Reading Asian Television Drama: Crossing Borders and Breaking Boundaries 9780755697274, 9781845118600

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Notes on Contributors Md Azalanshah is a tutor in the department of Media Studies, the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, University of Malaya. He is currently researching transnational culture and soap operas in Malaysia for a PhD in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Robert L. Cagle has had essays on film, television and popular culture appear in journals such as Cinema Journal, The Velvet Light Trap and CineAction, as well as in various anthologies. He is presently working on a project examining the use of melodramatic conventions in popular South Korean feature films and television dramas. Brenda Chan is an assistant professor in Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Dr Chan’s research interests focus upon the impact of globalization on cultural identities, and the articulation of gender and class in popular culture. She has published research on how Korean television dramas motivate female viewers to visit Korea. Anthony Y.H. Fung is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received his PhD from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. His research vii

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interests include the political economy of popular music and culture, gender and youth identity, cultural studies, cyber communities and new media technologies. His books include New Television, Globalization, and the East Asian Cultural Imagination (co-authored with Michael Keane and Albert Moran 2007), Global Capital, Local Culture: Transnational Media Corporations in China (2008), Riding a Melodic Tide: The Development of Cantopop in Hong Kong (edited Chinese volume 2009) and Policies for the Sustainable Development of the Hong Kong Film Industry (co-authored with Chan and Hung Ng forthcoming). Basil Glynn has lectured in Film and Television Studies for the Open University and several universities in the UK and Europe. He is particularly interested in cinematic and televisual representations of the human body. He has published on television series such as CSI and The Tudors, and is co-editor of the collection Television, Sex and Society: Analyzing Contemporary Representations. Hilaria Gössmann majored in Japanese Studies and German Literature and received her PhD from the University of Trier in 1992. She held a research position at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo from 1992 to 1995. Since 1995, she has been Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Trier, Germany. The focus of her research is on gender and interculturality in modern Japanese literature and TV drama. She has edited a Japanese book (together with Muramatsu Yasuko) on the construction of gender in Japanese and German media (Media ga tsukuru jendā. Nichidoku no danjo -kazokuzō, Tōkyō, Shinyōsha 1998) and several books in German such as Interkulturelle Begegnungen in Literatur, Film und Fernsehen. Ein deutsch-japanischer Vergleich (Intercultural Encounters in Literature, Film and TV: A German-Japanese Comparison, with Andreas Mrugalla and Renate Jaschke, to be published by Iudicium).

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Chris Hudson is Programme Manager of the Globalization and Culture Programme, in the Global Cities Research Institute at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests are Asian media, transformations in Asian urban space, globalization and transnational identities. Her latest publication is a chapter on global cities in The Routledge International Handbook of Globalization Studies (ed. Bryan S. Turner). Maimuna Dali Islam is an associate professor of English and Asian Studies at The College of Idaho, a small liberal arts college in the United States. Her academic interests are often interdisciplinary and focus on post-colonial literature; the representation of Asians – particularly Muslims – in Western media and the literature of activism and social justice. She is also interested in and teaches courses on contemporary Asian pop culture and fandom. Jeongmee Kim is a senior lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has published in academic journals such as Critical Studies in Television and Media, Culture & Society. She is currently working on numerous projects on topics including sexuality in Asian television, Asian blockbusters and contemporary Korean television drama. Griseldis Kirsch studied Japanese Studies, English Literature and Social Anthropology at the University of Trier, Germany where she graduated in 2001. Between 2001 and 2004, she worked as a research fellow on the project ‘Japan’s turn to Asia in Japanese media, literature and popular culture’. She received her PhD from the University of Trier in 2008 with a thesis on the representations of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong in Japanese film and TV drama. Since 2007, she has been a lecturer in contemporary Japanese culture at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her publications include ‘Spiritual Healing in China? Encounters with the People’s Republic of China in Japanese Cinema and TV Drama’ (in Martina Schönbein, Stephan

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Köhn [eds]. : Facetten der japanischen Populär- und Medienkultur, Vol. 2. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007 pp. 45–68). Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley was Head of Chinese Studies at the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies Ningbo, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, 2005–7. She is now Research Fellow at the Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds. She is the editor of Global Chinese Cinema: The Culture and Politics of ‘Hero’ (edited with Gary Rawnsley), published by Routledge in 2010. She is currently writing a monograph entitled Cultural and Social Changes in Taiwan: Society, Cinema and Theatre.

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank all of the authors who have contributed to this collection for their commitment and scholarship. I am particularly grateful to Philippa Brewster for her support and belief in the book, and the series editors, Kim Akass and Janet McCabe, for their comments and advice. I would also like to thank Professor Robin Nelson and Professor Stephen Lacey for their help and encouragement in getting this project off the ground. Stephen Glynn, who read and provided feedback on this book at various stages of its development, was an incredible help, and for his unselfish aid I profoundly thank him. I also thank the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Institute for Performing Research at Manchester Metropolitan University for supporting my research and giving me the time to devote to this book. I am also indebted to my husband who, in addition to helping me tremendously with the manuscript, has been there for me throughout with cups of tea, a sympathetic ear and an uncanny ability to say the right thing just when I needed it.

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Editorial Notes All authors are given with their first name followed by surname. Exceptions appear in in-text citations where there is more than one author with the same surname and the same year of publication. In this case the surname is followed by the first name to clarify whose publication is being referred to. English titles have been used for foreign language television programmes. If one has not already been in existence, the authors’ own translations have been used. For actors’ and directors’ names, as is the common convention of most of the Asian countries discussed in this book, family names are given before first names. Television programmes are presented with the date of broadcast in the originating country unless otherwise stated.

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Introduction: East Asian Television Drama: A Story of Booms, Fevers and Waves Jeongmee Kim This collection considers the institutional, economic, cultural, religious and political contexts at local, regional and global levels of transnational East Asian television drama. In its various chapters contributors look at East Asian drama’s narrative and aesthetic elements, its ideological content, its marketing, circulation and reception, its gendered construction and consumption, its imagery and stars, as well as its role as producer and product of national, regional and global cultural forces. In the process of mapping out important areas of consideration in East Asian television drama and presenting their conceptual conclusions, it will be seen that the authors in this collection are not always in agreement. It has been from the outset the deliberate intention of this book, in refraining from imposing a rigid preconceived framework or a conclusive agenda, to present a heterogeneous picture of the East Asian television drama scene. It is a subject area that, as the reader will discover, has produced and will continue to produce wildly divergent opinions amongst journalists, academics, fans, production companies and even 1

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governments, and the chapters in this collection reflect this spirit of debate – and in academic circles there has never been more debate over East Asian popular culture than at the present moment. Numerous academic volumes and articles have recently appeared that explore, inter alia, the cinemas of China (Berry and Farquhar 2006; Chow 2007; Deppman 2010; Huiqun 2010; Khoo and Metzger 2009; McGrath 2008; Pickowicz and Zhang 2006; Rawnsley and Rawnsley 2010; Su 2010; Zhang 2009; Zhen 2007; Zhu and Rosen 2010), Japan (Berra 2010; 2012), Hong Kong (Cheung 2010; Lee, Vivian P.Y. 2009; Marchetti and Kam 2007; Morris et al. 2006), Korea (Ahn 2011; Choi 2010; Gateward 2007; Jeong 2011; Kim, Kyung Hyun 2012; Paquet 2009) and Taiwan (Berry and Lu 2005; Davis and Chen 2007); specific Asian genres such as J-horror (Balmain 2008; Harper 2008; Kalat 2007; McRoy 2005; 2008)1; and the popular cultural output of countries like China (Kang 2004), Hong Kong (Lo 2005), Japan (Allen and Sakamoto 2006; Condry 2006) and Korea (Cho 2005; Chua and Iwabuchi 2008a; Jung 2009; Jung 2010; Kim and Kim 2011; Lee 2004b; Lee, Keehyeung 2008; Park 2006; Russell 2008; Ryoo 2009; Shim 2006a; 2008; Yang 2008b).2 In relation to television drama specifically, scholars have recently tended to discuss it in relation to individual nations such as Japan (Chun 2007; Iwabuchi 2004a; Lukács 2010; Yoshimoto et al. 2010), geo-linguistic regions such as the Chinese market where Mandarin-speaking audiences can be targeted (Zhu 2008a; 2008b; Zhu and Berry 2009a) or geo-cultural regions3 in which particular nations have cultural affinity with other nations such as Confucian East Asia (Chua and Iwabuchi 2008a). As can be seen from the sheer number of works and the variety of nations and national groupings under discussion in this briefest of outlines of recent work on the area, looking to define the transnational cultural identity or Asian characteristics of the popular cultural products circulating Asia at the moment is no easy undertaking. It is a task made even more difficult by the fact that sometimes it is finished films and television programmes that circulate and sometimes it is the idea of films and television

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programmes. On occasion the idea can prove to be far more lucrative than the finished product. For example, some Asian film industries have found a profitable alternative to selling their finished films, which are unattractive in English-speaking markets such as the US due to needing subtitles, by selling remake rights instead. Rather than buying completed films, Hollywood has begun to view ‘Asian films as raw material’, a move ‘initially triggered by the deal to remake the Japanese horror film Ringu (Hideo Nakada, Japan 1998) in 2001 and the subsequent box office success of its remake The Ring (Gore Verbinski, USA 2002) just one year later’ (Joo 2008: 12). In television similar developments have taken place as television producers are increasingly conceiving of television programmes ‘as intellectual property with brand potential’ (Shimpach 2010: 4). The ‘idea’ of television programmes has become a new and interesting area in the academic study of Asian television. Keane, Fung and Moran (2007),4 for example, have focused on the trade in television programme ideas and how franchises like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, The Weakest Link and Super Girl have been redeveloped in different ways in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. In addition to the legitimate trade in intellectual property, Keane has also discussed the less legitimate ‘borrowing’ of television formats that has occurred across Asia through the production of unlicensed versions of popular global formats in areas such as China (2004: 17). Yet when discussing any of these shows in relation to Asian television there is a clear problem. As Keane et al. admit, the ‘DNA’ of such programmes is not Asian (2007: 10). In the words of Graham Murdock, the programmes may be made in Asia, but they were not created there: ‘They follow the familiar pattern of global manufacture in which assembly is dispersed, but planning, design, and origination remain concentrated in the leading capitalist economies of the North and West’ (2008: 190). Unlike global formats such as reality shows, lifestyle programmes, quiz and game shows which are so easily transformable into local forms by using local talent, language, locations and interests to the

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extent that ‘the foreign text is absorbed, cleansed and localised’(Keane et al. 2007: 50), East Asian dramas (which on the whole are written, produced and made by East Asians) force audiences of one culture to recognize the artistic creations of other cultures as different from their own and to engage with them as such. As opposed to ideas which are endlessly reconfigured and retooled, finished dramas land in foreign markets in ways that make them less easily cleansed and localized. When they cross borders, new audiences are exposed to foreign stars, settings, customs, manners and beliefs. Thus drama is the ideal focus when considering the ways in which cross-border television impacts upon transcultural understanding. In spite of being at the forefront of East Asian cultural flow in recent years, East Asian television drama itself has seldom been the specific focus of close examination. When it has been looked at, it has tended to be in relation to specific Asian countries or exclusively within the context of Confucian East Asia. In contrast, although this book is about East Asian television drama, it is not about television drama exclusively within East Asia. While it is evident that East Asian societies have many things in common, with many constituent nations having shared similar cultural and philosophical values based on a shared exposure to a Confucian heritage, scholarly focus on dominant East Asian groups and ideals has sidelined important non-Confucian demographic groups of Asian drama fans such as Islamic and Christian Asians, second- and third-generation diasporic Asian communities outside of Asia and non-Asian fans. Thus, this collection asserts, East Asian television needs to be considered in relation to more diverse audience groups and broader geographic spaces. The need to re-imagine East Asian television in a broader context is necessary not only to allow for the study of a widerthan-Confucian demographic of cultural identities, but because East Asian television is today a truly global phenomenon. As Ying Zhu and Chris Berry explain in relation to the global reach of Chinese television:

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When one takes Chinese diasporic audience figures into account the numbers really are important. As Michael Curtin makes clear in his book, Playing to the World’s Biggest Audience: The Global­ ization of Chinese Film and TV (2007), the television market he discusses is greater than the number of television households in Europe and America combined.5 Yet, impressively large as this audience is, it forms only part of the bigger picture. East Asian television drama has also been breaking out of specific geo-cultural markets such as the Chinese. Indeed, it has been breaking out of the Asian market altogether. Some Korean dramas, for example, have attained popularity in predominantly Islamic Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia as well as principally Hindu countries like India (Cho 2011: 385). Korean dramas have reached television screens in the United States, Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East (Kim 2009: 3; Shim 2008: 27). Love Rain (KBS 2012), for instance, was sold to 12 countries in Asia, North America and Europe while it was being aired in Korea. Even in countries where Asian television drama has not made a significant impact, as Gabriella Lukács points out, there still exist the ‘pop cosmopolitans’ who ‘may have stumbled onto the dramas while visiting an international grocery store in search of ingredients for ethnic food or while flipping by an Asian cable channel’(2010: 196). This global impact makes it important to consider transborder flows of East Asian television drama at national, transregional and transnational levels: to look not just at the West-to-East flows of television (which had been the main routes considered by theorists of cultural imperialism from the 1960s onwards who discussed the

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a number of Chinese-language stations operate in the United States, and Singa­ pore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Canada all have Chineselanguage stations. Furthermore, Chinese-language programs are not produced only in the core Greater China territories of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China. They are also produced in Australia and many other countries. (2009b: 2)

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impact of predominantly Western programming on local cultures)6 or the inter-Asian flows of transnational television (which is the critical focus at the moment),7 but also the circulation of dramas outside of East Asia and, additionally, East-to-West export. Consequently, several chapters in this book, in addition to looking at inter-Asian television flows, also examine East Asian dramas outside of their geo-cultural comfort zones in Islamic Southeast Asian Malaysia, the United Kingdom and globally via nationally, ethnically and religiously diverse Internet communities. In addition, various chapters in this collection – while still closely engaging with the debates currently surrounding Asian television relating to Asian identity (for instance, see Chua 2007; Lin and Tong 2008; Yang 2008b) – move the discussion forwards in order to explore different ways of approaching and thinking about East Asian television drama as popular entertainment and, at its finest, as an art form. East Asian television drama encompasses genres ranging from comedy to tragedy and depicts the most ancient practices from the darkest reaches of history to the most contemporary aspects of modern city life. From the shoddiest, cheapest productions to the most beautiful, sumptuous and lavish visual epics, East Asia has provided images in its drama that range from the execrable to the sublime. Such images are worthy of close study as works of creativity and imagination as well as for what they reveal about the Asian societies producing them. Recognizing the ever-changing vogues and vagaries of television producers and consumers, any writer on television has to accept, as Shawn Shimpach succinctly puts it, that ‘television is and always has been in transition’ (2010: 1). Making a similar point, Chua Beng Huat states: ‘like all pop culture products, TV dramas are short-lived. The affection of consumers, even fans, is ephemeral, changing rapidly with the latest trends and icons’ (Chua 2008: 85). Taking the short-lived popularity of any particular television drama into account, this book is a product, like the television shows it is discussing, of its moment of creation. It does not claim to be comprehensive. Yet it does claim to be timely; this book has been

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developed during a period when the circulation of East Asian television drama has come to a crossroads, or perhaps it should more accurately be called a nexus point, given the number of countries and dramas involved in its transnational flows. The decline of the Korean Wave (or hallyu, as dramas and other exported cultural products from South Korea are internationally known)8 has been declared in some quarters while in others it has been announced that a second wave is underway9 (see Brenda Chan and Jeongmee Kim in this collection). It is therefore a particularly pertinent time to consider the ramifications of this particular wave’s impacts and influences. Yet it is not only because of its topicality that Korean Wave drama deliberately forms a centre of attention in this collection. It is also because it is the most recent transnational television phenomenon in East Asia, one that has most lately produced the greatest commitment from the largest number of viewers and has been attributed with most profoundly affecting regional dynamics. Perhaps most importantly, it is also hugely indebted to the East Asian television drama that came before it and is commonly perceived by scholars as representative of the values and beliefs of viewers in the region. Thus, both its status as well as its cultural impact are discussed at length in this collection. However, before further discussing the current international situation in East Asian television drama or the extent to which Korean Wave drama can genuinely today be considered pan-Asian, it is important first to consider the story of transnational East Asian television drama so far. In telling this story a series of ‘booms’, ‘fevers’ and ‘waves’ take centre stage. Although programming has been flowing between and within predominantly ethnic-Chinese areas for many years and there have also been occasional dramas, such as the Japanese serial Oshin (NHK 1983), which have managed to be successful overseas, the widespread import and export of television drama between Asian nations is still a relatively new affair. Before the 1990s, Waterman and Rogers reported that Asian countries had ‘a relatively low dependence on imported programming, and a relatively very low dependence

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on intra-regional program trade’ (1994: 107). It was cinema and not television that was transnational, particularly Hong Kong’s kung fu cinema which was popular throughout much of Asia in the 1970s and 1980s. However, in the late 1990s there was a growth in the popularity of a different kind of Hong Kong cinematic product in a small number of Asian countries following the success of films such as Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express (1994). Attracting small but devoted followings and largely ‘promoted by women’s magazines’ (Iwabuchi 2008: 245), these films set in modern-day urban settings helped ‘to overcome the dominant image [of] Hong Kong films as being full of kung fu or vulgar slapstick’ (Iwabuchi 2002b: 183).10 At around the same time as this relatively small-scale ‘Hong Kong boom’ was happening, the growing international popularity of ‘trendy dramas’ such as Tokyo Love Story (Fuji TV 1991) and Long Vacation (Fuji TV 1996) was spawning the far bigger phenomenon of ‘Japanese Cultural Fever’ (Shim 2005: 249) which was eventually transmitted to several Asian countries including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.11 Like the Hong Kong boom films, these Japanese trendy drama television series were urban-set and ‘targeted at women’, but rather than dealing with ‘serious themes or social issues’ they instead ‘grappled with themes of unrequited love and young men and women in search of love’ (Han 2008: 27–8). As Gabriella Lukács points out, they also ‘saturated their viewers with information on lifestyle trends by entertaining them with images of well-heeled young sophisticates who personify ultra-hip attitudes and en­joy consumer-oriented lifestyles’ (2010: 3). Because Japan held a position of both economic and political influence in Asia as a legacy of its colonial period, this ‘facilitated the wide circulation … of its popular culture’ (Ryoo 2009: 146). However, this very reason for Japan’s success in exporting J-dorama (the international label applied to exported Japanese dramas)12 also created a hindrance to the spread of Japanese Cultural Fever. As Eun-young Jung explains, in spite of the fact that many nonJapanese Asian viewers recognized many similarities between their own cultures and Japan’s, ‘anti-Japanese sentiment due to the

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colonial experience among the former Japanese colonies and the overtly sexual and violent content of some dra­mas … created a simultaneous degree of resistance (and, occasionally, official banning)’ in some countries (2009: 72). As a result of such regional animosity, some scholars such as Jung-Sun Park argue that there remained a cultural space ready to be occupied by the next transnational television phenomenon, the ‘Korean Wave’. The Korean Wave was perceived as more Asianfriendly than Japanese Cultural Fever in Chinese and other markets because it offered less sexual and violent content. It also managed to take advantage of cultural affinity just like Japanese Cultural Fever, but without the problem of viewers harbouring resentments over an aggressive colonial past (Park 2006). Additionally, the Korean Wave also retained a popular aspect of the Japanese serials by producing plenty of dramas that depicted the fashionable lifestyles of trendy young urbanites. Finally, hallyu dramas were ‘also cheap, at least compared to entertainment that could be bought from other, particularly Western, markets’ (Farrar 2010). Whilst the Korean Wave also consisted of pop music fashions ‘and what has been billed as Asian extreme cinema, such as Park Chanwook’s film Oldboy’ (Park 2010: 159), television dramas were ‘at the forefront’ (Zhu et al. 2009: 16) of the wave. The popularity of dramas such as Winter Sonata (KBS 2002) and Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace, MBC 2003–4) led to rapid penetration into regional markets including mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam, precipitated in no small part by the opening up of these media markets as a result of the emergence of cable and satellite TV channels and market liberalization. In contrast to the ‘practically non-existent’ (Lee, Dong-Hoo 2009: 187) transnational circulation of television drama that existed in the 1980s, today, as Chua Beng Huat observes: ‘flows of television drama series across national, cultural and linguistic boundaries in East Asia are by now a routine affair’ (2008: 73). Part I of this collection, East Asian Television Drama: Borders and Boundaries, explores the political, social and economic

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ramifications of this relatively recent international circulation of East Asian television drama. It considers whether the much celebrated inter-Asian trade in television, which has largely been presumed to be beneficial in bringing nations closer together, is indeed breaking down boundaries or is instead reinforcing them. Removed from their production contexts and re-embedded in new social and cultural ones, transnational television drama has become an important factor in manufacturing the views people in different nations hold of each other and, as this section demonstrates, it has served as a force of both homogenization and fragmentation at national, regional and global levels. In chapter one, Basil Glynn and myself examine the current critical focus on the ‘Asian-ness’ of East Asian television drama and introduce some of the key arguments put forward as to why Asians enjoy their own drama. With the scholarly spotlight fixed firmly on areas such as Confucianism, Asian modernity and cultural proximity, we suggest that such incessant focus on dominant panAsian values and concerns is in danger of creating an ersatz Asian form of Western Orientalism. In the process of trying to explain Asian drama’s success within Asia, define a pan-Asian identity and identify how Asian tastes differ from western tastes, Asia is gradually being critically reconstructed as different from the West through being imagined as increasingly uniform and lacking in diversity in a differently motivated but Asian replication of the West’s construction of Asia as ‘all the same’. In the process a vast number of people have been excluded who do not fit into ‘monolithic’ conceptions of what constitutes Asia and what Asians like, value and believe. Where chapter one focuses on scholarly approaches towards television texts that travel, chapter two looks instead at how television texts are transformed through travelling. The habitual global hegemonic argument is that certain powerful countries impose their values on other countries through the television texts they export (Barber 1995; Miller et al. 2001; Read 1976; Tunstall 1977). Alternatively, the notion of ‘glocalization’ suggests that,

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rather than finished programmes, formats that are popular in foreign contexts can be remade for domestic audiences to make them more accessible (Robertson 1995). In this chapter, Basil Glynn argues that there is a third alternative; often an ex post facto creative reimagining of an imported foreign text is enough to make it locally popular, without local audiences being forced to accept foreign values or local producers having to remake it. By looking at the local reception of several Asian television programmes in the East and West he argues that many Asian dramas have been reconfigured for the domestic market, transformed, watched and consumed with little regard for any inherent message that the original producers wished to instil. Glynn’s discussion ultimately questions who is the most influential when it comes to inscribing meaning on a text; the media producer or local media players who know what their particular audiences want? In chapter three, rather than looking at how foreignness is resisted in ‘official’ transnational television exchange as Glynn does, Maimuna Dali Islam explores how foreign television drama is celebrated in less ‘legitimate’ distribution networks online. There is, in fact, a long history of illicit television distribution both online and offline in Asia. In the early days of Japanese trendy drama, for instance, there was little interest on the part of Japanese producers in marketing their dramas throughout Asia because the domestic market was so profitable and because in many areas in the region there was insufficient protection of intellectual property (Chua 2008: 86). Therefore, others took it upon themselves to distribute the dramas, motivated either by profit (as in the case of media pirates who circulated illegally-copied VCDs) or fandom. The popularity of Japanese drama was precipitated in Taiwan, for example, by its illegal broadcasting through private satellite stations and in Korea through underground private consumption (Chua and Iwabuchi 2008b: 3). Looking at today’s premier method of ‘unofficial’ access to Asian television drama, Islam discusses how the Internet enables instantaneous and simultaneous access to Asian television programmes across the world. At the moment,

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there exists a vast and easily accessible online catalogue of dramas to be watched and discussed, complete with all kinds of contextual information provided by fans explaining the background to the dramas and their stars. But what are the consequences of this officially unregulated (but not ‘unofficially unregulated’ because, as this chapter demonstrates, fan communities impose very strict regulations) circulation of Asian television drama on interAsian, diasporic and interracial communication? In contrast to Chua Beng Huat, who argues that ‘in the context of East Asian pop culture consumption, we see the tendency of audiences to assume a “national identity-culture” as a main frame from which to identify/distance themselves from on screen characters and actions’ (2008: 85), Islam argues that online fan communities actively resist a ‘national identity-culture’. On the Internet an alternative, decentred and convivial mode of drama circulation has come into existence that offers, for many, a preferable alternative to the centralized legitimate modes of distribution. Online communities that have formed around Asian television drama have become an alternative space where the limitations imposed by traditional media practice have been largely overcome. In this cyberspace, national and cultural boundaries and identities are still intact but distanced from the ‘main frame’ of ‘national identity-culture’, as they co-exist peacefully within mutually respectful and cooperative online environments. As opposed to a virtual borderless world, chapter four looks at the tensions that exist as a consequence of a very real-world border, specifically that between Hong Kong and mainland China. In contrast to the cost-free and denationalized contexts of online drama exchange discussed by Islam, Anthony Fung examines how in Hong Kong the media are increasingly having to consider ways to balance their existence as commercial entities with their new role as ideological apparatuses of the Chinese government. In the process, he draws attention to the changes that have occurred within the media environment in Hong Kong since its return to China in 1997 and affords an insightful mapping of the city’s new

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era of pay TV and terrestrial TV competition. He also illustrates how Hong Kong has recently been displaying a reversed trend of globalization with the local culture becoming more Chinese than western in order to survive the increasing political pressures and market demands imposed by its more powerful neighbour. In his exploration of the economic, regulatory and industrial dimensions surrounding the export of Hong Kong television drama Fung demonstrates how the Hong Kong market is in the process of becoming the secondary market for Hong Kong television stations. This, he believes, is having a huge impact on the production and content of its television drama. Through textual analysis of two one-off dramas, The Drive of Life (TVB in collaboration with Chinese International Television Limited 2007) and Glorious Return (ATV 2007), he highlights the worrying pro-Chinese nationalistic tone they adopt which, he argues, is a consequence of the political and commercial pressures that now exist within the world of Hong Kong television. Part II, Asian Television Drama and Women, shifts the focus from nationalistic to gendered discourses as it examines a specific area of Asian television, the female aspect. The feminist theorists Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément described, in The Newly Born Woman, how women throughout history have been ‘colonized’ (1986: 68) by phallocentric discourse. It can similarly be observed that Asian drama has been ‘colonized’ in parts of the public sphere by the employment of masculine terms of penetration, conquest and invasion to describe the effectiveness with which dramas enter into foreign markets. Keehyeung Lee, for example, decries the Korean media’s repeated use of such ‘slogans as “going out to conquer Asia”’ when taking pride in Korean drama’s popularity overseas (2008: 185).13 Yet as Angel Lin and Avin Tong point out, it has been ‘women’s genres like melodramatic soap operas’ that have ‘swept across Asia’ (2008: 92). Given the melodramatic nature of the gentle love stories and family dramas that constitute so much Asian television drama (Fu and Liew 2005: 221) and the extent to which fan studies have shown that their primary audiences are women,14

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this section attempts what Cixous and Clément might call a ‘postcolonial’ examination. It focuses on the female-centred content and consumption of transnational Asian television dramas from various female-centred subject positions and explores the extent to which they speak to women in particular.15 In the first chapter in this section, Chris Hudson and Md Azalanshah discuss Malay women and their consumption of East Asian series as distinct from the viewing habits previously ascribed by scholars to Asian female viewers of such drama. Koichi Iwabuchi has warned in the past that, when discussing transnational television, ‘it needs to be remembered that what is being promoted’ are the perspectives of ‘cultures that are dominant and popular in each country’ (2008: 252). Indeed, Asia has at times been itself defined by some cultural commentators through its dominant values rather than by its geographical borders. Angel Lin and Avin Tong, for example, describe it as ‘regions and societies that share a sociocultural history of having been under some form of influence from traditional Confucianist familial, social and cultural values’ (2008: 92). This kind of focus on Confucian East Asia in critical discussions of Asian drama, Hudson and Md Azalanshah argue, has sidelined Islamic Asia. Through their focus group research, they consider the idea of Asian modernity and argue that this consists of more than just a recognition of the struggle to become modern that Asian countries share. They assert that it is instead a highly contested concept which needs to be understood within the context of each Asian country’s geo-political particularity. In exploring this further, the authors contemplate the conflicting discourses of modernity that are provided by foreign Asian television melodramas (which are often at odds with locally produced images) and the impact that they have had on Malay women in relation to being modern women. East Asian television drama, they reveal, has become for Malay women a hugely important site, both to negotiate the modern and to position themselves in respect to it within the contexts of the moral ideology of localized forms of Islam, Malay nationhood and capitalist development.

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In chapter six, Hilaria Gössmann and Griseldis Kirsch examine how Japanese women have used East Asian television drama to negotiate their own identities, but instead of focusing on audiences, they concentrate on an under-examined aspect of Asian television studies, its Asian stars. In accounting for the huge impact made by the Korean drama Winter Sonata following its broadcast on the Japanese channel NHK in 2004, critics have tended to look at its story. Comparative studies by the likes of Dong-Hoo Lee, for example, have examined Korean Wave dramas and Japanese trendy dramas, and found numerous similarities between them in terms of characters, settings and plot elements, suggesting that the ‘formats and narratives’ of the Japanese series were ‘consciously or unconsciously’ reproduced in Korean trendy dramas (2004a: 266). Yet whilst such textual analyses help clarify how Korean dramas were immediately accessible to Japanese audiences, they do not sufficiently explain their phenomenal popularity. When the reception of the stars is also taken into consideration, however, one can see that the stars played a huge part in the dramas’ appeal. For example, when the Korean actor Bae Yong-joon (who played the male lead in Winter Sonata) visited Japan in November 2004 to promote the publication of his photo collection, 5,000 fans mobbed Narita International Airport (Chosun.com; Japan Times 2004).16 China Daily (2004) also reported that nine fans were injured when hundreds of Bae’s Japanese fans were crushed while trying to get a sight of the star at the Tokyo hotel where he was staying. Bae’s popularity quickly reached such heights that he became better known by the nickname ‘Yonsama’, with ‘-sama’ in Japanese being a suffix reserved for royalty. Even the Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, was quoted as saying that ‘I will make great efforts so that I will be as popular as Yon-sama and be called Junsama’ (Onishi 2004). Such a reaction did not come out of nowhere and was not solely a result of Winter Sonata’s technical qualities nor of Korean drama’s incorporation of Japanese dramatic tropes. As Gössmann and Kirsch’s developmental study of Japanese dramas featuring non-Japanese characters reveals, there had actually been a

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long and gradual process of acclimatization and familiarization before non-Japanese Asians finally appeared on Japanese television to such sensational effect. Their study reveals that Japanese dramas featuring non-Japanese characters had tended to feature a ‘look into Asia’ that involved a ‘turning away from the West’. This figurative embracing of non-Japanese Asia was materialized in a highly gendered way as more often than not female characters attained self-realization and actualization through encounters with ‘other’ Asian characters. In Japanese dramas, male and female non-Japanese characters were featured as more desirable to and supportive of Japanese women than their Japanese counterparts, in part explaining the warmest of welcomes given by Japanese female fans to non-Japanese stars such as Bae Yong-joon when they finally appeared on Japanese television screens. Whilst Gössmann and Kirsch’s study displays the value in looking beyond texts, as Janice Winship argues, we still need to be aware and beware of the ideological content of texts themselves because they can create subject positions for women that situate them in the domestic space as mothers and wives, and instruct them how they ‘are/should be/can be a certain feminine woman’ (1981: 218). As Brenda Chan’s study of the Korean drama Wedding (KBS 2005) illustrates in chapter seven, Asian television drama is full of images of ‘pure’ women, devoted wives and mothers who defer to male authority,17 and need to be excused or forgiven for having sexual desires and histories. As a consequence, she argues, Korean drama has long been over-idealized as a cultural space where Asian female subjects can negotiate modern Asian femininity. Her analysis of this particular drama illustrates the ways in which its romantic narrative depicts gender politics and sexuality in relation to the Asian female subject, and concludes that, despite its highly modern setting and exportable form, Wedding actually reinforces highly traditional gender roles through its narrative of female redemption and disempowerment. Following on from Chan’s study of the hallyu drama Wedding, Part III: Korean Television Drama: The Latest Wave concentrates

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on this most recent phenomenon in East Asian transnational television. Korean Wave drama describes a multitude of genres including modern-day trendy drama (My Lovely Sam-soon, MBC 2005; You are Beautiful, SBS 2009), youth-orientated melodrama (Cinderella’s Stepsister, KBS 2010; Secret Garden, Hwa & Dam Pictures 2011), period melodrama (The Undercover Lady Detective, MBC 2003; The Moon that Embraces the Sun, MBC 2012; Damo) and epic (Jumong, MBC 2006; Taewangsasingi [The Four Guardian Gods of the King], MBC 2007). There are hallyu love stories that vary from light-hearted modern-day Cinderella-like tales18 (a fat clumsy girl meets a handsome and rich restaurateur in My Lovely Sam-soon)19 to ill-fated tragic romances (a love affair between a fictional king of the Joseon Dynasty and a female shaman in The Moon that Embraces the Sun). Korean Wave dramatic narratives can be predictable with certain recurring melodramatic elements (such as first love, terminal illness, lovers separated and the constraints family obligations impose), but they can also be unexpected (a rich young man and a stuntwoman swap bodies, and in doing so find out about and come to love each other in Secret Garden). So predictable have hallyu dramas appeared to some at times that even in Korea there have been complaints about the formulaic nature of Korean dramatic narratives. They have been criticized for ‘repeatedly revisit[ing] topics like adulterous affairs, revenge and secrets around the characters’ birth or identity’ (Korea Times 2012) as well as for over-stylization and over-reliance on ‘romantic scenery and beautiful landscape’ (China Times, 28 April 2002, quoted in Yang 2008c: 289). Conversely, however, the very aspects that have been criticized have also been interpreted as positives and identified as reasons for the appeal of hallyu drama. Supporters of hallyu dramas have pointed to ‘compelling themes … well-written plots’ (Her 2005) and ‘excellent graphic production’ (YTN News 2011) as the reasons for their success overseas (Her 2005); whilst Japanese fans have been reported as being ‘obsessed’ by the ‘pure love (jun-ai in Japanese)’ that Korean dramas somehow manage to epitomize (Shoji 2004). Arguing

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that Korean Wave dramas at their best can be far from formulaic, Robert L. Cagle in chapter eight examines a long-neglected aspect of Korean television drama; its use of music. This has been a considerable critical oversight given the prominence of pop music in so many hallyu dramas and the extent to which the soundtracks have contributed to their success. Music greatly influences the ways in which we read and understand television drama, and in his discussion of Winter Sonata, Cagle illustrates how its skilful and sophisticated use of music provides for an intensely personal engagement between viewer and text, and encourages a more distracted mode of viewing that leaves space for the viewer’s own personal memories to become associated with what is portrayed on the television screen. Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley, in chapter nine, similarly argues that under-examined artistic aspects of Korean drama have contributed greatly towards their success. She points out that in addition to the Confucian values shared by Korea and Taiwan which have hitherto been the subjects of scholarly focus, the creative qualities of hallyu drama also need to be more fully considered in order to explain its popularity in countries like Taiwan. In her study of Dae Jang Geum, which achieved the highest recorded ratings for a Korean drama in Taiwan, Rawnsley examines aspects of the show that were especially appealing to Taiwanese viewers, in particular its expert use of food imagery. Yet whilst doing so, she also bears in mind that, however good a drama is, it needs appropriate promotion in order to get people to watch it in the first place. Therefore, her chapter also contemplates the industrial aspects of regional cultural exchange through a focus on Gala Television Corporation (GTV) which played a hugely important role in popularizing Dae Jang Geum, as well as other South Korean television dramas such as The Moon that Embraces the Sun (MBC 2012) and Rooftop Prince (SBS 2012) in Taiwan. In the final chapter, I look at the current state of Korean drama and its perceived decline in East Asia following the phenomenal heights of popularity reached by dramas such as Winter Sonata and

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Jewel in the Palace, and argue that its apparent current downturn is as much a consequence of Korean drama’s increasingly poor public perception as of any reduction in production standards or tiredness in the format. Government action and popular debates have politicized Korean hallyu television drama and tarnished its image in foreign markets. The hallyu ‘label’, which for most nonKoreans has come to define Korea’s dramatic television output, has accumulated (understandably) damaging negative associations in certain Asian countries as a result of the term itself being bound up from the beginning with notions of Korean success and national pride. As a consequence, I suggest, attempts to reverse the trend and reinvigorate the saleability of hallyu have resulted in more resentment overseas, the Korean-ness of the dramas being increasingly brought to the forefront whilst the dramas themselves have concurrently become increasingly ill-defined. Ultimately, whether the Korean Wave will be re-energized or is terminally on the wane and destined to be replaced by another wave from another country is something that only time will tell. One thing that the Korean Wave has already revealed, though, is that multidirectional television flows in which different cultures are exporting images of themselves and are vying to be seen and heard are distinctly uneven. Some flows, like those of Japanese Cultural Fever and the Korean Wave, have been more forceful than others. Doreen Massey in the early 1990s recognized the ‘power geometry’ of globalization in that ‘some people are more in charge of it than others. Some initiate flows and movements,’ she argued, whereas ‘other[s] don’t’ (1994: 149). Thus, today in East Asia, as Lisa Leung has recognized, several national centres dominate ‘the flow of media and cultural products, as a result of their supremacy in financial and technological resources’ (2008: 56). This has led, within East Asia, to much jostling for position on the parts of media producers, governments and observers to establish which nations are dominant and which are dominated, whose cultural output is truly influential in shaping the region and whose is peripheral. Whilst this book has attempted to consider various aspects of the power dynamics

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surrounding East Asian television drama as well as endeavouring to focus on less examined areas of study, there is still the need for more of the peripheral cultural outputs of the region to become subjects of future study. The cultural and social consequences visited by the dominators upon the dominated that are discussed by several authors in this collection must continue to be watched with as much attention as the dramas themselves are by their audiences of millions. Such critical interrogation is a process that must continue until the day when, as Hae-Joang Cho optimistically envisages, in ‘a post-colonial Asia constructed through the flows of popular culture’ terms such as the Korean Wave ‘will be used together with the “Taiwanese Wave”, “Chinese Wave”, “Vietnamese Wave”, [and] “Malaysian Wave”  ’ (2005: 179). Until that day, we must continue to read the texts and subtexts of Asian television drama very closely.

Notes 1

 2

 3

  4  5

For discussions of East Asian cinema, see Braester and Tweedie (2010), Carter (2007), Davis and Yeh (2008), Hunt and Wing-Fai (2008), Jackson et al. (2006), Kinnia (2010; 2011), Lee (2011) and Yoo (2012). For Asian cinema, see Cardullo (2010), Chan et al. (2011), Ciecko (2006), Eleftheriotis and Needham (2006), Gates and Funnell (2012) and Llora (2009). For discussions of East Asian, East and South East Asian and Asian popular culture, see Cho (2011), Otmazgin and Ben-Ari (2011), Iwabuchi et al. (2004), Kim (2008) and King and Craig (2011). Straubhaar (1997) identifies numerous geo-cultural markets such as Latin America and the Arabic world. He argues that such markets are not bound by geographic region but consist of diaspora populations located across the globe. See also Moran (2006). See Wong (2009) for a discussion of stations such as Jade, Phoenix and CCTV which provide satellite television programmes to Chinese households around the world.

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  7

  8   9

See Jeremy Tunstall, who describes how ‘authentic traditional, local culture … is being battered out of existence by the indiscriminate dumping of large quantities of slick commercial and media products, mainly from the US’ (1977: 57). For further reading see also Read (1976). Particularly in academic journals such as Inter-Asia Cultural Studies which provide opportunities for Asian scholars to communicate and debate with each other about Asian culture rather than through Western-based academia. For a discussion of the various associations of the term hallyu see Kim (2007). If a second Korean Wave is currently in progress, it would appear that Korean popular music (K-pop), rather than drama, is perceived as at its forefront. The Korea Herald, for instance, claims that ‘the popularity of Korean pop music is sweeping across Asia, Europe and Latin America … following the first example of hallyu in the early 2000s, when TV dramas such as Winter Sonata created fans across Asia’ (Korea Herald 2012). The Chosun-Ilbo reports how ‘the huge popularity of K-pop girl bands such as Kara and Girls’ Generation has re-ignited the Korean Wave in Japan … [following] … the waning popularity of Korean soaps’ (English.chosun.com 2011b). However, while K-pop can be seen to be taking over from television drama as Korea’s most visible cultural export, the two still seem to be inextricably linked within Asia. As Edwina Mukasa explains: ‘[hallyu] drama has been the vehicle to bring K-pop to new audiences … K-pop has benefited from the rise of these dramas, because music is a key part of these shows. SHINee’s Stand By Me, for example, featured heavily in Boys Over Flowers [KBS 2008]. Key songs are repeated in Korean dramas, giving them exposure every bit as potent as a video in heavy rotation’ (2011: 6). On the other hand, outside of Asia it is notable that Korean pop music does appear to be making highly visible inroads into the West independently of the benefits of television drama exposure. A K-pop concert in Madison Square Garden in New York in Autumn 2011 (for details see Lieu 2012), the appearance of Girl’s Generation on America’s Late Show with David Letterman on New Year’s Eve 2011 (for details see Seo 2012) and the Korean group Bigbang beating Britney Spears for the Best

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 6

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Worldwide Act award at the 2011 MTV European Music awards (for details see Mukasa 2011: 6) are just a few recent examples that suggest Korean pop stars’ fan bases are growing in the West. However, whether such examples of Korean pop stars’ popularity abroad constitute a second Korean Wave is still debatable because the Korean media appear to be overly eager to announce Korean international cultural triumph at any given opportunity. Isak Ladegaard, for example, explains how following two sell-out concerts by South Korean bands in Paris in June 2011 ‘the South Korean media went bananas. The Korean news bureau Yonhap wrote an editorial about it, claiming 14,000 European K-pop fans went wild over performances by K-pop groups and artists, and that Hallyu’s prospects in Europe now look good. “K-pop takes Europe by storm,” wrote the newspaper Joongang Daily. “K-pop invades Europe,” read the headline in Chosun Ilbo.’ Yet as Ladegaard prudently concludes: ‘two sold-out concerts in Paris don’t mean Europe has been taken by storm, as the Korean media suggest’ (Ladegaard 2012). In addition, popularity does not necessarily equate with cultural triumph or mean that an ‘invasion’ will follow. For example, in 2012 ‘Gangnam Style’ by Park Jae-sang, otherwise known as Psy, ‘had more than 262m views on YouTube and made history as the most liked video ever’ (Mahdawi 2012). It also reached number one in the British charts. However, Arwa Mahdawi pessimistically suggests that the pop video’s huge popularity in Britain and the US was primarily due to the fact that it featured ‘a fat man’ who ‘does a comical dance’. She goes on to argue that ‘the last time the West laughed so uproariously at a Korean singer was when an animated Kim Jong-il bewailed how “ronery” he was in the film Team America, and how nobody took him “serirousry”. The puppet had a point: popular Western media doesn’t tend to take East Asian men seriously – even when they’re brutal dictators. The stereotype of a portly, non-threatening Charlie Chan-type who speaks “comical” English is still very much alive ... and it’s hard to escape the uncomfortable feeling that this stereotype is contributing something to the laughter around ‘Gangnam Style’ (2012). At the moment, as far as K-pop is concerned, one has to question whether the supposed second Korean Wave will lead to an ‘invasion’ and the spread of East Asian

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popular culture in the West or simply fizzle out after pandering to longheld, tired Western stereotypes of Asians. 10 For a detailed discussion of the Hong Kong boom in Japan see chapter five of Iwabuchi (2002b). 11 It has been argued that J-dorama was particularly successful in these countries because from the 1990s onwards Japanese television serials had been popular with urban Chinese youth audiences (Lukács 2010: 179). See also Hu (2004; 2005). 12 See chapter six of Gabriella Lukács’ Scripted Affects, Branded Selves: Television, Subjectivity, and Capitalism in 1990s Japan (2010) for a discussion of the global circulation of J-dorama. 13 Fang-chih Irene Yang similarly condemns the ‘military metaphors’, ‘male speech’ and ‘masculine competition’ in nationalist discourses surrounding the Korean Wave, referring to the popular use of terms such as ‘the invasion of the Korean Wave’ (2008b: 201; 208). 14 ‘It is women who, through their participation in the consumption of Korean dramas, create the Korean wave,’ claims Fang-chih Irene Yang (2008b: 208). Iwabuchi’s audience research has shown that in Japan ‘the main audiences are women in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s’ (2008: 246). Wu and Tseng’s (2002) research found that women between their mid20s and early 40s were the primary viewers of Korean dramas in Taiwan with Eric Lin (2001), referring to a Nielsen television survey, further suggesting that ‘over 50% of Korean serial drama fans’ in Taiwan consisted of ‘females over 25, primarily working women or housewives’. 15 It has long been argued that melodramatic genres like the soap opera that deal with domestic concerns and interpersonal relationships offer a space where women’s perspectives and concerns are foregrounded. See, for example, Ang (1985), Geraghty (1991) and Hobson (1982). 16 The Korean newspaper reports 5,000 fans and The Japan Times 3,500. 17 Such images are ideologically supported by Confucian social and cultural values that have influence in regions such as China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. See Lin and Tong (2008) for a discussion of how deeply inscribed women’s subordinate position to men is in Confucianist East Asia. See also Ko (2004) for a brief discussion of the Confucianist principle of ‘thrice following’ where

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18 19

‘a woman should follow her father when young, her husband when married, and her son when old’. Krishnan and Dighe (1990), in their study of the portrayal of women on Indian television, discuss the prevalence of similar depictions of women as subservient to their husbands which, in this cultural space, are justified through reference to traditional Hindu texts such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana. South Korean television dramas have been criticized by some for their overuse of ‘stereotypical “Cinderella stories”’. See Chung (2009: 16). For a discussion of this drama, see Kim, Jeongmee (2012).

