 80 million RMB worth, showing an obvious trade deficit between China and foreign producers. Despite the traditional cultural atmosphere featuring truth, goodness, fidelity, solidarity and patriotism, the success of South Korean drama productions also owes to their televisual technique, screenwriting, genre distinctiveness and popular stars, all areas in which Chinese productions lag behind. "Korea Wave helps us to discover a new market demand," Phoenix TV's Liu Changle said, "The audience is actually longing for products featuring traditional culture. But what we provided them before is so scarce and monotonous."
A scholar from Hong Kong observed that Dae Jang Geum is a political declaration of South Korea's rise in East Asia and a cultural ID card for Korea to walk in the world arena boastfully. He believes its aim is to compete with China for the right to explain the essence of Confucianism.
The March 2003 comment below shows the international acclaim that Korean films have been earning!
http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/koreancinema_2002.html
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/explore/20051126/index.php?news=column_19260561.html
Hey you, meet ‘hallyu’
Thai tourists are riding the ‘Korean Wave’ in the thousands
to see where their favourite films and TV shows are shot Thai tourists may be flocking to South Korea these days, but it’s not to ski, swim or even shop. Forget the ancient shrines, palaces and parks – we’re going for hallyu. Hallyu is “Korean Wave”, K-Pop, and according to a survey by the Korean National Tourism Organisation, this musical successor to J-Pop is why 75 per cent of Thais visit the country. Thais started doing the Korean Wave in 2001, when the romantic-comedy “My Sassy Girl” swept the local box office, and our love affair with Seoul’s exports continued with the hit TV dramas “Autumn in My Heart”, “Winter Love Song” and “Full House”. The tourism agency is naturally doing everything it can to feed the fervour, with a website offering a plethora of information on the country, including all the latest fads in its pop culture. According to the Trade Research Institute, Korean Wave netted the domestic tourism industry a cool US$825 million (Bt34 billion) last year alone. And the marketing doesn’t stop there. As soon as “Autumn in My Heart” started airing here, the tourism authorities launched package tours of the lovely locations that appear in the series.
Since then, several theme parks tied in to the popular movies and series have opened, and are proving immensely popular among both local and foreign fans. The most popular is Daejanggeum, at the headquarters of MBC TV in Yangjoo City, where the hit period drama “Daejanggeum” is primarily shot. The series is about a lower-class woman during the Joseon Dynasty who becomes the king’s first female doctor. Female journalists from Thailand, China, Japan and Vietnam were recently treated by the tourism agency to an all-swooning-all-the-time press junket centred on “Daejanggeum”. It took us from Seoul to the southern island of Jeju, and from the gracious Saenosa Temple surrounded by mountains in the southwest to Hwaseong Haenggung Palace in the modern city of Suwon, an hour’s drive from Seoul. Many “Daejanggeum” fans, especially from China and Japan, make the pilgrimage to Jeju Island, but those with less time and less cash to spare can find most of the familiar landmarks reproduced at the theme park an hour away from Seoul city centre.
The 6,600-square-metre outdoor park, which opened last year, is a miniature of Seoul’s Kyongbokkung Palace. It attracts thousands of tourists every day, and the royal kitchen, with a full range of ingredients on permanent display, is a favourite hang-out. Actor Lee Kyung Won, who plays a policeman in the series, is sometimes there signing his autograph on special “ancient” paper. Visitors can try on traditional costumes, play the game of To Ho, which involves tossing arrows into a large jar, and even experience the Gon Jang penalty, a form of corporal punishment dating back to the Chosun Dynasty.
Also attracting Thai and other Korean Wave devotees – particularly the ladies – is the $1-million house where popular rom-com series “Full House” was shot. The quiet seashore getaway, built especially for the series, is in Incheon’s Gwangyeok-si district, about 15 minutes’ drive from the international airport and a 10-minute boat ride from Sammok Harbour. Made mostly of wood, the residence is a pilgrimage site for fans wanting their photo taken with life-size cut-outs of their favourite couple, Rain and Son Hye Kyo. Less known to the tourists but a wow with the locals is the KBS theme park in the southwest city of Buan, where the TV channel has reconstructed Kyongbokkung Palace – at 80 per cent of its real size – on 15,000 square metres of foothills.
Parinyaporn Pajee
The Nation
The Washington Post article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083002985.html shows the powerful impact of the Korean Wave now in Japan.
Japanese Women Catch the 'Korean Wave'
Male Celebrities Just Latest Twist in Asia-Wide Craze
An excerpt is copied immediately below.
