The NYT ran a piece today on the ever increasing cultural exchanges taking place between South Korea and Japan — definitely worth reading, even if you don’t consider Yuko Fueki (Korean: Yu Min) a cultural bellwether. Here’s a snippet to whet your appetite:
In recent years, especially since Japan and South Korea were co-hosts of the World Cup in 2002, the exchange in popular culture has risen sharply. Although the legacies of Japan’s brutal colonial rule here remain close to the surface, the cultural interchange signifies a profound change in the relations between the countries since Japanese troops withdrew at the end of World War II.
Last month, South Korea lifted almost all restrictions on the import of Japanese culture after tentatively opening its market in 1998. For the first time, South Koreans can legally buy CD’s of Japanese singers and rent Japanese movies at the local video store. Japanese can now be heard on cable television, which until recently would have been greeted with the same kind of outraged reaction from some listeners as playing Wagner does in Israel.
In Japan, many people who had never thought about the Korean peninsula are watching South Korean television dramas and studying the language. Kimchi — the spicy pickled vegetable that is Korea’s national dish — would have been dismissed a generation ago, but it is now becoming a favorite in Japan.
A new generation of entertainers like Ms. Fueki — or BoA, a Korean singer who is now famous in Japan — are effortlessly crossing borders between the countries, as well as to Taiwan, Singapore and China.
Interesting piece — go read it.
5 Comments
Some of the kimchi that I got in Japan only looked like kimchi. It tasted exactly like normal Japanese pickles, with no spiciness whatsoever. Not too bad on its own terms, but I could never figure out exactly what all the red stuff really was…
There is a small town in Kyushu near Fukuoka named Chinzei-cho that has an exchange program with Korea. Since the late 80s, smaller towns in Japan have been focusing on becoming well known for specific products to promote local economic revitalization. Chinzei-cho had Koreans come over to teach them how to make kimchi, and the product they make and sell in Kyushu is indistinguishable in taste from the kimchi I have eaten at several Pusan restaurants.
Be that as it may, it is commonplace for the foods of one country to get modified to one extent or another to please the palates of those in another country. Happens everywhere. Most Italians wouldn’t recognize some of the pizza variations they sell in the US, not to mention some of the more outre creations in Japan with corn and potato salad.
And before we get all purist gourmet about Japanese kimchi, I’ll point out that many people think the sushi sold in the U.S. at restaurants operated by Koreans doesn’t quite measure up to the original, so that’s a two-way street. (c.f., the sushi sold in one section of the restaurant caddy-cornered from Penn Station in NYC.)
As for the rising Japanese interest in Korea, this has been building up steam since the very late 80s, early 90s. I think what we’re seeing is a move to the next level (and about dang time).
One sign–since the World Cup, newspapers and TV stations in Japan more frequently cover South Korean news, and are much more likely to run photos and images of signs and other things, written in Korean, as well as clips of television programs from both North and South.
In fact, I think everyone in Japan gets a kick out of the announcing style of the newsreaders on NK TV!
Man, what makes people on the Internet so uptight? My post was supposed to be lightly amusing, not some kind of attack on Japanese kimchi. Yes, I had perfectly good “Korean-style” kimchi in Japan. And yes, the Korean food in general tends to very good (and accurate) in Japan. And yes again, I’m perfectly aware of the ways in which food tends to change to suit the tastes of different cultures. Isn’t this implicit? I mean, who doesn’t know this? Why does it need explaining? One look at (or taste of) the mayonnaise or squid-ink pizza in Japan should make this point very clear.
The point of that small, insignificant post, as if it really needs explaining, was to point out how perfectly the kimchi I ate had been “acculturated.” It looked _exactly_ like Korean kimchi, but tasted _exactly_ like Japanese pickles. The point of my post was the point of your response.
“Man, what makes people on the Internet so uptight?”
The only uptight post I see around here is your second one. Your first one was incomprehensible, based on what you say you were trying to tell us.
“My post was supposed to be lightly amusing”
If you have to tell us that it was lightly amusing, it wasn’t.
“I had perfectly good “Korean-style” kimchi in Japan.”
Maybe you should have told us that to start with.
Oh sure, I’m uptight by nature. However, you can’t in all honesty say your post didn’t have even a tiny bit up uptightness, can you?
Anyway, as I said, I’d think that the whole issue of “food acculturation” is a fairly obvious one, and that it would be easy to grasp, even in an extremely trivial post like my first one. It may not have been amusing to you, but then my humor tends to be a bit obscure. Then again, I don’t see how anyone could’ve interpreted it as a serious post about the non-serious issue of kimchi in Japan. However, I’ll grant that some topics that seem trivial to me don’t seem that way to others. Are only utterly serious posts allowed in the Marmot Hole?
Anyway, I’d hope that you haven’t taken any offense, as none was intended (well, maybe not oo much…).