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1

International Circulation and Local Retaliation: East Asian Television Drama and its Asian Connotations Basil Glynn and Jeongmee Kim In the late 1970s the cultural theorist Jeremy Tunstall pessimistically described how, as a result of cultural imperialism, ‘authentic, traditional and local culture in many parts of the world’ was ‘being battered out of existence by the indiscriminate dumping of large quantities of slick commercial and media products, mainly from the United States’ (1977: 57). However, in contrast to the bleak picture predicted for media rivals of the US, East Asian television production, rather than being pummelled into extinction, is today thriving instead and manufacturing globally popular slick commercial entertainment of its own. Rather than just being a purchasing market for western programmes as a result of a one-way West-to-East flow of programming, East Asia is today producing contraflows from east to west in the format trade,1 while its products have been leading, according to some cultural observers, to ‘the declining status of American TV programmes on East Asian TV schedule[s]’ (Lim 2008: 36). This increase in international and 27

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inter-Asian cultural trade has provided many Asians with greater cultural access to other countries, and increased confidence and pride in their own culture(s). Asian cultural products as an alternative to ‘Hollywood’ had for a long time been relatively unimportant in the Asian region (Waterman and Rogers 1994: 98–9), but, in part because of the widespread popularity of Asian television drama, it is fair to say that Asians are now more aware of belonging to Asia and of being Asian. In contrast to the period ‘prior to the 1990’s … [when] … there was little research published on television in Asia – at least in the English language’ (Keane et al. 2007: 20), the contemporary success story of East Asian television drama within East Asia has recently inspired the composition of numerous important and insightful studies that have contemplated the impact of this success on East Asia. Primarily focusing on East Asian audiences, a number of these scholarly works have displayed a tendency to identify commonalities between East Asian countries and East Asian viewers and have discussed these in relation to various aspects of pan-Asianism, exploring such issues as shared Asian femininity, shared aspirations and shared Eastern values as opposed to Western ones.2 Such studies have been invaluable in identifying themes and practices in the consumption and construction of discourses and meanings in relation to East Asian television fictions that have crossed national borders. In addition, it has been Asian and Asia-based academic work – rather than western – that has been at the forefront of the critical interrogation and evaluation of what has been happening on the East Asian cultural scene. However, this chapter will argue that a drawback of such scholarly focus on regional distinctiveness and pan-Asianism is that an incomplete picture has hitherto been presented of the role contemporary Asian television drama is playing in transnational cultural exchange. East Asian drama has recently been breaking out of Asia into non-Asian countries and into the homes, hearts and minds of non-Asian viewers in places as far afield as ‘Paraguay, Swaziland, Iran, Peru, and Morocco’ (Kim 2011: 126–7). Emphasis

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East Asian Television Drama and Pan-Asian-ness A number of critics have tried to identify Asian-specific reasons for the success of East Asian television drama within Asia. For example, in the introduction to the anthology East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave, Chua and Iwabuchi discuss the exceptional success of the Korean drama Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace, MBC 2003–4) in several East Asian countries. They point out that historical costume drama is not typically a popular genre in inter-Asian cultural exchange, but attribute the main reason for this particular drama’s success to the ‘ “close” affinity between the Chosun dynasty [during which time the drama was set] and Chinese history’ (2008b: 6). Whilst this explanation may well hold true to a great extent when accounting for the drama’s success in East Asian countries that have a large or majority ethnic Chinese population,3 it carries little relevance when trying to clarify why Dae Jang Geum was so popular in the Middle East and Africa where a much lesser degree of cultural proximity exists in relation to China or Korea. The drama itself clearly had an appeal that transcended its Asian cultural specificity when it was very well-received in countries such as Zimbabwe and Egypt. In Zimbabwe, for instance, an essaywriting competition was held by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), the company that broadcast the drama, and it attracted 1,600 essays for three prizes that consisted of autographed

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on the Asian-ness of Asian television drama, it will be proposed, has resulted in neglect of aspects of the dramas that are appealing to broad non-Asian audiences. Further, large audiences who ardently watch East Asian drama but who do not fit into very broad definitions of what it means to be Asian have been marginalized. In addition, it will be asserted that an excessive concentration on pan-Asian aspects and the socially positive impacts of East Asian drama have obscured many of the less socially desirable and divisive nationalistic discourses that have surrounded inter-Asian crossborder transmission.

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posters of the star, Lee Young-ae (Donga-Ilbo 2008). Here was a drama the border-crossing ability of which cannot be accounted for by explanations which focus on Asian-specific features. The popularity of Dae Jang Geum in countries like Zimbabwe highlights one of the key problems inherent in an exclusive focus upon pan-Asian aspects in accounting for the success of East Asian television drama. If a television drama is deemed to be popular in Asian countries for reasons that have been identified as distinctively Asian (shared Confucian values, for example), the drama can consequently only be popular in non-Asian countries for entirely different reasons. Such logic dictates that diverse groups of viewers who are watching and enjoying the same shows have to be doing so for separate reasons because some are Asian and some are not. Therefore, areas of common (or global) appeal and interest, precisely because they are neither specifically here nor there, are often sidelined. The focus on the Asian-ness of East Asian drama is also problematic because, when looked at in a global context, it is very difficult to argue for its unambiguous Asian-ness. Several scholars have already suggested that some of the larger television-producing nations in East Asia have only become as successful as they are today because they have become adept at translating western-encoded television formats and re-encoding them for Asian consumption. It has been suggested that Japan is one such ‘translator between Western and Asian’ popular culture (Iwabuchi 2002b: 161). Scholars such as Baik (2005), Cho (2005), Cho (2011), H.-K. Kim (2006), Lee, Keehyeung (2008), Ryoo (2009), Shin (2005) and Son and Yang (2006) have identified Korea as another nation that has been seen to absorb and indigenize Western dramatic output, in its case, as Cho states, through ‘shrewd representations of traditional values (Confucianism, family bonds, patriarchy, pure love, filial piety, etc.) via Western plots’ (Cho 2011: 396). Jung-Sun Park (2006) sees Korea’s superior ability to interpret Western popular culture into a form that is palatable to other Asian countries as a primary reason for the greater success that Korean

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popular culture currently enjoys over Japanese popular culture in East and Southeast Asia. He argues that Korea hybridizes Western popular culture more effectively because it is not yet as Westernized as Japan which, as a consequence of its move towards the West, has now lost much of its cultural affinity with other Asian countries such as China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Jaz Hee-jeong Choi similarly suggests that Korea’s ideal balance of ‘foreign-yet alike’ has enabled it to occupy a more advantageous position as a cultural interpreter within Asia (2008: 151). Eun-young Jung goes so far as to suggest that Korean popular culture is not ‘authentically Korean’ at all since ‘most of its characteristics are transnational and hybrid; and these characteristics involve combinations of local and foreign elements at multiple levels’ (2009: 78). Just as it is difficult to establish the Asian-ness of Asian television programmes, so too are pan-Asian tastes hard to characterize because different forms of entertainment appear to be preferred in different Asian countries. Woongjae Ryoo explains in relation to Korean drama that while Winter Sonata in 2004 ‘became the rage in Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and Uzbekistan’, it did not do as well everywhere: ‘In Thailand and Malaysia, people devoured A Tale of Autumn [aka Autumn in My Heart], and Vietnamese viewers were glued to Lovers in Paris’ (2009: 139). In addition to differences in national fondness for individual dramas, Younghan Cho makes the important observation that even television drama itself is not necessarily at the forefront when it comes to Asian audience preference, explaining again in relation to the Korean Wave that ‘the ways that Korean pop culture is consumed differ widely from country to country. In Japan the television melodrama (e.g. Winter Sonata) has been the most popular genre whereas in China, K-pop and dance groups have been the most popular. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, historic television dramas such as Dae Jang-geum have been the hottest genre’ (2011: 392). In spite of such scholarly observations that there are evident differences between Asian audiences in terms of what East Asian popular culture they like (as well as various assertions that Western

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influences play their part in how certain cultural products are received), the existence of underlying pan-Asian appeals and qualities remain key assumptions that underpin much of the study of East Asian television drama. Younghan Cho, for example, is in no doubt that East Asian drama is ‘a truly pan-Asian form of pop culture’ even though he himself has difficulty explaining why it is (2011: 383). Attempts to identify the pan-Asian nature of East Asian drama have included looking at areas such as Confucian values (Chua and Iwabuchi 2008a), Asian-specific narrative qualities (Leung 2004a), Asian-specific modernity (Chua 2008; Iwabuchi 2002a; Lukács 2010) and Asian-specific viewing positions (Chua 2004; Hirata 2008; Iwabuchi 2005; Ko 2004; Lee, Dong-Hoo 2008; Lee, Ming-tsung 2004; Leung 2004b; Lin and Tong 2008; MacLachlan and Chua 2004; Mōri 2008; Siriyuvasak 2004). Along the way, numerous theories and terms have been put forward to help account for the transnational inter-Asian appeal of East Asian dramas. Chua Beng Huat suggests that the relatively similar physiognomy of the actors ‘undoubtedly contributes greatly to the popularity of East Asian drama series that circulate within the region’ (2008: 78), whilst Iwabuchi posits that a sense of ‘coevality’ between Asian audiences is of crucial importance (2002b: 49). Michael Keane, Anthony Fung and Albert Moran attribute their regional allure to ‘the East Asian cultural imagination’ (2007: 4). Dong–Hoo Lee suggests the dramas create an Asian ‘transnational imaginary space’ (2008: 171). Sang-Yeon Sung points to ‘East Asian sentiment’ (2010: 35), a view endorsed by Eun-young Jung who argues that Korean TV dramas ‘touch the right chord of Asian sentiments’, and that because they display images of respect for elders and family values they are ‘welcomed by many Asian viewers who share similar cultural val­ues’ (2009: 75). Sung Tae-Ho, a senior manager at the Korean television channel KBS (Korean Broadcasting System), attributes the popularity of Korean drama to a shared ‘Eastern mentality’. Asians, he argues, ‘respect the father and mother and a very hierarchical society and Confucianism’ (cited in Farrar 2010).

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Yet as Lin and Tong astutely observe, it is interesting to note that ‘traditional elements’ that feature in East Asian television drama such as ‘conservative attitudes towards love and sex, female chastity as a natural quality of women, family-orientedness, respect for seniors and the elderly’ are very often identified ‘as being “Asian” ’ (2008: 121). While they may well be so, it is important to recognize that such values are also highly regarded in many other, non-Confucian cultures including large parts of the Middle East and Africa. Rather than ‘Asian values’, Anthony Fung puts forward the less Asian-centric term ‘regionally celebrated values’ to indicate those aspects that East Asian audiences identify with (2007b: 281). It is a phrase that is more widely applicable when discussing the pan-Asian appeal of East Asian drama due to its recognition that the values themselves are not Asian-specific but are rather regionally appreciated, allowing for the possibility that other regions can appreciate them equally. This distinction between ‘regionally celebrated values’ and Asian values is just as important when considering the popularity of East Asian drama within East Asia. This is because a focus on Confucian values only serves to explain East Asian drama’s popularity amongst certain dominant audience groups in certain East Asian countries. Even then, as Son and Yang have argued, Asian-value hypotheses lose much of their ‘validity when one considers that … not all of the Korean dramas and films that have attracted huge audiences in East Asia emphasize the Confucian values that are assumed to be pan-Asian’ (cited in Cho 2011: 387). Whilst a Confucian focus does facilitate discussion of television drama in the international rather than national sphere, it does not account for the Asian television fandom of non-Confucian audiences such as Islamic and Christian communities within Asia and beyond. Hudson and Azalanshah in this collection, for example, maintain that the focus on Confucian inclusivity has excluded a large proportion of the Malaysian television drama audience and failed to account for their engagement with East Asian television drama.

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Trying to conceive of alternative ways to consider mass Asian audiences, Chua and Iwabuchi (2008a) have pointed out that, as well as featuring values that Asians view as significant or traditional, much East Asian television drama also depicts modern daily life in a developing and changing Asia. They have proposed that Asian audiences of East Asian drama eagerly consume images of trendy urban living in metropolises such as Tokyo and Seoul because they perceive themselves as dynamic and already (or becoming) modern. Scholarly consideration of East Asian television drama and its relationship with ‘Asian modernity’ has opened up conceptual spaces for exploring how Asians perceive themselves, their nations and what it means to be Asian. Yet it is an area that has also proven to be as problem-fraught as the study of Asian values because it similarly involves assigning beliefs and attitudes to a diverse mass of people.

Asian Modernity and Its Impact on East Asian Drama Viewing Mike Featherstone (1995) has argued that because different parts of the world have become modern in different ways and at different times, the notion of modernity requires splitting into different modernities in order to more accurately describe and discuss diverse spatial zones. Amongst these multiple modernities, it can no longer be assumed that the most modern nations lie in the West. For example, the cultural theorists Morley and Robbins (1995) have pointed out that Asian countries like Japan have technologically developed to such a degree that it could be argued that they are now more modern than the West. While modernization may unavoidably have involved ‘a fundamental element of Westernization’, Ien Ang points out that ‘Asian modernity – as a way of life – is by no means a simple replication of Western modernity’ (2004: 306). Indeed, in some respects it is antithetical to it. Jenny Kwok Wah Lau explains how:

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Asian television drama has become a site for exploring both the pride and the tensions to which Lau refers, in relation to Asian modernity, ‘as a way of life’. Through the international consumption of Japanese Asian television fictions, for example, it has been put forward that Asian audiences have come to recognize similarities and differences in each other’s Asian experiences of modernization (Iwabuchi 2004c). Numerous scholars (Chua 2004; Iwabuchi 2002a; 2002b; Leung 2004a; Yoon and Na 2005) have argued that the consumption of Japanese drama has enabled Asian audiences to become acquainted with a shared sense of contemporaneity and cultural affinity through consuming commonly satisfying images of an advanced and glamorous Asia. Japanese dramas offer images of desirable living that other Asian countries can either aspire to or take pride in having achieved. Korean television drama has recently been critically understood as the most recent cultural space where further images of Asian modernity can be negotiated (Cho 2005; Chua 2006; Chua 2008; Lin and Tong 2008; Shim 2006a). However, this critical focus on Asian modernity does raise prickly questions, such as: which Asian countries are modern and which, by comparison, are underdeveloped? Which audience members are living in ‘spatial zones’ that are aspiring towards modernity and which are living in ones that have attained it? Chua directly engages with the impact upon consumption of a perceived state of

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The rapid economic change in the East Asian countries has created a so-called new Asian generation – an affluent condition that is a source of both pride and anxiety for modern Asia. The pride of success in the restructuring of society, and in the resulting capacity to create material abundance compatible with that of the contemporary West, is accompanied by the anxiety of recognizing that such material advancement involves an unprecedented receptiveness toward Western ideas, manifested via financial and technological investments. This is particularly problematic in parts of Asia, such as China, that have struggled fiercely with Western colonization in the past and are trying to establish post-colonial status. (2003: 1)

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national development by arguing that Asian television programmes and popular culture generally tend to be read within Asia along the linear trajectory of capitalist consumerist modernity with Japan at the most modern end, ‘Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore in the middle’ and China ‘at the rear’. ‘Location on this trajectory,’ he argues, ‘has very significant effects on the attitude of the consumers: Japanese consumers have a tendency to read the pop cultures from the rest of East Asia as representations of “Japan’s past”, evoking nostalgia for a “Japan that was”, while the rest of East Asia has a tendency to read Japanese pop culture as representations of an “imaginable” and “desired” future’ (Chua 2008: 89). Iwabuchi is in agreement with Chua when they discuss Japanese television drama specifically, proposing that ‘consumerist modernity … captivates the audience of Japanese trendy dramas in the rest of East and South East Asia, especially those in the developing nations who aspire to improvements in their material life’ (2008b: 2). Placement on the linear trajectory of capitalist consumerist modernity can provide a useful critical tool for gauging how each country interacts with imported popular culture. Yet such positioning is also reductive because it fails to take into consideration other influences of globalization such as cultural fragmentation, particularly at a time when assigning ‘national’ positions to viewers on a geographically based linear trajectory is becoming more and more problematic because television itself is increasingly failing to address viewers as national subjects. Gabriella Lukács, for example, argues that Japanese trendy dramas have always been less interested in uniting ‘the population by interpolating them as members of particular national communities’ than in compartmentalizing ‘the population into ever more distinct lifestyle collectivities … by appealing to viewers’ individ­uality’ (2010: 4). Several cultural commentators (Ko 2004; Lee, Ming-tsung 2004; Lukács 2010; Nakano 2002; Siriyuvasak 2004) have argued that from the beginning a major appeal of Japanese trendy drama was its signalling of what was hip and fashionable to non-Japanese viewers. As Lukács points out, ‘the viewers in East Asia and South East Asia

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who were most keen on watching these shows were style-conscious young men and women who looked to Japan for tips on fashion, food, and design’ (2010: 195). Particular placement on the linear trajectory of their own lifespans, therefore, seems to have had just as much impact on many viewers’ relationships with imported drama as did the state of development of the nation in which they lived. Hae-Joang Cho, in her discussion of the underlying appeal of Korean Wave drama, assumes a similar desire – that ‘they’ wish to be like ‘us’ – as Chua and Iwabuchi in their appraisal of Japanese trendy drama’s popularity. ‘In contrast to viewers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan, who feel a sense of identification as fellow “urban, global, and middle-class” citizens in viewing the “sophisticated and individualistic Korean stars”,’ she argues that ‘teenagers in countries like China, Thailand, and Vietnam are enthusiastically consuming the images and messages offered through Korean-style block-busters and soap operas with the desire to enter into that class’ (2005: 175). It is highly debatable that the consumption of such ‘messages’ is as uncontested as Cho assumes. While in China it may well be the case that ‘South Korean dramas are sold and pirated everywhere, and fans adopt the clothing and hairstyles used by South Korean protagonists’ (Ryoo 2009: 139), as the Taipei Times points out, it is also the case that China has historically ‘felt a strong sense of superiority toward Korea since it was a vassal state to imperial China’ (2002: 8). Given such competing views of Korea, it does not necessarily follow that adopting fashionable looks popularized in Korean dramas equates with feelings of longing for Korean culture and a concomitant disappointment with Chinese culture on the part of Chinese fans. Jeon and Yoon (2005), for example, maintain that ‘there is no indication that local audiences in China feel any sense of cultural inferiority fever’ as a result of Korean Wave drama (cited in Ryoo 2009: 149). Cho’s assigning of a higher ‘class’ category to the images presented by Korean popular culture also neglects the fact that certain privileged teenagers within the ‘aspiring’ countries she mentions would already see themselves as belonging to a ‘sophisticated’ class due to their elevated status and possession

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of cultural capital within their own nations. Both Chua’s linear trajectory of capitalist consumerist modernity and Cho’s notion of dramatic viewing, as driven by cross-cultural envy and desire, homogenize the complex and multiple influences on audience pleasure into a single consequence of capitalist development.4 In contrast to such approaches, K.-H. Lee (2006) suggests that, rather than focusing on capitalist discourse and East Asian countries as markets populated by consumers, it is more beneficial to consider Asian nations as partners in an ongoing conversation. The next section endeavours to do this by looking at various discourses that have recently surrounded the Korean Wave phenomenon and considering whether this conversation between ‘partners’ has become friendlier or frostier following its inter-Asian circulation.

Korean Television Drama: Pan-Asian or Pandora’s Box? Transnational communication, Ien Ang asserted in 1990, ‘affords opportunities of new forms of bonding and solidarity, new ways of forging cultural communities’ (1990: 252). Within East Asia, television drama as a means of transnational communication has been seen by some scholars as helping to fulfil this optimistic promise. Woongjae Ryoo, for example, states that the inter-Asian circulation of Asian drama has enabled fans all over the region to ‘communicate, understand each other, and develop their new identities’ (2009: 144). Outside East Asia, Daniel Dayan’s (1998) work has suggested that Asian programming has helped to sustain the ethnic identities of diasporic communities all over the world. Asian television drama can thus be broadly viewed as a globally positive presence in many respects, particularly in relation to interAsian relations. It transcends national frontiers and foregrounds international commonality, potentially bringing into being an Asian ‘global village’.5 The Korean serial Winter Sonata is one drama that has been particularly identified as bringing about numerous social benefits following its phenomenal international success.6 A survey conducted 38

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with 2,200 Japanese viewers by the Japanese television channel NHK, for example, strongly indicated that it had brought Japan and Korea closer together; 26 per cent of respondents believed that their image of South Korea had been changed by watching Winter Sonata and 22 per cent that it had increased their interest in South Korea (Park 2008; cited in Sung 2010: 28). Apparently the interest generated was so great that the drama boosted Japanese tourism to South Korea ‘by 40 percent in the first ten months of 2004’ (Han 2008: 32). Woongjae Ryoo asserts that Winter Sonata’s popularity in Japan made history by ‘melting the cultural barrier between South Korea and Japan’; he goes so far as to say that in terms of bringing the two countries closer together, Winter Sonata by itself did ‘more politically for South Korea and Japan than the FIFA World Cup they co-hosted in 2002’ (2009: 140). As well as being credited with transforming the relationship between Japan and Korea, Winter Sonata has also been attributed with profoundly changing the lives of the viewers who watched it. Kaori Hayashi’s reception study of Japanese female fans of Winter Sonata found that 31.2 per cent of respondents claimed to have found new friends among other fans of the drama and 10.5 per cent declared that it had given them a new goal in their lives (2005b: 165).7 Yoshitaka Mōri’s study of middle-aged Japanese female fans of Winter Sonata revealed that they organized fan meetings, started studying Korean language and culture and ‘some Japanese fans even suggested “Winter Sonata has changed my life!” ’ (2008: 131). In Koichi Iwabuchi’s audience research many fans of the drama told him ‘that they consciously tried to become more caring and gentle to others and respect family members after watching Winter Sonata’ (2008: 249). Similar claims have been made for Korean drama’s impact on other Asian countries. According to Hyun Mee Kim, for example, Korean drama transformed the Taiwanese perception of South Korea from that of an ‘impoverished country’ into one containing ‘material brilliance’ (2005: 193). Sang-Yeon Sung further suggests that this new positive image ‘provided an opportunity for Taiwan

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and Korea to build positive relationships’ following the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1992 (2010: 44). Given its apparently favourable influence on East Asian countries and audience members, it is understandable that the Korean Wave has been critically regarded in some quarters as a welcome Asian alternative to Western cultural imperialism (Cho 2005; Shim 2005). However, in spite of its apparent benefits in forging ‘new forms of bonding and solidarity’, Korean Wave drama has also met with significant disfavour. As well as being viewed as an alternative to cultural imperialism, the Korean Wave has also been construed as an alternative form of cultural imperialism by many. Discourses in Korea surrounding the Korean Wave have not just consisted of panegyrical descriptions of growing bonds of Asian-ness following the positive reception of dramas like Winter Sonata abroad. There have also been unpleasantly jingoistic sentiments emanating from the country that relate to national pride and a perceived cultural conquest over Asian neighbours (see Kim 2007). Younghan Cho has condemned the unhealthy focus within Korea itself on Korean ability and even Korean ‘cultural DNA’8 as reasons for the success of the Korean Wave (2011: 387). Keehyeung Lee has complained that ‘conservative cultural critics and some members of the academia’ along with ‘journalists at major media organizations, government officials and policy makers’ have all too readily embraced the concept that ‘the Korean wave demonstrates the “superiority” of modern Korean popular culture’ (2008: 182). The Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo provides just one illustrative example of adopting such a position when it stated that ‘after having been colonized or overshadowed by its neighbors, Japan and China, for centuries, the country finally has a chance to outdo them on the cultural stage’ (English.chosun.com 2006). Given such jingoistic nationalist dimensions, cultural tensions have been aroused by the export of Korean dramas to some receiving nations and Korean Wave drama has become something of a political ‘hot potato’ in Asian countries that have found this

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alternative to American cultural imperialism equally objectionable (see Yang 2008b). As early as 2005, Jeon and Yoon observed growing sentiments against the Korean Wave in East Asia due to the expansion of its media industries into neighbouring countries. Ryoo points out that imported South Korean popular culture has been of particular concern in countries like China and Vietnam who have long had issues with American-style consumerism, and perceive it as being repackaged and relayed in Korean dramas with their focus on glitz and glamour (2009: 148). In China, the producer of popular epic dramas, Zhang Kuo Li, called the Korean Wave a ‘cultural invasion’ and urged his countrymen to reject their exports (Maliangkay 2006: 15). He particularly disliked Dae Jang Geum, criticizing its content as being ‘boring, slow tempoed’ with a ‘lack of creativity’, and accused it of cultural theft by claiming that the acupuncture, cookery skills and herbal medicine presented in the drama as Korean were in fact of Chinese origin. Jackie Chan also joined in the chorus of voices to resist the Korean Wave (Leung 2008: 65–6). In Japan anti-Korean Wave sentiments have been just as strongly felt. The Japanese actor Sousuke Takaoka triggered an online movement to boycott Fuji TV, the leading Japanese channel airing the most Korean shows, when he announced his aversion to the Korean Wave on Twitter on 23 July 2011. He stated that ‘it feels like Korean programs brainwash you, and it really makes me feel bad. Broadcasters need to realize its negative effect’ (Soompi.com 2011). A month later: thousands of Japanese demonstrated against Korean soap operas and other TV shows in front of the Fuji TV headquarters … The size of the protest – some 6,000 according to the organizers – was roughly the same as the turnout during an anti-nuclear protest following the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Waving Japanese flags, the protesters chanted slogans demanding the broadcaster to stop airing Korean programs and carried signs saying ‘No More Korean Wave’. (English.chosun.com 2011a)

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Similar anti-Korean wave activities have occurred throughout Asia. In Taiwan, for example, the Taiwanese National Communications Commission only renewed Gala Television’s drama channel license on 28 December 2011 on the condition that it would reduce the percentage of South Korean dramas shown (Taipei Times 2011). The Chinese government has gone even further and banned foreign drama outright during prime time (between 7 and 10 pm) (Jang 2012), a move that had been anticipated for a while in Korea and was perceived there as targeted at Korean drama in particular.9 Whether growing hostility has contributed a lot or a little, by 2009 there was a noticeable ‘decreasing momentum and intensity of the Korean Wave’ (Cho 2011: 390) which has been interpreted as a ‘decline of its popularity, if not complete demise’ (Ryoo 2009: 148). For the Korean government this has become a serious matter because ‘Seoul’s government has actively supported the expansion of the country’s culture industry abroad, viewing it as a soft power vehicle – a tool to boost Korea’s reputation in the region’ (Kang 2011). The term ‘soft power’, coined by the American scholar Joseph Nye (1990; 2004) to encapsulate how a nation’s influence can be enhanced in a region through improving its image and thus the saleability of its goods, has gained popular currency in international relations. As drama has become an established instrument of Korean ‘soft power’ within Asia, the Korean government has been very keen to turn around its declining fortunes and re-initiate the Korean Wave. As part of the solution they have begun ‘subsidizing the costs of production of some Korean dramas’ (Kim 2011: 126) and taking on a more direct role in overseeing their export. On 31 December 2011 the Korean Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Kwangshik Choe ‘announced a 2012 policy to expand support of Hallyu, to help keep the wave of Korean pop culture surging across its borders’ (Lieu 2012). As part of the 2010–12 ‘Visit Korea’ campaign the government also laid plans for a Korean Wave festival, with stars including Bae Yong-joon visiting Japan to promote Korean tourism and appearing in ‘tourism-linked commercials to be aired overseas’ (The Korea Herald 2010).

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Such associations of Korean drama with national well-being and Korean ‘soft power’ have become one of the biggest setbacks that the Korean Wave faces, as it has become virtually impossible to disentangle Korean drama from its promotion of Korea. This is problematic because this latest intertwining of drama and more aggressive government intervention has happened at a time when audiences have most probably become more skilled in recognizing subtexts of television content. In contrast to the mid-1980s when Umberto Eco (1986) felt a form of ‘semiological guerrilla warfare’ was required on the part of audiences to make them more aware of the ideological content that they were consuming, by 2007, Ien Ang could write safe in the knowledge that audiences were ‘in the know’ about television’s ‘textual tricks’ and ‘more skilful in reading television and the peculiarities of its generic conventions’ because ‘the pervasiveness of television culture has become an entirely naturalised feature of everyday life’ (2007: 22). Rather than Eco’s ideological warfare, organized resistance has instead become the response in countries such as Japan, China and Taiwan where undesirable ideological additives to Korean drama’s formula have been perceived and opposed. As long ago as 1818 the English poet John Keats recognized that ‘we hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us’ (cited in Sitterson 2000: 113) and it would seem the same is true of drama today as Asian audiences have become increasingly able to recognize the nationalistic intentions motivating aspects of the Korean Wave. Ah-young Chung, for example, argues that resistance to the Korean Wave in China and Japan has grown largely as a result of its ‘aggressive marketing strategies’ and ‘nationalistic content’ (2009: 16). The negative reaction to the Korean Wave overseas has not gone unnoticed in Korea and some have perceived its decline as potentially catastrophic. The Korea Times, for instance, stated that ‘if the Korean wave distorts or encroaches on the vitality of other Asian cultures, it would be nothing short of an East Asian version of cultural imperialism. Then, the cultural phenomena would be a mechanism that would hinder peace and coexistence in the

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region’ (cited in Kim, Ki-tae 2006). Perhaps it is too much to suggest that television drama could lead to such dire consequences. Then again, in Japan, anti-Korean Wave sentiment certainly seems to have aroused as much heated reaction as a potential nuclear meltdown.

Concluding Thoughts It has been the intention of this chapter to interrogate some of the major critical approaches to East Asian television drama and to raise the profile of the less attractive and less discussed aspects of East Asian television exchange. It has been argued that the numerous critical discourses relating to the notion of pan-Asianism or, as Erni and Chua put it, ‘Asian rising’ (2005: 6) should not overly obscure the fact that, as well as cultural proximity, cultural anxieties also play their part in how successfully television texts cross borders and impact upon the ways in which they are viewed, embraced or rejected. Within the exchange, alongside the growing willingness to share cultural products and increasing openness to each other’s cultures that the growth of cross-border television seems to suggest, there is still the push and pull between cultural commonality and national distinctiveness, past and present international relationships, local and foreign agendas, Confucian and Muslim values, Malay and Chinese identities, and myriad other areas of friction at macro and micro levels. What has also been argued is that there is certainly more to East Asian drama than shared Confucian values, nationally specific visions of modernity or Asian-wide envy of Japanese or Korean lifestyles. The dramas themselves are drenched with local cultural materials, created in every Asian country, widely diverse in form and content and embraced by non-Asians as well as Asians. There is an appeal to them that lies within aesthetics, storytelling, acting and cinematography, a value that lies in their depiction of their own cultures, their own unique national characters and moments of hilarious comedy and moving tragedy. Yet the dramas themselves

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Notes   1

See Desser (2003) for a discussion of how Hong Kong and Japan have long influenced the West in terms of cultural production.   2 See, for example, Cho (2005), Cho (2011), Chua (2006), Chua (2008), Fung (2007b), Kim, Hyun Mee (2005), Kim, Sujeong (2009), Leung (2004a), Lee, Dong-Hoo (2008), Leung (2008), Lin and Tong (2008), Miller (2008), Otmazgin, Nissim and Eyal, Ben-Ari (2011), Ryoo (2009), Shim (2005), Shim (2006a) and Wong (2010).  3 Sujeong Kim’s research suggests that Dae Jang Geum was actually received quite differently even within Confucian countries. Analyzing newspaper coverage in Korea, China and Japan, Kim reveals that the drama was considered quite a challenge to traditional Confucian values in Korea, whereas in China it was viewed as a woman’s tale that very much connected the heroine ‘with Confucian values and culture’. In Japan, however, it was perceived outside of the context of Confucianism as a lifestyle resource that fans could make use of to ‘expand their tastes and activities in everyday life’ (2009: 746–7).   4 For example, in their study of Asian female viewers in Singapore and Taiwan respectively, MacLachlan and Chua (2004) and Yang (2008a) demonstrate that the viewer’s class and social (marital) status within their own culture can also greatly influence audience identification when viewing imported television dramas.   5 A term popularized by Marshall McLuhan (1964).

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are receding from view in contemporary critical exchange as their social and political dimensions become increasingly foregrounded. Ultimately, what the dramas represent is being overstated in terms of their Asian qualities whilst the dramas themselves are being increasingly overlooked in terms of their artistic qualities. Whereas focus on the former implies that East Asian drama is to all intents and purposes a phenomenon restricted to Asia and Asians, it is the latter and currently under-examined aspects that are at this very moment enabling East Asian television drama to surge across borders, both Asian and non-Asian, all over the world.

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The popularity of Winter Sonata resulted in much strange and wonderful merchandising and drama-inspired behaviour. According to Laura Miller: ‘Yon-sama juice could be bought from street vending machines. The Yon­sama Teddy Bear, priced at about US$ 291, went on sale in 2005 … Winter So­nata Moisturizing Hand Cream, produced by an Australian company named Advance Pharma Developments, sold well all over Asia … optometrists began marketing frames for glasses that are just like the ones [Bae] … wears … Couples held Winter So­nata weddings, and there was talk about the Winter So­nata Divorce (Fuyu-sona rikon), a result of women’s disenchantment with fuddy duddy husbands who didn’t com­pare well to kind and handsome Yon-sama’ (2008: 19). Winter Sonata was also adapted into a musical that toured major cities in Japan (Han 2008: 35) and was made into a cartoon. Other dramas have also been turned into animated cartoons. After the success of the TV drama Dae Jang Geum, the lead character Jang Geum reappeared in the anime Shop Changumu no Yume (MBC 2006) in which she featured as a 12-year-old girl with an ambition to cook excellent food. Unlike the TV series, however, she had numerous animal companions including an os­trich and a turtle.  7 For further discussion of Hayashi’s work see Hilaria Gössmann and Griseldis Kirsch in this collection.   8 See, for example, Yoo et al. (2005).  9 As early as 2006 The Korea Times had warned that China’s State Administration of Film and Television intended to reduce the allowed quota of Korean-imported dramas by half.   6

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2

Approximating Cultural Proximity and Accentuating Cultural Difference: CrossBorder Transformations in Asian Television Drama Basil Glynn Asian television drama has been enjoying huge popularity within Asia over the last 20 years with imports and exports increasingly circulating throughout the continent. Vast audiences in numerous Asian countries have watched the trials and tribulations of Akana Rika in Tokyo Love Story (Fuji TV 1991), been engrossed by the exploits of the royal cook and physician Jang Geum in Jewel in the Palace (Dae Jang Geum, MBC 2003–4) and been moved by the heartache of the amnesiac arch-romantic Joon-sang in Winter Sonata (KBS 2002–3). For a long time there has also been a vibrant online community of Asian drama fans from around the world swapping, discussing and subtitling Asian dramas from numerous countries into English and other languages. In contrast, the majority of western television audiences have been oblivious to what has been taking enormous parts of the world by storm and captivating 47

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mass audiences. In the US, for example, Asian television drama has only recently begun to make small inroads into the market, with retailers such as Wal-Mart, Blockbuster and Tower Records beginning to sell Korean drama DVD box sets in cities with large Asian communities such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco (Manila Bulletin 2006).1 In contrast to Asian drama’s relatively ineffectual presence in the US,2 international ratings sensations such as Jewel in the Palace have had such an impact within Asia and some non-Asian countries that they have helped to refute predictions of American global cultural domination that had been so prevalent amongst scholars in the 1970s and 1980s (who worried that national cultures were being undermined as they became progressively more bombarded with American popular culture and Westernized values).3 Concerns expressed by numerous other cultural commentators such as Benjamin Barber (1995) and Toby Miller et al. (2001) have also been partly assuaged. Whilst examining globalization from a cultural imperialist perspective, they warned of Western cultural dominance through the invasion of local markets and the homogenization of film and television culture (stifling diversity and hampering local expression). Yet in contrast to such worries and predictions that the United States would exercise ‘mastery of global communications and culture’ (Schiller 1998: 17) and in spite of advances in satellite and cable technology, the contemporary outcome in Asia is that Asian television production and distribution are looking in increasingly good shape. There are a vast array of complex and interrelated reasons that can help to account for the impressive contemporary inter-Asian circulation and consumption of Asian television drama, including decolonization, political liberalization, the rise in living standards and of middle-class consumers,4 growth of the creative industries,5 increased trade and exchange of creative personnel within East Asia,6 technological advances such as satellites and multi-channel television technologies, developments in marketing and publicity machinery,7 media deregulation, relaxation of censorship laws, improved

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diplomatic relations,8 conscious resistance to Western hegemony, a strengthening of Asian identities, and a reaction of local cultures against global cultures. So successful has Asian television production become as a result of such factors that it has led some theorists, such as Arjun Appadurai, to proclaim that American global cultural centrality has become so challenged and destabilized by this type of competitive growth that the US can no longer be considered ‘the puppeteer of a world system of images but … [has become instead] … only one node of a complex transnational construction of imaginary landscapes’ (1996: 31–2).9 Whilst Appadurai is perhaps premature in his relegation of US global influence to the past, it is undeniable that television productions from Japan and Korea (and to a lesser extent Hong Kong) have been thriving within Asia over the last 20 years, and constructing impressive and hugely popular ‘imaginary landscapes’. Straubhaar and others attribute such resistance to US television domination in large part to the influence of ‘cultural proximity’10 in that people still primarily want to watch ‘their own culture or similar ones on television’ (Straubhaar and Duarte 2005: 221–2).11 Distinct from the West as a result of political, linguistic, cultural and other barriers, ‘cultural discount’12 has also proven advantageous for the inter-Asian circulation of Asian-produced dramas because such dramas can appear manifestly more local than American ones. Cultural discount can also help to account for Asian drama’s failure to take the West by storm in the same way as it has Asian audiences, because it satisfies Asian rather than Western tastes.13 Just as in the US, as far as contemporary British broadcasting (both terrestrial and satellite) is concerned, Asian TV drama might as well not exist. Today, like most countries in the West, it is only Asian animation that features prominently on British television. In spite of the fact that films from China, Japan, Korea and other Asian nations have been released on British cinema screens, it has been well over 30 years since any new Asian television drama has appeared – at least in live action form. Further, this absence of Asian drama appears unlikely to change in the near future in Britain,

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which has recently begun looking towards Europe rather than Asia for alternatives to its home-grown drama and US imports.14 Just as in Britain, Asian countries too are increasingly looking within their own continent for alternatives to their nationally produced and American-imported dramas as the popularity of Japanese trendy and Korean Wave (or hallyu) drama testifies. Audiences appear to like dramas that, when not domestic, at least appear to be from close to home. ‘Familiarity and place,’ as Anthony Giddens argues, may well be ‘much  less consistently connected than hitherto’ (1991: 141) as the world has become a smaller place as a result of globalization, but the local has also become larger as a result of international cultural exchange. People have become more and more aware of living within larger ‘imagined communities’15 than their own nation-states and their sense of place has been expanded. British audiences are currently in the process of becoming more familiar with European television drama while many Asian audiences are already years ahead of them by being well and truly familiar with drama from their continent, particularly that coming from Korea and Japan. Rather than attempting to break into the Western market, the seeming skill of Asian production companies in progressively tailoring their dramas to broad Asian audiences suggests that regionalization has become the driving force behind international Asian television exchange. While some non-Asian countries have bought Asian dramas, it is within Asia itself that the international exchange of Asian drama is happening at a rate of knots. In addition to the quality of the dramas themselves, advances in broadcast technology and the growth of distribution networks, this growth in popularity of Asian drama can also be partly attributed to Asian audiences’ growing sense of belonging to Asia rather than just their own nation-states. As their sense of locality has grown to encompass wider areas (in part as a result of the international exchange of Asian drama), so too have Asian dramas from such areas appeared increasingly local. As the popularity of Jewel in the Palace in Iran and Egypt and Winter Sonata’s success in Uzbekistan (Russell 2008: 119)

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also reveal, the extent to which countries share cultural affinity rather than just geographical proximity also needs to be taken into account when considering the increasingly widespread appeal of Asian dramas. In these cases, shared cultural values (such as the importance of family obligation) between these predominantly Islamic countries and Korea contributed to the dramas’ successful export beyond Asia. As what comprises the proximate seemingly continually expands, perhaps even to continental dimensions for some Asian audiences with a strong sense of Asian identity, the notion of proximity subsequently becomes increasingly vague. It is becoming progressively more difficult to argue that the same culturally proximate elements within television dramas are uniformly appealing to viewers as those dramas increasingly come from more and more places, and are watched by more and more people with different religions, ethnicities, languages and cultural values. Further, after local textual transformations through dubbing, censorship, editing and so on, those viewers may not even be essentially watching the same programmes at all. Therefore, rather than solely considering how television texts themselves appeal uniformly to Asian tastes, it is also profitable to consider how texts are transformed locally by those who understand local tastes when considering their popularity. Despite the fact that different nations and peoples do often enjoy the same Asian dramas within and outside of Asia, this chapter suggests that at times it is actually various approximations of cultural proximity rather than universally popular elements that enable the same dramas to be popular in numerous and diverse locations. An approximation is an inexact representation of something, but one that is close enough to be of some use. Cultural approximation is used here to describe the processes whereby foreign television shows are inexactly but usefully (with respect to attracting an audience) represented as local. This aspect of international television exchange is important to consider because, in an era when Asian television is commonly discussed in relation to shared Asian social and cultural

