With a backdrop of smiling Korean star Bae Yong-joon, a Japanese enthusiastic fan gets a snapshot taken by a friend at a recent photo exhibition in Tokyo Thursday, Oct. 21, 2004. Koreans have a harsh history in Japan. Their homeland was under Tokyo’s colonist yoke for 35 years, and in Japan they still face discrimination and cruel stereotypes. But thanks to the mega-hit South Korean soap opera ‘Winter Sonata,’ in which Bae plays a leading role, Koreans these days also face something quite different in Japan: mass adulation. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)
Nulji Maripkan feel good material:
TOKYO — Koreans have a harsh history in Japan. Their homeland was under Tokyo’s colonist yoke for 35 years, and in Japan they still face discrimination and cruel stereotypes. But thanks to the mega-hit South Korean soap opera “Winter Sonata,” Koreans these days also face something quite different in Japan: adulation.
On visits to Tokyo, the show’s two main actors — Bae Yong-joon, 32, and Choi Ji-woo, 29 — are mobbed by swooning fans, and sales of chewing gum and chocolates they advertise have surged.
Japanese are filling Korean language classes, crooning Korean pop songs at karaoke clubs and buying out flights to Seoul to visit places featured in the drama.
Ayumi Udagawa, 30, has gone a step further. Like thousands of women in recent months, she has registered with a matchmaking agency for the ultimate hot-selling item: a Korean husband.
“When I watched the drama, Korean men were so attractive and different from Japanese men,” she gushed. “I want to meet a masculine, passionate Korean man.”
The always amusing Ryann Connell over at the Mainichi Wai Wai covers this phenomenon as well:
While [Korean actress] Choi {Ji-woo] may be for the boys, Korean hunks are dampening more panties than the condensation that builds up in the annual rainy season. And the love affair with Korea may still continue.
“It would be too hasty yet to write this boom off as a mere fad. I think there’s still plenty of steam left in it yet,” Sekine tells Shukan Taishu. “Make no mistake - there’re going to be more Korean celebrities making their mark in Japan’s TV ad world yet.”
Apparently, some of the natives aren’t particularly happy about all this, however:
While the news is a delight for those who’ve longed for closer ties between the two countries whose relationship has often been clouded by Japan’s frequently brutal colonization of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945, old habits die hard and not everybody is happy with the Hanryu Boomu. Particularly peeved are Japan’s glitterati.
“CDs aren’t selling, there are none of the idols who used to command national attention being manufactured anymore and the entertainment world here has reached its saturation point. TV commercials have become the most reliable and lucrative source of income for both Japanese entertainers and production companies,” a TV production company employee says. “Yet, with the Lost Decade, companies aren’t shelling out the cash for advertising like they had been doing in the good old days. In short, what you’ve got (with all the Koreans) is a much smaller pie and more people than ever before scrambling to get a slice of it.”
And it’s not just commercials where Koreans appear likely to step on the toes of their Japanese counterparts. Local networks are buying up hit shows from across the Sea of Japan and airing them instead of Japanese produced dramas that provided natives with employment.
Gee, I guess headlines like “Mika swings to ‘Wobbly Tits, Tiny Waist and Bouncy Hips, Let’s Share Them All Around‘” just ain’t the draw they used to be (nice rack on the one to the right, though). Bummer.
The great part about this story is that not only are Japanese chicks apparently providing a steady stream of ready lays to masculine Korean studs (as long as they avoid pieces like this), but they’re also doing their part to keep Korean city streets clean:
“I would like to clean Chuncheon streets where Japanese tourists frequently visit.”
Murakami Shizu, the 35-year-old head of a Japanese fan club for Korean actor Bae Yong-jun, sent a letter to Chuncheon mayor Ryu Chong-su, saying she would like to clean Chuncheon’s streets on Dec. 4. She plans to visit Korea from Dec. 3 with ten members of the fan club.