In recent years, the wild success of male celebrities from South Korea -- sensitive men but totally ripped -- has redefined what Asian women want, from Bangkok to Beijing, from Taipei to Tokyo. Gone are the martial arts movie heroes and the stereotypical macho men of mainstream Asian television. Today, South Korea's trend-setting screen stars and singers dictate everything from what hair gels people use in Vietnam to what jeans are bought in China. Yet for thousands of smitten Japanese women like Yoshimura, collecting the odd poster or DVD is no longer enough. They've set their sights far higher -- settling for nothing less than a real Seoulmate. The lovelorn Yoshimura signed up last year with Rakuen Korea, a Japanese-Korean matchmaking service, to find her own Korean bachelor. And she is hardly alone. More than 6,400 female clients have signed up with the company, which says its popularity has skyrocketed since 2004, when "Winter Sonata" became the first of many hot Korean television dramas to hit Japan.
"South Koreans are so sweet and romantic -- not at all like Japanese guys, who never say 'I love you,' " Yoshimura said as she waited for her blind date, a single Korean man, in the 50th-floor bar of a chic Tokyo skyscraper. A telephone operator who lives with her parents in Hiroshima, she has spent thousands of dollars on her quest for a Korean husband, flying to Seoul 10 times in the past two years and bullet-training to Tokyo for seven blind dates with Korean men. In part, the new allure of Korean men can be traced to a larger phenomenon known as the "Korean Wave," a term coined a few years ago by Beijing journalists startled by the growing popularity of South Koreans and South Korean goods in China. Now, the craze for all things Korean has spread across Asia, driving regional sales of everything from cars to kimchi. Meanwhile, the number of foreign tourists traveling to South Korea leapt from 2.8 million in 2003 to 3.7 million in 2004. The bulk of the growth, South Korean tourism officials say, stemmed from Korean Wave-loving Asian women. Partial statistics for 2005 indicate the feminine tide has not yet let up.For the South Koreans -- who have long suffered discrimination in Japan and who have hardly been known as sex symbols -- it all comes as something of a shock. Korean male celebrities are now among the highest-paid actors outside Hollywood. According to the South Korean media, "Winter Sonata" star Bae Yong Jun -- whose character stood by his first love through 10 years of car accidents and amnesia -- is now charging $5 million a film, the steepest price anywhere in Asia. In a few short years, Bae is said to have accumulated a merchandising and acting-fee empire worth an estimated $100 million. At least nine other Korean male stars earn more than $10 million a year, according to a list published in June by the Seoul-based Sports Hankook newspaper. In Seoul, the neon-lit streets are mobbed these days by visiting Asian women, many sporting rhinestone-studded T-shirts emblazoned with images of their favorite Korean stars. Some fans have been known to stake out famous eateries for hours in the hopes of catching a glimpse of their celluloid beaus.
"It's still a little hard to believe that it's gone this far," said tall, tanned Jang Dong Gun, now one of the highest-paid actors in Asia, during an interview in Seoul. Jang said he was shocked when, during his first trip to Vietnam in 1998 to promote his new Korean TV drama, thousands of women mobbed his plane at the Hanoi airport and an armada of female fans on motor scooters chased his car all the way to his hotel. In 2001, the Seoul-based manufacturer Daewoo Electronics hired him as its Vietnam spokesman. Over the past five years, the company said, its refrigerators' market share in Vietnam went from a blip to a robust 34 percent.
In China, South Korean programs broadcast on government TV networks now account for more than all other foreign programs combined, including those from the United States and Japan, according to South Korean government statistics. Even in Mexico -- land of the telenovela -- a flock of local women stood outside South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun's hotel during a recent visit, holding placards with Korean stars' names. In the United States, the Seoul-based singer Rain played two sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden in 2005. Also last year, sinewy Daniel Dae Kim, the Korean-born actor from the hit show "Lost," was the only Asian to land a spot in People magazine's "Sexiest Men Alive" edition.Entertainment industry leaders in Seoul credit the phenomenon to good marketing coupled with an uncanny response throughout Asia to the expressive nature of the South Koreans -- long dubbed the Italians of Asia. A hearty diet and two years of forced military duty, industry leaders and fans insist, have also made young South Korean men among the buffest in Asia. Most important, however, has been the South Korean entertainment industry's perfection of the strong, silent type on screen -- typically rich, kind men with coincidentally striking looks and a tendency to shower women with unconditional love. "It's a type of character that doesn't exist much in Asian movies and television, and now it's what Asian women think Korean men are like," said Kim Ok Hyun, director of Star M, a major star management company in Seoul. "But to tell you the truth," she said. "I still haven't met a real one who fits that description."