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qualities (Iwabuchi 2001a; Kwon 2006; Leung 2004a), cultural differences and national divisions that still exist and potentially hinder acceptance of imported television shows can very easily get overlooked.16 In order to overcome very real barriers to cultural exchange, even in cases of geographical and cultural proximity, deceptive strategies that overhaul television programmes and camouflage their origins have long been (and continue to be) part and parcel of breaking into new markets both in Asia and in the West. Such strategies, three of which are discussed in this chapter, have enabled Asian television over the years to circumvent national prejudices, overcome cultural discount and take advantage of audience fondness for the recognizable and familiar. One well-recognized method for making foreign programmes more appealing to local audiences is the adaptation of foreign genres and formats into appealing forms for local cultures in a process that Roland Robertson (1995) has termed ‘glocalization’. As Joseph D. Straubhaar and Luiz G. Duarte explain, even in the global age of television, audiences still want ‘networks to talk in their languages, focus on the genres they prefer, show known names (local stars), and demonstrate interest for their market idiosyncrasies’ (2005: 247). As a result, successful foreign programme formats, including Western ones such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (which has been adapted in numerous Asian countries including Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam), have frequently been modified and tailored to suit local audiences by featuring local people, cultural references and settings. Asian dramas have achieved popularity in Asia in a similar way to ‘glocalized’ programmes in the sense that they too have been specifically tailored to Asian audiences. ‘Popular pleasure is first and foremost a pleasure of recognition,’ Ien Ang (1985: 20) argues, and if this is the case (in contrast to American television) it would seem that Asian-produced drama is in an unassailable position of being able to capitalize on the desire of the Asian audience for familiarity and recognition. Straubhaar and Duarte, for example,

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assert that television markets such as Asia’s have prospered in recent years precisely because their audio-visual productions can draw upon ‘shared languages, shared historical experiences, geographical proximity and cultural proximity’ (2005: 222). This line of reasoning is followed by numerous other cultural commentators. Mark James Russell, for example, largely attributes the inter-Asian success of Korean dramas to the fact that they contain elements that people around Asia can relate to: ‘Confucian values, strong (if overbearing) families and modest sexuality (not to mention the actors who … [are] … physically more similar to Asian audiences than western audiences)’ (2008: 117). Hyun Mee Kim identifies further common features such as ‘respect for the elderly, preference for sons, and the unique relationship between the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law’ (2005: 187). Japanese television dramas likewise had their international success within Asia in the 1990s attributed to the fact that they managed to speak to Asians who shared a worldview that US television could not accommodate. Viewers in countries like Taiwan, Koichi Iwabuchi argues, found cultural resonance in dramatic depictions of contemporary Japanese life because their own countries were struggling to become like Japan by attempting to overcome their ‘own economic gap and developmental time lag’ (2002a: 562). Regionally circulating Japanese popular cultural products provided to other Asian countries a sense of living in a ‘shared  time’ of ‘common experience’ (2001a: 56) that ‘American popular culture’ could not represent accurately, if at all. This ‘sense’ of common experience afforded by the regional exchange of Asian popular culture has been heralded by some as helping to nurture a growing sense of pan-Asian identity (Cho 2005; Chua 2006; Iwabuchi 2004a; Lin and Tong 2008). In addition to recognizing that areas of commonality are important in explaining international success, some scholars like Iwabuchi (2002b: 26–7) have acknowledged that some cultural products are popular as a result of their difference (the appeal of the exotic and the other that they offer). However, as well as enabling acceptance, difference, as

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Jeongmee Kim (2007) has pointed out, also plays a big part in the rejection of popular culture from some Asian countries when it draws attention to negative inter-Asian feelings of resentment and national and cultural dissimilarity. Domestic audiences in both the East and West have to overcome prejudices, misconceptions and a lack of awareness of foreign social and cultural practices when being introduced to television drama from other countries. They can also be unfamiliar with foreign genres, stars, styles of acting and so on. In order to overcome such obstacles to viewing and facilitate television exchange, dramas are frequently transformed, to varying degrees, within each national context in an attempt to approximate cultural proximity – to make what is foreign appear more local. Three such methods of transformation will now be discussed and in this chapter have been termed ‘deliberate disguise’, ‘descriptive designation’ and ‘derogatory distortion’. Yet before consideration of the forms and ramifications of these textual transformations begins, it is worth bearing in mind Levi’s astute caveat that ‘where a product encoded by and for one culture is decoded by a very different culture, the process goes beyond complex’ (2006: 44). Thus, the three ‘dds’ identified for examination in this chapter should be regarded as attendant aspects of international cultural exchange alongside the political, economic, technological, social and other interrelated factors that impact upon the flows of television throughout Asia and the world. The first transformative ‘dd’, deliberate disguise, is generally utilized when there is palpable hostility between exporting and importing countries and the form of a particular commodity makes hiding its origin suitable. For example, Iwabuchi (2002b: 24–31) explains that prior to the late 1980s many Japanese cultural commodities designed for export were made culturally unidentifiable (or ‘odourless’) in order to counter negative perceptions of Japan still held in many Asian countries following World War II. One of these ‘odourless’ commodities was anime, which was suitable for disguise because of its inherent absence of actual real people and places. Because it was possible to erase or at least soften Japanese ‘bodily, racial, and ethnic

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characteristics’ (2002b: 28), anime became suitable for export even to Korea where, prior to 1998, Japanese cultural products were actually banned. After Japanese credits, names and references were replaced and the language was dubbed into Korean, Korean audiences were left with no evidence that the shows were anything other than Korean.17 Perhaps surprisingly, given the fact that anime and Japan are today synonymous, it was this same ‘odourless’ quality that also helped anime to become Asia’s most successful television export to the West because it enabled the programmes to bypass the same anti-Japanese sentiments that existed in certain Asian countries like Korea. Nowadays anime is a form of Asian programming that encompasses a wide variety of genres, including drama, which has become globally accessible and popular. As Levi states, today it is ‘widely available in translation across most of Asia, North and South America and Europe’ (2006: 44). Pokémon (OLM 1997–2002) and Yu-Gi-Oh (Toei 1998–2006) have entertained children around the world, while adults too have enjoyed the likes of InuYasha (YTV 2000–4) and Cowboy Bebop (Bandai 1998). Japanese anime DVDs can be found in high street stores with anime conventions and encyclopaedic anime sites such as Anime Academy (www. animeacademy.com) accommodating western fandom for Asian cartoons. Considered globally, the success anime has achieved is staggering. As Steven T. Brown states: ‘Japanese anime currently constitutes an estimated 60 percent of all forms of broadcast animation worldwide’; and ‘anime business (including box-office revenue and licensed character goods) generates $4 billion a year in the United States alone’ (2006: 6). Yet in stark contrast to its cultural status and position in the global market today, when it was first introduced into the West anime’s Japanese-ness was deliberately disguised as much as possible. Jim Dodd, instrumental at NBC in launching Astro Boy (Tetsuan Atomu, Mushi 1963–6), the cartoon that pioneered the way for anime in America, explained in 1963 how:

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We [meaning NBC Enterprises] don’t plan to advertise the fact that the series is being animated in Japan. We’re not going to deny it, if anybody asks, but we’re not going to publicize it, either. First of all, there are probably some buyers at stations out there who still haven’t gotten over the fact that Japan was our enemy in World War Two. Second, if a buyer hears that the show is of Japanese origin, he’s going to think it must be cheap ... shoddy ... and, even if he likes it, he’s going to try to get it for two dollars an episode. So we’re just not going to mention anything about Japan. Maybe they’ll think that, since the show is in limited animation, it’s probably coming from Hanna-Barbera Studio. (quoted in Ladd 2009: 21)

Such concealment was easy to achieve because, as it had limited animation, there was something of a local feel about the series. This local feel was further enhanced by the fact that the creator of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka, had been strongly influenced by Disney, Max Fleischer (Astro Boy’s large eyes were inspired by Betty Boop) (Ladd 2009: 33) and other American animators (as were many other Japanese anime-tors) (Napier 2001: 16). Because, as anime historian Susan J. Napier observes, virtually all anime texts contain the ‘extremely “non-Japanese” depiction of human characters’ (2001: 25), anime is perfectly suited to global export. In addition to the characters, the content and aesthetics continue to be nationally unspecified, influenced, as Napier states, by ‘sources as diverse as American television cop shows of the seventies,  European glam rock fashions of the eighties and French New Wave cinema from the sixties’ (2001: 22). The events depicted are also ‘usually played out across “stateless” fantasyscapes of future cities or far-away galaxies’ (Napier 2001: 24). This clear lack of ‘identifiable Japanese national, racial or ethnic markers’ has resulted in anime commonly being regarded as ‘mukokuseki’, meaning ‘without nationality’ (Brown 2006: 7). Japanese anime can thus be easily transposed to many cultural contexts because, unlike live-action drama, it has never needed to present real actors and locations. As Napier asserts, animation itself exists ‘as an 56

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alternative form of representation, a representation that privileges very different properties and conventions from that of live action’ (2001: 236). In stark contrast to animated dramas, the real actors and real places that feature in live-action drama cannot be so easily culturally concealed. As a result, outright disguise cannot be utilized, so instead alternative transformative methods are applied, such as the second ‘dd’, ‘descriptive designation’. In the case of ‘descriptive designation’, foreign and unfamiliar imported dramas are given, upon arrival, a generic designation that is recognizable to and already popular with a local audience. The choice of locally established genre to which the imported drama is assigned has to be carefully considered as it can mean the difference between success and failure. Fang-chih Irene Yang (2008c), in ‘The Generification of “Korean Drama” in Taiwan’, for example, investigates the politics of ‘what’s in a name’, exploring how the culture industries in Taiwan redefined imported Korean drama for a Taiwanese audience, firstly as Japanese idol drama and then Taiwanese Qiongyao drama. Japanese idol dramas, Yang argues, enjoyed great respect in Taiwan because they portrayed a modern Japanese lifestyle that Taiwanese audiences could aspire to. In contrast, Korea did not enjoy such an elevated status but was instead viewed ‘as a rival “sibling” – “a brother nation” ’ (2008c: 286).18 As a result of such indifference to Korea, Yang reports that ‘in a systematic effort to create the Korean Wave  in drama, Gala Television Corporation [GTV, a Taiwanese cable channel] strategically positioned Korean drama as idol drama in their attempt to attract the Japanese drama audience’ (2008c: 287). In the process of promoting Korean Wave drama, one of the strategies adopted was ‘to name Korean drama stars after wellknown Japanese stars’, with Won Bin (of Autumn in My Heart [KBS 2000] fame), for example, being ‘named as the “Korean Takuya Kimura” [of Long Vacation (Fuji TV 1996) fame]’ (Yang 2008c: 288). However, as the Japanese idol drama audience was young, the ‘idol drama’ designation proved unattractive to mature women who, in Taiwan, enjoyed local Qiongyao drama and in other countries

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(such as Japan) had proven to be the main consumers of Korean drama.19 Thus, ‘the definition of Korean drama as idol drama was challenged and renamed Qiongyao drama by critics and audiences’ (Yang 2008c: 287). This time round, ‘the actors’ and actresses’ Korean names were intentionally (mis)translated to remind the audiences of the romantic figures in Qiongyao drama’ (Yang 2008c: 288). This rebranding of Korean drama was aided by the fact that GTV clearly learnt quickly. Its manager, Lai Tsung-bi, explained that they ‘deliberately chose romance and family dramas for import as they “lack cultural odor” ’ (Yang 2008c: 288).20 Although the texts themselves were clearly foreign due to bodily and linguistic difference, their transformation into locally comprehensible forms was aided, first unsuccessfully then successfully, by generic designation. A slightly different approach was adopted in Singapore where, rather than a young or female audience, it was a specific ethnic group that was identified as the ideal demographic for Korean Wave drama. Kelly Fu Su Yin and Kai Khiun Liew (2005) explain that the Chinese majority was targeted because modes of consumption and distribution to provide foreign-made drama to this audience were already in existence. It was simply a matter of convenience for local distributors to buy Korean dramas from Taiwan and China rather than Korea because all aspects of the packaging – including the titles and plot synopses – were already conveniently ‘Sinicized’ for the ethnic Chinese majority (Fu and Liew 2005: 221). This approach was so successful, Fu and Liew assert, that hallyu drama actually became more strongly identified with Chinese-ness in Singapore than with Korean-ness. What these examples of transformations of Korean drama in Taiwan and Singapore help to illustrate is that, whilst Asian countries have increasingly begun to exchange their television dramas, this does not automatically mean that viewers have become less demanding in wishing to watch their own cultures or ones that they identify as like their own. The dramas discussed by Yang, Fu and Liew may indeed have had culturally proximate elements, but

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it was local transformative practices that helped to overcome their foreignness and led to their initial local consumption. In the case of Singapore, the transformative process also apparently reinforced a sense of local Chinese-ness instead of generating any greater understanding between Singapore and Korea. The consumption of Asian drama within Asia, it would appear, is not always a result of audiences identifying cultural elements that they share with producing countries and does not always result in bringing nations closer together. In some respects it can actually serve to keep them apart. Rather than always precipitating greater understanding, cultural proximity, in the sense of one culture being familiar with another culture, can also serve as a divisive force when this sense of familiarity is erroneously based on falsehoods. Rather than genuine similarity being identified, foreign peoples and cultures can be distorted in the eyes of beholders because they are viewed through lenses of preconceptions and misconceptions. In television terms, imported programmes can be transformed to suit what the domestic audience expects from a particular foreign culture and, as a result, prejudice and feelings of racial and national pre-eminence can be reinforced rather than weakened. As Fu and Liew perceptively observed in the process of studying the flows of East Asian popular culture between Korea and Singapore, as well as the usual ‘celebratory discourses of global multiculturalism’ it is necessary to consider as well ‘the power relations determining the regulations and representations of such flows’ (2005: 210). Divisive attitudes can heavily determine the nature in which one culture views the television produced by another. For example, Iwabuchi asserts, in his work on the consumption of foreign drama in Japan, that Japan’s consumption of certain dramas is informed by ‘Orientalist nostalgia’ (2002a: 549), arising from perceptions that they originate from ‘inferior’ (2002b: 159) and ‘ “backward” Asian nations’ (2002a: 547). This Asia is an idealized ‘backward’ Asia, he argues, conceived as an alternative good version of old Japan through which ‘Japanese consumers find their lost purity,

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energy, and dreams’ (2002a: 550). Japan’s viewing of other Asian dramas, according to such a reading, is based on a perception of shared traits, but Japan is also conveniently elevated at the expense of the exporting culture. At one and the same time, Japanese audiences can assume their nation is more advanced whilst enjoying a sanitized, ersatz version of their past through imported television dramas. Because the imagined past conjured by the dramas is a ‘good’ past, this helps to suppress ‘the history of subjugation of other Asian countries that has constituted Japanese modernity’ (Iwabuchi 2002a: 554). This particular viewing position and ‘condescending mode of thinking’ (Iwabuchi 2008: 247) exemplifies the third transformative ‘dd’, derogatory distortion, through which other nations are deliberately misrepresented in order to accommodate one nation’s skewed view of another. In Iwabuchi’s example, each exporting ‘backward’ country’s expression of itself is challenged and overwritten by a new Japanese narrative of national fulfilment that emerges from a national attitude and position adopted vis-à-vis dramas at the reception stage. A more industrially based form of ‘derogatory distortion’ can occur in the process of language transfer, which in international television exchange takes the form of dubbing or subtitling. The level of esteem afforded in the process of translation to the drama itself and/or the source culture can greatly impact upon the degree and nature of textual transformation. The Korean drama Jumong (MBC 2006), for example, was very popular in Iran, and the Tehran Times (2009) attributed its local appeal to the fact that the original was respected and it was ‘dubbed with love’. In contrast, a lack of respect for the original was identified as a reason for the perceived ratings failure of the Korean drama Iris (KBS 2010) in Japan. This ‘blockbuster spy action’ drama, consisting of 20 episodes, was broadcast on Japanese terrestrial television on Wednesdays at 9 pm commencing from 21 April 2010. Appearing on the Japanese Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) it received a lot of media attention due to its prime-time slot and because the ratings

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had been huge in Korea. Lee Byung-hun, noted in Korea for his muscular body and deep voice, was the star of the series and played the part of an agent for the ultra-secret spy organization NSS; for Japanese broadcast, he was dubbed by the actor Tatsuya Fujiwara (as opposed to the voice actor Kazuya Takahashi who had voiced Lee in several previous dramas). Amid anticipation and speculation that the series would be a big hit, perhaps even to the extent that it would ‘initiate the second hallyu boom in Japan’ (KBS Global Entertainment News 2010), it began at a respectable rating of 10.1, soon declined to 721 and eventually became TVB’s ‘lowest rated show in its Wednesday night time slot’ (The Japan Times 2010). The Korean Joy News (2010) attributed this relative failure to the dubbing, complaining that because Fujiwara had been chosen, Lee now sounded like a boy whose voice was breaking and was thus undermined as an action hero.22 Both Jumong in Iran and Iris in Japan suggest that dubbing as a form of translation can have a serious impact upon the success or failure of a show depending upon how meaning is conveyed from the source text to the target audience. As the translator Tony Harrison explains: ‘we have to remember when we think about the word translation that it comes from transferro, “I carry across”. Not only do you have to have enough understanding of … where the text is coming from, you also have to know where it is going in order to carry it’ (‘The Wednesday Feature’). In the case of Fujiwara, it would appear his vocal interpretation of Lee satisfied neither those from whom the text came, nor those to whom it was carried. Perhaps this refusal to take Lee seriously as a Korean ‘macho’ hero reveals something about Japanese attitudes towards Korean masculinity. Korean male stars who had made it big in Japan, such as Bae Yong-joon (of Winter Sonata fame), had tended to star in sensitive male roles, offering romantic love rather than violent death. Or possibly it was just an aesthetic error of judgement (if Fujiwara was indeed to blame for the series’ failure) as it is difficult to argue that TBS would have deliberately sabotaged their own prime-time show by vocally emasculating its star.

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Whether a Western country like Britain would handle the dubbing of Iris any better is difficult to say, but if previous efforts count for anything, it would seem pretty doubtful. Perhaps surprisingly, we have to go as far back as the 1970s and the broadcast of The Water Margin and Monkey (Saiyûki, Kokusai Hoei and NTV 1978–80) to find any examples of the British transformation of Asian drama to discuss, as the aforementioned programmes have hitherto been the only live-action Asian dramas to appear on British television. When dubbed in Britain in this era, the process of emasculating through the soundtrack what was perhaps mistakenly half-achieved with Iris in Japan was far more completely accomplished in the case of The Water Margin. Its dubbing also clearly displayed that, when one culture’s view of another is extremely misinformed, dubbing’s unavoidable deformation of original texts can all too easily become an offensive form of racial defamation. Based on the fourteenth-century epic Outlaws of the Marsh,23 The Water Margin24 was a 1973 historical television series set in twelfthcentury Song dynasty China that told the tale of 108 legendary heroes who fought corruption in ancient China. Produced by the Japanese Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV), it was filmed in China using Japanese actors (including Atsuo Nakamura as the heroic Lin Chung and Kei Sato as the villainous Kao Chiu).25 The series was bought by the BBC and dubbed for broadcast, airing between September 1976 and January 1978.26 In contrast to utilizing disguise to domesticate the show as had been the case with the ‘culturally odourless’ Astro Boy, this time the opposite approach was taken and the Asian nature of the programme was deliberately flaunted. Dubbing is usually considered a method of language transfer that domesticates a text and subtitling a method that accentuates its foreignness.27 However, The Water Margin was dubbed in a manner that achieved both outcomes. The dubbing domesticated the drama by making it conform to a British notion of Asia through accentuating its cultural difference, in other words through ‘Orientalizing’ it. This Orientalizing process was achieved

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through the addition of neo-colonialist mockery to the soundtrack. Speech was removed from the actors uttering it and replaced with comical Chinese voices provided by voice-over artists. Whereas the sound and image were in unison in the original version and worked towards the common purposes of character and narrative development, in the British version of The Water Margin the comical dubbing undermined the original dialogue’s function of reinforcing the images. Instead, it changed the spectator position from passive observer to one ‘in on the joke’ at the expense of the characters in the fiction, who continued unaware of their new voices and the farcical turn their narrative had now taken. The dubbed drama also featured a non-diegetic voice-over by the Manchester-born Burt Kwouk, who was known in Britain due to his role as Cato in The Return of the Pink Panther (dir. Blake Edwards 1975). Kwouk’s voice-over, replete with Chinese proverbs, aided comprehension of the story, but also served as a meta-diegetic device that tied the tale more broadly to Asian spiritualism and ‘fortune cookie’ folk wisdom. This voice-over (in contrast to the characters within the diegesis who were oblivious to the presence of viewers when they spoke) directly addressed the audience and hampered the illusion created by the original series of ‘reality presenting itself ’ which Noël Carroll suggests is the quintessence of a realist text (1996: 78). As Mary Ann Doane states, the voice-over is a powerful form of direct address because it ‘speaks without mediation to the audience, bypassing the “characters” and establishing a complicity between itself and the spectators’ (1986: 341). In the dubbed version of The Water Margin, this complicity took the form of informing ‘us’ in ‘our’ terms how to interpret ‘them’. The British audience of The Water Margin were well aware that the foreign text had been manipulated. As John Belton states: ‘dubbing, and especially the dubbing of foreign films in which one language is seen spoken but another heard, is “read” by audiences as false’ (1985: 65). This is because it draws attention to the fact that sound is a device, one sonorous reality overlaid with another, now separate from, rather than organically joined to the image as

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is the illusion with synchronous sound. What we are left with are ‘languages that don’t belong to the lips, words that don’t belong to the faces’ (‘Direct Sound’ 1985: 152). Aware of the manipulation of the sound, the dubbing and the voice-over ensured that the audience were conscious that they were not watching an objective presentation of the text but rather one filtered through the authority of the translators. Both the dubbers who translated the language and the narrator who contextualized what was happening ensured representational expectations were met for the audience through the new soundtrack. As the actors in The Water Margin were separated from their own voices, one can view this as an exercise of power in that they were, in effect, silenced, animate dummies for the ventriloquism of Western actors. Such ventriloquism was not an isolated case but was par for the course in western re-presentation of Asian visual culture in the 1970s, dominated as it was by the kung fu craze that followed Enter the Dragon (dir. Robert Clouse, Hong Kong/US 1973). By the time the BBC screened The Water Margin in 1976, kung fu had become indelibly associated with appalling dubbing to the extent that this had become an essential aspect of how such texts were read and understood. Thus, in terms of making The Water Margin accessible, the BBC’s approach was understandable. The series featured neither Western actors nor characters, was a characteristic example of the wuxia genre (previously unseen on British television) and told the story of 108 reincarnated heroes battling a corrupt government in ancient China. In order for all this unfamiliar material to be comprehensible to a British television audience it is not difficult to see why its transformation referenced what British audiences were familiar with: kung fu cinema and its western re-authoring. The result of such re-authoring, however, was the inversion of the original Asian depiction of Asian action heroes as powerful and dynamic into figures that were comical and emasculated. Such distortive Western treatment, according to Edward Said, had long been the norm in depictions of the East in Western art and

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literature, by which it had routinely been portrayed ‘as feminine’ (1985: 103).28 In response to this Western image, Siu Leung Li makes the argument that a central concern of kung fu cinema was the reestablishment of Chinese masculinity, intending to ‘ “redeem” the effeminate Chinese man’. ‘When the West stereotyped its object of subjugation as female,’ Li argues, ‘the kung fu myth advocated ... and strove to reclaim China as male ... through a fetishization of the male kung fu body’ (Li 2001: 515; 516; 525). However, Li’s point is largely inapplicable outside of Asia because in the Western exhibition of Asian-made kung fu cinema and television, ascendant and powerful Asian male heroes were brought well and truly back down to earth through the dubbing. The bodies were Asian, as in The Water Margin, but the voices were not, and just as there were battles that filled these dramas, so too was there a constant battle between what audiences in the West saw (‘them’) and what Western audiences heard (‘us’ mocking ‘them’). Meaghan Morris makes the point that the ‘famously bad English dubbing’ that featured in so much kung fu in the West engendered a belief that ‘the films were uniformly so terrible they were funny – a camp reception … that survives in some Western fan subcultures today’ (2004: 182). This reputation for camp, so contradictory to Li’s assertion, suggests that dubbed Asian martial arts dramas meant very different things in Asia and in the West, largely as a result of the voices on the soundtrack. The dubbing of The Water Margin, as a metalanguage, continually parodied its coeval object (the visual text). It reconfigured the genre and endowed it with a camp aesthetic that transformed representations of might, skill and strength into bluster and semi-comic posturing that repeatedly cued the audience to approach what they saw as preposterous and outlandish. The Water Margin was in many ways a logical choice for a British television audience that culturally understood Asia in relation to a notion of mélange, perceiving it as one vast area of similar practices and beliefs.29 The Water Margin had Japanese actors portraying Chinese characters. The dubbing was attributable to Hong Kong

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kung fu cinema and was supplied by mostly British actors providing geographically non-specific ‘Asian’ accents. Again taking into account Ang’s point that ‘popular pleasure is first and foremost a pleasure of recognition’ (1985: 20) and additionally considering Rick Altman’s contention that the pleasure of genre spectatorship ‘derives more from reaffirmation than from novelty’ (1999: 25), it is clear to see why The Water Margin was made to conform to an expected hybridized image of Asia through the voice impressions of Asians speaking English as performed by British actors for a British audience. The broader ramifications for global television exchange of the three types of cross-border transformations of Asian television discussed in this chapter are that perhaps notions of cultural proximity are not, nor have they ever been, as ‘natural’ and unmanufactured as might often be assumed. Doobo Shim, for example, makes the argument that Asians form imagined communities in Asia from watching texts from neighbouring countries and identifying cultural similarities in them (2006a: 25–44). However, there is often an intermediary in the form of a wily studio executive, subtitler, package designer or dubber who makes such programmes conform to expectations – who makes them similar to what local audiences are already familiar with by giving them a verbal or visual makeover that brings them into line with local perspectives – whose job it is to approximate cultural proximity. A show may be exported as one thing and viewed by its new audience as an ambassador for that country, but the show itself may be transformed into something else, something that helps to reinforce cultural stereotypes rather than helping to move past them. The imaginary of itself that a country exports (how it sees itself and/or wants to be seen) can be transformed into the importing country’s own imaginary of the country of origin. Just because texts travel does not always mean that they arrive in the same good condition as when they left. As Endymion Wilkinson warns: ‘we may live in a world of annihilated distance but it still remains a world of inherited misperceptions’ (1983: 32).

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Much has been written about the intertwining of the Hollywood and Asian film industries30 and how Hollywood, with its use of Asian personnel and increased spectacle, is becoming Asianized, whilst Asia, with its adoption of Hollywood styles of narrative and deals with Hollywood studios, is becoming Hollywoodized. Many films can be described as transpacific, Hollywood studios themselves often being owned by global conglomerations that complicate notions of American-led cultural imperialism or economic domination in relation to Asian markets. In addition, the globalized flow of ‘television programmes and modes of address’ have arguably, as Michael Keane et al. suggest, ‘converged into an international style’ (2007: 29). Orientalist attitudes may be rapidly changing too since the days of The Water Margin as a result of global migrations, tourism and the economic growth of Asia, Eric Ma stressing how Japan’s ‘high-speed modernization has destabilized its discursive position as a society of the inferior Orient’ (2002: 124). Unlike the days of Astro Boy it would seem that the West is more ready to accept the East without as much subterfuge, but progress is still undeniably slow in relation to the West’s consumption of live-action Asian television drama. Perhaps this is simply because Asia is increasingly making television for Asians and the more it goes down this road the less accessible or desirable it becomes to western audiences. Possibly, given (one hopes) more respectful attitudes adopted by countries like Britain towards the East, it is no longer possible to make unfamiliar Asian genres accessible through post-colonial mockery.31 Maybe cultural discount is just too great when it comes to live action Asian drama in countries like Britain which, for over 30 years, has been oblivious to the entirety of Asian television drama in all its national forms and generic diversity. Or perhaps the United States is still ‘the puppeteer’ when it comes to global television exchange after all. Whatever the reasons, sadly it seems that Asian television drama’s success within its own continent in the foreseeable future is not going to be matched by equal success beyond it – at least in the West.

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With regards to international television flows, both within Asia and between Asia and the West, questions still remain as to whether issues relating to the imposition of Western cultural values on Asia (and alternatively the celebration of perceived Asian cultural resistance and closer pan-Asian understanding) are being over-emphasized at the expense of examining the forms that these television products actually take upon reaching each country. Transformations of Asian programmes that have reinscribed meanings and distorted authorial intentions have been occurring for many years. Texts may cross borders but that does not necessarily mean that they break boundaries. Rather, on occasion, as Fredric Jameson suggests, they may instead be absorbed into each national ‘great collective’ (1981: 76) and become one more ‘utterance’ which maintains those hard-to-break barriers between them and us.

Notes  1

 2

 3   4   5   6   7  8

Eun-young Jung suggests that while the Korean Wave is ‘not yet a “wave” in the United States ... its ripples’ have reached its shores. Even though ‘U.S. audiences for Korean television drama are small’, stations in cities with ‘sizable Korean-American popu­lations’ including ‘Chicago, Philadelphia, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington and New York offer several shows daily’ (2009: 73). AZN Television (formerly the International Channel) tried showing Asian films and dramas but failed to survive, going off-air on 9 April 2008. See, for example, Dorfman and Matterlart (1975), Guback (1969), Hamelink (1983), Schiller (1969), Schiller (1976) and Tunstall (1977). See Chua (2000). See Flew (2002). See Keane et al. (2007: 3). See Lim (2008: 43). Evidenced in television terms in co-productions such as Friends in 2002 (co-produced by Japanese TBS Entertainment and Korean MBC

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Productions) and My Love Beijing (co-produced by Korean KBS and Chinese CCTV).   9 Tunstall (2008) has also argued that American hegemony is in decline, in his analysis of the growing challenges the burgeoning mass media present to the US in territories such as South America, China, India, the Soviet Union and the Muslim world. Likewise, Curtin (2007) suggests other media capitals are seriously eroding American cultural centrality. For other discussions of the growing importance of nonAmerican ‘nodes’ of transnational cultural construction see BoydBarrett and Thussu (1995), Sinclair et al. (1996), Tomlinson (1997) and Tracey (1988). 10 Defined by Joseph Straubhaar, Robert Larose and Lucinda Davenport as ‘the desire for cultural products as similar as possible to one’s own language, culture, history, and values’ (2010: 504). 11 For studies suggesting that domestic audiences maintain a preference for local programmes see Dupagne and Waterman (1999), Silj and Alvarado (1988), Waterman and Rogers (1994) and Wang (1993). 12 According to Colin Hoskins and Rolf Mirus, cultural discount occurs when a television programme ‘rooted in one culture and thus attractive in that environment will have a diminished appeal elsewhere as viewers find it difficult to identify with the style, values, beliefs, institutions and behavioural patterns of the material in question’ (1988: 500). 13 Asian television dramas, like mainstream Asian films, are perhaps struggling to break into the West because, as A.O. Scott suggests, ‘foreign’ is all too often associated with ‘ “depressing” or “diffi­cult” ’ (2004: 81). In addition, as Jeongsuk Joo argues, there is a reticence on the part of Americans to consume subtitled products, particularly when they are commercial and mainstream in nature because they do not fit easily into existing genre-based mar­keting schemes. ‘They do not conform to the “art house” standards reserved for for­eign’ products and so ‘their “foreign-ness” makes them a difficult sell to general … audiences’ (2008: 12). 14 The broadcast of European foreign-language television series had long been a rarity on British television. Those that were picked up for broadcast included the German series Das Boot (WDR, Bavaria Film,

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Germany, 1985) on BBC2 in 1988 and Heimat (WDR, Germany, 1984) on BBC2 in 1987, the French series Châteauvallon (Antenne-2, Maintenon Films, France, 1985) on Channel 4 in 1987 and the Belgian series Matrioshki (Independent Productions, Belgium, 2005) on FX in 2005. Since the screening of Spiral (Engrenages, Canal+ 2005) on BBC4 in 2006 the broadcast of European drama on British television has increased with a second series of Spiral shown in 2009 and a third in 2011. Scandinavian series in particular have been making more frequent appearances following the popularity of the BBC4 broadcast of the first series of the Swedish series Wallander (Yellow Bird, Sweden, 2005–8) in 2008 (with a second series shown in 2010), itself a beneficiary of the success of Spiral. As Sue Deeks, Head of BBC Acquisitions, explains: ‘Spiral was the first specifically crime drama that we showed. It just had a very good response that led to us looking at what other European crime dramas there were out there’ (The Independent 2011). Following such ‘looking’, in 2011, BBC4 screened the Danish crime series The Killing (Forbrydelsen, DR, Denmark, 2007), a 20-episode subtitled crime drama following the social and political ramifications of a murder in Copenhagen. Following its successful broadcast on BBC4, the second series of The Killing was screened in late 2011, followed by the Danish political thriller Borgen (DR, Denmark, 2010), the Danish-Swedish coproduced crime drama The Bridge (Bron/Broen, DR, Denmark, SVT, Sweden, 2011) and the Swedish crime thriller Sebastian Bergman (Den Fördömde, SVT, Sweden, 2010). In addition to looking ‘out there’ for crime dramas, the BBC has also produced ersatz Euro crime dramas of its own. BBC Scotland (in partnership with Yellow Bird films, the Swedish production company responsible for the Swedish Wallander) made its own version of the detective series Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh, which was broadcast in December 2008 (followed by a second series in 2010 and a third in 2012). The BBC’s version was filmed in Sweden with Branagh as the eponymous Swedish detective in a Sweden where everybody speaks English. A similar approach was adopted in 2011 with the BBC series Zen (in partnership with several European coproduction partners including Italy’s RTI and Germany’s ZDF), with the Italian detective, played by Rufus Sewell, conducting his investigations

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in a Rome where everybody speaks English. In contrast, the possibility of showing Asian television drama does not appear to be on the BBC’s radar. Alice Bebbell has been campaigning for the BBC to broadcast the Korean series Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace, MBC 2003–4) since 2005. On her website ‘Show “Dae Jang Geum” on BBC!’ she published a response from Sue Deeks as to why the Korean drama could not be aired: ‘unfortunately ... BBC Four simply does not have the capacity to air such a long running foreign language series. If you look at BBC Four’s schedules you will see that other  than weekly foreign language films, there are very few slots for acquired foreign language programming – on average we play one drama series a year, usually of no more than 8 or 10 episodes. As with any BBC Channel, most of BBC Four’s output is made or commissioned by the BBC and the acquisition slots are limited by the BBC charter...’ (‘Show “Dae Jang Geum” on BBC!’). By her own later admission, Deeks does not appear to apply the same criteria to European drama since the first series of The Killing alone consisted of 20 episodes. A term coined by Benedict Anderson (1983) to describe the communal social construction of nations. For a discussion of the importance of cultural heterogenization in contrast to globalization arguments that stress cultural homogenization see Appadurai (1990). Also helpful, as Mark James Russell points out, was the fact that so much of the work in the Japanese animated series was ‘done in Korea by local animation middlemen that the images felt practically Korean’ (2008: 120). Sang-Yeon Sung suggests that ‘unlike Japan or Hong Kong, South Korea was not a country that the Tai­wanese believed it important to follow or emulate – culturally, economically or politically’ (2010: 40). Hyun Mee Kim expresses the same point more bluntly by asserting that ‘Korea was perceived by Taiwan as having no cultural images worth emulating’ (2005: 189). For a discussion of middle-aged female fandom for Korean drama in Japan see Mōri (2008). Hyun Mee Kim suggests that the domestication process is ongoing in that ‘Taiwanese broadcasting stations and importers’ try to import

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21 22

23

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Korean ‘dramas without any music or sound effects in order to add local touches and flair later’ (2005: 201). In Japan, a point rating equals one million viewers. A rating of 15 equals approximately 15 million viewers and is regarded as passable. The term hallyu had not been used in the advertising of the show in Japan, with TBS producer Yuko Yoshino explaining that with this particular show they wanted to ‘target a mass audience, such as men who have no interest in them (Korean dramas)’(Gallagher 2010). Given that ‘middle-aged female fans’ were seen as the primary viewers of hallyu dramas (Gallagher 2010), it appears that neither the marketing nor the dubbing were well-judged. An alternative English title is All Men are Brothers, derived from Pearl S. Buck’s translation in 1933. The original text is generally considered to have been principally composed by Shi Nai’an with Luo Guanzhong providing further chapters (although there is academic debate as to whether these two were actually one and the same person). The story has been utilized in kung fu films such as Water Margin (Shui hu zhuan Cheh, dir. Chang Hsueh and Li Pao, Hong Kong, 1972) and its sequel All Men are Brothers (Dong kai ji, dir. Cheh Chang and Ma Wu, Hong Kong, 1975), The Marshes of Liang Shan Po (Shui hu chuan gu shi lang zi yan qing, dir. Ma Shing, Hong Kong, 1984) and All Men are Brothers: Blood of the Leopard (Sui woo juen ji ying hung boon sik, dir. Billy Chan, Hong Kong, 1992). It has also featured in other TV series such as Water Margin (Shui hu zhuan, CCTV, China, 1997) and All Men are Brothers (Shui hu zhuan, ZTV, China, 2011), comedies such as Laughter of the Water Margins (Shui hu xiao zhuan, dir. Clifton Ko, Hong Kong, 1993) and sexploitation in Water Margin: Heroes’ Sex Stories (Shui hui chuen ji ying hung hiu sik, dir. David Lam, Hong Kong, 1999). It aired in Britain in 1979 (with another 13 previously unaired episodes screened on Channel 4 in 2004). It has since been repeated on the British channels ITV4 in 2006 and Men and Motors in 2007. Language transfer in television is achieved either through subtitling or dubbing, with particular countries tending to have a marked preference

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for one or the other. European countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain tend to re-voice foreign language material whilst Britain, like most English-speaking countries, tends to subtitle. Dubbing can be seen as a form of domestication in that the source language is removed in favour of the target language spoken by the viewing audience. As Chua (2004) argues, dubbing into the local language encourages local viewers to approach imported drama as almost local. Subtitling, in contrast, can be viewed as a form of foreignization in that the foreign nature of the source text is foregrounded. Even though an audience does not understand the language, as Miguel Mera explains, ‘the flavour of the language, the mood and the sense of a different culture come across clearly’ (1999: 75). For further reading on foreignization and domestication in translation studies see Hatim and Mason (1997), Munday (2001) and Venuti (1995). For a discussion of foreignization and domestication in relation to subtitling and dubbing see Szarkowska (2005). Some post-colonial translation theorists go further than aesthetics when discussing the merits and drawbacks of different types of language transfer, with some, like Robinson (1997), arguing that translation can explicitly serve national interests. In the cinema, Ella Shohat suggests that this practice has persisted largely as a result of Western cinema narrating ‘European penetration into the Third World through the figure of the “discoverer” ’ (1997: 27). Whether it be an explorer, archaeologist, ambassador or soldier, other lands are perceived through the Western eyes of such characters, reinforcing a sense of robust white Western identity through depicting the foreign Otherness of other nations and peoples, with a particular ‘inclination to project the non-Occident as feminine’ (Shohat 1997: 23). Overt femininity with connotations of deviant sexual tendencies in tales of miscegenation, captivity and seduction were images commonly conveyed in Hollywood historical epics and are discussed in great depth in Gina Marchetti’s Romance and the Yellow Peril (1993). Richard Slotkin identifies additional Oriental male characters as ‘identified with women; and femininity’ (1995: 123). Endymion Wilkinson suggests that such associations derive from the fact that ‘colonial conquest and rule provided the opportunity in the form of readily available girls, and

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29

30 31

encouraged Europeans to think of the West as active and masculine and the East as passive and feminine’ (1983: 46). In contrast to the ‘rugged Gable or Cooper type’ (Brosnan 1976: 254), Asian men have not fared well in Western film and television in relation to their masculinity. For further discussion of the effeminate portrayal of the Asian male in cinema see Lesage (1981). The perceived racial traits of Asians have arguably long been nationally indistinct in both Britain and the US, behaving on television and film in a ‘typical’ and ‘general’ Oriental manner irrespective of their country of origin. Ella Shohat suggests that this on-screen ‘practice of mélange recalls the frequent  superimposition in Orientalist paintings of the visual traces of civilisations as diverse as Arab, Persian, Chinese and Indian into  a single feature of the exotic Orient’ (1997: 47). Historically, as Endymion Wilkinson explains, ‘the phrase “the Orient” was applied indiscriminately to many  countries, being gradually extended to cover Persia, Arabia, India, China, Mongolia and, last of all, Japan. As contacts were made with each new country, past images were simply transferred to them’ (1983: 31–2). Eric Ma suggests that this ‘straightjacket of images’ is still in fine fettle as in Western shows like The X-Files (US, 1993–2002) and Millennium (US, 1996–9); ‘different Orients’ are still ‘often hybridized, decontextualized and over-generalised’ (2002: 125). See Balio (1998), Buck (1992) and Miller et al. (2001). Possibly contemporary audiences are too aware of narrative construction to accept such clumsy textual tinkering. Ang, for example, has argued that an ‘ironic’ viewing position has become an increasingly common approach to television viewing, particularly among younger audiences as they have become more skilled in reading television and more used to generic conventions. When watching a programme they ‘tend to take it less seriously, have a more sceptical stance towards it, and are more willing and capable of mocking its perceived artificiality and disingenuousness’ (2007: 22).

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3

‘I rili lyke dis’: Forum Culture and the Cosmopolitan Spacing of Asian Television Online Maimuna Dali Islam It was not until my travels to Japan, Korea and Hong Kong1 that I realized how unprecedented and expansive access to Asian television has now become. Over the years, increasingly sophisticated online forums have offered more material with briefer turnaround time. Local Asian programming is notoriously difficult to access in the United States. However, although I live in a somewhat rural area in the United States (devoid of the large, thriving immigrant communities that facilitate the gathering of entertainment news from overseas), because of the Internet I can view shows within days or even hours of their airing in Asia, and my level of access to the latest news and shows from Asia is nothing short of remarkable. While American shows are ubiquitous in Asia, Asian entertainment has failed to cross over to the United States in any significant way. Despite concerted efforts to bring Asian television programmes to the US, and even though Japanese anime and Korean dramas are increasingly visible (Song 2006; Sontag 2005), popularizing Asian 75

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TV has been a struggle, evidenced by the demise in April 2008 of AZN Television (a channel that targeted Asian-Americans with Asian programming) because of its inability ‘to gain the distribution and advertising sales necessary to maintain a viable business’ (azntv. com). Although a couple of channels have stepped in to attempt to bring Asian TV to the US (as had AZN Television), the selection of programmes offered has been extremely limited (Natividad 2008) and unable to compete with the range of programming and sophistication found online. Thus, despite its increasingly global appeal, offline or terrestrial Asian television remains very much a local and localized field of entertainment. Korea is one country that has aggressively promoted its programmes within Asia and has effectively converted the popularity of its television dramas (K-dramas, as they are known online) into the generation of substantial tourism revenue, edging out Japanese and American shows in the Asian region (Onishi 2005; The Korea Herald 2007; Toprak 2008). Korean tourism pamphlets display, alongside lists of historical, political and cultural attractions, large sections devoted to tours themed around trips to the filming locations of popular television dramas (‘The Korean Wave Hallyu’ 2008; ‘Travelguide Korea’ 2010: 34–7). The Korea Tourism Organization website has a substantial webpage devoted to detailing hit dramas (Korean TV Dramas http://english.visitkorea. or.kr/enu/CU/CU_EN_8_5_1.jsp), with each drama link opening up to extensive summaries of the plot, cast and locations featured in each show, along with detailed maps and directions on how to get to the various locations. In fact, the interconnection between Korean television and the export of Korean culture, history and landscape is so pervasive that the tourism centre in Seoul featured, when I visited, a high-tech display of holographic images of leading television stars such as Lee Byung-hun, Bae Yong-joon and Kwon Sang-woo alongside posters for national and historical heritage sites. This considerable focus on the export of Korean culture, however, is directed at those countries that have already embraced the Korean

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Wave (hallyu in Korean)2 and not at Western audiences. Similarly, while Japanese animation (anime) has become mainstream in the West, with even the Cartoon Network (a basic cable channel in the United States) airing hours of anime programming every week, Japanese live action dramas or variety shows like SMAPxSMAP are very much locally produced and consumed. In Japan my familiarity with the local shows and actors such as Kimura Takuya was met with genuine surprise by Japanese guides because they generally understood their local television programming to be directed at and serving only their own culture and community. They believed that these culturally specific shows would not and could not appeal to a wider audience, especially a Western one, and understood that while American entertainment is ubiquitous in Asia, the reverse is not the case. Their understanding was not inaccurate: while the latest television shows from the US, most recently series such as CSI (CBS 2000–) or Game of Thrones (HBO 2011–), air throughout Asia, the same cannot be said for the latest Asian shows in the United States. Therefore, because of the lack of a pre-existing market in the West, most Asian shows are not targeted to an English-speaking audience. Beyond cultural differences, the language barriers alone seem sufficient to prevent popular television entertainment from crossing from Asia to the West. Where terrestrial distributors have failed to provide quality access to a global audience (predominantly because of a striking failure to recognize the evolving nature of the hyphenated or internationalized global consumer), Internet citizens (or ‘netizens’, as they are also known) have stepped in and annexed the process, and have done so effectively enough for the very landscape of Asian television viewing to be redefined. Online forums and blogs devoted to Asian entertainment, in conjunction with video-sharing websites, have effaced geographical and cultural boundaries and have circumvented national and economic borders by relocating Asian television onto a global, cosmopolitan space. The nature of the production, distribution and consumption of Asian television on the Internet has also revolutionized how television is watched,

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and the one-dimensional practice has been replaced by a multi genre, multinarrative, multilingual and multinational experience. Using Korean, Japanese and Chinese entertainment as my focus, I will show how Asian television on the Internet has been made by online viewers into the new locus for an intricately complex transnational exchange of cultures. Furthermore, I will discuss the ways in which it has become the product of reconfigured local spaces (where actual places and virtual online sites interconnect to create hybridized localities) and of redistributed global spaces (where web forums exist and can only succeed because of transcultural cooperation and cross-cultural interactions between members of various nations). Asian television on the Internet is therefore, by its very nature, and regardless of whether it is from Korea, Japan, China or Taiwan, a transnational entity. The sites of actual geographical production and the content of the actual shows (their genre, language or poetics), all of which embody national signifiers, are marginalized and even usurped by the hyperactualized post-modern nature of the sites and the recontextualized content of online metropolises. Additionally, because netizens and websites constantly reproduce and re-signify themselves, the authenticity of any single content, national voice or identifiable target audience is negated. Although the Internet is, by its nature, fluid and ever-shifting, this effacing of national boundaries and identities in the case of online Asian television is not the automatic product of the fluid overall nature of the Internet. Specifically in the case of making Asian entertainment accessible outside of the host-nation (as opposed to content simply being uploaded for convenience’s sake, as is often the case in the file-sharing culture of the Internet), delegitimizing nationalism or any one cultural identity is a meticulously fashioned and essential component of the creation and sustaining of this particular Internet culture and identity. The very lack of national or cultural identification allows Asian television consumers to divest themselves of an oft-times divisive nationalism and immerse themselves in a culture of laborious and meticulous fandom.

