Jang Geum is played by Lee Young Ae (born January 31, 1971 in Seoul) is a famous South Korean actress who has a great fan base in numerous countries, particularly in the East and Southeast Asian countries which have been hit by the Korean Wave (한류) which refers to the recent surge of popularity of South Korean popular culture in other countries, especially in Asian countries. It is also referred to as Hallyu, from the Korean pronunciation of the term. The term was coined in China in mid 1999 by Beijing journalists startled by the growing popularity of South Koreans and South Korean goods in China. The Korean Wave began with the export of Korean TV dramas such as Jewel in the Palace.
Her popularity among East Asian countries has grown in an exponential manner due to her poignant performance in the popular Korean drama Dae Jang Geum. The drama was such a success that several countries had re-runs of the drama shortly after the last episode had ended. In Hong Kong, the last episode had almost half of the Hong Kong population staying at home just to watch it. In China, hundreds of million viewers watched the drama even it was shown at late nights. Since then, Lee Young-Ae has been invited to visit Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, China and Japan. The fan crowds were phenomenal. Her recent trip was the 2007 Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in China as an Image Ambassador. Many fans came from around the world and spent hours waiting for her under the temperature of -20 degrees Celsius. She flew in an Asiana airplane with four of her Dae Jang Geum portraits painted on the side of the plane.
Dae Jang Geum has experienced massive success across Asia, in places such as Iran, mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, further continuing the “Korean wave” cultural fever that gripped Asia in the early 2000s. For three months, beginning in May 2004, Dae Jang Geum aired in Taiwan, overtaking other Taiwanese miniseries, and snatching the title of most viewed program of the season. In September 2005, it was shown on Hong Kong’s TVB where it became the top program in Hong Kong history. In spring 2004, Dae Jang Geum also gained popularity in the West when the drama aired in 60 episodes on WOCH-Ch in Chicago, drawing large numbers of aficionados. It has also been shown in Australia and Canada. 
The site at: http://www.korea.net/korea/G08_board_view.asp?board_no=92 says:
Korean TV drama capturing Iranian hearts
June 02, 2007
Having crossed Asia, a Korean historical drama is now gaining fans in Iran, a Chinese magazine reported. The mini-series “Jewel in the Palace” (Daejanggeum in Korean), which became an Asian-wide megahit, is currently being aired on Iran's state TV Channel 2 and has topped the ratings there, according to China's Weekly World News on Tuesday (May 29). With nearly half of the episodes having aired, the main actors -- Lee Young-ae as Lady Jang-geum and Ji Jin-Hee as court official Min Jung-ho -- have become well known among Iranian viewers as more and more local TV magazines run their stories. “Daejanggeum" is based on the life of a 16th century royal cook Jang-geum in the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) who became the first and only woman physician to serve a Korean king.
With its growing popularity, an increasing number of blogs and online cafes in Iran are covering the series, the Chinese weekly reported, introducing “Yen Yen” as one of the most active Daejanggeum-related Internet cafes where users can discuss Korean culture and exchange information about the drama. One Teheran University student who posted a comment on the website, said Korea's Confucianist culture is similar to Muslim culture since it stresses self-discipline and cultivation of the mind. Another viewer wrote that the drama is a thumbs-up export item that introduces the beauty of traditional Korean clothes and food to Iranians, who used to know only Hyundai cars and gadgets from Samsung Electronics. Daejanggeum is helping Iranians differentiate Korean culture from that of China and Japan, the weekly quoted Yen Yen's owner as saying.
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.
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 LiSong 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.
Order Dae Jang Geum DVD Series
Dae Jang Geum is available in 3 volumes, each of which has six 3-hour DVDs for a total of 18 hours per volume and 54 hours for the series. In NYC, the series is available from Koryo Books in Korea town at 35 W 32nd Street and (212) 564-1844 where each volume sells for about $90. Volume I is available only for about $70 at YesAsia.com. Each volume is available on Amazon.com for about $90.