The Japanese woman added, “I suppose a lot of Japanese people visited Chuncheon this year due to the popularity of Winter Sonata.” She also noted, “I want to clean the city, which will be messed up by Japanese people by the end of the year.”
Jeez, Bae is not only putting fannies in the hotels and getting guys laid, but also improving urban sanitation in provincial cities while he’s at it. He’s the best thing to happen to Korea since Samsung (the BusinessWeek piece is worth reading, BTW).
To the other side of the Da’ Peninsula, however, China has hinted that it would appreciate some cultural reciprocity:
HONG KONG — The Chinese government has begun requesting that Korea run as many Chinese soaps and movies on Korean TV as Korean dramas have succeeded in entering Chinese homes. The deputy minister of Culture and Tourism, Bae Jong-sin, met with Chinese correspondents in Hong Kong on Tuesday and said, “The Chinese Minister of Culture Sun Jiazheng, explaining the rapid expansion of the ‘Korean Wave’ in China, asked for cooperation so that a ‘Chinese Wind’ could blow in Korea as well.” He added, “Minister Sun said European culture had led the world for the last 500 years, but the era in which Asian culture should lead global culture has come.”
29 Comments
‘feel good piece for nulji…’
didn’t make me feel anything, marmot. i really couldn’t care less whether
the japanese or anybody else likes k-culture though i think the korean wave in
japan will be beneficial for both countries. are you now going to start attacking
me because i attack your brothers in the same manner they attack koreans?
go ahead, marmot. i’ll still be visiting.
go ahead, marmot. i?€™ll still be visiting.
Speaking on behalf of the editorial staff here at the Marmot’s Hole, I express gratitude for your readership and welcome the insight you generously bring to our discussions.
Bae isn’t that popular in Korea. I’d like to knock his dumb smiles off the covers.
Still, this is all beneficial to cultural exchanges. Korea should reciprocate to China and Japan and accept more of their cultures.
You gotta be kidding about China… Oh my god…that is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever read this week. TV shows run on ratings, i.e. money, not where it comes from. I respect a nation’s decision to block material –but to ask another country to air stuff, like China’s request–That is plain silly. Culture you can do your best to block but not force on people. People make culture not governments… Hilarious man. Hilarious. ahhh… good laugh for this week.
aa: good laugh for this week.
Pretty much what I thought when I read it. The laughing stops, however, when it becomes a trade issue, which it could conceivably become. Unfortunate, but true.
Personally, I’d like to see more “Wobbly Tits, Tiny Waist and Bouncy Hips, Let?€™s Share Them All Around” on Korean TV, but I gather the Ministry of Culture and Tourism might have a problem with that.
“The Chinese government has begun requesting that Korea run as many Chinese soaps and movies on Korean TV as Korean dramas have succeeded in entering Chinese homes.”
Well, I guess korean people don’t really want to watch talk shows and documentaries that seem to be the mainfare on CCTV4 and CCTV9 that I get on my cable; but Korean people have been eagerly watching HK/Taiwanese films/TV for so long, I think it’s very unfair that official would say that.
Many Korean guys between the ages 18-35 might have grown up watching more Chow Yun Fat and Jacky Chan films inspired by HK authors like Jin Rong than Korean tv. Korean TV or films, just did not cater to young males at all. (for more info: http://www.koreanfilm.org) It seems that most of the Korean drama/film that gets exported to China seems to be the sappy sheizza that Korean males try to avoid during prime time, and I can’t imagine how Chinese soaps would do in Korea when Korea is inundated with this crap for the past 15 years.
CCTV might want to do more well made wuxia dramas if they want to export to Korea
Virtual wonderer — you never mentioned which part of Suffolk County you were from. Being from [East] Islip myself, I was just curious. Feel free not to answer, of course.
“Pretty much what I thought when I read it. The laughing stops, however, when it becomes a trade issue, which it could conceivably become. Unfortunate, but true.”
Okay–well ya…maybe you got a point there. Makes me now also think of the trade issue between Korea and US right now, and one of the points being Korea’s screen quota.