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This fandom culture, which will be expanded on later in the chapter, includes a commitment to communal sharing and to community-building, with the ultimate goal of bringing the latest shows, delivered with the best quality, at the fastest speed to fans around the world. The comprehensive service offered by forum members to fans makes the online experience informative and expansive in its depth and breadth. The consequent intense engagement with the shows and with other fans required by online viewing additionally promotes transnational communication. The particular cross-cultural cooperation found in these online communities is unique to fans of Asian television because consuming these shows necessitates active relationships between fans in different countries across Asia. Unlike the fandoms of other television programmes such as science fiction cult shows from the US (in which fans come together to discuss episodes or characters with each other and access to the shows is easily available and even facilitated by studios), membership in the fandom of Asian television drama is to a large extent born of necessity. Fans need each other in order to consume Asian shows because it is the fans who make them available for consumption by uploading them and who make them accessible by subtitling them. Since countering the lack of access to Asian television and overcoming language barriers is a major portion of the work that fans do, they not only have to engage with the fictional worlds of the shows but must also negotiate real-world cultures and languages. Transnationalism3 is an essential component of Asian television fandom and the Asian television online fan is a cosmopolitan consumer. A cosmopolitan consumer is no longer geographically bound to terrestrial metropolitan spaces nor to any one single cultural identity. Consequently, the consumer negotiates their own cultural identity from the pastiche of multi-hyphenated identities that they encounter in a bordered (for there must be nations for the transnational to exist) and yet borderless space. The postmodern conditions of a multi-nucleated space coupled with the unanchoring of popular or mass culture have contributed to the

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creation of this kind of consumer, as much at home when they are in a geographical place as when they are virtually transported out of that place. The unique nature of the Internet has aided in the untethering of the individual from the conventional economic triumvirate of production, distribution and consumption and this is certainly the case with online Asian television. Because ‘[t]he internet … is decentralised [a]nyone can build an information network of their own to circumvent local and government-influenced media outlets’ (Main 2001: 85). Consequently, the netizen controls, produces and consumes the very space that they occupy. In these new spaces of transnationalism, as Featherstone notes, ‘we are all cultural producers in that we engage in practices which not only reproduce the cultural repertoires we are provided with and need as we move through social life, but are to some extent able to modify and shape them’ (1995: 3). In this post-modern transnational space, Asian television online is a social product within a social space controlled by cosmopolitannetizens who have become as much the producers of Asian television programming as the network studios. The new space of the Internet allows netizens to create simulacra of terrestrial metropolises, with all their tensions and anxieties, and all their liberating and creative possibilities. Netizens who maintain the fandom of Asian television online are experts in various types of knowledge and specialized subject areas, including the technology of the medium, the society, history and culture of their peers and the ever-evolving social networking space of the Internet. By being active producers and consumers of the space within which Asian television exists, the fans hold a competitive edge over traditional studios.  Fan-driven online sites have thrived and have positioned themselves as significant alternatives, and even threats, to traditional forms of viewing because netizens have recognized the nature of the vacuum created by network studios’ myopia when it comes to fans and fandom. Locked in by regional politics, studios have failed to recognize seismic shifts in consumerism in the twenty-first

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century. Even now, much of local programming is restricted by geographical, national, economic and perceived cultural boundaries despite the increasingly sophisticated export and marketing of Asian programming, and the increase in the variety of satellite channels and DVD options (as well as more multinational cooperation between studios). Inter-Asian production and marketing and the sale of Asian programming have been determined predominantly by national and economic self-interest, encouraged in the early 1990s by the instinct for national self-preservation through the rejection of American cultural hegemony (such as the Coca-colonization of Asia). The extent to which cross-Asian television programming has succeeded has depended on how effectively each nation has been able to market their entertainment to fit and benefit local tastes (Iwabuchi 1998b: 77; Shim 2005: 237). Asian entertainment has thus been exported among its neighbours through a model of global localization, also known as glocalization, with imported entertainment adapted to fit local customs and culture. The exchange of entertainment programming between Asian countries is a relatively new phenomenon, with much of the resistance to inter-Asian import and export perpetuated by historical tensions and cultural misapprehensions. Japan’s colonial past and its meteoric economic rise in the 1990s, for example, made it the object of both contempt and envy among several Asian countries, and its products have been schizophrenically both banned and embraced. To make its products palatable, Japan strategized its marketing to its Asian neighbours by making its products ‘culturally odourless’ (Iwabuchi 1998a: 165). In Korea, for example, where Japanese entertainment was banned until 1998, ‘Korean broadcasting stations showed Japanese animation by altering Japanese character names and references to Korean ones so that many audiences did not know that they were actually watching Japanese shows’ (Shim 2005: 247). In Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia Japanese pop music was popular, but consumers did not know that they were listening to Japanese music because the originals had been replaced

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by local cover versions and the original was never introduced into the culture (Iwabuchi 1998a: 171). Thus, many Japanese cultural products did not overtly exist, but instead existed covertly. The Korean Wave that followed on from Japan’s was, to some extent, Korea’s attempt to counter the invisible but very palpable Japanese cultural presence in the regional market. Just like the Japanese Wave, however, the Korean Wave created awe and anxiety in neighbouring nations, resulting in efforts by many Asian countries to ‘revitalize ... their local media industries’ (Shim 2005: 249). In more recent years there has been greater cross-regional trade in entertainment, with television stars regularly promoting their work in other countries, exported programming appearing on television sets in countries which were historically the producing nation’s rival and such countries even creating dramas together (such as the Chinese, Japanese, South Korean drama Strangers 6, Beijing Hualu Baina, Fuji TV, MBC 2012). In his 2001 article, Koichi Iwabuchi attributed the greater acceptance of Japanese television programmes in Asian markets to savvy marketing that emphasized commonality between nations (2001b: 211), and the modernized and increasingly hybridized tastes of East and South East Asian youth culture (2001b: 199–200). However, even with advances in pan-Asian entertainment and the various ‘waves’ of cross-Asian exchange, local discourses concerning the export value of entertainment are still often tied to national and cultural identities. Cultural nationalists emphasize the existence of an authentic culture and industrialists and neo-liberals use the cultural industries as a means to situate their programming as dominant within the region (Cho 2005). Comments posted on Asian television-related hyperlinked blogs, unmoderated video-sharing channels, social networking sites and even chat rooms of moderated forums reveal that hybridized and culturally sophisticated netizens still bring their political, national and cultural baggage online. In fact, tensions are often magnified by the relative anonymity provided by the Internet, and the flame-wars that arise periodically are more often than not racially or nationally

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charged and can be vitriolic and vicious. The multi-hyphenated space that many of today’s youth exist within contains all the challenges and contradictions of a world that is transnational yet increasingly Balkanized, and where, as Friedman (1998) explains, ethnification and social disorder arise even as multiculturalism takes centre stage. So, while cosmopolitan spaces are increasingly more racially, ethnically and socially diverse, social distance, tension and wariness of others are still the norm (Anderson 2004: 14–15). One would think, then, that online subforums would generate similar reactions of unease and defensive distancing, especially because however hybridized Asian television and its fans might be, they are still nationally, culturally and linguistically circumscribed. Furthermore, unlike most actual cities, the existence of virtual metropolises depends upon the cooperation of people from various nations, complete with all the baggage they bring. Additionally, because of increasingly draconian crackdowns on file-sharing communities, there is an inherent need to be circumspect and vigilantly wary of strangers. Thus one would imagine these Asian television forums to be tense, conflict-ridden and chaotic spaces. Yet instead, these forums are actually the opposite: smoothly run, extremely well-organized, personal and warm. These websites are oasis-like hubs, and I would liken them to Elijah Anderson’s ‘cosmopolitan canop[ies]’, which are ‘settings where a diversity of people can feel comfortable enough to relax … [and where] people are encouraged to treat each other with a certain level of civility’ (2004: 15). The websites function this effectively because, instead of ignoring the realities of historical and national anger or pride, fans of Asian entertainment have carefully cultivated a safe communal environment where forum pride and fandom are the new nationalisms, and the love for Asian programming supersedes all other differences. Primarily, netizens have wrestled traditional television (which is still manipulated by terrestrially bound studios targeting a limited audience) away for themselves by repackaging and then releasing it to a globally experienced consumer whose cosmopolitan

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encounters with other people allow them to identify with unfamiliar cultures through the familiar collective culture of online forums. It is the consumers, then, and not the studios who are the ones making access to Asian entertainment on the Internet uniquely possible, and it is the efforts of the fans’ finely orchestrated teams of volunteers (spanning continents, time zones and languages) that determine whether or not a show will get a following outside of the host-nation. Unlike regular file-sharing practices pervasive online, success in distributing Asian programming depends not only upon grabbing or recording and uploading raw files, but also on the number and quality of teams across nations willing effectively to introduce a show and its stars to online communities; to subtitle (‘sub’) episodes (English, Chinese and Vietnamese are currently the most common languages); to reconstitute the files into media formats relevant to individual forums; to distribute the episodes within interconnected but wholly separate websites; and to encourage civil engagement between members and forums. While traditional marketing by networks can create enough of a buzz to bring in local audiences, it can have very little to no effect on global audiences online, whose interests are determined by the efforts of active fans. Thus, the digital revolution has opened up the limited options offered by analogue television (such as having to watch a show at a prescribed time, often with limited choice) into a consumer-regulated, unfettered space where one can watch what they want, whenever and however they want. In order to understand the significance of the role communally driven transnational networking plays in the production and distribution of Asian television on the Internet, it is essential to understand the complex logistics of how online forums for Asian TV operate. This involves exploring how information is processed and distributed and recognizing the ways in which forum members (even the lurkers)4 are active participants rather than passive viewers. Asian dramas are the most popular television entertainment sought on the Internet after anime. While Korean dramas hold a central role, Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong dramas also

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have a strong online following. Two of the most active websites for Asian entertainment are the Soompi forums, with over 255,000 registered forum members and over 10 million posts (http://soompi. com/forums January 2009), and the D-Addicts website, which has over 263,500 registered members (http://d-addicts.com/forum March 2012).5 Soompi is one of the most comprehensive English-language sites for Asian television programming and describes itself as the ultimate place for ‘Asian-Pop for the masses’. It defines Asian-Pop ‘as anything & everything pertaining to Korean popular culture, which includes music, dance, drama, literature, etc’ (http://soompi. com/about 2006). As Soomp, the creator of the website, explains: The goal of SOOMPI is to bring this phenomenon to the masses – peoples of all nations & colors. SOOMPI is the longest running site dedicated to bringing you the best in Korean music & entertainment, since March 27, 1998. We have visitors from all over the world, covering 6 continents… [and] SOOMPI is arguably the largest community of english-speaking k-pop fans online today. (http://soompi.com/about 2006)6

Soomp’s claim is not hyperbole: the site is mammoth with hundreds of fan clubs, member-networks and blogs (in addition to its forums), and it serves fans from around the globe from Australia to UAE to Argentina. While Soompi is the main thoroughfare for K-dramas, it also offers entertainment from all over Asia. The D-Addicts site is a server exclusively ‘for asian dramas or specials aired on television, or related soundtracks/theme songs’ (‘Video/torrent/subtitle FAQ’ 2005), and in contrast to Soompi it is more of a warehouse (a tracker) for bittorrent files7 and fanmade subtitles (‘fansubs’). The majority of its threads post the latest uploads of raw files and fansubs and, unlike most traditional bittorrent sites, it also provides discussion threads. Within hours of a show’s broadcast, fans in the host-countries record or grab a show, convert it into .avi or .wmv or any number of other media formats, split it into smaller files for easier uploading 85

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and downloading, upload them onto online file-storage and filesharing sites,8 or create torrents and then post the links or seed the files in forums or club boxes.9 As a service to fans who cannot download from the links because of slow Internet connections or too little hard-drive space, volunteers also upload entire episodes onto video-hosting and video-streaming sites like VeohTV (http://www. veoh.com/), tudou (http://www.tudou.com/), YouTube (http:// www.youtube.com/) or im.tv (http://www.im.tv/tvmain/index. asp). Additionally, for fans who find searching for full collections of series arduous, administrators (or ‘admins’, as they are known) on websites like Mysoju (http://www.mysoju.com/) or crunchyroll (http://www.crunchyroll.com/) make things even easier: they collect, collate and embed episodes gathered from various sites so that one can watch, for example, a 23-episode drama without having to pause and search for the files. The time and effort it takes to bring just these basic elements of a show – the raw files – to online communities is staggering: at the very least, it can take more than a couple of hours (after recording or grabbing a show) to make one 60-minute episode available for downloading, and this assumes that the servers needed for each step of the process are working optimally. On tracking sites, for example, seeders often keep their torrent clients running all day and night, which can often slow down their own computers. On most video-hosting sites, because only a ten-minute clip can be uploaded at a time,10 just embedding an average K-drama series (with each episode about 70 minutes long and each series running at least 16 episodes) can take at least 12 hours. Uploading raw files is only the beginning of the fan service. While the speed of delivery and quality of files are a priority, ensuring that the content is comprehensible and accessible is just as important. Because the global audience often does not understand the native language of a show, within hours of an episode’s raw file release bilingual volunteers write and post detailed summaries (which usually consist of text accompanied by screencaps) of each episode so that the gist of the plot is understandable even if the

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dialogue is not. These summaries are provided as a temporary guide until teams of translators can release Chinese, English, Vietnamese and other language subtitles. The initial summaries range from general overviews to line-by-line translations of important scenes, to which various members add more specific translations. Almost all of the summaries contain explanatory notes and commentaries contextualizing events or dialogue within the series or within the culture. The Wikipedia-style addenda to the summaries offer additional contextual cultural information. These summaries allow non-native speakers to keep up with native viewers watching a show as it is airing, thereby allowing all to experience the programmes in real time. The television shows themselves are but a fraction of the content in forum threads which often contain everything from clips of previews of a show to video and print-scans of commercials featuring the actors. There are also interviews, original soundtracks (OSTs), talk-show excerpts, commentaries and reviews from blogs, newspapers and magazines, and from other television programmes. Essentially they offer anything even tangentially related to a show. The multimedia array of materials that are collected and stored within the pages make forum threads a one-stop destination for any Asian TV consumer. None of what appears in a forum thread would be available without the constant exchange of information between fans in various nations. In 2007, I followed the progress of a photo spread of an Asian actor that had appeared in a Hong Kong newspaper. A fan of the actor bought the magazine from a Taiwanese newspaper stall on her way to work that morning, scanned the spread and then uploaded it onto a Hong Kong fan site. Within an hour, the scanned photos (linked and attributed to the fan) were re-posted on two Chinese sites. A few hours later, the photos were on Japanese, Korean and Thai blogs and forums, and soon after on English and other non-Asian sites. As I followed the photos making their way around the world, I also followed the comments on the sites. It was evident that the people re-posting these

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photos had established relationships with the administrators of the blogs and sites from which they were lifting the photos. The re-posters meticulously followed the etiquette of acknowledging the thread where they had found the photos as well as the original site where the photos had first been posted. Thus, regardless of local cultural norms or online norms of other sites, fans followed the rules set up within the sharing communities of Asian programming. Outside of Asian entertainment sites, online behaviour is often devoid of offline etiquette. Since politeness is in short supply and jarring rudeness is often the mode of interaction online, the fact that Asian entertainment forum members across nations uniformly follow a code of behaviour based upon politeness, sharing and acknowledging each other’s contributions through citations or thanks is noteworthy. This code of behaviour, while consciously constructed by fans, is reinforced by the absolute necessity for a working relationship between fans to exist. Failure to follow rules can result in getting banned or being ostracized from a community. In a system that depends upon the links in a chain, this can result in being cut off from access to the latest news and releases. Therefore, what distinguishes Asian entertainment on the Internet is an online fan commitment to one another, irrespective of language, or the degree of technological acumen or level of knowledge about the entertainment itself. The forum culture epitomizes support for and loyalty to the community and to maintaining a tradition of respectful communal sharing. A good instance of how deftly fans juggle all of their responsibilities occurred during a minor crisis in the world of Korean dramas (K-dramas) on Soompi. The main supplier of English subs for Korean dramas, WITH S2, suspended operations as a precautionary and punitive measure because their subtitle files were appearing on viral sites which exposed them to increasingly draconian anti-piracy measures. Instead of simply stopping their service, the subbers made a point of contextualizing their decision temporarily to suspend operations by reassuring their fans of their

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continued commitment to them. WITH S2’s press release-ofsorts included detailed explanations, apologies, frustrations over breaches in online protocol and, most significantly, their avowed commitment to continue their service as soon as possible: We regret that we have to take such a drastic stance…but we believe that taking these precautions now will keep us operational for the long run. And we hope to keep bringing these dramas to English-speaking fans for a long time. (‘WITH S2 Fansubbing Policy’ 23 Dec 2007).

WITH S2’s absence was immediately and dramatically felt in the following weeks, but fans steadfastly supported WITH S2’s stance even whilst mourning the loss. WITH S2 was the only English subbing team serving the Soompi and D-Addicts communities at the time, and their absence displayed just how crucial this volunteering team’s contributions had been. Even with fans helping out by substituting more and more detailed summaries and explanations of episodes, it was still difficult for fans to engage with shows that they could only understand sporadically. The suffering fans did not go unaided for long, however, because a new fansubbing team stepped into the vacuum left by WITH S2. KST, a team that typically produced Vietnamese translations of Korean shows, started providing English subtitles and delivered their sub-files to fans with a simple introduction: ‘From KST With Love!!!!!!!!’ (linhtinhhp, 4 January 2008, 10:05 pm). The reaction from fans was as expected: KST were welcomed as heroes! Yet however well intentioned KST’s actions were, within the forum culture they were in breach of forum etiquette. By undermining WITH S2’s strike, KST volunteers had disrespected WITH S2. Within hours of KST’s fansub release, WITH S2 countered by lifting their embargo (AL,11 5 January 2008, 4:53 am) and indirectly and publicly informing the KST subbers that even the best-intentioned fanservice needed to be compliant with the forum culture, which included respecting turfs. KST’s response 89

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was equally swift, and striking in its deferment. They stopped subbing immediately and yielded the forum to WITH S2 with the following message: Everything must have a small beginning, and to us, yesterday was a new beginning, and you [the fans] were a wonderous part of that special moment in time for us. With that said, however, at this time, we have a sad announcement to make. It is with a heart full of regrets that CICHLID of KST is here today to advise you of our decision to drop the English Subbing Project … We would love to be able to [continue] pursuing the English subbing for these two series, but due to the close friendship and out of respects for WITHS2, KST will leave. Yielding the floor to WITHS2 at this time seems appropriate and in line with our main interest, make friends not war along the journey of providing quality subtitles to Korean dramas’ fans worldwide. (Cecil, 5 January 2008, 7:36 am)

The exchanges between KST and WITH S2 were brief, with WITH S2 never directly addressing the KST subbing team in the forums, and they never had to. The teams were clearly emotionally and socially connected to the community, with both of them comprised of volunteers who were not financially dependent on the forums but who made invaluable contributions – without them, these sites would not function. So KST’s ‘[y]ielding the floor’ out of respect for the friendships and loyalties that give the communities cohesion says much for the powerful culture of personal responsibility that binds all the members. What this incident also underscores is the importance of watching television in the context of these forums and as part of a community: the fact that it is not a solitary activity. Making and retaining friends and sharing reactions and opinions about a show while engaging with other active members are essential aspects of the experience. Consequently, TV series in these forums are more than a compilation of episodes; they are also a point of focus for social engagement among active consumers. 90

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On forums like Soompi or D-Addicts, where Asian programmes generally debut for English-speaking consumers, the moderators’ responsibilities are complex. These are sites where fans come to find and to learn about the latest releases, and so large portions of the entertainment sections are devoted to educating and informing consumers and, in the process, creating fans as well. Ease of access to information is vital so, for instance, all threads for individual shows or actors have navigation posts where relevant information about a show or an actor is listed. This means that everyone, from veteran members to newbies, is offered one central location instead of having to wade through hundreds or thousands of pages of commentary. The first thread-posts contain, among other things, detailed summaries of a show, press releases and interviews (video and print), hyperlinks to other relevant threads or sites, diagrammed illustrations of the characters’ relationships with each other, and filmographies of the actors, producers, screenplay writers and directors. Navigation posts are repositories of everything remotely related to a show, and the range of material that can be viewed depends upon the fans’ interest in particular aspects of that show. Navigation posts include the basics like plot and character summaries, links to official websites and airing days, dates and times. Additionally, there are links to uploaded songs from the original soundtracks (including lyrics, both Korean and translated, all collated and listed as they appear on the CDs), with the mp3s consisting not just of songs but also of ambient music, background scores and even cell phone ring tones. There are also episode viewer ratings from Korea and from Seoul,12 previews and teasers, bloopers and behind-thescenes ‘making of ’ clips, award shows and interviews with cast members and production crews. These posts methodically introduce members to every facet of the programme and the minutiae of the information demonstrates the lengths to which moderators go in order to be instructive and inclusive. The brief KST/WITH S2 incident was not an anomaly but the product of a meticulously constructed space aimed at creating fans

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and keeping them – not for profit or financial gain, but for the sake of a new social network built around the appreciation of Asian entertainment. While terrestrial and local television programming encourages passive consumption and while online interactions can and do often degenerate into vicious flame wars, interactions between thousands of members in Asian entertainment sites, despite linguistic and cultural differences, are remarkably civil and exceedingly friendly. A large part of the success of these sites can be attributed to the administrators who recognize the enormous value of getting members to invest time and effort and to have a stake in the future of the sites. Members are encouraged to have creative control over content and to have a powerful voice in the moulding of the sites’ cultures. Bilingual moderators and forum members go to extraordinary lengths to welcome non-native speakers, encouraging them to explore unfamiliar sites and to collect and post material that they cannot read. For example, to get monolingual English speakers to join in the gathering and distribution process, most Englishlanguage forums have pinned listings of Korean, Japanese and Chinese entertainment sites accompanied by elementary instructions on how to register and how to use them. Helpful guides even include screenshots of the Asian sites, with key buttons highlighted and with step-by-step instructions on how to recognize Asian characters (creamy 2007, ‘Registration information’; Happyroach 2005, ‘Clubbox tutorial+ FAQs’). To make things even simpler, moderators often refer to shapes or colours if characters are too hard to recognize. This was the case for fans who were trying to log onto a Korean website to catch live streaming videos, as can be seen from this snippet of instructions: Go to TVAnts.com to install the TVAnts software…Click on the white button that has an arrow pointing down…At the appropriate time (assuming it’s an MBC program), click on the yellow button next to MBC and it should begin loading. (armanigurl 2006, ‘Please help me! Thread, for those with miscellaneous random questions’)

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Crunchyroll is another site that has made member investment a cornerstone of its culture. In a 2008 Valentine’s Day message, Shinji, the administrator of crunchyroll, presented his redesigned site as a gift to his forum’s members: hihi guys! if you havent noticed yet, crunchyroll went through a slight redesign just now. I’ve gotten rid of rounded corners because it was kinda ghetto (you can see it chop off the sharp corners). i’ve also tried to reduce clutter and simplify the navigation. since the navigation has changed a bit, i know it’s gonna be a bit confusing/hard to find certain links right. dont worry, ill be going over the whole site the next few days and making sure things are easy to find! … also, please post below if you find pages with messed up layouts (if things are aligned to the right when it probably should be centered), or if things are overlapping. there were also a lot of minor bug fixes too, but i wont list them here bc people probably dont care! =D here’s to a better crunchyroll ~~! (Shinji 2008, ‘New Site Design’)

Shinji regularly pitches posts like these to the members of his site. His messages, like the one in this example, are usually geared towards reiterating to his fans that he is constantly working to improve the site for them and getting them to have a say in developing a ‘better crunchyroll’. The new site was ‘a present’ to his members and, while changing skins is nothing new on forums and blogs, he made a point not only of explaining the changes but also of emphasizing that the changes were for the fans. Interestingly, Shinji’s language in these updates, a kind of online urban American slang, reflects his awareness of who predominantly frequents his site. Shinji, who does know the proper usage of grammar and punctuation (as evidenced in some of his other posts) chooses to use this vernacular as a way to connect with his members. The site’s demographic is Asian-Americans or Americans in their teens or early 20s who tend towards internet slang – the site’s predominant offerings are mangas, anime and games rather than Asian dramas. 93

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In addition to encouraging fan involvement in the forums, forum moderators preserve camaraderie between the diverse populations by discouraging and sometimes even banning nationalism. Even so, the national markers of the products are very much respected and highlighted. Unlike terrestrial export of entertainment, which tends to be glocalized and made culturally unidentifiable, the national origin of an entertainment show is very much celebrated online. Superficially this is evident in just the names of some of the websites like jdorama (a site for Japanese dramas, http://jdorama. com) or Korean Drama Addicts (http://s14.invisionfree.com/ Korean_Drama_Addicts/index.php?act=idx). Yet even on nonnationally specific sites like AsianFanatics (http://asianfanatics.net/ forum/) or crunchyroll that offer entertainment from throughout East and South East Asia, all contributions are clearly identified by country of origin, and one nation’s version of a show is not given precedence over another. As a result, the Japanese-ness of a manga is no more important than the Taiwanese-ness of a remake drama version. Much potential cross-cultural friction is automatically mitigated by the intimacy fostered not just within individual forums, but also within the larger online Asian entertainment-sharing community. Members are cognisant of the potential for cross-national rivalry and therefore the promotion of cultural ownership or claims to the authenticity of any one cultural product is consistently discouraged, and any attempt to elevate one country’s entertainment over another is swiftly censored. As a result, native Korean, Japanese and Chinese or bilingual speakers are considered as neither representatives of their countries nor of their culture. They do not occupy any higher position within the community than non-native speakers and their opinions and interpretations are considered no more authentic than those of members who do not understand a single native word of a show. Bilingual members do what the forum culture expects of them: they serve the fans by offering relevant cultural context, supplementing text translations with commentary and opinion,

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or helping others access non-English sites. Non-native speakers who master technical aspects are equally positioned to offer similar services, and many do, even though some of their services may be based on speculation or hearsay. Oftentimes non-native speakers offer detailed episode-guides or post links that they find on sites that they do not understand, but their contributions (however clumsy) are equally treasured. It is perfectly legitimate, for example, for a fan in Vietnam with no knowledge of Japanese to post English translations (however broken) of a Japanese drama after reading translations of it on Chinese blogs. Native speakers often step in to clarify points, but because fixing someone else’s translation can appear arrogant and because correcting someone’s English is unacceptable, it is done with apologies and much self-deprecation. The online journey of the show It Started with a Kiss offers just one example of how consumers negotiate the potentially divisive minefield of identity politics. It Started with a Kiss originated as the Japanese manga Itazura na Kiss and was consequently adapted into a Japanese drama in 1996. That dramatic version of the series was then sold to and remade in Taiwan where the show was a hit and resulted in a 2006 sequel. In 2008 the original product was made as an anime series in Japan. The original Japanese versions were never promoted in Taiwan, but all versions of It Started with a Kiss are there on the Internet with hyperlinks to the preceding versions and all coexist without one incarnation superseding or diminishing another. On the forum AsianFanatics. net, for example, the very first sentence in the Taiwanese version’s navigation post advertises that ‘[the show] is the taiwanese version of Itazura na Kiss. For more information on the manga visit http:// www.suki-desu.com/itazuranakiss/’ ([archive] It Started with a Kiss 2005). This acknowledgement achieves two ends crucial to and reflective of the online culture: it decentres any national or cultural ownership and it legitimizes all the manifestations of the original product. Reflecting this even-handed attitude, commenters in the thread listed the versions they enjoyed or the ways in which the versions

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seemed to differ from each other, both generically (manga versus live action versus anime) and in relation to their Japanese or Taiwanese elements. For example, there was a brief discussion on how the Japanese girl seemed more bashful compared to her Taiwanese counterpart. Members clearly felt comfortable to the extent that those familiar with the Japanese manga offered their interpretations and inference-based translations of the Taiwanese episodes in the period before the fansubs were released. Even when the interpreted translations were proven to be not entirely accurate once the subs were out, fans still continued to turn to the members familiar with the manga for guidance and the viewers collectively took on the responsibility of vetting in order to arrive at the best interpretation. Along the way, a couple of members did make passing comments about how the Japanese versions were superior, and they were pointedly ignored. Not surprisingly, these genuinely transnational websites are often linguistically raucous, with versions of online vernacular and broken or mongrelized English, Korean, Chinese or Japanese coexisting with their proper and grammatically correct cousins. These spaces are empowering and the effects often spill out from the moderated spaces of the forums into the ungoverned spaces of video-sharing sites. On YouTube, for example, it is increasingly common to see assertive opinions from non-native speakers in response to unsubbed episodes, sometimes to the bemusement of native speakers unfamiliar with forums. It is very possible that the websites I have discussed in this paper may cease to exist in a few years from now. Already most USlicensed dramas on crunchyroll have been taken down and channels on file-sharing sites are deleted almost on a daily basis. The shutdown of the file-hosting site tv-links.co.uk in October 2007 and the subsequent arrest of the owner sent shockwaves throughout online communities. Broadcast studios and licensed distributors are increasingly attempting to make a transition into the spaces they are trying to empty by encouraging online fans to watch officially released live streaming shows or embedded programmes.

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There have also been attempts to overcome the global consumer’s dissatisfaction with traditional television. Internet protocol television, or IPTV, seems to be the next game-changing technological wave. IPTV will bring the Internet to television and allow consumers on-demand, anytime choice of films, sport and other programmes to be viewed in digital, high-definition quality, but they will ostensibly be under far stricter control by broadcasters and telecom companies. Alternatively, instead of trying to marginalize or shut down fan forums, some studios are beginning to recognize the value of these fan communities and have been trying to incorporate them into their industries. Many studios have started to offer multilanguage subtitles, while others are making welcoming overtures by encouraging feedback and comments on content. However, their attempts lack a basic understanding of how and why these fan service sites have managed so effectively and decisively to control and sustain the online market. They do not appreciate the value of giving fans a sense of ownership and belonging and as a result the studio sites are often sterile, the online equivalents of impersonal local video stores. Separated from the often hostile nature of social networking sites and from the radicalism and segregation of the ‘real world’, Asian television online is a remarkably actualized space that epitomizes the unique potential of cosmopolitanism by offering a non-politicized meeting point where conversations can start and friendships can solidify. The forums are potent mixtures of fiction and fantasy, of stark realities, of social and cultural boundaries, and the tense hyphens of our tangible world. They offer the kind of cosmopolitanism described by Appiah as the blending of fiction and reality, where ‘[c]onversations across boundaries of identity … begin with the sort of imaginative engagement you get when you read a novel or watch a movie … that speaks from a place other than your own’ (2006: 85). In numerous conversations with forum members I often asked what brought them to the sites and, more importantly, what kept them there for years while often contributing hours a day without any pay. The answers over the

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years have been similar: they had originally come for the movies or dramas and had stayed for the friendships and sense of community. Recently, in a posted response to a television episode, I came across a brief, quiet comment in a forum thread: ‘I rili lyke dis.’ The statement struck me as one of the more eloquent encapsulations of what has made these forums so powerful. Her spelling captured the mongrelized language of online speech, and the ‘dis’ seemed to refer to the drama, the episode, the forum, the members, the network of forums and websites, and, really, everything that breathes life into the intimate and expansive global universe of Asian television online.

Notes   1

 2

 3

With National Endowment for the Humanities grants from The College of Idaho, I travelled to Hong Kong and Japan in 2006 and to Korea in 2008. My research in Hong Kong and Japan was predominantly on Asian movies while my trip to Korea was to observe locally the Korean television industry (both in terms of the studios as well as the marketing to international consumers). Hallyu, or hanliu, is a term coined by Chinese journalists in the late 1990s to describe the popularity of Korean dramas, movies and music in China and Hong Kong (KBS America 2008). The boom in the export of Korean entertainment to East Asian countries, especially to Japan, was hastened by the huge popularity of the hit dramas Winter Sonata (KBS 2002–3) and Jewel in the Palace (MBC 2003–4). While it is the nature of the Internet to accelerate transnationalism, the phenomena has been occurring offline for decades. As Gupta and Ferguson explain, ‘a transnational public sphere has certainly rendered any strictly bounded sense of community or locality obsolete … In the pulverized space of postmodernity, space has not become irrelevant: it has been reterritorialized in a way that … forces us to reconceptualize fundamentally the politics of community, solidarity, identity, and cultural difference’ (1992: 9). In actuality, solidarity, identity and cultural difference have been under a process of redefinition for decades due

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to globalization. Rapid industrialization, compressed modernization, products of globalization and internationalization (especially in North American, European and East Asian nations) have resulted in a new world system. This system is characterized by hybridization and transnationalism, by transcultural discourses and exchanges, and by relocation of national identity from nation-states to multinational bodies or cosmopolitan metropolises that are dislocated from any one nation or culture. Featherstone argues that this ‘process of globalization has been helping to undermine the alleged integrity and unity of nationstates societies’ (1995: 2). The resulting metropolitan spaces are vibrant cacophonic mixtures of multicultural, multi-ethnic and multilingual polyphonic constituents. Ease of travel, advances in communication technology, mass migration and financial independence are some of the factors (aided by multinational trade agreements and ‘the incentive to create the world market, to reduce spatial barriers, and to annihilate space through time’ (Harvey 1989: 232)) that have deterritorialized culture from its traditional ethnically, nationally and geographically bound limitations. Lurkers are forum members who never contribute any kind of material – raw files, subs, analysis, responses or even a word of thanks – to a fan site. Other high web-traffic sites not addressed in this paper include http://jtvdrama.net/ (2001–) and http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/, a site including Singaporean and mainland Chinese TV. To capture the culture of these forums, I have not corrected grammar, spelling or punctuation in any of the quotations from these sites. Also, to protect the identities of forum members, I have replaced some usernames with pseudonyms. Most of the members I interviewed asked that I not use their usernames and I have extended the same courtesy to include all members, with the exclusion of administrators, forum moderators and commenters on video-hosting sites. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer sharing program. Seeders (those who upload files) and peers or leechers (those who download files) use BitTorrent client software to exchange files. Files distributed through BitTorrent are broken into small parts (blocks), making the sharing process faster

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by enabling various seeders to send numerous blocks of one file simultaneously to a leecher. Because seeders are also simultaneously leechers, there are increasing numbers of blocks available at any one time, exponentially reducing the time it takes to download. Trackers are servers that keep track of all the seeders, seeds and leechers; this is the primary service provided by D-Addicts.com. For more information, check out ‘Brian’s BitTorrent FAQ and Guide’ (2003). Sites like megaupload.com, yousendit.com and mailbigfile.com have been some of the more popular file-hosting sites in recent years. Once a file is uploaded the server creates a link from which the file can be downloaded. These sites are prone to attack for piracy and copyright infringement. For example, on 19 January 2012 the US Department of Justice managed to ensure the closure of megaupload.com even though the company was based out of Hong Kong. In an action that reflected the cosmopolitan and global nature of the file-hosting companies themselves, officials in the US, UK, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Europe worked in unison under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to shut down the site and arrest and charge the owners for criminal copyright infringement. Clubbox is a Korean file server that allows members to share files with each other. It is a convenient place for storing collections of files online (as opposed to on one’s hard drive), but the length of time a file stays active depends upon the amount of activity (files downloaded). On other file-hosting sites like megaupload or yousendit, uploaded files expire after a set number of downloads or days. This time limit is as of August 2008. File-hosting sites are constantly updating their software and in December 2008 I came across a couple of sites with embedded videos that were almost half an hour in length. This is a pseudonym for an active subber. Interestingly enough, even though the local popularity of a show does not necessarily translate into online popularity or vice versa, the ratings for a show are very closely watched online often as a validation of online following.

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A New Era of Hong Kong Television: Juxtaposing the Market with Politics Anthony Y.H. Fung This chapter focuses on the interplay between politics and economics in Hong Kong’s television media. Its main objective is to explicate, from a politico-economic perspective, how Hong Kong television stations have devised concrete strategies to surmount, accommodate or weaken market constraints during a period of political change. This change, precipitated by the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to China in 1997, has consisted of a transformation in Hong Kong’s media ecology from a relatively stable, protected television market under colonial rule (before 1997) to an expanded market where today’s local television providers face increasing challenges from the Chinese market and new competitors. The Hong Kong government has played a hugely important role during this period of transition both in regulating the media industries and implementing policies that have facilitated changes in the socio-political milieu. Thus, this chapter will also explore the ways in which the Hong Kong media has had to negotiate the political and economic pressures imposed by both the Hong Kong government and the demands of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the process of writing 101

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this chapter, in addition to analysing televised texts and content, I formally interviewed three important personnel who were directly involved in production in connection with the Chinese market, and informally talked to many of the industry workers in the television stations mentioned in this chapter. Because of the sensitivity of the issues under discussion, the names and titles of these interviewees cannot be disclosed.

Locating the Media Strategies The year 2007 marked the tenth anniversary of the return of sovereignty of Hong Kong to the PRC. With the unemployment rate edging down to 3.3 per cent, the lowest since mid-1998, with job vacancies going up to a post-1997 high and with the GDP per capita in 2006 amounting to HK$ 215,006, just exceeding that of the previous apex of HK$ 210,350 in 1997, the economy still seemed to be strong. Yet while Hong Kong’s economic situation may have appeared superficially robust, its health was in fact very much tied to China’s support. Soon after its handover in 1997, there had been a sharp plunge in Hong Kong’s stock market, property values and average salary, which also subsequently eroded the financial health of the advertising industry and the media. The PRC then reanimated Hong Kong’s economy by lowering trade barriers for Hong Kong businessmen, relaxing its tourist restrictions, establishing the country as a window for RMB (Renminbi) exchange1 and allowing state capital to help finance the Hong Kong stock market. Such a logic of interplay between politics and the market also applies to the Hong Kong media in its dealings with China post-1997 when careful and skilful negotiation of demands that were frequently competing was required. In order to benefit from the vast Chinese market, it quickly became clear that the Hong Kong media would have no choice but to side with the authoritarian regime. But there would be an obvious drawback to this repositioning as such an abrupt shift towards China would

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potentially undermine the legitimacy and credibility of the Hong Kong media within Hong Kong itself (Fung 2007a). The media thus struck a careful balance between economics and politics, and became a centre around which authorities, dissidents and the civic public contested with each other and collided. Many television dramas, including the illustrative examples selected for discussion in this chapter, have subtly, and sometimes less subtly, represented important sites of struggle that capture the local-national tensions and contradictions of Hong Kong’s changing media environment as Hong Kong culture has increasingly blended with that of the mainland. From the viewpoint of the television industry, the key question of this intermingling has been how best to manage the dialectic between the national and the local, between communist ideology and democracy, and between pragmatics and ideals. The next sections, therefore, will offer a brief overview of the television industry in Hong Kong before consideration of how this key issue has impacted upon and changed both television drama production, dissemination and targeted audience demographics. They will also discuss the fundamental change in Hong Kong’s media ecology that has taken place despite the absence of a major shake-up in the Hong Kong media since 1997.

Are the Golden Days Over? The television market in Hong Kong has historically been shared between the two terrestrial television stations, Television Broadcast Limited (TVB) and Asia Television (ATV). For TVB, its average local audience share has been and continues to be above 70 per cent. Despite its private and independent nature, it has long enjoyed an oligopolistic position, as if it were Chinese Central Television (CCTV) on the mainland, which is the sole national television station and shielded against any market competitors. Yet, in contrast to CCTV, which like many major networks in the US maintains its role as broadcaster by relying on independent content production from outside and affiliated production houses, TVB has 103

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successfully centralized the tripartite roles of content production, broadcasting and distribution. In October 2003, for example, it opened a huge complex of filming sites worth HK$ 2.2 billion in investment with 22 recording studios (one of which is the largest in Asia) and its future strategy appears to be branching out further into leasing production space and facilities. Compared to TVB, the recent history of ATV has been far more tumultuous, with its unbalanced profit sheets resulting in numerous changes in ownership over the past decade. Most recently, in June 2007, Liu Changle, chairman of Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Limited (along with ATV’s former major owner, businessman Chan Wing-kei), established a company that bought most of ATV’s shares. A sensitive issue in the takeover was the fact that many of the shareholders, including Liu himself, were red capitalists (mainland Chinese businessmen) with strong state ties. Liu had been a colonel in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and an official of China National Radio which was responsible for dispensing propaganda during the Cultural Revolution. Despite its numerous changes in ownership, there have been innovations in ATV’s production and marketing strategies. Most pertinent to this discussion, one such innovation has been an increase in the purchase of foreign programmes such as the South Korean dramas Autumn in My Heart (aired 2002), Winter Sonata (aired 2004), Prince of Legend (or Jumong, aired 2007) and the toprated television drama in Korea in 2005, My Lovely Sam-soon (aired 2006). Such trendy Korean dramas (collectively called hanliu or hallyu in Asia) primarily targeted younger audiences and were successful in attracting a significant number of viewers away from its competitor TVB. For example, the finale of Autumn in My Heart recorded a rating point of 14 (an audience of around 850,000) which was quite an achievement for a foreign Asian drama in Hong Kong. In addition to imported Korean dramas, ATV also produced or purchased dramas such as Silent Tear (2008), The Pride of Chao Zhou (2005) and The Good Old Days (1996). These all had Chinese

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subjects or orientation, and were intended to appeal to the increasing numbers of Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong and also the Chinese market. ‘Infotainment’ programmes like Stories From Afar (1998–2004), which looked at diasporic Chinese overseas, also became common ATV productions.2 TVB has also become more aware of Chinese audiences. Given its local popularity, TVB could in theory maintain its vantage point in the domestic market for some time to come, but, given the continued shrinking of the terrestrial television audience size (following the introduction of alternative means of television viewing such as cable, satellite and the Internet) and above all the changing configurations of the Hong Kong population (with increasing Chinese immigration), this ‘big brother’ has had to come up with new strategies to meet the challenges ahead. For the overseas market, for example, TVB now repackages its old and current television dramas, and distributes them to many Chinese communities in Hong Kong and around the world. TVB’s programmes enjoy considerable influence within Chinese diaspora communities, as I experienced first-hand when I walked through the Chinatowns of New York, London and Sydney, and realized how easy it was to find video retailers renting out TVB titles on VCD, DVD and even VHS.3 Yet while it might be comfortable for many within Hong Kong’s television industry to continue to believe that Hong Kong is still unchallenged in its position as the virtual Asian leader in distributing home-grown television programmes overseas (Kenny 2001), it is easy to enumerate several emerging regional and local rivals to this largest Chinese television exporter in the world. There are now more competitors such as South Korea joining the market, who compete aggressively with Hong Kong television providers in overseas sales as well as more regional and Chinese satellite broadcasters emerging. In addition, the expansion of Chinese television production and the broadening broadcast range of Chinese television stations are all factors that can potentially lead to the significant erosion of TVB’s revenue. Consequently, TVB

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has, in spite of its market-leading position, been forced to address the same business issues as its smaller Hong Kong competitors: how to expand into the Chinese market whilst simultaneously gaining and retaining overseas audiences and fending off local competition for its market share.