Though the Korean Wave hit Japan relatively late, washing ashore only within the past 24 to 36 months, the country has quickly become the largest market for Korean stars. Bae remains the biggest, but his supremacy is being challenged. Actor Kwon Sang Woo, for instance, is charging $200 for some seats at an upcoming "fan meeting" in Tokyo. Thousands of Japanese are scrambling for a chance to watch him play games with fans, chat and perform little song-and-dance numbers. Some tickets are going for as much as $500 on online auction sites.
The article at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/28/news/korea.php?page=1 shows how the perception of Korea has changed in the 21st century. Excerpts are copied below.
South Korea adds culture to its export power
South Korea, historically more worried about fending off cultural domination by China and Japan than spreading its own culture abroad, is emerging as the pop culture leader of Asia. From well-packaged television dramas to slick movies, from pop music to online games, South Korean companies and stars are increasingly defining what the disparate people in East Asia watch, listen to and play. The size of South Korea's entertainment industry, which began attracting heavy government investment only in the late 1990s, jumped from $8.5 billion in 1999 to $43.5 billion in 2003. In 2003, South Korea exported $650 million in cultural products; the amount was so insignificant before 1998 that the government could not provide figures But the figures tell only part of the story. The booming South Korean presence on television and in the movies has led Asians to buy up South Korean goods and to travel to South Korea, traditionally not a popular tourist destination.The images that Asians traditionally have associated with the country -- violent student marches, the demilitarized zone, division -- have given way to trendy entertainers and new technology. Candy Hsieh, 22, who was browsing through shelves of South Korean dramas at a Taipei video store, said her parents became fans and visited South Korea last year. "I used to think that Korea was a feudalistic, male-centered society," Hsieh said. "Now I don't have the same image as I had before. It seems like an open society, democratic." South Korea's entertainment industry was born for business and political reasons in the late 1990s. Increasingly rich Asians were thought to be receptive to new sources of entertainment. What is more, South Korea, which long banned cultural imports from Japan, its former colonial ruler, was preparing to lift restrictions starting in 1998. Seoul was worried about the onslaught of Japanese music, videos and dramas, already popular on the black market. So in 1998 the Culture Ministry, armed with a substantial budget increase, carried out its first five-year plan to build up the domestic industry. The ministry encouraged colleges to open culture industry departments, providing equipment and scholarships. The number of such departments has risen from almost zero to more than 300.
In 2002, the ministry opened the Korea Culture and Content Agency to encourage exports. By the time almost all restrictions on Japanese culture were lifted in January 2004, the Korean Wave -- a term coined in China -- had washed across Asia. To South Koreans like Kim Hyun Kyung, a director at Cheil Communications, an advertising agency in Seoul, feeling the reach of their culture for the first time was surprising. In 2001, during a trip to Los Angeles, she met a Chinese woman who brightened up when she learned that she was Korean. "She was a big fan of Kim Hee Sun," Kim said, referring to a South Korean actress who is now more popular in China than at home. "She was happy that I had the same last name as she did. We were meeting for the first time, but she had a favorable image of Korea."
South Korean dramas and music have started edging out American and Japanese ones in Taiwan, which caught the Korean Wave early this decade. Five years ago, Gala TV here paid $1,000 for one hour of a South Korean drama, compared with $15,000 to $20,000 for a Japanese one, said the network's vice president, Lai Tsung Pi. Now, a South Korean drama commands $7,000 to $15,000; a Japanese, $6,000 to $12,000. "Korean dramas are considered more emotionally powerful, and their actors are willing to come here to promote them," Lai said. "Because of the Korean dramas, Taiwanese people have become more willing to buy their products." Sales of South Korean consumer goods and cars have risen sharply in Taiwan in the past five years as well.
South Korea has also begun wielding the non-economic side of its new soft power. The official Korean Overseas Information Service last year gave "Winter Sonata" to Egyptian television, paying for the Arabic subtitles. The goal was to generate positive feelings in the Arab world toward the 3,200 South Korean soldiers stationed in northern Iraq. There have been unintended effects too. Copies of South Korean dramas and music are increasingly being smuggled from China into North Korea.
One popular drama in the Communist North was "All In," the true story of a South Korean gambler who went to Las Vegas with only $18 and became a millionaire. North Korean women began copying the hairstyle of its lead actress, Song Hae Kyo, prompting the authorities there to crack down on "untidy" hair, said Kim Yang Rae, director general of the Korean Foundation for Asian Culture Exchange.
But the worry of a possible backlash -- Taiwan, for instance, is considering a 20 percent tariff on Korean programs -- impelled the Culture Ministry two years ago to form the cultural exchange foundation, to prevent Southeast Asian countries from feeling that they are regarded only as markets. "We've never had this experience of seeing our culture spread outside our country," Kim said about Korea's modern history. "I'm very proud, but also very cautious."