Also, this is like an outright evidence of China wanted to regulate Korea more into its sphere, which kinda makes me worried.
Anyways laugh was good for awhile. Laughing helps the immune system or so they say
He’s called Yon-sama in Japan, and I really don’t see the attraction. He looks like a very studious woman if you ask me.
That’s because you’re not an Asian woman. Different strokes for different folks.
He looks like a very studious woman if you ask me.
I thought he looked rather like harry potter.
you guys are just jealous of him. He’s very handsome in Scandal.
The evil japanese have made him change his name, just as they made kind coreans change their names to japanee ones during their creul occupation.
foreigners should love Corea as the Japanse love YAMASAN with the “corean wave” otherwose go away foreigners. GO HOME
OK, let me jot that down… must love Corea, like Japanese love Yongsama and Korean Wave… must spell Korea with a “C”… if not, go home. OK, I think I got it. Need to make a definitive list of these things one day.
‘bae looks like a woman.’
i thought the same thing though i also thought he
looked like a dude in ‘untold scandal’. it’s his hair
that makes him look like a girl.
‘you’re just jeolous.’
i think many of the expats here don’t like
the idea of japanese women finding korean men
attractive and manly. it fucks with their stereotypes.
Marm,
I am from Greenlawn which is one LIRR stop away from Huntington–I assume you know Huntington as it is a big bartown in a very wannabee collegetown fratboy way. You are only 3 years older than me, so if you were a dork like me, I might have seen you during a mathletes competititon or during a wrestling match, as if my memory serves me correctly, Islip hosts wrestling tournaments. (although I can’t remember if that’s East or West Islip.)
Well, I guess we are from pretty much opposite ends of Long Island. Although, I am currently a resident of Queens, if you are ever in the area, I will buy you a pint of beer at Gunther’s (a blue collar dive bar in Northport frequented by such luminary like Jack Kerouac)
I also get CCTV4 and CCTV9 and I have to say, they are very boring. I wouldn’t bother with 9 since its the English language channel and all they show is news, talk shows, and documentaries, and nothing in the least bit entertaining. CCTV-4 is also a generalist channel though focused primarily on Hong Kong I believe and it has a couple of wuxia dramas and even more family themed melodramas. I don’t know which satellite picks up CCTV-1 but thats the main channel and I want to say CCTV-8 is the movie one but im not quite sure. Theres even a channel dedicated to military affairs so if you want to know when an invasion of Taiwan is coming, be sure to keep your eyes tuned.
There just doesn’t seem to be any good TV in the entire Pacific rim. It feels like 90% of televsion aired in east asia consists of ridiculous game shows, nauseating melodramas, and an infinite number of talk shows.
Might I add Holy Cow! I had no idea the man in dangerous liason was this effete individual. I don’t think it was neccessarily the hair that disguised him, but rather the fact that he had facial hair that had him seem more masculine.
Jing, again, I apologize for my previous comments.
Just for fun news, that “effete” individual actually went on a supposed diet of chicken breast and has been pumping irons. His pictures are posted on the Korean Drama section of the Koreafilm.org—that picture of his bulging six pack might be digitally enhanced however.
CCTV reminds me of Korea’s ArirangTV– it’s a textbook case of why government run TV stations suck hiney. Korea’s KBS2 USED to be entertaining when it was called TBS(sp??) before the Korean dictator’s took it over. Note to commmunist officials at CCTV: More T&A and violence will mean Korean population will happily import Chinese shows.
Nulji, as one of Marmot’s ‘brothers’ let me say for one I would be delighted if every Korean man got a Japanese bride. Let The Loving Begin, hyungs and dongsangs!!
Sheesh, it’s a fluff piece! Don’t you ever lighten up?
Marmy,
I grew up in the Bronx. If you’re ever in the area, I’ll take you to the corner bodega for a 40 oz bottle of Olde English 800 and some phillies cigars with something special added.
I think it’s the lip gloss that does it.
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