Local Competition in Hong Kong: The Blossoming of Pay TV In the 1990s the market for the two free terrestrial television providers, ATV and TVB (broadcasting to a population in the region of 7 million), was largely not competitive, and so the issue of television content plurality and diversity was consistently called into question.4 In July 2000, with increasing public pressure for the Hong Kong Broadcasting Authority (HKBA) to broaden the diversity of television programming, the authorities finally decided to liberalize the television market by officially committing to release five new pay-television licenses. There was a clear limit to this liberalization, however, as they did not license further terrestrial television stations. As a result of this, i-Cable (previously known as Wharf Cable) was the one player who really had cause for complaint because after phasing out its competitor, Interactive TV (iTV), it had been operating the pay-cable television service in Hong Kong by itself since October 1993. Following the policy change, however, it now had to face new competition whilst the free terrestrial television market remained protected. By 2003, the entire television market was overflowing with new content being offered by the new players. Not all of the licensees were happy, however, and most of the license holders (including Hong Kong DTV Company, the British broadcaster Elmsdale, Hong Kong Network TV and Pacific Digital Media HK) withdrew from the market and relinquished their rights. Currently, there are only three major players left in the market, namely TVB Pay Vision Limited (formerly known as Galaxy Satellite Broadcasting Limited), Now TV and iCable. TVB Pay Vision Limited (a sister company

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of TVB) is currently trying to dominate the pay-television market, with its selling point being its ability to broadcast original and locally popular television programmes from TVB. TVB Pay Vision Limited carries its pay-TV service on the network of Hutchison Global Communications Limited. Now TV, owned by Pacific Century Cyberworks Limited (PCCW), transmits its digital television service over its asymmetrical digital subscriber line (ADSL) broadband network which carries more than 100 channels (and has quickly become iCable’s major competitor for pay television). Following advances in Internet technologies, Now TV offers multimedia services in a bundle that includes high-speed Internet broadband and pay television. It has been able to secure a healthy subscription base of 654,000 (figures from August 2006) due to PCCW’s existing customers and subscribers to PCCW’s Netvigator (the largest residential Internet service provider and the leading local fixed-line telecom operator). iCable has also swiftly entered the expanding Internet service market by taking advantage of its existing fibre-optic network for cable television, resulting in a quick upsurge in its subscription rate to 700,000 households. The tripartite relationship between iCable, Now TV and TVB Pay Vision has been further complicated by unforeseen competition from another party: Hong Kong Broadband TV. This operates entirely on the Metro Ethernet network under the Fixed Telecommunications Network Services (FTNS) License and is thereby subject only to the technical regulations of the Office of Telecommunication Authority. It has thus avoided the need to obtain the pay-TV license issued by the HKBA. Such a legal loophole illustrates the intransigence, if not incapacity, of the authorities when it comes to drawing up a more up-to-date legal framework to articulate the de facto convergence of telecommunication and broadcasting. Despite registering complaints with the authorities, the existing players have failed to sway the government into drawing a more concrete distinction between pay TV and Internetbased TV. This case illustrates that, while emerging television technologies might well increase media diversity, there remains a

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lack of a coherent and fair regulatory framework to accommodate media convergence (a situation not exclusive to Hong Kong but also ongoing in many other developing nations in Asia).

Adapting to the Greater China Market: Hong Kong Television Plays It Safe Perhaps it is too early to predict the final outcome of this new era of competition between pay TV and terrestrial TV. Pay-TV providers are still in search of effective strategies and despite their growth in subscribers are not likely to garner substantial profits in the short term.5 Nor has pay TV become a direct factor in the erosion of the terrestrial TV market. Currently, largely unthreatened by local pay TV, both TVB and ATV have been attempting to expand outwards into the larger Chinese market before local competition can significantly eat into their revenues. In preparation for the Chinese market, ATV has for a long time been applying to the HKBA for a non-domestic television programme service license (which would be in addition to its existing domestic free television programme service license chartered under the local Broadcasting Ordinance). In 1998, via its affiliated company TVBSB, TVB expanded its bandwidth to two Chinese satellite television channels, TVB Galaxy Channel and TVB8. These were initially aimed at the Taiwanese market but are now being beamed into the territory of the PRC.6 They are two of the very few channels authorized by the State Administration of Radio, Television and Film of the PRC to be relayed to Chinese hotels graded three-star or above. TVB8 also serves Chinese communities in other parts of Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia. In light of the fact that Hong Kong television can be viewed by the bordering mainland Chinese audience, its content has started to become a concern to the Chinese authorities. When the loci of discussion have touched upon different geopolitical Chinese regions (such as the issue of the unification of Taiwan, the autonomy of Tibet and other ethnic issues), Hong Kong television has had to be particularly vigilant in producing and distributing its

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A New Era of Hong Kong Television

programmes (which may require altering, distorting or omitting certain content to avoid offending the authorities). A relatively safe and conservative strategy for the television stations has therefore been to magnify the commercial and entertainment nature of their programming whilst downplaying political perspectives or editorial stances.

Hong Kong television has been influential in China for a long time, even before the newly extended range of its broadcasts. Signals from Hong Kong television stations have been intercepted and received by residents in the neighbouring southern regions of the PRC since 1978. This has been achieved through illegal homeinstalled antennae or via cable-television providers who unlawfully and unscrupulously pirate the Hong Kong signal, insert their own mainland advertisements and sell the content on to subscribers in Guangzhou in southern China (see Fung 2008b). As a result of this, since 1999, Hong Kong television has occupied 70 per cent of the Guangzhou market (Wong 2007), significantly impacting upon the popularity of China’s own television programmes. Although this penetration has failed to yield real monetary return for the Hong Kong players, Hong Kong television has had considerable cultural impact in the South China region. Attempts by Hong Kong stations to seek a legal solution for both the Hong Kong and Chinese parties were tabled at governmental level in early 2000, but no result has been forthcoming. In more recent years, there has been a decline in the cultural influence of Hong Kong television in China due to the rise of regional competitors and China’s local stations. China started partially to open the sky for foreign channels in 2001. As a result, many outside, non-state-owned channels have been given permission to broadcast in South China (see Fung 2008a), including the Chinesespeaking Phoenix TV (the result of a partnership between a Chinese 109

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media tycoon and Rupert Murdoch), Chinese Entertainment TV, the movie channel Xing Kong TV, the music network Channel V (also owned by Murdoch) and Channel V MTV of Viacom. The entry of new players has meant increased competition within the region as they all aim to share the same portion of the market that TVB and ATV have been hoping to monopolize. On average, the Chinese authorities now permit around 30 foreign channels of different languages (Chinese, English, Japanese and French, to name a few) to be beamed into China, although this number varies from year to year. These channels can now be legally viewed in any three-star hotel on the mainland and are illegally intercepted by many private newly built homes in small districts dotted along the coastal areas. In addition to facing competition from these channels in the Chinese market, since January 2004 the Hong Kong television stations have also had to combat the newly launched provincial stations, Guangzhou Television and Nanfang TV. In October 2005 the ratings of these two stations in Guangzhou reached 32.4 per cent, exceeding for the very first time Hong Kong’s 30.3 per cent (National Bureau of Broadcasting and Television Development and Research Centre 2007). In the process of this battle for ratings, aggressive tactics have been utilized by Chinese broadcasters to achieve market ascendancy. For example, the China-based company Southern Media Group set up an alliance with 19 city/ district stations in order to promote its repackaged television content (Wong 2007). Through their strategy of promoting their own programmes in favour of Hong Kong-imported programmes within their network of channels, after only nine months they achieved a total market share of 51.5 per cent, surpassing that of all foreign broadcasters. With this rise of home-bred channels, the power of the border-crossing stations from Hong Kong is in decline in this zero-sum game (Fung 2008b).

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Given the decline in popularity of the cross-border transmission of Hong Kong television (along with the fact that this confrontational form of cross-border ‘invasion’ was never sustainable in the long term), part of a pragmatic strategy for the future has been to turn Hong Kong into a centre for high-quality Chinese television production, particularly as it can build on the reputation for quality television drama Hong Kong already enjoys on the mainland.7 However, this strategy is dependent on the extent to which Hong Kong drama can be made compatible with China’s politico-economic situation. Part of the ideological prerequisite to the sale of Hong Kong television drama to China is that it must contain an unprejudiced image of Chinese characters and have an optimistic outlook of today’s China (prerequisites met by TVB’s 2007 The Drive of Life and ATV’s 2007 Glorious Return, which will be discussed later on). Producing dramas with such an ideological bent is, in fact, nothing new to Hong Kong television. Eric Ma (1999) has observed that during the transitional period from the 1980s up to 1997 there was a fundamental change in the political and ideological representation of mainland characters in Hong Kong television drama. The rather stigmatized depiction of mainland immigrants in the dramas of the 1970s was revised through necessity as the political handover loomed. After 1997 immigrants were framed far more positively. Mainland Chinese professionals were also treated with greater respect, as in Herbalist (2002) (Lo 2006), where mainland Chinese doctors were portrayed as valuable partners of the Hong Kong western medical system. Female immigrants were also warmly and favourably depicted in dramas such as TVB’s The Sky is the Limit (1999). Today, as was emphasized in my interviews, Hong Kong TV producers are very much aware that the ideology displayed in Hong Kong drama must be well-attuned to China’s politico-economic

A New Era of Hong Kong Television

The Shifting Paradigm of TV Discourse: Hong Kong Drama and Chinese Ideology

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situation. It is an absolutely crucial factor when China’s television stations consider purchasing them. As one of the producers said in relation to TV programmes to be shown on China’s CCTV: ‘we have to consider using a few mainland actors … [and] … of course, the [politically] sensitive [elements] should not appear’ (interview). This eye towards China’s market has created competing demands that Hong Kong producers have had to try to accommodate. On the one hand, Hong Kong’s ability to produce television drama of high entertainment value has become more essential than ever as China’s stations have to allocate a considerable sum for their purchase. Yet there is a delicate balance that also needs to be achieved between how drama production can pull one foot partially out of the context of political freedom, human rights and liberalism, whilst keeping the other foot in the den of a typical capitalist society with its elements of conflict, violence, love, sex and pleasure which are key to the entertainment value and success of Hong Kong drama. Co-productions between Hong Kong and Chinese producers have emerged as perhaps the best method of achieving this balancing act.

Hong Kong/Chinese Co-production and National Discourse The extent to which Hong Kong productions will have to engage with or stay out of the Chinese political context could very much depend on how successfully the Chinese and Hong Kong television industries can collaborate and find common ground. Even before the handover, Hong Kong television producers had started to develop a new course of action involving Hong Kong-China co-productions8 because with direct Chinese participation joint productions could be moulded into ‘politically acceptable’ products in the eyes of the Beijing authorities. Then Hong Kong producers, as China’s partners, could safely sell their products to the Chinese market. The first and most successful prototypes of Hong Kong-China co-productions appeared ten years after sovereignty of Hong Kong 112

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had been returned to China. Two dramas were co-produced by major Hong Kong television stations and major stations in China, and the shows were aired during prime time not only in Hong Kong but also in different cities in China. (As will be discussed in the following section, there had been earlier collaborations, but the dramas had been produced by either Hong Kong or China and did not involve simultaneous screenings.) These unprecedented coproductions occurred when the two Hong Kong stations, TVB and ATV, produced television dramas with Chinese television to make a major political statement: that Hong Kong and China had achieved a perfect marriage on the tenth anniversary of the handover. Firstly, TVB collaborated with Chinese International Television Limited, a subsidiary of CCTV, to make the 60-episode drama The Drive of Life (2007). It had as its theme the ‘Realization of the Chinese Dream in Union’ and told the tale of the reunion of the Hua brothers who, after being separated for decades in Beijing and Hong Kong, successfully manufacture the first Chinese vehicle to be marketed overseas. The story functions as a metaphor as Hua, in Chinese, literally means China or Chinese culture. Thus, symbolically, the reunion of the family members also signifies the reunification of Hong Kong with the Chinese motherland. Their success in business is not just a family matter, but more broadly suggests the economic prosperity Hong Kong can achieve under the auspices of the Chinese authorities and the pride that Hong Kong people should take in the continuing development of the motherland. For example, Wenhan Hua (the eldest brother) repeatedly expresses his gratitude towards the motherland for providing an open environment and favourable national policy to enable him and his fellow industrialists to build their own Chinese manufacturing empire. Whilst the theme of the drama reflects a national agenda, the dream of the Chinese entrepreneurs of creating an enduring legacy in the form of an international Chinese car is in stark contrast to reality. This particular Chinese car manufacturer (the FAW Car Company) has gone into decline since the foundation of the PRC

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and nowadays the red flag is far behind the three major car brands invested in by global car manufacturers in China in terms of both technology and prestige. This use of prime-time television media to remind the public of national issues and concerns is a common practice of the Chinese authorities, usually called ‘main theme’ (zhuxuanlu). Thus, instead of offering a truthful depiction of the realities of Chinese car manufacturing, The Drive of Life instead more accurately displays how Chinese propaganda has infiltrated the media culture of Hong Kong. TVB’s competitor ATV was even more explicit in celebrating the return of Hong Kong to China with its co-production drama Glorious Return (2007). With a similar plot concerning the reunion of a younger brother (who is a CEO of a Hong Kong company listed on the stock exchange) and an elder one (who lives in Beijing as a chef in a roasted duck shop), the story told of how the two brothers gradually come to share a common understanding despite their differences and diverse social backgrounds. In one episode, the elder brother unselfishly saves the life of his sibling and then refuses monetary reward, stating with a patriotic tone that human value lies not in wealth but in contribution to one’s country. Such anachronistic narratives, largely incompatible with commercialized Hong Kong culture, have gradually come to dominate Hong Kong dramas primarily because they now have to appeal to the Chinese market (and Glorious Return did, indeed, appeal and was widely broadcast on a number of different Chinese satellite channels). The Drive of Life and Glorious Return are mature forms of coproduction, but this degree of Hong Kong-China integration took years to achieve. Beginning with Hong Kong-China movie coproductions (the earliest being Silk Cotton Kasaya, directed by Tsui Siu-ming in 1984), small-scale televised co-productions followed in the late 1980s when Hong Kong production houses moved their crews to produce their dramas in famously scenic spots in China. For these productions, Hong Kong producers were compelled to partner with state-licensed producers in China, such as the China Film Group. In addition to complying with the demands of these

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Chinese partners, full drama scripts and plots had to be sent to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television for censorship. Sensitive plots, dialogue and episodes would be expunged, and the production locations were limited to chosen areas (e.g., filming at sites such as Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace was strictly prohibited). Thus, co-produced dramas have long been bound by many political constraints imposed by China’s authorities, resulting in cultural content that (whilst not necessarily reproducing and perpetuating nationalistic ideology) does not contradict the national agenda.

Different Varieties of Hong Kong Co-production Based on my own synthesis of the interviewees’ oral accounts, I have identified three forms of co-production that have evolved as a consequence of the economic and political integration of Hong Kong and China. These forms of co-production differ in the degree of China’s involvement and control. 1) China as a controller. Basically, these are Chinese productions with the involvement of Hong Kong actors. Designed primarily to target younger audiences, these productions make use of Hong Kong stars such as Charmaine Sheh Si Man and Moses Chan Ho of TVB drama fame to offer the mainland audience a sense of Western or foreign modernity. Capitalizing upon the popularity of Hong Kong actors like these within China and throughout Asia and utilizing Hong Kong’s position as a hub of Chinese entertainment, Hong Kong talent has been used by Chinese producers and television stations to broaden their local, national and international appeal. From the point of view of Hong Kong television, this is also advantageous as it enables their contracted actors and actresses to enhance their popularity on the mainland. 2) China as an abettor. Hong Kong television now increasingly depends upon various Chinese resources to develop high-quality 115

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dramas that can cater for the larger Chinese market. The dramas tailored to Chinese audience tastes are usually tinged with a Chinese flavour with spectacular imagery (e.g. battle scenes, palaces, picturesque villages) involving stunning locations and large casts. Hong Kong television produces these dramas (usually period dramas in ancient settings) in China with a licensed Chinese partner and requires permission from the ruling authorities to film on location. The earliest TVB drama of this type was Twin of Brothers, produced in 2004. At the time TVB profited from the retail sale of the drama on VCD,9 but as piracy grew the sale of TVB dramas to other stations for broadcast became the profit model and achieved some degree of success. For example, when War and Beauty (TVB 2004) was broadcast on China’s Hunan Satellite Television at 10 pm in June 2006, the national rating reached 0.75 points, making it the top-rated television programme in that time slot (Sohu.com 2006). On the negative side, however, even when popular in China these co-productions rarely achieve high ratings on both sides of the border as, commonly, the traditional Chinese aesthetic of these dramas does not satisfy Hong Kong audience tastes. For example, Lethal Weapon of Love and Passion (TVB 2006) was a very popular foreign sale television drama but the rating in Hong Kong was only around 23 to 24 (less than 2 million viewers), a poor showing when compared with many other Hong Kong dramas that can achieve a rating of over 30.10 3) China as a co-producer. This is a Hong Kong and Chinese co-production with each side investing equally into the production, as with The Drive of Life and Glorious Return. The profits from sales nationally and overseas are also shared on an equal basis. So far only CCTV (as the accredited representatives of the Chinese authorities) has engaged in these co-productions, but possibly other major national media corporations may become involved in the future. As bombarding the Hong Kong populace with pro-Chinese ideological content is important in the eyes of the

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Chinese authorities to counterbalance the democratic leanings of Hong Kong, we can be almost certain that there will be more coproductions of this type to come. Broadly speaking, given the contexts of Hong Kong’s competitive television market and the tempting Chinese market, it seems highly likely that Hong Kong television will become increasingly involved in one of these three modes of production. According to one of my interviews, TVB produced around 100 hours of television drama in China and 560 hours in Hong Kong in 2009 and the number of joint productions has been steadily increasing every year.11

Chinese Nationalism and Hong Kong Television Hong Kong and China co-productions have direct consequences for Hong Kong political and cultural life. Chinese nationalism, in the form of subtle narratives in popular entertainment, is penetrating the daily lives of Hong Kong people and is becoming everyday public discourse. Nowadays, owing to the visible effects of the media in the streets, shops and inside public transport, one can see the Cantonese-speaking environment becoming hybridized as putonghua (the official Chinese language) is heard more and more and local popular culture is increasingly sandwiched between aspects of Chinese traditional culture – in this case a reverse of the globalization trend (or Westernization) with the local culture becoming more ‘Chinese’. The dissemination of Chinese nationalistic discourse in Hong Kong is gradually becoming part of the composition of television co-production, resulting in Hong Kong television’s accommodation of the communist motherland being no longer piecemeal, sporadic or intermittent. Rather, Hong Kong television is being progressively transformed into a legitimate vehicle to broadcast Chinese nationalistic discourse into Hong Kong. Such crude nationalism can be detrimental to Hong Kong which is a kaleidoscope of art and culture. Admittedly, an Eastmeets-West Hong Kong culture, bespangled with titbits of Chinese 117

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culture consequent to Hong Kong’s return to the PRC, should not be a surprise. It is also quite natural that local people would become acclimatized to a new politico-economic ecology as Hong Kong and China reintegrate. However, when this newly emerging nationalistic ideology starts to subdue the local values of freedom, fairness and democracy, then, for the Hong Kong people, this is a genuine public concern and one that media scholars increasingly need to address.

Conclusion: Toward a Commercially Driven Nationalism Hong Kong television has entered into a new epoch in the last decade. With the advent of new media technologies and the more competitive media environment that has been examined in this chapter, it is clear that Hong Kong’s television industry has had to cope with ever-increasing challenges, the likes of which it has never had to face before. This has driven the formerly stable television stations to go ‘outward’ for survival. The Chinese market has naturally become a new avenue for profit and expansion for the Hong Kong television industry (and many other global television providers as well). Co-production has become a structural by-product of ChineseHong Kong integration because co-produced dramas can be presold or sold as a ready-made product to many Chinese national, provincial and city stations. From a critical perspective, when China plays such an important role in such productions, one intriguing question is whether Hong Kong television can retain its autonomy as reliance on Chinese contacts and business deals will inevitably result in some degree of Sinicization. Another question is the extent to which the creative, capitalist and entertainment-oriented television dramas of Hong Kong television will be transformed into entertaining-cum-propagandist Chinese nationalist-oriented productions. When so many Hong Kong productions have to rely on Chinese resources, locations, personnel and approval, another practical 118

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question is whether the dramas produced are made-in-Hong Kong or made-in-China productions. In the long term, if Hong Kong dramas largely target the Chinese market it is possible that local Hong Kong television productions will in effect become nationalized directly or indirectly by Chinese market forces. From a commercial perspective, however, China is appealing because, as one of my interviewees explained, ‘more revenues can be made when a TV program is not only shown in Hong Kong but also China’ (interview). The industry people I interviewed on the whole believed that tailoring to or blending with the Chinese market is an effective solution for the local media in this new economic era. One of my interviewees believed that ‘the local [Hong Kong] market is too small. In the past decade we actually relied on selling TV programmes to China ... [because this] ... guarantee[d] that the production’ would break even. Yet despite the potential financial gains, attempting to enter the Chinese market, for Hong Kong television as a media business, is not easy. The mainland is not ready to absorb a huge volume of television productions annually. Figures show that since 2002 Chinese television dramas have produced an average of 13,000 episodes annually, whereas the demand was estimated to be only for 7,000 (Singtao Net 2007). Thus, for Hong Kong television to survive in China, just being ‘politically acceptable’ is not the only answer; currying the favour of the Chinese authorities is not the sole solution. To conquer the mainland market, Hong Kong television does of course need to satisfy the needs of the authorities and of Chinese stations, but content-wise the programme quality and orientation also need to satisfy Chinese audience tastes. Finally, one has to question whether the local market remains important given the Chinese-reaching nature of Hong Kong stations. Synthesizing the opinions of many of the interviewees, it would seem, pessimistically, that the Hong Kong market will eventually become the secondary market for the Hong Kong television industry. Optimistically, given its relatively free media

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environment, Hong Kong may perhaps remain the media centre of Chinese television production. However, it appears inevitable that to remain profitable its television drama will have to be circulated and re-circulated back into the huge Chinese market for both economic benefit and cultural impact. While it is true that the former virtual leader of the Asian market has gradually been relegated to the role of serving the Chinese market, Hong Kong television can perhaps continue to perform the important role of influencing China with both a Western worldview and alternative Asian perspectives.

Notes   1

The People’s Republic of China has strict control over the exchange of its currency, Yuan or Renminbi (RMB). RMB can only be exchanged in the mainland or in Hong Kong. This makes Hong Kong a unique city where both foreign currency and RMB are freely exchanged and so it has become a business hub for foreign companies that have extended their businesses into China.  2 Public review, such as the Appreciation Index Survey Best Television Awards, indicates that Chinese programmes are highly valued in the eyes of the changing configurations of the Hong Kong audience.   3 It should be noted that there are variations in the DVDs or VCDs sold in different countries. For example, the local set of 26 VCDs of The Greed of Man (5 October 1992) deleted two episodes. One featured the attempted suicide of the main male actors who try to jump from the roof of a building and the other episode depicted people being thrown from a building. However, the 40-VCD set of the Malaysian version kept these episodes intact.   4 TVB offered one Chinese-speaking channel to its audience and so did ATV. As these two Chinese channels were delimited by the Hong Kong Broadcasting Authority (HKBA), they were an influential media source that offered unsanctioned content to the Chinese-speaking audience. 5 According to my informal conversations with the staff at TVB Pay Vision Limited, they are able to break even at the moment, but the

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balanced budget is built on the fact that many overheads and hidden costs of Pay TV are being subsidized by its mother company.  6 Earlier in 1993, TVB through TVBI Company Limited (TVBI) launched a satellite television channel and nationwide cable TV network (TVBS) in Taiwan. Initially this was with the Taiwan-based Era TV, but in early 2005 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of TVB. Similar to all Chinese stations in the region, TVBS became embroiled in the struggle between the pro-unification party Kuomintang and the Taiwan Independentist Democratic Progressive Party.  7 In the 1990s major city and provincial Chinese stations started purchasing and broadcasting Hong Kong television dramas to boost their local popularity, and this has become an increasing source of revenue today.  8 Hong Kong has not been the only partner in such co-productions. Between 1990 and 1997, China’s co-productions with foreign partners reached almost 2,000 dramas (Cheung 1997). The most successful partnership has been with Warner Bros Pictures which established a joint company with the state-owned China Film Corporation.   9 TVB made a significant profit with 100,000 copies of the VCD of Twin of Brothers being sold in China in 2004, but there was a sharp drop in sales in 2005 (Chen 2006: 98). 10 In general, one rating point in Hong Kong represents an audience size of 60,000. 11 Hong Kong/China cooperations have also produced non-dramatic productions including dancing contests such as Strictly Come Dance (2007–8) which was a co-production between TVB and Hunan TV, and informative programmes such as Jingang Zhihang (2005–8) which was a co-production between ATV and Tianjin TV. Jingang Zhihang depicted the links between the Chinese city of Tianjin and Hong Kong and consisted of two series that were broadcast between 2005 and 2008 on ATV.

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5

Women and Television in Malaysia: Soaps, Transnational Pleasure and Modernity Chris Hudson and Md Azalanshah Introduction The national project of modernization in Malaysia that began in the 1970s has, in the intervening decades, been accompanied by a mélange of competing narratives of the modern. These have been associated with a range of social transformations including a resurgent Islam, increasing urbanization, the rise of a bourgeois public sphere, a burgeoning consumer culture, cosmopolitanism and the advent and consumption of transnational media. These factors have created a field of intersecting discursive conflicts, and a plethora of sites for contests over the meaning of modernity. Embedded within this field are a variety of sites for the discursive construction of the modern Malay woman. Some of these are legitimized and promoted by state discourses; others appear in popular culture. One important site for the negotiation of modern Asian femininities is soap opera, particularly foreign ‘soap’, since it 125

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provides a platform for imagining forms of transnational modernity in a world of powerful cultural flows not constrained by the borders of the nation state. Soaps are a textual intervention in the domain of the imagination, and one more site for the production of modern selves. Of particular interest to us is the imagining of Asian modernity through transnational cultural flows in a political and ideological context in which modernity is an ongoing project fraught with contention, in which multiple modernities exist and in which multiple and fluid subject positions are possible. It is within this wider political, religious and cultural terrain that women soap fans develop viewing strategies for the accommodation of the seemingly conflicting values of modernity and tradition. We presented findings from a qualitative survey of Malay women fans of foreign TV dramas or soap operas (commonly called ‘soaps’), and examined responses to questions about viewing pleasure. Our study involved a sample of 24 informants in a series of interviews, each lasting four hours or more. All informants are middle-class Malay women, all Muslims and all in professional occupations in a range of urban (Kuala Lumpur) and rural settings. All the informants are habitual viewers of soap operas. We use the data to investigate two significant points about the East Asian pop culture sphere in general, and the Korean Wave in particular, that have emerged from Chua and Iwabuchi’s groundbreaking anthology (2008a). The first is that Korean soaps provide a platform for a re-imagining of a cosmopolitan Asian modernity recognized as culturally proximate; secondly, that viewers engage in a process of identification and distancing as they watch Korean soaps. Both these issues provide points of entry into an understanding of the construction of a transnational feminine modernity. As a study of the reception of foreign soaps in Malaysia, our chapter is timely. While Chua and Iwabuchi’s volume specifically deals with the reception of the Korean Wave in Confucian East Asia, it does not address the impact of the Korean Wave as an aspect of popular culture in Islamic Asia. With its focus on Malaysia, our chapter will go some way to filling

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that gap and point the way towards a more comprehensive study of the Korean Wave in a broader Asian context – a context in which the ‘cultural proximity’ with an Islamic society, rather than a Confucian society, may not be so easily established. This chapter is divided into four sections. The first section will deal with the development of Malay modernity to establish a background for understanding the cultural context in which Korean TV dramas are screened; the second is concerned with the competing images of the modern Malay woman; the third with soaps in the popular imagination; and the last discusses foreign soaps as a site for transnational imaginary practices and feelings of engagement with an Asian modernity.

Malay Modernity Rita Felski’s definition offers a nuanced understanding of the modern: ‘the “modern” acts as a mobile and shifting classification that serves to structure, legitimise, and valorize varied and often competing perspectives’ (1995: 14–15). This perspective enables the conceptualization of modernity in temporally and spatially dispersed settings and in different cultural formations. It also provides for the accommodation of various contradictions and modes of combining competing discourses. Furthermore, it means that we can examine the often contradictory roles for women in modernity rather than seeing women as disqualified by a mutually exclusive male-rational/female-irrational binary. It is especially important for reconceptualizing ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, and for understanding the boundaries between them as blurred, unstable and contingent. Giddens has stated that ‘[i]nherent in the idea of modernity is the contrast with tradition’ (1991: 36). It is perhaps more useful now to imagine modernity, especially alternative modernities to be found in non-Western settings, coexisting with tradition in a shifting and oxymoronic amalgamation, where tradition is accommodated within the modern. We proceed from the premise that modernity should be perceived, after Felski (1995), 127

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as a variable set of shifting classifications, and that multiple modes of modernity and multiple ways of imagining the modern are possible. For this reason understandings of these modes of modernity should also be anchored in specific sites and make use of historically and culturally specific examples. Kahn (2001: 120; 2006) has gone some way to establishing that Malay modernity is not a derivative of that of the West, and Ong’s (2006) work is convincing in its examination of Malaysia as the site of an alternative modernity. She has argued that a distinctively Malaysian mode of modernity involves the interlocking of Islamic nationalism with modernity (Ong 2006: 47–8). Moderate Islam, a version of Islam specific to Malaysia, can be envisaged as a shifting interface between tradition and modernity; Islam remains the spiritual and moral foundation for a secular state (despite the sizeable minority of the population who are not Muslims);1 it accommodates the commitment to capitalist development, and the modernizing of the economy and the social transformations on which it depends. Modern Malaysian nationhood is, in many senses, predicated on the modernization of tradition. The Malaysian government’s New Economic Program (NEP 1970–90), beginning in the early 1970s, was a policy designed to create a Malay business class and bring Malays into the modern economy (Crouch 1993); an agenda, in effect, to create a modern Malay who would participate in the economy and support the industrialization strategies of the 1970s. Former Prime Minister Mahathir’s ‘Look East’ policy took the industrialized East Asian nations of Korea, Taiwan and especially Japan as its models of the modern nation. By the 1990s modernity was configured through a new discursive regime in which a market-driven economy was ‘thought to be the automatic guarantor of progress, civil rights, democracy and, of course, modernity’ (Evers and Gerke 1997: 4). The invention of the Melayu Baru (New Malay) was part of the process of modernizing not just the economy, but also the Malay citizen. The New Malay – the newly affluent bumiputera2 (Talib 2000) – was undoubtedly male (Stivens 1998). Representations of

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Malay women were more problematic; women, Stivens reports, were deployed as metaphors for the conflicting aspects of modernity (1998: 93). Common concerns in these discourses are the promiscuous sexuality of young women resulting from increased freedom, the breakdown of family values and the recalcitrance of children whose mothers are in the paid workforce. Similarly, while women have been mobilized for the modernizing economy, they have also been berated for posing a threat to male authority and the traditional economic dominance of men (Ong 2006: 35). Ong reports that parents of young women wanted them to work in the factories, but suffered conflicting anxieties centred on the maintenance of their honour as Muslim women (1990: 268). For Ong, it is clear that one of the key elements in the social construction of modern Malaysian society is the prevalence of competing images of women (1990: 268). The image of enlightened moderate Islam intersecting with consumer capitalism, for example, produces, in effect, a kind of post-modern grouping of divergent images. With large numbers of young women working as part of the development of an industrial economy, women are seen as vital to the modernization of the family while at the same time being blamed for the breakdown of the family, patriarchal authority and the traditional gender order. In Malaysia, the family is highly politicized and suffused with conflicting meanings. On the one hand, the Islamization of the nation since the 1970s has seen a rewriting of the home space as a woman’s jihad (Stivens 2006) and a means of contributing to the modernizing of the nation; on the other hand, the expectation that women will participate as wage labourers and professionals in the globalizing economy has created tensions centred on the clash between paid work and the maintenance of the family. The family is configured as the central ontological underpinning of the enlightened Islamic state, and the mother as its symbolic and moral pivot. In Malaysia, the family, and especially gender relations are, according to Stivens, tied to ideological unsettling and the remaking of the private/public divide (1998: 89). Stivens has suggested

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that the private sphere in Malaysia is a corollary of urbanization and the concept has been continuously reconfigured within late modernity (2006: 358). The private has become a favoured site for the expression of tensions and ambivalences about the costs of modernity: issues of gender, home and sexuality are central sites for the cultural expression and reworking of the ‘modern’ Malay and Muslim (Stivens 1998: 116). The new-found freedom of young women who had been absorbed into the wage-labour economy precipitated a sort of moral panic centred on the appearance of permissiveness manifested most obviously in the adoption of Western clothes (the ‘sarong-to-jeans’ movement) and make-up. Perhaps the greatest threat to the gender and moral order was the forming of relationships with non-Malay men and women who appeared to be no longer restrained by family guidance. They were labelled bukan Melayu (not Malay) (Ong 1990: 268). Those who had become too modern, in other words, were reclassified as excluded in accordance with the tripartite conflation of moderate Islam/modernity/Malayness. Othman notes the emergence of Islamist discourses in the late 1990s in the electronic and print media that emphasized, in strident and even misogynistic tones, that all the ills of modern society were the responsibility of women (1998: 184). According to her, this was the precursor to a range of unequivocally gendered discourses that circulated in the 1990s. Malaysia, like other nations in the Asian region, produced and circulated the ‘Asian Values’ debate in the public sphere as a discourse of resistance against the hegemony of Western values in the 1990s. The Asian Values debate was the promotion by governments, principally those of Malaysia and Singapore, of congeries of essentialized attributes of Asian societies that were lauded as the key to the success of the Asian economic miracle. Within this framework, a specifically Asian modernity could be imagined, and it could overlap with a gendered discourse to promote the image of an Asian woman. Othman points out that even though the cultural discourse of Malaysian Islamists features ‘an uncompromisingly authoritarian construction of identity of the “ideal woman” ’ (1998: 180),

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projects that try to demarcate the position of women as part of some ideological agenda always end up producing competing and somewhat contradictory images. She points out that while women are expected to answer the demand for their skills in the modernizing economy, they are also charged with ensuring cultural continuity and the moral integrity of society. Women are regarded as central to the nation’s projects of both cultural rejuvenation and religious orthodoxy, which in Malaysia are embedded in the politics of Islamization, nationalism, state-building and ‘Asian values’ (Othman 1998: 176). As anxieties about modernity fade, ambivalences remain. Malaysian Islam itself is a post-modern mixture of fundamentalist and liberal Islam where the Islamization of the last few decades has promoted self-discipline, thriftiness and capital accumulation as Islamic values – the idea that Islam requires Muslims to be rich, independent and progressive (Ong 2006: 49).

Competing Images of the Modern Malay Woman The last few decades have seen a proliferation of sites in which the meaning of the ‘modern’ can be located, in particular the mass media in its nexus with consumer culture. If the ideologies of statedriven modernity, Islamic morality, the family and Asian values compete in a shifting discursive terrain, the image of the modern woman and the sites of her production are similarly multifarious. Healey has argued that constructions of Malay womanhood can be understood as a dialectic between localized constructions and hegemonic, or national, constructions (1994: 99). In other words, somewhere in the shifting interface of localized individual cultural practices and the putative hegemonic gendered rhetoric of the nation’s demands on women are the sites for construction of the modern woman. One prevalent image of the modern Malay woman in the 1980s was the ‘factory girl’, the young woman mobilized for the government’s rapid industrialization strategy (as discussed by Ong in 1987). The popularity of this image as an object of study and a symbol of oppressive global capitalism has since been deposed 131

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by what Stivens calls ‘the late modern figure of the veiled, devout Muslim woman, child of the New Economic Policy’ (2000: 19). Stivens argues that the resurgence of the veiled middle-class woman has become a symbol of a distinctively Malay modernity (1998: 117). The rediscovery of the tudung (Muslim headscarf or veil) in Malaysia can be imagined as symbolic of women’s increasing political agency in their support of revivalist and politicized Islam (Stivens 2000: 29–30). Stivens reports that some of the most passionate supporters of revivalist Islam in Malaysia have been ‘the hard-working, thrifty and devout new middle classes, the children of the New Economic Policy’ (2000: 30). Healey (1994) similarly observes that in the 1990s ‘upwardly mobile’ women demonstrated their ‘Muslimness’ through their identification with domesticity, motherhood and religion, while at the same time identifying themselves with the modern through their consumption of material goods. Because of Islam’s close association with Malay nationalism and the success of the economic miracle in modernizing Malaysia, Islam can be interpreted in many senses as representing Malay modernity. Given the evident female demonstration of support for Islam, a specifically feminized modernity can be imagined, even if it is still highly contested. The discursive production of this feminized modernity is noticeable in the proliferation of women’s magazines in the 1980s and 1990s. They seemed to have as their most salient agenda the task of producing the modern female subject who would, in turn, reproduce modern culture (Stivens 1994: 87). Articles in these magazines often focused upon ‘modern’ views about child-rearing practices, household decor, managing malefemale interpersonal relationships, the reinvention of cuisine and so on, all designed to orient women towards their role in the domestic construction of the middle class (Stivens 1994: 87) – a ‘modern’ innovation in Malaysian society. At the same time, however, a competing discourse about women emerged in the print and electronic media, which, according to Othman, canvassed issues about marriage, sexuality, traditional gender relations, female identity and behaviour in a decidedly patriarchal and Islamist tone

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(1998: 185). As a response to modernity and social change, the more conservative stance has had to compete with other modes of imagining the modern available to women. More recent magazines, however, have moved away from a focus on the domestic towards incorporating certain risqué topics more likely to be associated with Western women’s magazines. One issue (3–9 August 2007) of the popular women’s magazine Mingguan Wanita (Women’s Weekly) features on its cover a beautiful young Malay woman dressed in a style universally recognizable as youthful, trendy and sexually attractive: scanty T-shirt, makeup, colourful body adornments and uncovered hair. The cover text announces the contents for that issue: ‘Tolak seks, ego suami tercabar’ (‘Refuse sex, your husband’s ego will be challenged’); ‘Banyak cara untuk awet muda’ (‘Many ways to retain your youth’); ‘5 langkah buka perniagaan sendiri’ (‘Five steps to opening your own business’); ‘Strategi. Panaskan suami dingin’ (‘Strategy: Warming up a cold husband’). Inside there are a number of articles featuring seemingly traditional couples in classic Muslim dress – including full hijab – advertising consumer goods (‘Shop online!’), makeup and beauty products, recipes for healthy meals for the family, success stories of Muslim women, Muslim fashions, make-up tips, body-slimming underwear, advice on child rearing, bridal fashions and the ubiquitous diets. While there is a continuing religious and national emphasis on a woman’s role in the family, such magazines do not present an imperative; rather, they offer a series of imagined positions within modernity and a multiplicity of modern characters the reader could become in both the public and the private spheres. A range of texts are available to women through which they can engage with modernity and be encouraged to construct modes of understanding. As Ong suggests, a consequence of such multiple modern characters being offered has seen the social reality of women in body-conscious dresses and jeans inhabiting workplaces, streets and leisure centres alongside those in full purdah (coverall robes which conceal a woman’s body) (2006: 33).3 Women negotiate their own

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way through the textual maze in spite of the fact that the images offered are sometimes contradictory.

Soaps and the Popular Imagination As a powerful global medium, television is one more site where women can negotiate the modern and position themselves with respect to modernity. In the mid-1980s a flood of television dramas, particularly soaps and serials from Asia and Latin America (known as telenovelas), began to captivate the Malaysian audience. Brazilian dramas such as Isaura (TV Globo 1976) became at least as popular as Dallas (CBS 1978–91). As a partial consequence of the ‘Look East’ policy of the 1980s, Television Malaysia began to import more television programmes from Japan and South Korea, and an imagined ‘East Asian modernity’ began to usurp the power of the Dallas phenomenon and its representations of Western modernity. Japanese soaps such as Oshin (NHK 1983) and Rin Hanne Koma (NHK 1988) and soaps from Thailand (known as lakorn after the Thai word for ‘play’) and the Philippines became extremely popular. These days, the most popular soaps amongst Malay women are from Indonesia (known as sinetron) and Korea. Foreign soaps are so compelling for Malaysian viewers that even the press have noted how life often comes to a halt when Korean soaps such as Autumn in My Heart (KBS 2000) or Winter Sonata (KBS 2002–3), or Latin American telenovelas such as Yo so Betty, la Fea (I am Betty, the Ugly One) (RCN TV 1999), are screened (John et al. 2003). Images of Western modernity have clearly not established hegemony in the face of the plurality of cultural images from, in particular, East Asian popular culture. Asian soaps now constitute a substantial transnational media flow and have had a significant impact on the viewing habits of women. Watching daytime soaps has become part of everyday culture. Many Malay women structure their afternoon activities around their favourite shows and the recent provision of satellite technology in Malaysia has meant that the variety of these soaps has also increased.

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The habitual viewing of the most popular soaps has caused no small tremor of alarm amongst some authorities in Malaysia, such as the Ministry of Information, who discourage the viewing of soaps in the belief that they are mindless trash which will have a detrimental effect on Malay women’s Islamic values and, ultimately, local culture.4 Concerns have been articulated in the mass media, meetings of political and social organizations and even in parliament (Karthigesu 1991: 104). However, such conflicting views have resulted in a new valorization of some soaps in certain quarters, configured around distinctions between soaps of various foreign origins. A spokeswoman for Wanita UMNO (United Malays National Organization)5 stated: ‘We now see too many Indonesian and Filipino programmes like the drama Bawang Putih Bawang Merah [Garlic and Onions, MD Entertainment 2004] on television. There’s nothing positive to be gained from these programmes, only negative’ (Bernama 2006a). The head of Puteri Umno, Datuk Noraini Ahmad, argued that the government should ‘curb the addiction to soap operas which deviated from the Islamic faith or propagated new ideas to do wrong, practise free sex or damage society’s norms and social fabric’ (Bernama 2006b). She cautioned that Malay religious culture was in jeopardy from certain aspects of modernity, stating: ‘Don’t simply slip in a slot or airtime with dramas that go against our culture during the time for Zuhur, Asar and Maghrib [midday, mid-afternoon and sunset] prayers’ (Bernama 2006b). It was reported in the press that one ‘telenovela widower’ lamented ‘No wonder the house is in a mess’; and it seems a common complaint that these soaps are seen to lure mothers and wives away from their domestic duties (John et al. 2003: 1). Just as Dallas, at its peak in the early 1980s, was alive in the collective cultural consciousness (Ang 1985: 5), Asian soaps are alive in the collective imaginations of Malay viewers. Chua (2006), Chua and Iwabuchi (2008a), Iwabuchi (2004a), and Iwabuchi, Muecke and Thomas (2004), amongst others, have argued that transcultural Asian media flows are increasingly negating the cultural power of Western exports into Asia. This may well be the case. The New

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Sunday Times, for example, illustrated the extent to which imported non-American soaps have now infiltrated the popular imagination of Malaysians: … the unconscious humming of the theme from Winter Sonata as we cook and clean, the smiles that appear on our faces as the South American beauties or bedroom-eyed heroes float across our computer screens, and the conviction with which parents dispense advice and anecdotes from Chitti [Radaan Mediaworks (I) & UTV 2001, a popular Indian soap, or ‘mega-serial’] to their children.... (John et al. 2003: 1)

The authors add that they are ‘hard-pressed to explain’ the popularity of such soaps, but also suggest that ‘for the many fans’ they are ‘a pleasurable escape. Wives forget their drab husbands and drab lives … and … consider the higher things in life – murder, mayhem, political wrangling, scandals, family squabbles and, above all else, love’ (John et al. 2003: 1). Many observers would not find it hard to explain at all, since the power of soap opera to incite fascination and to take up a place in people’s imaginative lives has been well established (Ang 1985; Geraghty 1991; Liebes and Katz 1990; Spence 2005). What is more difficult to understand is why soaps might have near-universal appeal. For Ang, an all-embracing explanation for all viewers is impossible (1985: 16) and Liebes and Katz (1990) contend that Dallas, one of the most popular soaps in the history of the genre with the largest viewership in the history of television, is interpreted differently in each cultural setting in which it is consumed. Indeed, Ang has suggested that it was precisely the cultural power and global status of Dallas that precipitated the glocalization (Robertson 1995) of TV drama because it provided a standardized format that could be adapted to local content (2004: 304). Ang raises an important issue in her study of Dallas that popular pleasure is primarily about the pleasure of recognition (1985: 20). Malay women derive a significant amount of pleasure from viewing foreign soaps, but this pleasure might not be the same pleasure that 136

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people in other settings gain. The field of recognition and the imagining of a trans-Asian modernity through the consumption of Asian soaps in Malaysia may well be different from that found in the East Asian societies that have been the subjects of recent works on transnational consumption of Japanese and Korean popular culture (see especially volumes by Chua and Iwabuchi 2008a; Iwabuchi 2002b; Iwabuchi 2004a; Iwabuchi, Muecke and Thomas 2004; Jung 2010). Amongst our informants, foreign soaps were perceived as more popular than locally-produced ones. The majority of informants thought that the narratives, the romances and the plots in foreign soaps were far more compelling than those in the local ones. Local ones were sometimes perceived as boring because they reiterated the same themes, such as people crying out of jealousy, and recycle the same heroes. Twenty of our informants said that it was Japanese soaps that first precipitated their soap ‘habit’. It was generally agreed that Korean soaps were preferred to Indonesian soaps, since they were more satisfying and offered more viewing pleasure than Indonesian sinetron or Japanese soaps. Winter Sonata was the all-time favourite. The most popular soaps in Malaysia appear to provide a fictional female-centred world of romance and love in which women’s experiences are privileged and valued, but they also provide ways of imagining appropriate forms of modernity. While the content varies, one consistent feature of these soaps is the representation of forms of Asian modernity. Embedded in the narrative are meanings and values associated with capitalist modernity, typically articulated through scenes of stylish urban lifestyles, elegant homes, chic clothes and other aspects of consumer culture.

Soaps, the Transnational Imaginary and Modernity Mōri has determined in his study of Winter Sonata fans in Japan that modes of consumption differ depending on age, gender and other variables (2008: 132). Nevertheless, we found some general features about how meaning is created and viewing pleasure is understood 137

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that were drawn from our informants’ responses. They identified a range of features in Winter Sonata that they saw as signifiers of the modern. These included the strong, ambitious female characters; professional women who make decisions, women who drive luxury cars, especially four-wheel drives, mixed-race characters whom they perceive to be Asian but not-quite-Asian, urban settings, modern environments, gorgeous and expensive clothes and narratives of romance in which it is possible to form relationships, escape from them and form new ones. From this we can infer that important elements of the appeal of Winter Sonata are the perennial dilemmas and problems associated with the need for love and companionship, transported into a modern setting. It has been argued that ‘romance’ can be perceived as an invention of the modern (Giddens 1992) and today can also be implicated in consumer culture (Illouz 1997). Stivens points to the decline in arranged marriages (2000: 26) in Malaysia that has resulted from the growth in romantic relationships, and this is reflected in certain artefacts of popular culture. Malaysian women’s magazines now often feature real-life love stories culminating in marriage, the sort of romance stories that routinely appear in the pages of Western women’s weeklies. This can be perceived to be an important aspect of modernity in Malaysia and a reflection of women’s expanded life choices. Much of the pleasure of watching soaps can be seen to derive from female viewers’ engagement with characters’ lifestyles as models of modern Asian womanhood. The shared meanings provided by the mutual valuing of consumer goods and lifestyles across the region have provided the viewers with forms of transnational pleasure. The concept of ‘cultural proximity’ (Iwabuchi 2002b; Straubhaar 1991) is perhaps most conceptually appropriate to take account of the existence of such shared meanings. Viewers in the East Asian cultural sphere recognize aspects of their own culture in the TV dramas. Iwabuchi, whose studies of Japanese and Korean popular culture have probably done the most to disseminate this idea (2002b; 2004a; Chua and Iwabuchi 2008a), argues that ‘cultural

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proximity’ needs to be understood less in terms of the static attribute of ‘being’ but as a dynamic process of ‘becoming’ (2002b: 155–56). But how can the cultural proximity of Japan and Korea to other East Asian/Confucian societies explain the popularity of Korean soaps in Malaysia, an Islamic society in which one would expect the ‘proximity’ to be seriously weakened? Malay society is far less culturally proximate to the East Asian provenance of the most popular soaps from countries on which most of the studies of the reception and consumption of TV drama have been done (primarily the Confucian states of Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China). A further question might be asked in relation to Chua’s assertion that the foreignness of cultural products is the source of viewing pleasure: if viewers are attracted by the ‘not like us’ aspect (Chua 2008: 78) then why are Malaysian viewers not more attracted by the even more foreign, that is, Western soaps? The promotion of the ‘Asian Values’ debate had already instilled in the public imagination a field of possible modernities predicated on both their distance from the West and their proximity with other Asian societies. By the 1990s, Malaysia had become ‘Asianized’ through the ‘Look East’ campaign, the Asianizing of the mass media and the construction of the West as other (Yao 2001b). The result has been the creation of what Wee, in the context of Singapore, calls ‘neo-traditional modernity’ (2002a): a harnessing of national culture in the name of capitalist development which attempts to conserve tradition whilst modernizing. In this context, proximity is not merely a process of ‘becoming’ through the personal responses of viewers, but a political process subject to state discourses and geopolitical shifts. Lin and Tong’s study of the imagining of a cosmopolitan Asian sphere of similarity – an ‘Asian Us’ – focuses on the reception by female viewers of Korean TV dramas in Hong Kong and Singapore. Their findings show that while some female viewers appreciated a range of characteristics recognized as Confucian values – bowing, being polite and showing respect to the elderly – what seemed to be most important was the ability of characters to combine traditional

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values with modern sensibilities (2008: 110). An example that one of our informants focused on in her discussion of Winter Sonata was the question of arranged marriages. While Winter Sonata is a romance, and fans are eager to see the search for love, there is a discursive space for the concept of the arranged marriage. The informant told us that the conflict between the tradition of the arranged marriage and the modern search for romance is the same in Malay society. She said: ‘You can look for your own partner, but if you can’t find one, your parents will arrange a prospective spouse.’ Our informants also tended to recognize the ‘Asian-ness’ of Winter Sonata. Some noted, for example, that the women were softly spoken and identified with this as an ideal characteristic of Asian women. Five of them remarked that even though they were very modern in terms of their fashionable clothes, they were still Asian because they were gentle in their manner. Ten of our informants also said that their beautiful clothes marked them as modern, but that they could also recognize the traditional in their behaviour. One informant, a female small-business owner in her late 40s, was impressed by the business acumen and success of the characters in Winter Sonata, while at the same time deploring the focus in some Indonesian soaps on characters who were intent on making money over and above their family and community responsibilities. Our survey results indicate that the cultural proximity displayed in Winter Sonata does offer Muslim viewers in Malaysia a sense of a shared ‘Asian cosmopolitan imaginary’ and the consequent viewing pleasure this affords, recognized by Lin and Tong (2008) in the case of Singapore and Hong Kong. This is partly the effect of a ‘relatively similar physiognomy’ (Chua 2008: 78); it is partly because Winter Sonata is universally recognizable as romance; it is partly the result of the viewers’ identification with the female characters’ struggle to balance career success with family life; and it is partly because there is a narrative focus on respect for family values and filial commitments, understood to be a quintessential element of ‘Asianness’. None of this, however, can fully explain its success in Malaysia; after all, these narrative features are also features of many Western

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soaps. The American soaps The Young and the Restless (CBS 1973–), The Bold and the Beautiful (CBS 1987–), Days of Our Lives (NBC 1965–) and even Dallas are all centred on families, relationships and social responsibilities. Our interviews have suggested to us that what creates cultural proximity, distinguishes Asian soaps from Western forms and erases the distance between Confucian and Islamic cultures – what constitutes them as really Asian – is the struggle to deal with the tensions inherent in the juxtaposition of modernity and tradition. If viewing pleasure comes from recognition (Ang 1985: 20) then transnational viewing pleasure may be all the more intense when the recognition is not merely the appreciation of similar family problems, work-family balance, lost opportunities, quotidian crises and other standard plot elements of Korean and other soaps; it is, more importantly, a recognition of the deeper existential problem of striving to construct a modern, feminine, Asian subject position in a society where tradition and modernity are both mobile and shifting classifications that have the power to impose conflicting demands. This is particularly poignant in a society in which anxiety about modernity and the role of women has been publicly expressed, and in which women are inscribed as the boundary markers of tradition and Islamic orthodoxy. The differences between Confucian and Islamic societies are also erased by modes of consumption or the viewing style. An important aspect of viewing behaviour is, as Chua has pointed out, that the text is not consumed exclusively as a coherent whole, but in a fragmentary manner (2008: 74). This helps to clarify the various, apparently contradictory explanations for the popularity of soap opera generally. For Chua, ‘foreignness is a source of viewing pleasure’ (2008: 73), while for Ang it is the pleasure of recognition (1985: 20). Iwabuchi synthesizes these approaches: the ‘other side of intimate similarity is pleasant distance’ (2004c: 12). Cultural proximity is itself therefore a shifting category, which allows for recognition of elements that are sometimes more, sometimes less culturally proximate.

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Whatever pleasure is gained from watching soaps, it is always a process of dynamic and fragmented acceptance and rejection. Chua has described this as a structure of identification and distance in viewing behaviour, an intermittent rather than consistent process that has implications for the stability of the viewers’ relationship with the programme (2008: 84). Our informants’ responses substantiate this. One informant who loves the fashions displayed in soaps also commented that some Japanese trends are ridiculous, naming the fad for ‘red hair’ and overly high heels as examples. Another said that although she loved the romance, the scenes of holding hands and hugging were points of difference with which she could not identify. She also placed this behaviour in a continuum of identification and distancing when she told us that: The Koreans are more into ‘free sex’. Once they get engaged they can sleep in one bed together. You can see this kind of scene in either Korean or Japanese dramas. Still, their sexual scenes are very limited, and not like the ones in western dramas. It was limited to kissing and hugging. You don’t even see the bedroom scenes like you do in western dramas.

While Korean soaps show scenes inappropriate for Malay society, they are not as inappropriate as western soaps. The same informant added that she and her friends are very open-minded and accept the Korean sexual scenes as part of the story because they are not indecent and offensive like the Western ones. Chua has also pointed out that many researchers have observed that drama fans rework on-screen events, activities and characters into their own lives. It seems that the skills of intermittent distancing and identification, acceptance and rejection – the recognition that something can be simultaneously ‘like us’ and ‘not like us’ (Ang and Stratton 1996: 22–4) – that are required for engaging with a soap text are similar to the strategies for negotiating shifting categories of tradition and modernity and maintaining a viable subject position in an ontologically unstable world. It is not simply 142

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that contradictions may be accommodated; they may also bring about an expanded space for imagining alternatives. Appadurai has pointed to the increasing power of the imagination in social life. He notes that the work of the imagination is ‘a space of contestation in which individuals and groups seek to annex the global into their own practices of the modern’ (1996: 4) and that TV is an important source of the lived imagination (1996: 54). Soap opera is one site which can provide for this expanded space of the imagination and the intervention of the global, and, in a dialectical transformation, precipitate a re-imagining of the local and contestation of the national imaginary.

Conclusion The significance of the mass media lies not only in its economic importance or instrumental value, but also in the fact that it is an index of modernity itself (Yao 2001b: 48). The act of watching television is modern; the act of watching transnational television creates a new space in the imagination and allows the viewer to invent her own modernity. It seems that the imagining of the modern, for Malay women, is augmented by images of  ‘other Asias’ that are characterized by multiplicity, hybridity and transnational transferability. The space this creates for the negotiation of circulating transnational discourses of modernity, and renewed cultural resources for imagining the modern, must be understood in the context of the moral ideology of localized forms of Islam, Malay nationhood and capitalist development. Chua argues that while TV drama narratives construct a reception space and subject position determined by the producer, audience reception studies consistently show that the audience develop preferred meanings of their own, and preferred subject positions (2008: 79). Malay women, as the preceding discussion indicates, have a number of subject positions available to them through which to imagine themselves as modern. They have welldeveloped strategies for negotiating styles of gendered modernity, 143

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for reinventing themselves in various contexts and for avoiding the opprobrium associated with the performance of modernity in Malaysia. Before soap operas, Malay women already had a form of the deterritorialized imagination to which Appadurai (1996) refers. This was located in a complex field of imagined cultural positions which they could move in and out of at will, making daily decisions about, for example, whether or not to wear tudung to this or that event or activity. Mass media had already delivered a multiplicity of imaginaries located outside the national and local space through which to imagine the modern: Islam from the Middle East, and India and capitalism from other parts of Asia and the West; popular culture from India, East Asia, Latin America and the West. It was in this social and cultural context that soaps arrived on Malaysian television screens in the 1980s. Beck’s ‘imagined presence of geographically distant others and worlds’ (2002: 31) was already a feature of public and private life in Malaysia. The ‘dialogical imagination’ that he describes as a way of thinking outside the monologic imagination of the national space (Beck 2002: 18) had already drawn women into an engagement with a pluralized modernity and ‘other Asias’, where the daily contest between modernity and tradition is played out.

Notes   1

  2   3   4

The population of Malaysia is 26.2 million, comprised of Malays (62 per cent), Chinese (24 per cent) and Indians (8 per cent), with the remainder made up of indigenous peoples and others. A term used to describe the indigenous peoples of the Malay peninsula, as distinct from immigrant groups such as Chinese and Indians. Of course it is not only in Malaysia that such conspicuously different images are juxtaposed in the social space. Soaps, it appears, are a cause for concern and anxiety about the changing roles of women in a variety of settings. In April 2008, Wafa and Gall (2008: 6) reported in The New York Times that in Afghanistan soaps are

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  5

a site for the struggle over the meaning of religion and culture. They are at the centre of a ‘long-simmering war between cultural conservatives and liberals’. They report that the soaps, all produced in India, ‘have much of the urban population hooked’. While viewers rush home from work every night to find out what happens next, some scenes, in which women dance with men and exhibit other behaviours not consistent with Islamic principles, are apparently viewed as inappropriate. Even in Russia, foreign soaps are imagined as a threat to cultural integrity. Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying that it was appropriate to accept the ‘best example’ of foreign culture, but slammed foreign soaps, arguing that they are a threat to cultural integrity, that the younger generation should not be exposed to them and they are in bad taste (Agence France Press 2007). Puteri UMNO and Wanita UMNO are the women’s wings of UMNO (United Malays National Organization), the ruling political party in Malaysia.

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6

Crossing Borders, Building Bridges: ‘Asian Stars’ in Japanese TV Drama Hilaria Gössmann and Griseldis Kirsch Introduction Between the 1970s and 1990s, Japanese TV commercials presented a large number of Western stars using and recommending Japanese products. Appearances by stars such as Charles Bronson, Sean Connery, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Ryan (amongst others) meant watching a commercial break sometimes came close to a display of a ‘Who’s Who in Hollywood’. Western stars received huge media attention and gathered large (mainly female) fan communities. In contrast to the Western stars that were so prominent in TV commercials and on the big screen, stars from other Asian countries were far less visible. Films from Hong Kong, for example, managed to gather only small audiences, while stars from other Asian countries hardly ever appeared in the Japanese media.1 By the late 1990s, however, Western influence seemed to be decreasing and instead ‘all things Asian’ were becoming more important. A kind of ‘Asia boom’2 and ‘rediscovery’ of ‘Asia’ occurred in Japanese 147

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society as well as in the media and TV drama played a crucial part. (The Soccer World Cup of 2002, co-hosted by Korea and Japan, also aided this ‘rediscovery’ and helped lead to a ‘Korea boom’3 within Japan.) By the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium,4 not only was there a rising number of Japanese TV dramas featuring ‘Asian’ characters, but imported Korean productions were also assuming an increasingly important role in Japan. The Korean TV series Winter Sonata (Fuyu no sonata in Japanese, KBS 2002–3) led to a huge wave of interest in Korea when it was first aired in 2003 by the Japanese public broadcaster NHK’s (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) satellite television station BS 2 (and again in 2004 when it was shown by its terrestrial station). The star of this series, Bae Yong-joon, developed a huge following in Japan and was frequently displayed in the media, especially in Japanese TV commercials. Prior to this ‘boom’, throughout most of its history Japanese TV drama was virtually free of foreigners (including Westerners) and domestic productions tended to dominate the market.5 When looking at the embryonic stages of the ‘Asia boom’ in Japan in the 1990s, a hugely important contributing factor was the small but extremely devoted audience found by Hong Kong films6 and Hong Kong stars’ consequent development of a fan base. According to research conducted by Koichi Iwabuchi, preoccupation with its stars led to some fans becoming interested in Hong Kong’s culture and history (2002b: 194). However, perhaps the most important element of this interest in Hong Kong stars (just as would later be the case with fandom surrounding Korean stars) was that the fans were primarily women, making the ‘Asia boom’ a female-driven event early on. This chapter will examine the reasons for and development of the female fandom surrounding Hong Kong and Korean TV drama stars that helped drive the opening-up of Japan to Asian stars. The approach will be twofold. Since the fandom for Hong Kong stars preceded the fandom for Korean stars, we will first deal with Hong Kong (and China) in Japanese TV drama, before analyzing one

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drama (Fan of a Hong Kong Star [Honkonmyōjōmei], TV Tokyo 2002) that helps to illuminate how fandom for Hong Kong stars impacted upon Japanese women. Subsequently, we will discuss the gradual increase in Korean stars who appeared on the Japanese small screen and who paved the way for the spectacular fan-frenzy that would ultimately surround the TV drama Winter Sonata. Lastly, we will analyze one more TV drama (The Promise [Yakusoku], TBS 2005) in order to determine the impact that the fandom for Korean stars has had on the development of Japanese TV drama.

Hong Kong and China in Japanese TV drama As stated, in the late 1990s, Hong Kong films gathered a small audience in Japan, making their stars more famous within Japan than previously. At around the same time Japanese films such as Beijing Watermelon (Pekin no suika, 1989) and World Apartment Horror (1991) began to feature an increasing number of Asian characters, resulting in Japan’s Asian neighbours becoming more present in the cinema. Shortly afterwards, Japanese TV drama also began to show more Asian characters. At first it was apparent that Asia had to be brought forward ‘light-heartedly’, particularly in series,7 where primarily Japanese actors were cast to portray other Asians who spoke Japanese poorly and comically as a marker of ‘difference’. This at least, if only by virtue of the presence of non-Japanese Asian characters on the small screen, guaranteed some degree of familiarity with the ‘Other’ on television, despite their being played by Japanese actors.8 Alongside Japanese stars playing ‘Asian’, some Asian characters also began to be portrayed by ‘real Asians’ but were restricted to supporting roles. (These supporting characters tended to be played by Hong Kong Chinese actors who were familiar to audiences from the cinema.) For example, the Chinese actress Joey Wang starred in the crime drama Woman from Hong Kong (Honkon kara kita onna, TBS 1990) as a policewoman from Hong Kong who throws her inexperienced Japanese partner off-balance yet also helps him to achieve success.9 Another Chinese actress, Kelly Chen, appeared 149

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in House of Devils (Oni no sumika, Fuji TV 1999) with the Japanese actress Fukada Kyōko as the star. Kelly Chen was followed by Jenny Chan a year later in Stories of a Driving School (Kyōshūjo monogatari, TV Tokyo 2000), in which she played a supporting role in a story that again focused on the Japanese protagonists. With the dawning of the new millennium however, the focus on Japanese stars was beginning to change and NHK played an important part in paving the way for non-Japanese actors. Following on from the success of the 1994 TV series Children of the Earth (Daichi no ko), which portrayed the life of a Japanese war orphan growing up in China,10 Nihei Wataru (a producer with NHK) was set the task of making a drama that would replicate its popularity. The result was a Sino-Japanese co-production entitled The Valley Where the Cherries Bear Fruit (Sakuranbo no minoru tani, 2000) which was set in a remote village in Sichuan. All Chinese parts were cast with Chinese actors and the drama was ‘officially’ a co-production, although the Chinese input was limited to logistic support. Nevertheless, the number of Chinese characters on the small screen continued to increase from here on in. It was the emergence of ‘intercultural love stories’ which finally enabled Chinese actors to progress from supporting roles into leading parts. In 2001 two actresses, the Hong Kong Chinese actress Faye Wong and the Taiwanese actress Vivian Xu, appeared in two full-length Japanese TV series, False Love (Uso koi, Fuji TV 2001) and The Bride of the Main Family (Honke no yome,11 Nihon TV 2001), respectively. Both series marked a sea change in many respects: not only did they present Chinese stars in leading roles, but they also successfully depicted fulfilled intercultural love stories. Prior to these serial dramas, foreign characters tended to die or, less fatally, return to their home countries.12 Slowly gaining in popularity, fan cultures began to emerge around Chinese stars, and the one-off TV drama Fan of a Hong Kong Star (TV Tokyo 2002) is very revealing in its representation of the social ramifications facing women choosing to become fans of Hong Kong Chinese stars. Although fandom in the ‘China boom’

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never turned into a mass movement, it did have a considerable number of devotees who responded to stars in two very different ways. As fandom can often be perceived as ‘irrational’13 or a form of ‘social stigma’ for adults, numerous Japanese fans of Hong Kong stars tried to conceal their fandom from friends and colleagues for fear of being labelled ‘weird’ (Iwabuchi 2002b: 187). However, in spite of these rather negative aspects of fandom in society, numerous Japanese fans had a very different response and chose to ‘pride themselves on the appreciation of a not-quite mainstream, Hong Kong and Asian popular culture’ (Iwabuchi 2002b: 187). Iwabuchi asserted that in addition to offering an alternative to Japanese and Western stars, female fandom for Hong Kong stars also served as a means of expressing a deep dissatisfaction with Japanese society. He argued that, for many fans, Hong Kong had managed to resist ‘the erasure of its “Asian odor” ’ in contrast to Japan, where, as one fan put it, the country had ‘absorbed and indigenized Western cultures at its convenience’ (Iwabuchi 2002b: 193). Japan, too ‘insular’ and too ‘Westernized’ (Iwabuchi 2002b: 193), was for many fans in stark contrast to the enduring ‘Asian-ness’ of Hong Kong.14 This female embracing of the popular culture of Hong Kong and discontentment with Japan was explicitly explored in the Japanese drama Fan of a Hong Kong Star.

Fandom for Hong Kong Stars as Constructed in a Japanese Drama: Fan of a Hong Kong Star In September 2002, the private TV station TV Tokyo aired the two-hour TV drama Fan of a Hong Kong Star, and repeated it again in November of the same year. The drama was written by the famous author Yamada Taichi who had, since the 1970s, gained huge popularity as a socially conscious writer. He particularly emphasized the female point of view in his dramas and often offered a critical perspective on the restrictions placed upon women in Japanese society, making him an ideal choice to tackle the gendered issue of fandom for Hong Kong stars in TV drama. 151

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Fan of a Hong Kong Star15 centres around three female fans of the Hong Kong actor and singer Ekin Cheng. Two are career women in their late 30s, while the third is a housewife in her 40s. All three share a deep dissatisfaction with their Japanese surroundings and frequently travel to Hong Kong. They do not mind ‘the extrainvestment of money and effort required to be fans’ (Iwabuchi 2002b: 189). Interestingly, Iwabuchi’s account of Japanese fan attitudes contains many parallels in the drama, but what is only implicit in his account becomes explicit in the drama – the gendered motivation for the women’s fandom is fundamentally a reaction to their oppressive male surroundings. The story of the drama is extremely complicated and mostly concentrates on one of the three women, Kudō Satomi, who works as marketing director for the Japanese branch of a French shoe label. She dreams of creating, together with a female Chinese designer living in Hong Kong, an ‘Asian label’ under the French brand. However, her ambitions are not supported by her male superiors and she is forbidden from meeting the Chinese designer ever again. The drama depicts the gradual transformation of her fandom from a camouflage designed to disguise her continuing trips to meet the designer in Hong Kong into a genuine fandom for Ekin Cheng. During one of her trips to Hong Kong, she meets the second heroine, another Japanese career woman called Shibasaki Keiko who suffers as a consequence of her male colleagues’ behaviour. In one sequence, Keiko calls Satomi at night to tell her about the ‘hard times’ her male colleagues are giving her at her office. She suggests that the men are ‘nasty to her’ because they are actually intimidated by her. Keiko does not want her fandom to be known in Japan and says that it cannot be a part of her life there. This is evident, as her fandom for Ekin Cheng is a form of escape and her frequent travels constitute a way, at least temporarily, to get far away from the hardships imposed upon her by her colleagues in Japan. The third heroine, Konuma Akane, has only reluctantly become a housewife. Even though she had previously had a career as a

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private investigator, she now finds herself obliged to take care of her bedridden mother-in-law. She fulfils the duties required of a ‘good’ daughter-in-law, namely to put her obligations to her husband’s family above her own needs. When she is asked by her former boss if she would like to take a job in Hong Kong for a short time, the trip comes as a shaft of light in the darkness and helps her briefly to get away from her obligations. Her story parallels Satomi’s: even though her fandom for Ekin Cheng had been a deception at first, she too gradually becomes a real fan. In the drama, all three women lead lives that to various degrees have been limited in possibilities by men. For all of them, Hong Kong becomes a place to live out their own dreams and also to create alternative lives for themselves away from Japan. Their fandom is constructed as a form of escapism through which they can express their dissatisfaction with male-dominated Japanese society. This becomes clearer in the construction of their ‘object of desire’ – Ekin Cheng. In contrast to the Japanese men present in the drama, Ekin Cheng is portrayed as a caring, sensitive and charming man who even comes to see his fans despite a sudden, severe illness. In their short encounter with him, it becomes obvious that the Japanese female protagonists have projected their needs and dreams onto this ‘ideal man’. Cheng is a highly idealized character who, importantly, is not a Western but a Hong Kong star; and the alternative world he represents is not Western but Asian. Satomi, who works for the French shoe label and is consistently blocked by her male superiors from establishing closer ties with her Chinese designer, is asked by one of her subordinates why she holds on to her dream to establish an Asian label. She answers: ‘It is alright to continue admiring Paris, but the times are changing.’ This quote illustrates that Satomi wants to liberate herself (though, at first, not totally) from the dictates of Western fashion and instead create something ‘Asian’. This is also clear at a visual level: when she is finally fired, because she does not want to give up her dream, she walks past a fashion advertisement showing a blond Western woman. An arrow above that board points in the opposite direction

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to the way Satomi is now about to head, symbolizing that she will turn her back on ‘Western’ fashion in order to create something of her own. Reading the drama as a parable of Japan’s position in Asia, one could argue that the female characters adopt a positive stance towards ‘Asia’ by integrating themselves (as Japanese) into Asia. They question Japan’s relation to Western countries, in marked contrast to the men who are presented as unable to question Western dominance within Japan and continue to reorient themselves towards a Western model. Thus, in this drama, gender and national issues become intertwined, and the question of Japan’s position visà-vis ‘Asia’ and the ‘West’ is raised and explored in highly interesting and strongly gendered ways. This ‘female movement’ towards ‘Asia’ and away from the West and Japanese male acceptance is most evident in Satomi’s story, as she takes flight from Japanese men, but other story elements also underline this repositioning for all three women. Not only are Satomi and Keiko fluent in Cantonese, but they are also often presented in a manner that connects them to a more ‘Asian’ context. Even the title itself cues the audience to read them this way as it is actually the Japanese reading of the Chinese word for ‘fan of a Hong Kong star’. Fans of Hong Kong stars commonly use the word ‘Honkonmyōjōmei’ in reference to themselves and it is not easily comprehensible to outsiders.16 By calling the drama Honkonmyōjōmei and not ‘Honkonsutā no fan’, which would have been the correct standard Japanese term (actually containing two originally English words, ‘star’ and ‘fan’), the Sinicized Japanese without the English words places the characters as closer to the Hong Kong (Chinese) than to the Japanese and, with the eradication of the English words, Western surroundings. This interpretation is also underlined at the acoustic as well as the visual level. During the title sequence, the three women can be seen going to work in urban Tokyo while, off-screen, music by Ekin Cheng is played and sung in Cantonese, creating an intermingling of ‘familiar’ Tokyo surroundings and ‘unfamiliar’ Cantonese pop music.

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Ultimately, however, the drama perhaps pushes against the boundaries of its own generic conventions as much as it can and traditional gender stereotypes are eventually brought into play. Although Satomi is continually presented as a ‘strong woman’, she eventually needs the help of a Japanese man to finally fulfil her dream. Interestingly, though, this man, Satomi’s ex-lover, is a male counterpart to the three Japanese women. He too has escaped from his obligations in Japan by going to Hong Kong. When Satomi is fired, the Chinese designer initially severs ties with Satomi, afraid that she will no longer be able to support her in her ambitions. However, through the intercession of Satomi’s ex-lover, she finally agrees to establish the brand together. Given her ultimate success with the aid of a man who recognizes her ambitions when so many Japanese men had not, the drama offers a conciliatory note as both man and woman choose to look beyond their ‘traditional’ roles. Satomi, about to realize her dream, once more travels to Hong Kong in the company of her two friends to attend a concert by Ekin Cheng. The three of them sit among other fans who are listening to his song, entitled ‘Together’. Although this song is (according to the lyrics given in Ekin Cheng’s CD Discover) nothing but a plain love song, it is legitimate due to the unfamiliar language for most of the Japanese audience to ascribe this scene with a double meaning. While the English title17 of the song is displayed on several boards in the background, the three Japanese women can be seen among the other female fans dressed in the same clothes (Ekin Cheng fan-jackets) and blending into the crowd. It seems symbolic that these Japanese women are able to get ‘together’ with other Asians to enjoy the same popular music, which is shown as having the potential to build a bridge across nations and, at that moment of collective fandom, to unite them as all the same.

Korean Stars in TV Dramas Aired in Japan The public broadcasting station NHK played a major role in promoting Korean stars on the small screen, just as it had done with 155

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Chinese stars. For the series One More Kiss (Mō ichido kisu, NHK 2001), a previously unknown Korean actress, Yoon Son-ha, was cast to play a celebrated Korean pop singer who inspires a young, lethargic Japanese musician to write his own songs rather than simply copying the music of others. This drama marked Yoon’s Japanese breakthrough, as she went on to star in the two-hour one-off TV drama and tragic love story Highest Love (Shijō no koi, NHK 2001) and the 12-episode prime-time TV series Fighting Girl (Faitingu gāru, Fuji TV 2001). One More Kiss and Highest Love portrayed love stories between a Japanese man and a Korean woman, whilst Fighting Girl depicted a friendship between a Japanese girl and a Korean girl. In all three dramas, common themes recur. Firstly, the Korean characters show a great deal of energy and vitality in contrast to the Japanese characters who are presented as lethargic and unmotivated. Secondly, while the Japanese characters represent values that can be regarded as ‘modern’, the Korean characters tend to personify traditional values. Japanese characters put a greater emphasis on ‘individual freedom’, whereas the Koreans are shown as having stronger obligations towards their families. Finally, the Korean female characters are constructed as role models for their Japanese counterparts within the dramas and, in addition, Korea is often constructed as a country in which women are very much restricted to the role of mother and wife.18 Following on from these dramas, three Korean-Japanese co-productions were aired between 2002 and 2004 that offered very different images of Koreans. The first, a two-episode TV drama entitled Friends (Furenzu, TBS, MBC 2002), was a genuine co-production as all important positions were held by representatives of each country – there were Japanese and Korean scriptwriters, directors, producers and cameramen. In the case of the next two dramas, the main responsibility for the production was either on the Japanese side (as in the one-off drama Rain Shower–Murderous Intentions after the Rain [Sonagi–Ameagari no satsui, Fuji TV, MBC 2002]) or on the Korean side (as in another one-off drama, Star’s Echo [MBC, Fuji TV 2004]). All three co-productions cast popular

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Korean actors, with Won Bin starring in Friends, Ji Jin-hee in Rain Shower and Jo Hyun-jae in Star’s Echo. Unlike the earlier Japanese dramas which had featured only female Korean characters, these dramas depicted love stories between Korean men and Japanese women.19 Thematically, Friends followed the familiar pattern that Japanese dramas depicting a Japanese-Korean encounter had adhered to up to this point – namely ‘Japan = modern’, ‘Korea = traditional’. According to the drama’s producer, Isano Hideki, it was his primary aim to ‘emphasize the differences between Japanese and Korean families’,20 and so the Japanese and Korean characters were provided with widely divergent backgrounds: the Korean man came from a rural province which is (even in Korea) considered to be exceptionally ‘conservative’, while the Japanese woman was the daughter of a single mother from the Tokyo megalopolis. By contrasting the heir of a ‘traditional’ Korean family who is very much obligated to his parents with a girl from Tokyo, the distinctions between them and the countries they are from in terms of modernity are made evident. Such an obvious construction, however, cannot be found in the two other co-productions, Rain Shower and Star’s Echo. Each tried to portray ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ as existing in both countries through juxtaposing the Korean with the Japanese countryside and Seoul with Tokyo. After these co-productions gave exposure to and helped popularize Korean stars, the way was then paved for the broadcast of Korean-made TV dramas in Japan. It was the screening of the Korean drama Winter Sonata which led to the Korean Wave in Japan and it is a love story much like what had already gone before, but importantly it is not an intercultural encounter: both the hero and the heroine are Korean. It also depicted both modern and traditional elements of Korea which were each attractive. Its stressing of the importance of family relations nostalgically evoked for many Japanese people the ‘good old days’ in Japan, whilst at the same time offering an eyecatching picture of the modern, fashionable ways of urban life in South Korea. The depiction of gender roles was also progressive

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with regard to the main characters. The heroine does not sacrifice her own needs for her partner’s but instead actively pursues her work as an interior designer. In this series, written by two young female Korean scriptwriters, the male hero does not correspond to the stereotypical image of Korean men as ‘macho’, as depicted previously in Japanese dramas.21 On the contrary, the male hero played by Bae Yong-joon is not only very handsome, intelligent and successful, but, most importantly, he is very empathetic towards women and perfectly understands their feelings. Following this role, the actor achieved a huge degree of popularity in Japan which was noted with great surprise by the Japanese media. Also surprising was that his fan base was not young women but middle-aged women, with an average age of more than 40. According to research by the Japanese media scholar, Kaori Hayashi,22 the effects of the broadcast of Winter Sonata on the personal situations of the fans were as follows: 37.2 per cent of her interviewees said that they had found a new topic in their conversation with friends and family; 31.2 per cent found new friends among other fans and 10.5 per cent replied that they had found a new goal in their lives (2005b: 165). Apparently, the drama opened up a new world for many women in their sometimes hard and difficult everyday lives and within the drama’s theme of true love (jun’ai) many fans; found something to which they could really relate. Many of the women interviewed started to learn Korean, travelled to the drama’s locations in Korea and became interested in Korean history as well as in the history of the Korean minority in Japan (Hayashi 2005b: 165). The success of Winter Sonata had a big impact upon the subsequent production of Japanese TV drama. In 2005, the prime-time series Views of Tokyo Bay (Tōkyōwankei, Fuji TV 2004) was broadcast and for the first time ever a private Japanese TV station chose a member of Japan’s Korean minority to be the main character.23 The series also featured a cameo appearance by Park Yong-ha, one of the actors from Winter Sonata. In the following year, Choi Ji-woo, the actress who had played the female lead role in Winter Sonata, appeared as a leading character in the drama Ronde–Dance in a Circle

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The Repercussions of Winter Sonata on Japanese TV Drama: The Example of The Promise In an attempt to cash in on the success of Winter Sonata and the subsequent popularity of Bae Yong-joon, the ‘noon series’ The Promise (Yakusoku, TBS 2005) starred a similar idealized Korean male hero. Broadcast in 45, 30-minute, episodes on weekdays at 1:30 pm between June and July 2005, The Promise was targeted at housewives and not at a young (urban, professional) audience like the prime-time series. The title was comprehensible to both Korean and Japanese viewers as the word ‘promise’ is pronounced similarly in both languages, yakusoku25 (Japanese) and yaksok (Korean). In this ‘noontime series’ a Korean man, played by the Korean actor Yang Jin-woo, appears as the lover of a Japanese woman. This was the first time that a male Korean star had played a leading role in a Japanese drama and the first time that a love story between a Japanese woman and a Korean man had been dealt with in an all-Japanese production. The producer of the TV drama is quoted as saying that, after looking at the many housewives who took such delight in the Korean Wave, he had felt the urge to fulfil the dreams of these women (MBS TV Index 2009) and to create a love story between a married Japanese woman in her early 40s and a Korean man in his 20s. The relationship between the two characters is described as ‘true love’ (jun’ai) on the official webpage (MBS TV Index 2009). Motifs from Winter Sonata, such as amnesia and the couple’s romantic ride on a bicycle, are frequently employed. Yet The Promise is far from derivative and explores intercultural politics far more than the Japanese productions and co-productions discussed thus far in this chapter. While the previous dramas tended

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(Rondo, TBS 2006).24 With Bae Yong-joon now appearing in TV commercials, the private broadcasting station TV Asahi produced a spin-off of the Korean TV series Hotelier (Hoteriā, TV Asahi 2006) in which Bae had originally starred in another attempt to capitalize upon the popularity of Korean drama.

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to idealize Japanese-Korean relations, The Promise brings to the forefront existing prejudices between the two countries. Yōko, the main female character, is a housewife and her existence is so uniform and dull that after 15 years of marriage she feels an emptiness in her life. Her husband is a doctor who is always very busy, her children are nearly grown up and her only joy in life is the pottery class that she is taking. One evening, surprised by a sudden downpour of rain, a Korean man by the name of Sonje26 unexpectedly appears, like a deus ex machina, to hold his umbrella over her. This encounter changes her life forever. Sonje’s appearances seemingly out of nowhere to save Yōko become the leitmotif of the drama, and he saves her in different ways on many occasions. He is there when she falls off her bike in a deserted park and he also saves her from dying in a fire. Only when they meet for the third time are his origins brought up: when she asks him if he is Korean, he merely replies by asking her in return whether she is Japanese. Their different nationalities are of little importance to them and Sonje’s fluency in Japanese serves to facilitate their encounters. Yet not all is well, since in his family there are enormous prejudices towards the Japanese. When Sonje’s younger brother had fallen in love with a Japanese girl he had to break contact with his family and go to Japan with her. The drama depicts Sonje’s regret at not having supported his brother more fully before he left. It is revealed that he is in Japan to look for him so that the two can be reconciled before the death of their father (who is terminally ill). However, he is too late – his brother has already died and he can only return with his brother’s ashes to Korea. Before leaving he invites Yōko to a final meeting at the seaside where he asks her about the dreams she has for her life, but she realizes that she has none. His dream is to live in the countryside and to continue his uncle’s pottery shop in order to introduce traditional Korean pottery to the younger generation. Although this encounter was intended as a ‘final farewell’, they sleep with each other in an old hut by the beach where they had initially taken refuge from the sudden rain.

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When Yōko’s husband learns of the relationship, the situation reaches a climax. ‘Coincidentally’, he himself also knows the young Korean man as he had treated Sonje after an accident. He engineers a confrontation between them during which Sonje admits to loving Yōko and expresses his desire to take her with him to Korea. Yōko, however, decides to stay with her family and apologizes to them for the troubles she has caused. Her daughter, a high-school student (who, uncharacteristically for her age, is a hardcore fan of Korean drama – the majority of fans are more in the age bracket of her mother), had met Sonje herself and treated him as her ‘personal Korean star’. She finds it particularly difficult to forgive her mother as she feels betrayed by both her and Sonje, for whom she had developed a one-sided crush, and dramatically tears down all her posters of Korean stars from the walls. An accident then occurs that causes Yōko to lose her memory, forgetting all about Sonje. Just as in Winter Sonata, amnesia and forgetting about the love of one’s life now become central to the plot. Only years later, when she suddenly re-encounters Sonje in Tokyo, does her memory return. Sonje has come to Tokyo to take care of his brother’s widow and child. Here Yōko and Sonje develop a deep friendship and share what has become a common passion for pottery. Her marriage finally breaks down after her husband enters into an extramarital relationship himself. Now, Yōko and Sonje start their relationship anew, which this time comes to be accepted by Yōko’s children. Even Sonje’s elder brother, who has come to Japan to separate Sonje from his Japanese lover, has to realize that there is nothing he can do. Sonje now familiarizes Yōko with Korean culture and they even take their picture together in traditional Korean clothes. Since their common dream is now pottery, they begin working together in their teacher’s atelier. As the teacher asks his pupils to complete a piece for an exhibition, Yōko and Sonje decide to produce a work of art together. However, before they can realize this joint venture, Sonje learns that he is terminally ill. Yōko takes him back to Korea to the village where his uncle had left him a pottery shop, but he

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dies on the way. There, she completes their piece of art (which wins first prize in the exhibition) by following the designs that Sonje had made. The last scenes of the drama are of Yōko, who has decided to continue living in Korea where she will continue designing and making pottery. The Promise, whilst clearly indebted to Korean drama, also draws upon generic qualities of Japanese TV drama. The Korean man is an idealized male, much like the character played by Bae Yongjoon in Winter Sonata, and the producers were doubtlessly trying to reproduce the success of this drama as well as the aforementioned three co-productions. Yet they also looked to Japan’s own previous productions, with the Korean man appearing as a ‘saviour’ for the Japanese character. With its representation of an unsatisfied housewife, The Promise picks up on another familiar trope within the genre of Japanese TV drama. Whereas up until the late 1970s women had been presented as happy and satisfied with their lives, the TV drama Albums by the Riverside (Kishibe no arubamu, BS 1977) marked an important ideological shift when it portrayed for the first time a woman who felt trapped inside the home until she entered into an extramarital relationship.27 Even though familial order was restored by the end of the drama, this theme became a regular occurrence in Japanese TV drama in the years that followed. Since the 1990s, endeavours by women to break away from their suffocating lives have been continuously depicted, despite the fact that ‘family’ continues to play a hugely important role in the genre (Gössmann 2000; Shioya 1998). What is noteworthy is that although Korea had been shown as a ‘traditional country’ in Japanese productions, at the end of The Promise it is in this country that the Japanese protagonist can live out her dreams, far away from the obligations binding her to her family. Although her Korean partner is no longer at her side, it is he who has helped her to realize her potential, similar to the hero of Winter Sonata who supported the female protagonist’s professional ambitions. In The Promise the art of pottery is shown as a common link between the two cultures. Unlike Fan of a Hong Kong Star, in

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Conclusion TV dramas in Japan since the 1990s have served as a means to evoke a deep interest in another Asian country and this interest in ‘Asia’ has been highly gendered since in both the Chinese (Hong Kong) and Korean Waves women have been the main beneficiaries. As Iwabuchi’s (2002b) research indicated and this chapter has argued, it seems that female Japanese fans use their fandom as an instrument to criticize Japanese male-dominated society and project their needs, which Japanese society is failing to meet, onto a supposedly ‘better Asia’. Not only are Japanese television dramas today conveying more images of other Asian countries than ever before, but Korean dramas in particular have been successfully brought to the small screen in Japan. In addition, inter-Asian cooperation in media production also seems to be increasing. Therefore, a certain tendency towards an ‘Asian’ popular culture (not necessarily in opposition to, but in conjunction with Japanese popular culture) seems to be the pattern for the future. This shift towards Asia is further visible due to the fact that many famous Japanese actors (such as Nakamura Tōru) now frequently appear in (Hong Kong) Chinese productions. In 2004 singer and actor Kimura Takuya played one of the main parts in Wong Karwai’s film 2046. The costumes for the Chinese production Hero (dir. Zhang Yimou 2002) were designed by a Japanese woman, Wada Emi, and the storyline was similar to Kurosawa Akira’s film Rashōmon (1950). Popular culture has helped to establish contacts between Japan and its Asian neighbours that had not been there prior to the 1990s. Thus one could argue that

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which popular culture is shown as the connecting element between Japan and Hong Kong, The Promise does not portray the fandom for Korean stars as a uniting factor (as it can easily be discarded if it turns out to be disappointing, as Yōko’s daughter demonstrates). Instead it is traditional, time-honoured art that connects both countries, more profoundly and more lastingly.

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transcultural consumption and production of the same popular culture can have a hugely positive impact and further intercultural understanding. The ever-expanding flow of popular culture within Asia has increasingly engendered feelings of cultural proximity between Japan and other Asian countries, feelings that could not be observed prior to the ‘Asia boom’ and that have never been projected onto the West. It seems that, for fans of popular culture, the West is losing relevance while Asia is becoming increasingly important.28 Even though popular culture might have the potential to actually build bridges between Japan and its Asian neighbours, it still cannot be denied that many problems arising from Japan’s wartime past remain untackled in the media phenomena discussed in this chapter. But what we have tried to take into consideration is that it is not only the content viewed that is important, but also the extent to which these TV dramas triggered a profound interest in a different country. As demonstrated by the two examples of the short and comparatively insignificant Hong Kong Wave as well as the far larger Korean Wave, popular culture does indeed have the potential to build bridges between nations that may, eventually, even aid in overcoming the past.

Notes  1

Research on Japanese television commercials reveals that they have featured a large number of Westerners, famous as well as anonymous. On this topic see Forum for Citizens’ Television (1991), Hagiwara (1997), Hagiwara and Yōko (2004), Hiyoshi (1997), Kirsch (2002; forthcoming b) and Prieler (2006).  2 Research on the ‘Asia boom’ was conducted within a research project entitled ‘Japan’s Turn towards Asia in Japanese Literature, Media and Popular Culture: A Factor in the Creation of an “Asian Identity” ’? by the Department for Japanese Studies at the University of Trier. The research project was sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the major German research foundation,

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and its focus was on content analysis. See also Gössmann (2002). In addition, Griseldis Kirsch’s PhD thesis (completed in January 2008 at the University of Trier) also dealt with the representations of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong in Japanese cinema and TV drama between the years 1989 and 2005. The research on China presented in this chapter is part of her thesis and a publication of the complete dissertation is forthcoming. See Kirsch (2008).   3 On the Korean Wave see: Chua and Iwabuchi (2008a), Hanaki et al. (2007), Hayashi (2004; 2005a; 2005b), Hayashi and Lee (2007), Jōsai International University Research Institute for Women’s Studies (Jōsai kokusai daigaku joseigaku kenkyūsho, 2006); Lee, Eun-Jeung (2004), Mōri (2004b) and Mizuta, Hasegawa and Kitada (2006).  4 In the years between 1954 and 1994, only five series portrayed characters from other Asian countries, while it took only two years to produce approximately the same amount in the years between 2000 and 2002. This data was taken from an analysis of A Complete History of Japanese Television Drama (Terebi dorama zenshi) 1954–1994 (Tokyo News Mook 1994). This book lists every drama aired in the history of Japanese television drama, along with a short overview of their content. The research conducted since then was completed within the aforementioned research project entitled ‘Japan’s Turn towards Asia in Japanese Literature, Media and Popular Culture: A Factor in the Creation of an “Asian Identity” ’?.   5 Even though American TV series have influenced the history of Japanese TV drama, domestic productions dominated the Japanese market. For details see Hirahara (1991). There are several studies of Japanese TV drama available in Western languages: Gatzen and Gössmann (2003), Gössmann (1998; 2000; 2007), Gössmann, Jaschke and Mrugalla (1998), Gössmann and Kirsch (2007), Gössmann and Kirsch (2011), Iwata-Weickgenannt (2011), Kirsch (2007), Shioya (1998), Stibbe (2004) and Valaskivi (1995; 2000).   6 The term ‘Hong Kong film’, though often used in reference to kung fu features, is here expanded to include all films produced in Hong Kong.   7 Japanese prime-time TV series are usually between ten and 12 episodes long.

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 8 Perhaps most famously, Katori Shingo, a member of the famous Japanese pop group SMAP, portrayed a Vietnamese student in the drama series Doku (Fuji TV 1996). His fame in Japan ensured familiarity for the viewers, but he spoke Japanese haltingly to show him as different. The drama is called Doku after the name of the Vietnamese protagonist. For a discussion of the programme see Gössmann, Jaschke and Mrugalla (1998).  9 This drama coincided with the release in Japan of Wong’s film Spy Games (dir. David Wu 1990). 10 At the end of the Pacific War, Japanese troops and civilians withdrew from China, sometimes rather hastily, leaving some children behind. These children were adopted into Chinese families, but were repatriated to Japan in the 1970s when relations between the People’s Republic of China and Japan began to ‘warm’ for the first time since the end of the war. For an account of these war orphans see and Miyake Downey (2007) and Nishioka (2005). See also Hilpert and Haak (2002), Hook et al. (2001) and Richter (2003; 2004), for discussions of Japan’s position in Asia, its attitudes towards its role in the Pacific War, and other issues that continue to anger Japan’s Asian neighbours. 11 In the Meiji period (1868–1912), which marked the period of Japan’s modernization and its opening up to Western knowledge and technology, Japanese families were structured into main families (honke) and branch families (buke). The task of a honke was to preserve the family name along the patriarchal line. Although this system was officially abolished after the end of the war, it is still influential. See Ochiai (1997; 2000) for details. 12 Both actresses had already achieved a certain degree of fame prior to their TV drama appearances in Japan. Faye Wong was recognizable as a result of the film Chungking Express (dir. Wong Karwai 1995) and Vivian Xu had made several appearances on Japanese TV in commercials and variety shows. One could therefore argue that the audience’s familiarity with these stars was an important contributing factor to their appearance in Japanese television drama. 13 On fandom see Lewis (1992), particularly the articles by Jenson, Fiske and Grossberg.

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Whilst the money and effort expended on fandom for the Korean Wave has in many respects overshadowed the fandom for Hong Kong stars, it is important to recognize that it has not necessarily replaced it. Even though most Japanese websites on Hong Kong stars (most of which were created by women) have not been updated since at least 2003 (the year the Korean drama Winter Sonata was first broadcast on satellite television), the individual in charge at the ‘China Star Fan Club’ said during an interview that their membership has not decreased since the beginning of the Korean Wave. On the contrary, the individual asserted that many more people had in fact phoned to gather information about Chinese stars. (Statement from a telephone interview with Griseldis Kirsch on 25 March 2005; the informant preferred to remain anonymous.) 15 On this drama see also Gössmann and Kirsch (2003) and Kirsch (forthcoming a and b). 16 In one of the first sequences of the drama, the meaning of the title is explained to the Japanese audience, underlining the need to explain the expression. 17 It is, however, highly interesting that this effect is only achieved through the usage of a Western language – the Chinese word for ‘together’ might not have been easy to understand at first glance for a Japanese audience. 18 Perhaps most clearly depicted in the drama Korean Aunties Are Wonderful! (Kankoku no obachan wa erai!, NHK 2002). See Gössmann (2007) for further analysis. 19 Unlike the ‘sham’ co-production The Valley Where the Cherries Bear Fruit, these dramas were aired in both countries. 20 This statement was made during an interview with Hilaria Gössmann on 20 August 2003 at TBS headquarters in Tokyo. 21 Again, this is probably best illustrated in the NHK production Korean Aunties Are Wonderful! The Korean colleagues of the male Japanese protagonist urge him to stop his wife from working and make her take care of the children and the household instead. See Gössmann (2007). 22 Within a research project based at the University of Tokyo, Kaori Hayashi undertook research on the reception of Winter Sonata in

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14

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Japan among its female fans. Fan letters to NHK (the station that had originally broadcast Winter Sonata) as well as questionnaires to the fans were the basis of her research. 23 This character was played by a Japanese actress, Nakama Yukie. 24 On this drama see Kirsch (2011), as well as Gössmann and Kirsch (2011). 25 Although written with the syllables ‘ya-ku-so-ku’ in the Japanese syllabary, the ‘u’ in both cases is not stressed and is nearly silent, so that it is pronounced similarly to the Romanization of the Korean version. 26 The Japanese version of his Korean name is used throughout this paper since his Korean name is only given in the Japanese transcription. It is thus unclear what the actual Romanization would be. 27 This drama was written by Yamada Taichi, the author of Fan of a Hong Kong Star. 28 Since 2005, Taiwanese pop music (and Taiwanese dramas) have also become increasingly popular and led to a small boom within Japan (Asahi Shinbun, 25 May 2005, p. 29).

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7

‘Like a Virgin’: Sex, Marriage and Gender Relations in the Korean TV Drama Wedding Brenda Chan Introduction The ascendancy of South Korean popular culture across various countries in Asia has sparked a fervour for all things Korean, including interest in Korean cuisine, fashion, movies, television dramas, Korean celebrities and popular music. This phenomenon has been termed hallyu, or Korean Wave. The reception of South Korean cultural and media products and images in Asia is by no means a monolithic and uniform process, but unfolds unevenly in different contexts of distribution and consumption (Lee, Keehyeung 2008). It is believed that the Korean Wave started in 1997 when China Central Television Station (CCTV) broadcast the Korean TV drama What is Love all About? (MBC 1991–2), and a rerun of the programme in 1998 generated the second-highest ratings in the history of Chinese television (Heo 2002, cited in Shim 2006a). In Japan, the hallyu craze was triggered by the Korean soap opera Winter Sonata (KBS 2002–3), which was first aired on satellite television before being available on terrestrial television and DVD, in response to 169

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growing audience demand and interest (Mōri 2008). When the lead actor from Winter Sonata, Bae Yong-joon, visited Japan in April 2004 some 5,000 fans, most of whom were middle-aged females, greeted him at Narita Airport (Hanaki et al. 2007; Mōri 2008). For ethnic Chinese communities in Asia, the Korean Wave was spearheaded by a historical drama called Dae Jang Geum (or Jewel in the Palace, MBC 2003–4), aired in 2005 and 2006. Its story of a humble royal cook, who later rose to become the first female imperial physician at the ancient court of the Joseon dynasty, enjoyed extremely high ratings in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. Even Chinese President Hu Jintao and international film star Chow Yun Fat were reportedly fans of the series (Blume 2006; Shim 2008). Korean television dramas are now regularly featured on the programming schedules of television stations in many Asian countries, and hallyu is possibly entering into a second wave driven by Korean pop music and the popularity of Korean boy bands and girl groups (Asiaone 2011). However, Korean television dramas were at the forefront of the first Korean Wave and were usually the first Korean cultural products that non-Korean consumers encountered in Asia. Past research on Korean TV drama has tended to focus on explaining the success and transnational popularity of the dramas in Asian markets outside Korea. Shim (2006a) and Lin (2006) attribute the market penetration of Korean TV drama to media deregulation in various Asian countries in the 1990s. With the advent of more channels, there were insufficient domestic programmes to fill the airtime; hence broadcasters had to rely on foreign imports, and Korean television dramas provided a cheaper alternative to those from Japan and Hong Kong. Cultural proximity is also often cited as a major factor for the favourable response to Korean TV drama by audiences in various parts of Asia, especially countries with large Chinese populations (Kim 2004; Park, Sora 2004; Ryu and Lee 2001, cited in Kwon 2006). This concept of cultural proximity was first proposed by Straubhaar (1991) who asserted that television audiences prefer the programming that is closest to their own culture. If domestic

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programmes are not available, they will look next to regional productions that are most similar to what they are used to. Numerous reception studies of Korean TV drama show support for this cultural proximity thesis. Kwon’s focus group interviews with Filipino viewers, for example, concluded that cultural proximity was one of the reasons for the viewers’ interest in Korean dramas because participants identified with the hierarchical family relationships and close family ties depicted in them as ‘features commonly shared within Asian countries including the Philippines’ (2006: 276). Lisa Leung’s (2004a) focus group interviews with audiences in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong revealed that viewers favoured Korean TV dramas due to a perception of corporeal likeness with the actors, behavioural/attitudinal proximity in terms of Confucian values and a conservative outlook on romance, as well as a perception of Korea being in a similar stage of modernization as their own social-cultural milieus. Leung’s findings are also in tune with Koichi Iwabuchi’s argument in his discussion of cultural affinity as a widely acknowledged reason for the popularity of Japanese trendy dramas in Asia. Iwabuchi postulated that: [T]he perception of cultural proximity is a matter of time as well as space. The emerging sense of cultural similarity between Japan and other Asian nations experienced as such seems to be based upon a consciousness that both live in the same modern temporality ... in which cultural specificities are brought into relief in Asian contexts, such as development of urban consumerism, the expansion of the middle class, changes in gender/sexuality relationships, and the ordinariness of (simultaneous) transnational media consumption. (2004c: 12)

This shared sense of modernity, as posited by Iwabuchi, is crucial in defining contemporary Asian audiences. Changes in gender and sexual relationships, when portrayed in transnational media, will resonate with female viewers particularly because gender relations are changing in rapidly modernizing Asian societies, with more 171

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and more Asian women receiving higher education and pursuing careers outside of the home. Because of the melodramatic qualities of Korean TV dramas and their popularity with a predominantly female audience, an increasing number of scholars have drawn on feminist perspectives and focused on how women viewers engage with them. In this chapter, I will provide a brief review of past research on how female subjects respond to Korean TV dramas and how the female subject is textually positioned. I will then reflect upon the portrayals of sex, marriage and gender relations in Korean TV dramas, through the narrative analysis of a 2005 TV miniseries entitled Wedding (KBS), and the chapter will conclude with a brief discussion of the ideological implications of this series. Given that Wedding targets young female audiences in their 20s through its depiction of the romance between and marriage of a young couple, and because of the transnational flows of Korean TV dramas in Asia, my concern is with the drama’s possible influence on how young women in Asia may perceive gender relations and marriage.

Korean TV Drama and the Female Subject Korean society observes a deeply rooted Confucian tradition of patriarchal order, in which the male wields absolute authority within the family. In the traditional marital relationship in Korea, the male is the economic producer and controls the wife, who performs domestic labour. However, with increased industrialization, the status of the patriarch has begun to be undermined by the rise in female employment and income along with increasing opportunities for education. In contemporary Korea, housework and childcare are still largely seen as female duties, but working wives are increasingly demanding that their husbands share responsibilities in domestic work and child-rearing (Park 2001). According to Moon (2002), mandatory military service for all able-bodied males in South Korea is also an important component of male hegemony in the republic, as it confers certain economic advantages upon men and positions 172

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the male citizen as more responsible and superior vis-à-vis their female compatriots. For instance, most companies offer some form of benefit based on military service. Males used also to gain extra points for completing military service when they sat employment tests for certain positions in public service, until this was ruled as unconstitutional in 1999 (Moon 2002; 2005). Korean TV dramas have to be examined within this context of gender relations in Korean society. Korean TV dramas which are popular in overseas markets are typically ‘trendy’ dramas. These dramas, which emerged in the early 1990s, were a signpost for the rise of consumer culture as they typically featured beautiful stars, strong visual imagery and the latest fashions, with the common theme of romantic love between young professional men and women in a contemporary urban setting (Kim, Hyun Mee 2005; Lee 2004a; Leung 2004a). These characteristics set trendy dramas apart from other genres, such as historical dramas and period adventure dramas, as well as home/ family dramas that dealt with everyday domestic experiences of housewives and mothers (Kim, Youna 2005; Lee 2004a). Representation in these programmes is an important signifier of what contemporary Korean society is like. Hyun Mee Kim, for example, observes that there is a new woman-centrism in recent Korean trendy dramas, with a greater emphasis on ‘women’s perspective and narrative’ (2005: 193). She cites the example of Sparks (SBS 2000), starring Lee Young-ae and Cha In-pyo, which was a runaway success in Taiwan. In the story of Sparks, the female lead has an extramarital affair and eventually ends her miserable marriage to her husband and is united with her lover, an ending that defies moral traditions in Korea. It is debatable whether Sparks counts as a trendy drama because trendy dramas tend to be fast-paced and light-hearted, as noted by Lee (2004a). Also, by addressing the desires and intimate emotional, romantic and sexual lives of married women in their 30s, this drama attracted adult Taiwanese women rather than the younger generation (Kim, Hyun Mee 2005). However, Sparks certainly paved the way for the

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subsequent craze for Korean TV dramas in Taiwan, and some of the most popular ones included trendy dramas such as All about Eve (MBC 2000) and Full House (KBS 2004). Most Korean trendy dramas are centred upon the romances of young single professionals, but of late there have been an increasing number of trendy dramas that explore the marital relationships of young couples, such as Little Bride (KBS 2004), Wedding and Princess Hours (MBC 2006). For example, Jeong-suk, the female protagonist of Little Bride (also known as Sweet 18), is a rebellious teenager who is betrothed to Hyeok-jun, a public prosecutor and heir of an aristocratic clan. Princess Hours is a fantasy that depicts Korea as a constitutional monarchy in the twenty-first century, featuring a high-school girl who is married to the Crown Prince of Korea. Wedding, as I will discuss in detail in the next section, focuses on the struggles faced by a young newly-wed couple who ponder what constitutes the most important factor in marriage. Unlike Sparks, which dealt with marital issues in the setting of a family melodrama, many trendy dramas tend to depict the fantasy of marriage in a comic fashion, and are often far less critical towards the institution of marriage. It is therefore worthwhile exploring the ideological construction of marriage in Korean trendy dramas, to understand the influence they might have and the implications for the young female viewers they tend to attract. As Chua (2004) has pointed out, there are three broadly conceived audience positions in the consumption of popular culture programmes: the first is a viewer watching a locally produced programme; the second is a diasporic subject consuming a programme that talks about his or her homeland; and the third is a viewer watching an imported programme. This chapter is mainly concerned with the third type of audience: that is, viewers watching imported Korean dramas. In the past five years, there have been a number of studies that have focused upon the reception of Korean TV drama by female viewers outside Korea. Two studies of Winter Sonata fans in Japan credit Korean TV dramas with changing Japanese women’s perception of Korea towards a more

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positive image, and for changes in everyday behaviour amongst these Japanese fans, such as eating Korean food, learning the Korean language and travelling to Korea to visit film sites of the dramas (Hanaki et al. 2007; Mōri 2008). According to Mōri (2008), Winter Sonata is also significant in raising the visibility of middleaged women as an audience, a group that has hitherto been neglected by the press and academic research on popular culture in Japan. Lin and Tong’s (2008) in-depth interviews with female viewers in Hong Kong and Singapore drew the conclusion that women in both cities enjoy Korean TV drama because it constructs an image of the ideal hybridized modern Asian woman, who is trendy and career-minded, but still retains the traditional Asian qualities of being compassionate, family-oriented and devoted to love. Hence the consumption of Korean dramas allowed these Chinese women to temporarily reconcile the contradictory demands of tradition and modernity whilst living in rapidly globalizing societies such as Hong Kong and Singapore. However, it can be argued that Lin and Tong’s (2008) analysis presents an idealized picture of Korean TV drama, failing to highlight the oppositional readings that women may have of these dramas. Yang’s (2008a) research, incorporating interviews with Taiwanese women, adopts a more feminist approach in her particular study of audience interpretation of Korean TV drama. Yang found that working-class women evidenced a high level of identification with the domestic roles of female characters in Korean TV dramas, hence their watching of these dramas ‘constitutes no resistance to patriarchy’ (2008a: 76). On the other hand, the more educated viewers presented resistant readings towards images of female domesticity in Korean TV dramas, preferring to use Korean TV dramas for fashion information. In my earlier focus group research on Singaporean women’s reception of Korean TV dramas, my co-author and I examined how the TV dramas were used by female participants as tools for reflexivity to enhance self-understanding of their roles and

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identities in society. Most of the participants could identify with the Asian values portrayed such as filial piety and respect for elders (Chan and Wang 2011). However, in that study, we found that Singaporean women perceived Singapore as more egalitarian in gender relations than Korean society; hence the participants had difficulties accepting the portrayals of submissiveness, domesticity and the lower status of women in Korean TV dramas: Our participants drew upon the traditional discourse on femininity (premised upon what the viewers perceived as ‘Asian values’) in their rejection of sexual promiscuity depicted in western TV dramas and their preference for ‘pure love’ in Korean TV dra­mas. However, the participants used a gender equality repertoire based on a liberal femi­ nist discourse in their response to the submissiveness and domesticity of Korean women in the dramas. (Chan and Wang 2011: 302)

Espiritu’s (2011) focus group research on female Filipino college students’ interpretations of Korean TV dramas also reveals how these dramas engender preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings from female viewers. Some participants were in agreement with the dominant values of materialism and consumerism depicted in the Korean TV dramas, expressing desires to pursue a luxurious lifestyle or even marry a rich husband. Other participants presented a negotiated reading whereby they largely agreed with the capitalist values portrayed in the Korean TV dramas, but moderated their capitalist outlook with local traditional values such as collectivism and a desire to help the poor (when they become rich). However, Espiritu notes that the majority of the participants expressed oppositional readings, frowning, for instance, upon the female protagonists’ dependence on wealthy boyfriends and stating a preference for women to gain success through their own efforts. From these studies, it is evident that while many women do indulge in the fairy-tale romance offered by Korean TV dramas, they can still be highly critical of their portrayals of subservient women. 176

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Literature on transnational flows of Korean TV dramas has tended to focus on the political economy of the Korean cultural industries as well as audience reception of the TV dramas. There are relatively few studies that conduct textual analyses of Korean TV drama, but it is important that there should be if we are to understand how they address gender and sexuality in relation to the female subject. Otherwise, we cannot meaningfully comprehend audience readings of these dramas. From the reception studies I have discussed earlier, the sexual politics of Korean TV dramas are accepted yet at the same time resisted; hence textual analysis will offer deeper insights into potential readings of these texts. Lin (2002) has contrasted the South Korean TV drama, Autumn in My Heart (KBS 2000), with another television romance drama co-produced by television companies in Japan and Korea, entitled Friends (MBC, TBS 2002). She discusses the extent to which the main characters in the two dramas are self-determining modern subjects, and finds that the male and female protagonists of Autumn in My Heart tend to give in to the pressures and demands imposed upon them by family members who object to their falling in love with each other. The Japanese-Korean co-production, on the other hand, features a pair of lovers who each go through a process of self-actualization, in which the male lead defies his father’s wishes and pursues his dream of being a movie director, and the female lead finds meaning in her life after relocating from Japan to Korea. Each drama represents a different response towards the traditional order by young people grappling with the sociocultural tensions that arise in the modernizing society of South Korea. The female subject in Korean TV drama is more thoroughly explored in Sheng-mei Ma’s (2007) paper, which is based on textual analysis of Winter Sonata, the Korean film Chunhyang (dir. Im Kwon-taek 2000) and a period drama called Sangdo (MBC 2001–2). Ma argues that the emotional resilience and strength exhibited by females in Korean TV dramas serves to support or further male dominance. He observes that a common thread running through narratives of Korean TV drama is the emotional

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climax of the woman confessing her love to the man first. Ma notes that, while Korean women tend to be dressed conservatively in the dramas, their sexual appeal lies in their full (over-)painted red lips, and when these sensuous lips confess their love, it serves to fuel male desire and fantasy: In Asia, while Korean women’s daring confession no doubt captivates the audience, who are burdened by the heritage of feminine passivity, it may signify less a feminist breakthrough than an underhanded boost to the male ego that withholds its affection until the ‘weaker’ sex confides first. (Ma 2007: 110)

While Ma (2007: 109) draws on psychoanalysis to present a reading of Korean TV dramas from the perspective of a male spectator, this chapter aims to engage with Korean TV dramas from a feminist perspective, through a textual analysis of the romance drama Wedding. My objective is to reveal the pattern of hierarchical binary oppositions in the television text that reinforce patriarchal values. Wedding is an 18-episode miniseries produced by the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS). The screenplay is by Oh Su-yeon, who was also the scriptwriter for Winter Sonata. The story features a rich girl, Se-na, who marries a diplomat from a humble background, but harbours a secret of having slept with another man six years before she met her husband, Seung-woo. First aired in Korea in 2005, Wedding has been exported to China, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and other countries. The main characters of Seung-woo and Se-na are played by Ryu Siwon and Jang Nara respectively. Ryu and Jang are both hallyu stars who have spent the past few years developing their careers outside Korea – Jang Nara has been acting in mainland China, whereas Ryu Siwon is a popular singer in Japan. In fact, when the Wedding crew went to Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, to shoot the scenes of Seung-woo and Se-na’s honeymoon, more than 3,000 Japanese fans flocked to the film locations (KBS Global Entertainment News 2005). 178

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Wedding was telecast in Singapore on Channel 55 of Starhub Cable Vision, a local cable television provider. Singapore is an island republic in South East Asia with a resident population of about 3.5 million, out of which about 75 per cent are ethnic Chinese. The rest of the population includes Malays (13.7 per cent), Indians (8.7 per cent) and others (2.6 per cent) (Singapore Department of Statistics 2008). According to Fu and Liew (2005), Korean popular cultural products in Singapore become ‘Sinicized’ as they are distributed through Chinese-language media. Singapore imports Korean TV dramas that have already been dubbed into Mandarin in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. These Korean TV dramas are screened daily on television in Singapore, on Channel 55, a Mandarin cable TV channel, and Channel U, a free-to-air Mandarin channel. Korean TV dramas, including Wedding, are also available in VCD/DVD sets in video retail stores, packaged with Chinese-language plot synopses. Therefore, ‘[t]he consumption of Korean serials in Singapore, is premised upon one’s ethnicity and correspondingly one’s ability to speak Chinese’ (Fu and Liew 2005: 221). Korean TV dramas tend to appeal more to the ethnic Chinese community in Singapore and have limited influence and popularity among the Malay and Indian minority groups. My close reading of Wedding comes from the position of an ethnic Chinese woman in Singapore. On the one hand, I can identify with the Confucian values and the urban stories depicted in Korean TV dramas. On the other hand, my academic training leads me to interrogate the subjugation of women in and through popular culture.

Narrative Analysis of Wedding Narrative Structure and Synopsis of the Drama Wedding follows a simple narrative structure which can be summarized using Gillespie’s (2006) adaptation of Tzvetan Todorov’s model of narrative development:

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1) Exposition: In the original state of equilibrium, Se-na works as an arts administrator in a theatre and hails from a wealthy family. She meets Seung-woo, a young good-looking diplomat, on a blind date. Se-na falls in love with Seung-woo, but the latter is reluctant to develop a romantic relationship with Se-na because he still secretly loves his childhood friend, Yun-soo. Yun-soo, however, is dating Seung-woo’s senior and colleague at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Jin-hee. 2) Disruption: When Yun-soo tells Seung-woo that she is getting engaged to Jin-hee, Seung-woo is shattered and decides to accept Se-na’s professions of love. On her wedding day, Se-na is shocked to discover that Yun-soo’s fiancé, Jin-hee, was the man whom she had slept with six years ago while on holiday in England. Se-na and Jin-hee pretend that they have never met each other before. Se-na, of course, does not dare to tell her husband, Seung-woo, about her past relationship with Jin-hee. 3) Complication: Se-na finds out that the woman Seungwoo has secretly loved is Yun-soo. Se-na seeks a divorce as she cannot reconcile the fact that Yun-soo and Seung-woo are still close friends and they are still meeting each other regularly. To make matters worse, Jin-hee reveals to Seung-woo that he had known Se-na long before Seung-woo, and that he had a brief affair with Se-na. Seung-woo is jealous and upset, but he is unwilling to give up on his marriage with Se-na. 4) Climax: The dramatic tension is heightened when Se-na receives news that Seung-woo is leaving Korea for a two-year diplomatic posting in the United States. Se-na rushes to the airport and begs Seung-woo not to leave, for she realizes that she cannot be without him. Seung-woo explains that she has been misinformed – he is leaving for a short assignment in the US and will be back in Korea after two weeks. He kisses Se-na and asks her to wait for his return.

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Male Tradition Rural Poor Frugality Virgin True virgin Moral Redemptive

‘Like a Virgin’

5) Resolution and Closure: Seung-woo and Se-na decide to give their marriage a second chance. Yun-soo and Jin-hee get married and move to the US. Seung-woo finally professes his love for Sena, much to Se-na’s delight. The drama closes with Seung-woo and Se-na reading a book together outside Seung-woo’s childhood home – a traditional house in a village outside Seoul. A series of hierarchical binary oppositions are set up throughout the drama, which are also mapped onto the gender identities of Seung-woo and Se-na. These hierarchical binary oppositions are listed as follows, and I will explain them further in the analysis in the next two sections: Female Modernity Urban Rich Excess Non-virgin False virgin Immoral Transgressive

‘Like a Virgin’ The story of Wedding revolves around the emotional trials and tribulations of a young newly-wed couple, and the issue of sex in the marital relationship, or the deferment of sex, is an important theme in the drama. Se-na’s (lack of) virginity is gradually revealed through a series of hilarious incidents, which I will now describe in further detail. In episode three, Se-na’s mother makes the norms in Korean society towards premarital sex evident. She warns Se-na that no matter how much the latter loves Seung-woo, it is not right to have sex before marriage. Of course, little does she (and the audience) know that her daughter has already had sex with Jin-hee six years 181

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before meeting Seung-woo. Episode two hints that Se-na was a ‘wild child’ at heart, despite the prim and pretty pink frocks that she wears as an adult. The opening scene of episode two is a flashback to Se-na as a child, dancing to the music video of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’, which is screened on the television set in a classroom. In the midst of her dancing, Se-na even imitates Madonna by taking off her sweater and flinging it across the room. Madonna’s song resurfaces in the latter part of the same episode, after the adult Se-na goes out on a ‘date’ with Seung-woo. Seungwoo arranges to meet Se-na with the intention of rejecting her. Unaware of his plans, Se-na eagerly goes to see him, despite nursing a bad cold. They visit the aquarium together, during which Se-na reveals to Seung-woo that she has never had any boyfriends in the past. After having a meal with Se-na, Seung-woo highlights the differences in their lifestyles and is about to reject her when Se-na collapses due to her illness. Seung-woo takes her home and stays to look after her. After Se-na’s parents return home, Se-na sees Seungwoo off at the door and asks if they can meet again. When Seungwoo hints at other possible places for future dates, Se-na is thrilled that he has agreed to continue seeing her. When Se-na goes back to her bedroom, she plays Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ on her CD player and dances excitedly around her bed despite her illness – a reprise of the opening scene in episode two. For Se-na, marrying Seung-woo is a dream come true, except that her wedding is marred by the appearance of Jin-hee, Yun-soo’s fiancé and Seung-woo’s colleague at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Se-na is thus reminded of her past relationship with Jinhee during her holiday in England six years ago. When the time comes for her wedding night with Seung-woo, Se-na pretends to fall asleep to avoid having sex with her bridegroom. On the second night of their honeymoon, Seung-woo confesses to Se-na that she is the first woman to whom he has been so physically close. This indirectly explains to the viewer that he is a virgin. He attempts to kiss Se-na (as a prelude to making love with her), but she pushes him away in fright, saying: ‘Don’t touch me!’

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After Se-na returns to Korea from her honeymoon there is a scene in which she is working out in a gym with her female friends. During their gym conversation, one of Se-na’s girlfriends expresses surprise that Se-na has had ‘that sort of relationship’ with her past lover Jin-hee, thus implying that Se-na is not a virgin, and that she had slept with Jin-hee during her holiday fling. If the viewer had ever been puzzled over the choice of an outmoded 1980s American pop hit on the Wedding soundtrack, this becomes a moment of revelation indeed. Se-na had danced to Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ in her bedroom precisely because she was no longer a virgin, and meeting Seung-woo had made her feel ‘like a virgin’ again. This makes Se-na’s behaviour during her wedding night and her rejection of Seung-woo’s sexual advances during the honeymoon appear all the more farcical. She is a non-virgin but behaves like a fearful virgin who cringes when her groom tries to kiss her. In fact, Seung-woo and Se-na only consummate their marriage in episode eight, almost halfway through the serial drama, in the form of ‘make-up sex’ after the couple have had a tiff. Se-na later explains to her husband that she had refused sex with him out of guilt, confessing that she had actually dated another man before her marriage (despite her earlier claim that she had never had any boyfriends), but Se-na stops short of telling Seung-woo the name of her ex-boyfriend. As an ethnic Chinese woman familiar with the Confucian ideals of a ‘virtuous woman’, it is of course obvious to me that Se-na’s frigidity during her honeymoon was really a ‘performance’ she had to put on, because she had violated the traditions in neoConfucianist Korea where women are expected to be chaste before marriage (Shim 2001). So Se-na the non-virgin has to ‘act’ as a false virgin, to hide from her husband that she is sexually experienced. Se-na’s ‘performance’ as a nervous virgin during her honeymoon, and her delayed consummation of marriage with Seung-woo (as if to keep her ‘pure’ for as long as possible in the eyes of the audience, even though she has long since lost her virginity), points to the continued fetishization of the virgin bride in patriarchal

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Korean society. According to Shim (2001), the chastity ideology for women (that women have to be chaste before marriage and remain faithful to their husbands after marriage) is still influential in Korean society, but in recent years females have begun to hold more permissive attitudes towards premarital sex, as sex is now seen as pleasurable (rather than solely for procreation). While it appears that Se-na has the freedom and agency to engage in premarital sex, the truth remains that the sexual subjectivity of the female is still circumscribed by the dominant chastity ideology and constantly brought under scrutiny. Se-na’s bridegroom Seung-woo, on the other hand, is a real virgin, although Korean men are not expected to maintain their virginity before marriage. The chastity ideology applies only to women, not to men. Young men are known to visit prostitutes in order to guard their fiancées’ virginity until the wedding (Shim 2001). What, then, is the deeper meaning behind this thorough reversal of conventional gender expectations in Korean culture, with Se-na as the non-virginal bride and Seung-woo as the virginal groom?

Wedding as a Redemption Narrative Let us now return to the sets of binary oppositions that characterize the differences between Seung-woo and Se-na. In the story of Wedding, Seung-woo as the male protagonist personifies tradition, whereas Se-na personifies modernity. Seung-woo has grown up in a hanok, a traditional Korean house on a rural farm, while Se-na is an urban girl who lives in a mansion in the city of Seoul. Seungwoo prefers eating traditional Korean food such as jajangmyeon and miso soup, whereas Se-na and her family enjoy eating Western food (such as beef steaks) and dine in expensive restaurants. Born to a train station manager and a piano teacher, Seungwoo is not well-to-do, although his mother appears to be educated and quite refined in her disposition. Working as a foreign service officer, Seung-woo lives in a small apartment in a working184

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class neighbourhood and commutes to work by bus. His socioeconomic status and frugal lifestyle stand in stark contrast with Se-na’s affluence. Se-na’s father is a businessman who pampers his daughter with an array of credit cards that allow her to indulge in her favourite pastime of shopping. Se-na is ferried around in a chauffeured car for her shopping sprees and dates. Even Se-na’s vision of married life is one that is marked by extravagance or excess – when Seung-woo asks her whether she has ever imagined what life will be like after being married, Se-na proudly replies: Of course, I’ve been dreaming about that since I was five years old! First, I want to meet a handsome guy whom everyone envies. I’ll buy beautiful clothes for my husband, like the ones in fashion magazines. We’ll go exercising together in the morning. I’ll be having breakfast in bed, which my hubby has prepared for me. We’ll be travelling together, to see opera performances in New York and Paris! And we’ll celebrate Christmas together! (My translation from Mandarin subtitles)

In response, Seung-woo explains his vision of married life, which speaks of simplicity. It is characterized by the sharing of thoughts and opinions, rather than the sharing of material comforts: She [my wife] must be someone I can share everything with. We’ll read the same book and discuss its contents. We’ll be having strolls in the evening and asking each other what we have been thinking of. On rainy days, my wife will be waiting at the bus stop for me, with an umbrella. We’ll grow old together. (My translation from Mandarin subtitles)

But after marriage, Se-na struggles to adapt to the lower standard of living that Seung-woo has, and to live up to his dream of the ideal wife. Se-na fetches her husband at the bus stop with an umbrella during a downpour. She tries hard to read the book that he has recommended, so they could discuss the contents, but she finds the book extremely boring and does not enjoy it at all. She grows 185

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increasingly unhappy and insecure as Seung-woo remains close friends with Yun-soo, so much so that Se-na eventually asks to break up with him. But finally she realizes that she cannot live without Seung-woo and reconciles with her husband. The closing scene of the young couple reading a book together outside Seung-woo’s childhood home – the hanok in the village – may appear to be a ‘happily ever after’ ending, but it is also one that speaks of Se-na’s disempowerment. It implies that she has accepted and conformed to Seung-woo’s vision of married life; the modern/ female has now been disciplined and subordinated under the traditional/male. Therein lies the ideological meaning of Wedding: I contend that it is a redemption narrative, in which the moral and righteous man – through marriage – saves, forgives and reforms the transgressive, sinful woman. In terms of attitudes towards love/sex, Se-na is depicted as a modern Asian female who actively and relentlessly pursues the man she loves. She is the one who initiates her first kiss with Seung-woo, and professes her love for her husband first (Seung-woo struggles with the direct expression of love, and Se-na finally feels gratified after he manages to say the words ‘I love you’ in the final episode). While the women’s bold confessions of love in Korean TV drama may appear to challenge patriarchal traditions, they actually end up bolstering male ego and male dominance, as noted by Ma (2007). For example, in episode two, Seung-woo confesses to his male friend that he regrets rejecting Se-na’s love, saying: ‘This is the first time that a girl opens her heart to tell me she likes me, and it is such a pity that I turned her down.’ Similarly, Se-na’s sexual experience before marriage may seem to speak of her sexual subjectivity and her courage in defying cultural traditions, but one must note that Se-na’s sexual relationship with Jin-hee is never directly shown onscreen – not even in the form of the hackneyed flashback in Korean TV dramas. It is only alluded to, in subtle and euphemistic terms, in the characters’ conversational exchanges. Moreover, the fact that Se-na has had premarital sex with Jin-hee automatically casts her as the ‘immoral woman’ in the drama.

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In contrast to Se-na, Seung-woo is depicted as a moral being in the drama, one who embodies all the virtues valued in Korean society, such as industry, thrift, kindness, sexual morality and righteousness. Seung-woo is traditional in the sense that he is conservative and frowns upon premarital sex. He maintains his virginity until his marriage with Se-na. The drama portrays Seungwoo as an upright, saintly character – he refuses to lie to Se-na and marry her as a condition for writing off his aunt’s debts to Sena’s parents; he helps pick up a little boy who has fallen down; he rescues a female co-worker who is falling off a ladder. At various points in the drama Se-na keeps telling her parents ‘what a nice guy Seung-woo is’ and declares to Seung-woo that she is the happiest woman in the world for she has married such a ‘perfect guy’. When this perfect guy finds out about Se-na’s past relationship with Jinhee, Se-na argues that Seung-woo now has the best excuse to divorce her, but Seung-woo forgives his wife almost in a Christlike fashion, and refuses to give up on his marriage. He eventually manages to transform Se-na into his likeness – she conforms to his vision of married life when they read a book together outside Seung-woo’s childhood home, despite the fact that Se-na does not like the books that Seung-woo reads. She now enjoys what her husband enjoys doing as a married couple, at the expense of her own ideals. The immoral woman is thus put back into her right place, in submission to her upright and saintly husband. The stars of Wedding, Ryu Siwon and Jang Nara, are popular hallyu celebrities outside Korea. By filming the honeymoon scenes in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, the drama clearly targets Japanese viewers, particularly Ryu’s female fans. Jang Nara is also very wellknown in China, appealing to young women through her previous roles in Success Story of a Bright Girl (SBS 2002) and My Love Patzzi (MBC 2002). In my first encounter with the first few episodes of Wedding, I was touched by the ‘sweetness’ of the emotions between Seung-woo and Se-na – it reminded me of the days when my husband and I were still in courtship. But as the story wore on, I grew increasingly disturbed by possible messages about gender

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relations and marriage that Wedding could be sending to young female audiences in East Asia (in Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan). Firstly, Wedding perpetuates the myth that the mission of a girl’s life is to find a perfect man, marry this perfect man and that such a perfect man exists. To win the love of the perfect man, the woman must pander to his desires and dreams, even if it means sacrificing her own. The second myth that Wedding propagates is that the male is the stabilizer and sustainer of marriage, even as the institution of marriage is constantly threatened by the female. Throughout the drama, Se-na cannot seem to make up her mind about whether she wants to be with Seung-woo or leave him. At the outset Seungwoo is reluctant to date Se-na, but Se-na continues to text him on his mobile phone and is desperate to be in a relationship with him. But after Seung-woo decides to marry Se-na and wedding preparations are under way, she becomes upset with Seung-woo’s insensitive behaviour towards her family and wants to call off the wedding. Then, when she hears the news that Seung-woo has been injured at work, she rushes to the hospital and decides she will go ahead with the wedding. After they are married, Se-na asks for a divorce when she cannot bear the close friendship between Seungwoo and Yun-soo. She even returns the wedding ring to him. But eventually Se-na cannot bear the thought of living without Seungwoo and begs him not to leave for the US. The woman is thus portrayed as childish, fickle and as one who takes the institution of marriage lightly, seeking divorce according to whim and fancy. On the other hand, Seung-woo is depicted as unwavering and steadfast in his marriage vows – when he discovers Se-na’s secret with Jin-hee, he forgives her and does not want to give up on the marriage. Seung-woo finally asks Se-na to put on the wedding ring again, the latter agrees and the couple are happily reconciled. The drama elevates marriage to an ideal state of being that must be protected and sustained under all conditions, neglecting the fact that marriages can often be oppressive and unhappy. Interestingly, Wedding was written by a female scriptwriter. Since the 1990s, the number of female scriptwriters has increased

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steadily in the Korean television industry, and now women writers have come to outnumber male writers. This possibly explains why recent Korean trendy dramas exhibit a new woman-centrism that focuses more on telling stories from women’s perspectives, as Hyun Mee Kim (2005) has observed. However, ‘the overall orientation and content of drama are still determined by the dominant frame of patriarchal ideology’, because these young women writers are still under the supervision and control of senior male producers (Kim, Youna 2005: 23). This explains in part why Korean trendy dramas such as Wedding tend to focus on romance, and the romance narrative still lies staunchly within dominant patriarchal discourses. As such: [T]he new woman-centrism found in the Korean TV dramas is based on the archetypal gender model of patriarchal fantasy and is to be distinguished from feminist texts that delineate gender struggles as part of a complex web of human relations and provide diverse ways of thinking about them. ... [T]he ‘fantasy’ of Korean men who situate themselves as the ‘savior of women’ remains the main impetus of their production. (Kim, Hyun Mee 2005: 192–3)

If that is the case, then there is a need to cultivate higher levels of media literacy amongst young women in Asian societies who face the challenge of negotiating tradition and modernity in their everyday lives so that they may learn to interrogate, and critically respond to, the ideologies in Korean trendy dramas. And to this end, to borrow from the words of Spivak (1988), the female intellectual such as myself has a task and responsibility that we can scarcely disown.

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8

‘Don’t Forget’: The Musical Dimensions of South Korean Television Drama Robert L. Cagle In his 1972 essay, ‘Tales of Sound and Fury’, Thomas Elsaesser maps out a comprehensive genealogy of the melodrama, examining key stylistic and formal correlations that link the mid-twentieth century cinematic form (exemplified, according to Elsaesser, by the films of Douglas Sirk, Nicholas Ray and Vincente Minnelli) to the various types of fiction, drama and musical entertainment from which it arguably evolved. Elsaesser reveals an inextricable connection between music and melodrama, with the former providing not only emotional and narrative cues, and formal inspiration to the overall structure and tempo of the narrative,1 but also­– and key to Elsaesser’s work – an ironic subtext, commenting on the moralistic storylines as they unfold in predictably paced ways. In the introduction to her 1987 anthology, Home is Where the Heart Is, Christine Gledhill expands on Elsaesser’s study, demonstrating how British and French popular theatre, forbidden from using dialogue by royal patents, made use of music as a means of communicating significant changes and high points in the rich and varied emotional register of staged musical narrative – a trend that 193

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extended later to the melodrama: ‘ “Music-drama”, as such had a relatively short life,’ writes Gledhill, ‘but the term achieved lasting currency as a designation for melodrama, a form which embedded words in music, song, and dance, in a way that imparted a musical dimension to every other register – verbal and visual’ (1987: 19). Thus, the role played by music in the development of melodrama far exceeds the more basic functions it has traditionally been seen as fulfilling in the service of other forms of narrative entertainment – especially film and drama (Gorbman 1987). Following the publication of Gledhill’s landmark anthology, critical interest in melodrama grew to unprecedented levels, a trend that has continued, unabated, into the present. Despite this intense interest, analysts have generally overlooked the subject of music, even though its role has been, and continues to be, central to the articulation of melodrama’s defining emotional subtexts. Despite this obviously important connection, and with very few exceptions,2 music, when mentioned at all, is usually presented as little more than an example of the excess that has, in light of comments by director Douglas Sirk, come to be seen as synonymous with the term ‘melodrama’. Some critics have even suggested that the critical disinterest with which music has been met merely reflects a shift away from music in the evolution of the melodramatic form itself. Wimal Dissanayake, for example, in the introduction to Melodrama and Asian Cinema, claims that as the melodrama has developed across time, ‘music ceased to be an integral part … and the term came to signify a form of drama characterized by sensationalism, emotional intensity, hyperbole …’ (1993: 1). The recent transnational explosion in the popularity of South Korean television dramas that prominently feature pop music soundtracks represents an exciting new development in the long and varied metamorphosis of the melodramatic form. With their highly complex storylines and morally driven plots, South Korean television dramas clearly resemble the Western model of melodrama proposed by Gledhill (1987), Linda Williams (1998) and John Mercer and Martin Shingler (2004), and applied to Eastern texts

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by Dissanayake (1993) and others. Furthermore, and even more significant to the present study, is the fact that, as is the case with the Western melodrama, music plays an undeniably pivotal role in enhancing mood, underscoring narrative cues, establishing narrative and temporal continuity and providing an organizing structure of the Korean television drama (or K-drama). Thus, this new entertainment form offers a particularly valuable opportunity for refocusing critical attention on the overlooked – some might say forgotten – bond between music and melodrama. Over the past ten years South Korean television drama has emerged from relative obscurity to become one of the nation’s most profitable exports. The craze for K-dramas is only one part of a complex cultural and commercial phenomenon known collectively as hallyu (alternately Romanized as ‘hanryu’, ‘hanliu’ and ‘halryu’) or the ‘Korean Wave’.3 This trend first took shape in the mid-1990s as consumers in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan developed a mania for Korean pop music, and soon afterward for Korean television dramas, motion pictures and various other Korea-specific products. Consumer demand reached a peak in 2003 as the wave progressed across nations throughout East and South Asia, the Middle East and even Central and North America. While wave-related merchandise (from DVDs and CDs to teddy bears and clothing items), services (matrimonial and dating services, plastic surgery clinics) and businesses (theme parks, restaurants and tourist sites) still remain hot commodities today, it is the K-drama that stands out as the most salient and widely recognized symbol of the Korean Wave. Korean television dramas first gained popularity in the late 1960s with the introduction of open-ended, ‘soap opera’-type programming. The political and economic changes that occurred following the turbulent 1970s and early 1980s gave Koreans a marked increase in disposable income, which, in turn, allowed consumers to purchase the kinds of luxury items that had in earlier times been out of reach. By the late 1980s, as cultural critic Keehyeung Lee points out, most modernized Korean homes had more than one television set. As Koreans bought more televisions, the demand

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for programming increased. In response, television producers began ‘churning out a number of highly successful “melos” (mellomul)’ (Lee, Keehyeung 2005: 230). These programmes were distinct from older ‘soap opera’ dramas in that they were presented in mini series format, but like the earlier form they often borrowed from Korean cinema’s well-established melodramatic traditions.4 Lee describes these programmes as ‘centred around women’s suffering, sacrifice, and the predicaments that emerge from the cracks in the institutions of marriage and family’ (230). In response to the significant changes in consumer trends and tastes that occurred in the early 1990s, South Korean drama producers also began to incorporate and adapt elements of the highly popular Japanese dramas into their formulas. Dong-Hoo Lee points to the introduction of the 1992 MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation) drama Jealousy, inspired by Tokyo Love Story (Fuji TV 1991) as a key turning-point in the modernization of the drama form. With its attractive young cast, quick cutting and catchy theme tune, Jealousy came to define ‘trendy’ as it related to television programming. Thus, as Lee points out, ‘[w]hen its phenomenal success led to a boom of similarly formatted dramas … Jealousy was retroactively labelled as the first trendy drama in Korea …’ (2004a: 257). Like Japanese trendy and post-trendy dramas, which clearly echoed the sensibility of Japan’s bubble economy (for instance, focusing on young, financially successful characters and, as Ōta Tōru notes, ‘[weighing] setting, cast, and music more heavily than the content of the drama’ [2004: 70])), and as a result became, in essence, lavishly produced commercials for gracious living and conspicuous consumption, Korean trendy dramas shifted their focus from the intergenerational dynamics of the family to the concerns of the younger generation, reinvesting in the very socio-economic conditions that provided the impetus for their creation.5 Although soundtrack music had always played an important role in establishing the emotional tone of Korean dramas, the new, youth-oriented dramas of the 1990s replaced more traditional

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instrumental accompaniment with pop songs performed by upand-coming singers. This move offered a forum for the burgeoning Korean pop music industry to showcase new artists and material and, simultaneously, allowed the television programmes to appeal to a new demographic group: the youth market. As popular music began to play an increasingly prominent role in TV dramas, the demand for commercially released soundtracks (OSTs) became so great that they were soon offered for virtually every drama produced on the big three networks. In a 2008 interview with The Korea Herald, Tom Larsen, President of YA Entertainment, the largest distributor of Korean entertainment products in North America, observed that the music accompanying Korean dramas plays a significant role in the overall viewing experience and, moreover, that soundtracks are frequently musically sophisticated enough to stand on their own merits. ‘Whereas Americans usually do not purchase and collect the soundtracks of top American TV hits like Desperate Housewives or ER (where music is used in a more casual way),’ Larsen explains, ‘Korean TV drama fans in the United States do collect the music soundtracks for Korean TV dramas’ (2008: 144). Indeed, it is precisely at the moment that popular music began to play an integral part in the K-drama – once again irrefutably fusing music (melos) and drama – that Korean dramas began to break into markets throughout the rest of Asia. In his extensive analysis of cultural hybridity in South Korean pop culture, cultural critic Doobo Shim explains that before the 1990s the Korean pop music industry was nearly non-existent. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that, as Shim notes, ‘the two public television networks, Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), controlled music distribution and held sway over the direction of music consumption’ (2006a: 35). This changed as the 1990s progressed and Koreans began to enjoy a higher standard of living. As Shim observes, ‘many Koreans purchased satellite dishes to pick up Japanese stations and Star TV’: and, in the process, became aware of important new

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trends in popular music. As fans voiced an increased demand for new material from Korean performers, musical artists began to appropriate material and styles from international sources, thus changing the face of Korean pop (Howard 2002: 88–9, quoted in Shim 2006a: 36). This blending of various global musical styles eventually resulted in the establishment of a vital pop music industry, complete with performers who became first local and then international stars. Especially interesting to note is the fact that while the musical and performance styles of Korean boy bands have clearly borrowed from their Western (American) counterparts, the content of their material (the lyrics of their songs and the stories they tell) has remained uniquely Korean (Shim 2006a). To illustrate this point, Shim analyzes the g.o.d. hit, ‘To My Mother’, a remarkable combination of rap and sentimental music that perfectly recreates the pathos typical of the cinematic and TV melodrama – so well, indeed, that the song is the subject of a conversation about the Korean cultural imperative to internalize suffering rather than talk about it in the television drama Fantastic Couple (MBC 2006). Hee Eun Lee, in her exhaustive study of the Korean pop industry, theorizes that K-pop was easily marketed to international consumers because ‘people in many different countries, [speaking] many different languages, often relate to the same kinds of music’ (2005: 30). Lee cites the work of music critic Keith Negus to argue that, because the appeal of pop music does not hinge on the audience’s understanding of lyrics, it is far more capable of reaching diverse global communities than other entertainment forms, and in such ways that allow for the expression of cultural difference: ‘[m]usic constructs our sense of identity through conflicting experiences: not only “between” global and local music, but also “within” genres of local music’ (2005:12). This process allows for an even greater array of interpretations when music is combined with imagery (as in the music video) because ‘the visual may anchor the difference between self and others in such a way that music cannot provide and vice-versa’ (2005: 12).

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Hee Eun Lee identifies four distinct types of discourse found in the K-pop video, but notes that it is the ‘nostalgia discourse’ that has enjoyed ‘the biggest success and influence’ (2005: 111). Videos of this type (as epitomized by the videos designed to accompany Jo Sung-mo’s romantic ballads) depict familiar situations and themes, and draw on ‘the collective memory of Koreans’ nostalgic past’ (2005: 114). These videos frequently revise and restage material drawn from popular films,6 albeit without spoken dialogue, and in so doing provide a model of cultural and aesthetic hybridity, the influence of which has in turn been clearly imprinted on programmes produced by the drama and motion picture industries. In other words, because these mini-dramas so clearly demonstrate the undeniable capacity of the melodramatic form to communicate without the benefit (or burden) of dialogue (and with it, the necessity of subtitling or dubbing), they can be seen as providing both the prototype and the impetus for the musical interludes that consistently punctuate the modern Korean drama. Because of this, the role these productions played in the metamorphosis of the television drama can – and indeed should – be recognized as just as important as that of the Japanese trendy drama. K-pop and K-drama became more closely associated in audiences’ minds than ever before with the debut in 1997 of Star in My Heart (MBC), starring Choi Jin-sil and Ahn Jae-wook. Choi played a typical Cinderella-type role, while the more musically gifted Ahn was cast as a promising young pop star. The tremendous success of the programme and its soundtrack catapulted Ahn into the international spotlight and transformed him, as Benjamin Min Han (2008) notes, into the first real hallyu star. The soundtrack CD contains not one, but two versions of Ahn’s character’s hit songs – ‘Wound’ and ‘There’s No One as Important as You’ from the programme as both vocal and instrumental (karaoke) versions. Ahn’s first solo CD (titled Forever) was released in April of 1997, just five days before the drama’s conclusion, and became an instant sensation both in Korea and in greater China.

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Following the tremendous popularity of Star in My Heart, Korean dramas began to feature pop music in increasingly prominent ways, a move that has placed a heightened emphasis on affect and emotion, even to the point that this focus seems to slow or stall the narrative flow. Popular dramas such as Stairway to Heaven (SBS 2003), I’m Sorry, I Love You (KBS 2004), Fashion 70s (SBS 2005), My Lovely Sam-soon (MBC 2005) and The Snow Queen (KBS 2006) all boast soundtracks that include hit songs by artists such as Kim Beom-soo, Bobby Kim, Fly to the Sky, Clazziquai and Loveholic. Musical artists such as Rain, Eric Moon (of Shinhwa) and Yu-jin (of S.E.S.) have also made the successful transition from singing to acting. In addition, dramas now make increasingly frequent use of musical intervals that recycle material drawn from earlier episodes, stylistically recoded (for instance, played in slow motion or presented in monochrome or sepia tone) as memories. These sequences encourage viewers to engage in a process of recollection that, as Benjamin Min Han points out, they see as shared between themselves and the characters of the drama: While many television dramas employ flashbacks to reveal characters’ secrets that generate curiosity or to progress the plot lines, the meaning of memory in Winter Sonata works as a means to strengthen the love between Joon-sang and Yu-jin. The drama constructs the memories of the characters as audiences simultaneously construct the memories of Joon-sang and Yu-jin growing closer to each other. …While these fragments of memories are constructed in the series, the viewers are also engaging in deconstructing their own memories – memories of high school years, dislikeable teachers, trips and, most importantly, our first love. (2008: 28–9)

At the same time, these scenes clearly echo the fusion of representational styles characteristic of the nostalgic K-pop video. These preoccupations (some might say obsessions) with longings for simpler times and first loves have intrigued scholars studying the popularity of K-dramas, especially among Japanese women.7 200

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As Suekyung Lee (2006) notes, many critics have attributed the transnational success of Korean dramas to Korea’s cultural proximity with other Asian nations. Hyun Mee Kim (2005), Jeeyoung Shin (2007), Kideuk Hyun (2007), and Woongjae Ryoo (2009), among others, have argued that the overriding factor in determining the commercial success of these works in other countries is the set of shared values that bridge the geographical, linguistic and cultural gaps between Korea and other nations. Audience research suggests that the universal theme of ‘pure love’ plays a far greater role in attracting fans to K-drama than do any other considerations.8 It is perhaps not surprising, given cultural taboos and genre conventions, that this ‘pure love’ is more often than not expressed by way of music rather than dialogue. In his 1986 essay ‘Hearing Secret Harmonies’, music critic Simon Frith (quoting Polish musicologist Zofia Lissa’s 1965 publication, Aesthetik der Filmmusik) explains that the live music that accompanied silent film screenings was an essential part of the spectatorial experience because it helped to smooth transitions between sequences of differing narrative and emotional content, while at the same time covering over noise from the projector and outside traffic. Thus, music helped to bridge gaps not only between distinct narrative elements, but also between audience and spectacle, drowning out any distraction – be it primitive editing or outside noise – that might hinder the viewing experience. Music, Lissa points out, was and is so important because, as Frith paraphrases, ‘silence in the cinema is embarrassing’ (1986: 53). Frith extends Lissa’s comment to argue convincingly that ‘one of the central uses of popular music in this century [has been] to conceal the furtive pleasure of indulging in private fantasies in public places’ (1986: 53).9 While Frith’s statement holds particular importance for those studying film viewed in public venues, its applicability to the Korean drama, generally consumed – whether solitarily or in groups – in the privacy of the domestic space, either via the Internet, broadcast or satellite television, or on a home video format, may not seem

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immediately apparent. If, however, we re-examine Frith’s original assertion that music ‘conceals’ the practice of engaging in private fantasies in the public sphere in the context of consumption within private or privatized spaces, it seems fair to suggest that what is at stake in this process is not merely concealing or covering over one’s retreat into the realm of fantasy, but also, as is certainly the case in the examples below, a kind of individualization of the fantasy, creating the illusion that the experience of reception, reading and viewing/listening is a solitary and unique one. In other words, what Frith’s comments suggest – and especially when read in light of Han’s observations – is that the musical interludes that punctuate the Korean television drama can, at least potentially, be seen as points of intensely personal engagement between viewer and text, taking the focus away from a traditional type of viewing that requires attention to narrative details, and allowing for (indeed, encouraging) a more distracted mode of viewing to take over – one in which the spectator is free to make associations between their own memories and those illustrated on screen. Given its immense popularity in markets throughout Asia and around the world, the substantial use of music and musical asides in the 2002–3 drama series, Winter Sonata,10 makes it an ideal text for examining the various functions of music in the K-drama. The soundtrack, available in a variety of different versions, is composed of a relatively small number of signature tunes, including the iconic opening theme ‘From the Beginning until Now’ (immediately recognizable to audiences around the world from the very first notes of its introduction) and the two ‘love’ themes, ‘My Memory’ and ‘The First Time’. In addition to these songs, which were most frequently played over sequences meant to highlight emotional or narrative continuity (and in some cases discontinuity) with earlier, idealized scenes of first love, the drama also uses a handful of other tunes as well, including ‘Only You’ and ‘Violet’ (a pop standard), performed both as instrumental and as vocal tracks, and ‘A Memory inside My Heart’ and ‘When Love Fails’ performed as instrumental tracks only. Finally, the drama also makes liberal use of diegetic or

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‘source’ music, including classical selections by Brahms and Vivaldi (featured on a radio programme produced by one of the characters) and an astonishingly wide-ranging collection of songs drawn from a vast catalogue of  Western jazz and pop music, including ‘Vincent’ by Don McLean, ‘Say Goodnight’ by Beth Nielsen Chapman, ‘I’m a Fool to Want You’ by Chet Baker, ‘Super Trouper’ (originally performed by ABBA) by A-Teens, ‘How Deep is Your Love?’ by the Bee Gees, ‘The Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel, ‘Monday Morning 5:19’ by Rialto and ‘Never My Love’ by The Association, among many, many others. These international hits are used almost exclusively in scenes that take place in public settings (usually cafés, bars and restaurants), occasionally underscoring the emotional content of the scene (‘Never My Love’ offers a humorously ironic commentary on one character’s romantic obsession with another) and always tying the action of the world of the characters to the world of the viewer. In other words, in addition to functioning as meta-commentary, the use of established pop songs as source music serves to augment and sustain the illusion – created in part by the use of actual locations rather than studio sets – that the drama depicts scenes of real life taking place in a world that looks and sounds an awfully lot like our own. Because the settings and soundtracks of the everyday life depicted in the drama are so reassuringly familiar, the events they depict appear to take place in the same ‘reality’ as that occupied by viewers in the real world, albeit at a different time or place – one similar to but separate from (divided by temporal and/or spatial boundaries) the viewer’s own. This structure, in turn, serves to reinforce the sense of separation, delay and loss upon which the drama’s most effective moments invariably hinge. A scene from episode 15 provides a particularly interesting example of the various ways in which Winter Sonata makes use of music in its representational system. As Jung Yu-jin prepares to visit love interest Kang Joon-sang in the hospital, she encounters her exboyfriend, Kim Sang-hyuk, who has been waiting for her. The two stare at one another in uncomfortable silence and then visit a café

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to talk. As John Denver’s ‘Perhaps Love’ plays in the background, the two characters sit face to face in silence until Sang-hyuk looks up and haltingly says, half-asking: ‘I understand that Joon-sang has regained his memory….’ ‘Yes he has, but not completely,’ Yu-jin responds. ‘But he does remember you.’ ‘Really?’ Sang-hyuk asks. ‘They’re not very good memories.’ ‘Would you like to see him?’ Yu-jin asks. ‘Maybe later,’ he half-whispers. At this point, the song in the background, which has up to now been playing quietly, can be heard quite clearly: ‘Some say love is holding on, and some say letting go.’ Sang-hyuk continues: ‘Yu-jin, I don’t regret not telling you that Min-hyung was Joon-sang.’ His comments refer to the fact that Yu-jin and her friends had all believed Joon-sang, her highschool sweetheart, died years before, when in fact, he had merely been suffering from amnesia and living in the United States. ‘I had hoped you wouldn’t find out,’ he says. The song in the background continues: ‘Some say love is holding on and some say letting go.’ ‘I didn’t want to lose you,’ he confesses, ‘because you were my first love, too.’ As Yu-jin stares deeply into his eyes, tears welling up in her own, the singer’s voice takes the place of the couple’s voices as they sit without speaking: ‘If I should live forever and all my dreams come true, my memories of love would be of you.’ As the song comes to an end, Sang-hyuk proclaims: ‘I’ll let you go now. I can’t let you lose him twice.’ The sound of a familiar piano theme (‘When Love Fails’) suddenly takes the place of the diegetic pop song that had earlier underscored the conversation. This theme has already appeared several times before, always in scenes filled with apprehension and anxiety. Yu-jin and Sang-hyuk converse for a while, both choking back their emotions, until Sang-hyuk comments: ‘How ironic. He

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tries to remember, while I try to forget you.’ His eyes fill with tears as he goes on: ‘I don’t know if I can, but I will try.’ As the camera tracks closer, framing his face in tight close up, Sang-hyuk asks Yu-jin to promise not to show him smiles or tears, as to do so would make him feel he has a chance at being with her again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’m really sorry.’ The piano music continues as Sang-hyuk explains: ‘This is the last time I’ll see you cry. And as for my promise to always be by your side, well, I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to honour it.’ The piano theme ends as the image track cuts to a medium shot of a busy city street. Cars pass quickly as a new song (again extradiegetic) begins on the soundtrack. What is particularly interesting to note is that, up to this point in the narrative, a full 15 hours into a 20-hour drama, the song that plays in this sequence, ‘Don’t Forget’, has not occurred previously, even though all but one of the other themes related to the drama have been played numerous times, often within a single episode. The sudden appearance, then, of this new tune underscores the extent to which the sequence in which it is featured represents a major turning-point in the narrative: Sang-hyuk, who for the previous 14 episodes (over ten years in diegetic time) has tried, to no avail, to make Yu-jin love him, finally realizes the futility of his efforts. In sacrificing his own happiness for hers, he effectively transforms himself from a bad character into a sympathetic one, shifting the dynamic of the narrative considerably. Once transformed, Sang-hyuk finally becomes worthy of his own signature tune, just as Joon-sang and Yu-jin (separately and together) have been all along. But in contrast to the romantic, nostalgic tunes that represent Joon-sang and Yu-jin’s relationship (‘From the Beginning until Now’, with its suggestion of a love that survives all types of adversity; or ‘My Memory’ and ‘The First Time’, calling to mind the unfaltering recollections of first love), Sang-hyuk’s theme, ‘Don’t Forget’, comes across as both a desperate plea and a forceful imperative in which romanticism is overshadowed by sadness and grief.

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As Sang-hyuk slowly makes his way across the busy street he pauses for a moment, trapped between two lanes of traffic travelling in different directions, as the image track cuts to a montage of images from the past, such as Sang-hyuk and Yu-jin rushing towards the crowded bus that will take him to school and set into motion the events that will eventually take her away from him. Shots that follow represent similar moments of transition: Yu-jin, Sang-hyuk and their friends sitting around a campfire moments before Yu-jin becomes lost in the woods and is rescued by Joon-sang; Sang-hyuk following Yu-jin with her coat as she wanders out into the morning chill and catching up with her just in time to see Joon-sang offer her his coat; Sang-hyuk trying to kiss Yu-jin and being rebuffed; Yu-jin chasing after a man she believes is Joon-sang and collapsing in the street, missing her own engagement party. The lyrics of the song, too, emphasize the related roles played by the passage of time and the tendency to forget – the two main themes of the drama itself: ‘Even though I may be late, wait for me. Don’t forget. Don’t forget.’ Far more than merely echoing the content of the image track, the music in this sequence takes on a more formal function, uniting disparate temporalities to heighten the sense of being too late – of unavoidable loss, unrequited longing and inescapable impasse. In his study of the form and function of music in cinema, Peter Larsen explains how music covers over spatial jumps and temporal gaps – what he refers to as ‘discontinuity of the syuzhet’ (2008: 159) – in the narrative flow, thus establishing temporal and narrative continuities where none previously existed. The same can be said of the music in the sequence above, and yet, far more than merely establishing the type of continuity described by Larsen, the theme song also serves to solidify the relationship between the past and present of viewer and character, using the ‘memories’ the viewer has shared with Sang-hyuk as a means of shifting the action of the drama from diegetic reality – the day-to-day lives of the characters it depicts – to the internal emotional life of one specific character (and, by extension, to the viewer’s own perceptions as well). This shift in narrative voice highlights yet another way in which

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Winter Sonata makes sophisticated use of music as a signifier of discursive difference. As noted above, the scene between Yu-jin and Sang-hyuk is preceded by a shot of Yu-jin talking on her mobile phone as she leaves her apartment and heads to the hospital. The sequence is played with only diegetic sound, no musical accompaniment, and as such, given the fact that music underscores virtually every important scene in the drama, can be read as an instance of mere plot development revealing Yu-jin’s intention of visiting Joon-sang and suggesting, in the process, a renewal of their on-again, off-again romance. Yu-jin’s progress across the screen is interrupted as the figure of Sang-hyuk, who has been waiting off-screen, stands up and passes in front of the camera. The introduction of Sang-hyuk as a third term, both visually and narratively, effectively transforms Yu-jin’s intention of visiting Joon-sang into a point of conflict that demands resolution. The next scene (the conversation at the café) opens with a twoshot of the characters reflected in a mirror and framed by a curtain. Because the exchange between the two characters is motivated first by Sang-hyuk’s arrival at Yu-jin’s apartment building, and then by a close-up shot of Sang-hyuk staring out the window, and furthermore because throughout their conversation Sang-hyuk is shown in closer proximity to the camera than Yu-jin, the song playing in the background, filled with references to unrequited love and suffering, seems to be an index of Sang-hyuk’s emotional state.11 The conversation that Yu-jin and Sang-hyuk share while the song plays deals with their triangular relationship with Joonsang. Thus, although their comments to one another are clearly of a private nature, the topic of the conversation – Joon-sang – introduces a third term that symbolically separates the two and thus prevents their conversation from being an intimate one. It is only once Sang-hyuk utters the words ‘I’ll let you go’ (immediately following Denver singing ‘My memories of love will be of you’ played over the cut that links Yu-jin’s face with Sang-hyuk’s) that the soundtrack changes.

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‘I can’t let you lose him twice,’ Sang-hyuk says as ‘When Love Fails’ begins and Yu-jin, now shown in close up, diverts her gaze and utters: ‘I will be punished for this.’ The introduction of the extra-diegetic music, already imbued with emotional anguish and unrest, signals a shift in the focus of the conversation from Joon-sang and his condition to the relationship between Yu-jin and Sang-hyuk. The musical theme, paired with a camera track forward, indicates a movement toward internalization (culminating with Sang-hyuk’s standing on the street and remembering his life with Yu-jin) that comes at the scene’s end. As Sang-hyuk stands to leave, his shape temporarily eclipses the camera’s view of Yu-jin again, just as it did when he had earlier stopped her on her way to the hospital. The sequence, thus, comes to an end just as it has begun, but this time the movement across the camera is the sign of a departure rather than an arrival, a signifier of the resolution rather than the articulation of a conflict. With the final change from instrumental extra-diegetic music to vocal extra-diegetic music, the drama’s action makes its final shift into diegetic introspection as images of Sang-hyuk wandering the streets of Seoul are intercut with flashback shots of short-lived happiness. The lyrics of the song, ‘Don’t forget ... don’t forget’, reveal the mental and emotional dilemma faced by Sang-hyuk as he comes to terms with his decision to leave Yu-jin. His words to Yu-jin – ‘He [Joon-sang] tries to remember as I try to forget you’ – perfectly echo not only Yu-jin’s earlier (episode seven) response to Sang-hyuk’s accusation that she has saved Min-hyung’s life because he resembles her lost love, Joon-sang, but also the contradictory emotions at work – the (spoken) desire to forget and the (musical) imperative not to forget – implied by the traffic speeding in two different directions on either side of Sang-hyuk. He stands, ironically, trapped in the centre of a crosswalk – immobile in the middle of a pathway designed to promote mobility, unable to move forward or backward although the path on which he is travelling is clearly marked. The song occurs only once more in the narrative, this time associated with Joon-sang rather than Sang-hyuk. Believing that

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he and Yu-jin share the same father, Joon-sang decides to leave Yu-jin and never reveal this terrible secret. The two travel to a seaside village and spend a carefree holiday, laughing and walking along the ocean. Then, as Yu-jin sleeps, Joon-sang quietly walks out onto the beach and throws everything that he associates with Yu-jin and their time together into the ocean. As Joon-sang stands at the water’s edge weeping, ‘Don’t Forget’ plays on the soundtrack. Joon-sang finds himself trapped, just as Sang-hyuk was in the earlier sequence: he cannot go forward with his plans to spend his life with Yu-jin, and he cannot go back to his life as Min-hyung. He falls onto the sand and stares into the darkness, a victim of the amnesia that has resulted from his own carelessness, from his mother’s jealousy (she had orchestrated the creation of Joon-sang’s second identity by hiring a psychologist to plant false memories in his mind) and finally from a kind of self-imposed and imperfect amnesia (watching the ocean carry his memories away). What is especially interesting about the inclusion of the song at this point is the fact that, in addition to signalling a parallelism between the experiences and emotions of Sang-hyuk in the earlier sequence and Joon-sang in the present sequence, the musical association paves the way for the literal substitution that occurs the morning after the beach scene. Yu-jin awakens and, noticing that Joon-sang’s belongings are gone, rushes out of the bedroom and discovers Sang-hyuk waiting for her. Confused, she asks Sang-hyuk what he is doing there. He explains that Joon-sang has left because his mother is so strongly opposed to his being with Yu-jin that she has threatened to disown him if he continues to see her. ‘When Love Fails’ accompanies their conversation, echoing, like the situation itself, Yu-jin and Sang-hyuk’s earlier conversation, with Sang-hyuk now speaking (for Joonsang) the very words he said to Yu-jin himself just three episodes earlier. The brief sequences described above illustrate just a few of the ways in which music plays an integrated, central role in South Korean television drama. Indeed, Winter Sonata alone offers

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countless other opportunities for investigating the relationship of music to the visual and narrative registers of the drama. Rather than providing any sort of definitive reading of the relationship of music and melodrama in contemporary Korean drama, the objective of this chapter has been to open up discussion and debate on a subject that has remained overlooked, undervalued and nearly forgotten for far too long.

Notes   1

 2

  3

  4   5

  6

Music provides a ‘system of punctuation, giving expressive colour and chromatic contrast to the story-line, by orchestrating the emotional ups and downs of the intrigue’ (Elsaesser 1987: 50). Caryl Flinn’s New German Cinema (2003) and Heather Laing’s The Gendered Score (2007) offer two outstanding examples of thoughtful and provocative work that has been conducted on the connection between music and the melodramatic. For informative discussions of the cultural and economic impact of the Korean Wave, see Cho (2011); Han (2008), Joo (2008), Kim (2007), Shim (2006a) and Sung (2010). For a discussion of Korean cinema and melodrama see Kim, Soyoung (2005). In the introduction to their anthology of writings on the Korean Wave, Chua and Iwabuchi describe Japanese trendy dramas as being focused on ‘romances among young professionals dressed from head to toe in international designer togs, living in well appointed apartments and dining in upscale, especially Western, restaurants in the most trendy locations in the city of Tokyo. Each of the trendy drama series was a visual metaphor for capitalist-consumerist modernity’ (2008b: 2). In her study Lee points out that the gorgeously excessive video for Jo Sung-mo’s ‘Eternal Love’ makes use of the same settings that appear in the Japanese feature film The Love Letter (dir. Iwai Shunji 1995), a movie that was and continues to be immensely popular among Korean viewers. The music video for Kim Beom-soo’s ‘Missing You’, a song featured in the 2003 SBS TV drama Stairway to Heaven, borrows elements from

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 8

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  7

Song Hae-seong’s 2001 feature film, Failan, itself based on a Japanese novella by Jiro Asada, adapted once before for the screen as Love Letter in 1998 by Azuma Morisaki. Of special note is the manner in which the video self-reflexively uses the song’s title (which can be read as ‘I want to see [you]’) as a metaphor for the action it depicts: instead of a young Chinese woman coming to Korea in search of her family, the music video features a young man (played by Yoo Oh-seong) of the Chosun Tribe (people of Korean descent living in North East China) who has come to Korea as part of an illegal labour force. The young man is forced to surrender exorbitant amounts of his meagre paycheck just to remain in the country. The bar hostess (played by Jang Seo-hee) in charge of overseeing the young man’s payments notices that he has difficulty carrying out even the simple tasks demanded of him because of his severe myopia. Concerned, the young woman takes the labourer to an eye clinic and purchases glasses for him. The labourer and the hostess fall in love with one another and, as a final act of kindness, the young woman marks the young foreigner’s debt as paid in full. Her gangster boyfriend (played by Kim Su-ro) becomes jealous and calls the police to report the illegal alien. The young man is arrested, his glasses left broken in the snow, and the jealous boyfriend is brutally beaten (and possibly murdered) by angry gang members. The video ends with a flashback to the nostalgically serene image of the young labourer and the bar hostess riding a bicycle through a snowy landscape in a scene that recalls similar sequences in such iconic films and dramas as The Letter (dir. Lee Jeong-gook 1997) and Winter Sonata (KBS 2002–3). See for example Han (2008), Iwabuchi (2008), Lee, Suekyung (2006) and Onishi (2004). See Mōri (2008) for an exhaustive analysis of the various thematic, cultural and aesthetic qualities of Korean drama that appeal to Japanese female viewers. Rereading Frith’s assertions in an era in which iPods have become ubiquitous symbols of consumer chic that transform public spaces into little more than a collection of individual, privatized spheres, his observations seem even timelier now than they were at the moment of their initial publication.

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The plot of Winter Sonata is extremely complex, filled with the twists and turns typical of the contemporary K-drama. What follows is a brief synopsis for those unfamiliar with the programme: Jung Yu-jin (played by Choi Ji-woo) and Kim Sang-hyuk (played by Park Yong-ha) are high-school friends. Although Sang-hyuk is clearly infatuated with Yujin, the feeling is not mutual. Their lives suddenly change when one day Yu-jin meets Gang Joon-sang (played by Bae Yong-joon), a new transfer student who has come to Chuncheon in search of his longlost father. A bond develops between the two, much to the chagrin of Sang-hyuk and Oh Chae-rin (played by Park Sol-mi), a popular girl who sees herself as Yu-jin’s rival. One night Joon-sang pays a visit to Yu-jin’s home and is shocked to discover a photograph of his mother (played by Song Ok-suk) with her arm around Yu-jin’s father (played by Ha Jae-yeong). Confronted with this evidence, Joon-sang fears that he and his new girlfriend may share the same father. Despite this vexing development, Joon-sang attempts to keep an appointment to meet Yujin on New Year’s Eve, but while rushing across a snow-packed street he is run over by a truck and apparently killed. Grief-stricken, Yu-jin, Sang-hyuk, Chae-rin and their friends Jin-suk (played by Lee Hyeeun) and Yong-guk (played by Ryoo Seung-soo) hold a memorial service for Joon-sang.   The narrative then moves ahead ten years: Yu-jin and Sang-hyuk announce their intention to marry, but on the evening of their engagement party Yu-jin catches a glimpse of a man who looks like Joon-sang and attempts to follow him. Overwhelmed by stress and emotion, Yu-jin collapses. She regains her composure but arrives too late for the ceremony to take place. A rift develops between the couple’s families and, to further complicate matters, Yu-jin discovers that the man she had seen on the street, Lee Min-hyung (also played by Bae Yong-joon), is both her new client and the fiancé of her former rival Chae-rin, who has returned from Paris as a successful designer.   In true melodramatic fashion, the drama reveals that Joon-sang was not killed in the accident but merely lost his memory. As a means of preventing any further search for his lost father, Joon-sang’s mother had hired a psychologist to implant false memories in the young man’s 10

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mind, transforming the Korean-born Joon-sang into American-born Min-hyung. As the drama speeds to a conclusion, the issue of paternity arises again when Min-hyung/Joon-sang faces a life-threatening illness. Despite evidence to the contrary, his mother insists that he and Yu-jin have the same father, relenting only after Sang-hyuk’s father (played by Jeong Dong-hwan) orders a blood test because he believes that Joonsang is his son. At the last minute it is revealed that Joon-sang is, in fact, Sang-hyuk’s half-brother, but the information comes too late. Yu-jin leaves to study abroad as Joon-sang remains behind to undergo risky surgery.   Years pass again, and Yu-jin returns to Korea where she senses the presence of Joon-sang all around her. When her colleague (played by Park Hyeon-sook) shows her a photo of a home that Yu-jin had once designed but had abandoned in the belief that it could never be built, Yu-jin decides to investigate. She discovers the owner of the home is none other than Joon-sang, who has waited too long for surgery and as a result has lost his sight. The two are reunited on the terrace of their dream home as the sun sets in the distance. 11 An added and most likely unintentional benefit of the inclusion of this song is that its status as a recognizable Western pop song, and an old (1980s) one at that, makes it a point of potential identification for international viewers, many of whom are perhaps familiar with the song from their past, and therefore able to understand its narrative meaning even though only snippets are audible.

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9

‘Korean Wave’ in Taiwan: The Cultural Representation of Identities and Food in Korean TV Drama, Dae Jang Geum Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley Introduction South Korean popular cultural products, such as television drama series, pop music, films and their associated celebrities and merchandise, have been popular in East and South East Asia since the late 1990s. News media in the greater China region1 have recognized the recent appeal of Korean popular culture and branded the phenomenon hanliu (hallyu or hanryu in Korean), and the phrase has become the catch-all Chinese term for the ‘Korean Wave’. The rise of the Korean Wave across Greater China reached a new peak with the airing of Dae Jang Geum (aka The Great Jang Geum or Jewel in the Palace), a television soap opera2 produced by Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) in 2003. It has been embraced enthusiastically by much of the Chinese-speaking world including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia, San Francisco and Chicago (Zhou 2005). It has also been extremely well received in 215

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other parts of Asia including the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Japan. What is the secret behind Dae Jang Geum and its Korean counterparts that have Chinese and other Asian fans scrambling for the nation’s popular culture, from food to music and from fashion to tourism? It is possible to read the rise of the Korean Wave from many different aspects. For example, if Ien Ang is correct in her assertion that ‘popular pleasure is first and foremost a pleasure of recognition’ (1985: 20), recent Korean TV dramas must have offered something that is recognizable and identifiable to its Asian audiences for it to attain such popularity. David Desser (2001) noticed a pan-Asian youth element when he researched films across Asia exploring the joys and problems of modernization and economic development. Koichi Iwabuchi believed that South Korean popular cultural products have provided the region with ‘a sense of living in the shared time and common experience … which cannot be represented well by American popular culture’ (2001a: 56). Doobo Shim (2006a: 39) thought that regional audiences receive and form similar identities from watching the same programmes and develop imagined communities in Asia. Moreover, Shim offered a sophisticated argument that ‘the Korean Wave is indebted to the media liberalization that swept across Asia in the 1990s’ (2006a: 28) and examined ‘how Koreans appropriate global cultural forms to express their local sentiment and culture’ (2006a: 27). Sang-yeon Sung (2008a) found that through Korean television soaps: ‘Chinese audiences were attracted to the “modern image” seen in the fashions, hair styles, and lifestyles of South Korea.’ At first glance, this notion of modern Asia may not apply to Dae Jang Geum as it is a historical costume drama. However, the programme’s lavish period costumes and props, historical architecture and fine make-up appeal to a consumer culture embraced by well-educated women; the moral of the storyline attracts less-educated women as it seems to reflect their ‘desire to survive with dignity in a society’ where the process of modernization places domesticity at the bottom of a new cultural hierarchy (Yang 2008a: 65–6). In addition, Eiko Hasegawa

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(2005) attempted to explain the popularity of Korean TV dramas in Japan from the angle of Japanese domestic identity politics and demonstrated the possibility of understanding the phenomenon of the Korean Wave from the perspectives of individual countries. This chapter will look at hanliu in a Chinese context because it is difficult to argue that there is one Asian culture, imagined or otherwise. After all, Asia is a divided continent and the term ‘Asia’ itself, throughout most of the twentieth century, ‘was not much more than a matter of nomenclature, which merely indicated the continent’s geographic location’ (Otmazgin 2005: 500). I shall discuss the development and reception of the Korean Wave in Taiwan because Taiwan was one of the first regions in Asia that responded to and helped to spread hanliu in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Doobo Shim (2006a: 28) has observed that signs of the Korean Wave appeared initially in 1997 when a Korean TV drama, What is Love All About? (MBC 1991–2), was aired in China and caught the attention of Chinese viewers. Two years later, in 1999, another Korean TV soap, Stars in My Heart (MBC 1997), was shown in China and Taiwan and experienced unprecedented popularity. Since then, as Jaser Marasigan (2006) has commented: ‘For a country that traditionally received culture, especially from neighbouring China and Japan, and even the US, South Korea finds itself at a turning point in its new role as the exporter.’ Korean television drama series have rapidly become a huge hit in many other Asian countries. Taiwan was the largest importer of Korean dramas until 2003 (Kim, Hyun Mee 2005: 185), and the unprecedented popularity of Dae Jang Geum in Taiwan led to it being exported to mainland China and spreading to the overseas Chinese communities.3 Although the phenomenon of the Korean Wave covers many different popular cultural products, my focus will be on television drama series only and especially on Dae Jang Geum because this programme received the highest ratings of any South Korean TV soap since Taiwanese television stations began steadily importing large amounts of these programmes in 2000 (see Table 1). One interesting point is that there are actually a lot of similarities between TV soaps

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Table 1: Ratings of Korean TV soaps in Taiwan, 2000–7 Year

Programme Title

Highest Ratings in Taiwan (%)

2000 Firework

4.9

2001 2002 2003 2004 2004

Autumn in My Heart Winter Sonata Story of a Mermaid Stairway to Heaven Dae Jang Geum

2.91 2.87 3.98 3.65 6.35

2005 Lovers in Paris 2005 Full House 2006 My Lovely Sam-soon

3.88 6.09 3.19

2006 2006 2006 2006 2007

Be Strong Geum-soon Princess Hours Sky Rosy Life Jumong

4.56 3.84 3.89 3.58 3.20

2007 Strange Woman, Strange Man 2007 Fashion 70s 2007 Dr Bong 2007 Foxy Lady 2007 Dalja’s Spring 2007 Super Rookie Ranger 2007 Hwangjiny

1.48

*

Note The average ratings of a programme will be lower than its recorded highest ratings.

The highest recorded ratings of a Korean soap in Taiwan. The five 2006 programmes listed here were the top five Korean soaps in Taiwan that year. The highest ratings of other Korean soaps were all below 3 per cent.

From 2007 onwards, the appeal of Korean TV soaps has been noticeably declining.

1.35 1.12 1.18 1.01 0.51 1.29

(Source: Drama Section of Planning Department, Gala Television Corporation, 28 March 2008.) * GTV has lost the data for Firework. This figure (4.9) is cited in Sung (2008a). However my interviewee, Mr Lai of GTV, does not think the ratings of Firework ever reached 4.9 per cent as far as he remembers.

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produced in South Korea and Taiwan, except for the fact that the imported South Korean TV dramas of the Korean Wave often look more lavish, with a higher production budget, than their Taiwanese counterparts. As Tsung-Pi Lai of Gala Television Corporation (GTV, bada dianshi gongsi) in Taiwan has admitted, when his station began screening South Korean TV dramas in the late 1990s, they dubbed the programmes into either Mandarin or into Taiwanese without forewarning the audience about the origin of these programmes. Viewers often thought that these programmes were produced locally (interview by the author in Taipei, Taiwan on 28 March 2008).4 While this may be seen as a slightly devious method employed by GTV to build up viewership for their South Korean imports, the fact that many viewers did not immediately recognize these programmes as being ‘foreign’ has proven a certain compatibility and similarity between South Korean soaps and those produced in Taiwan. There are other historical costume dramas listed in Table 1 in addition to Dae Jang Geum. Yet while the highest ratings for Dae Jang Geum reached 6.35 per cent in 2004, Jumong only attracted 3.20 per cent and Hwangjiny 1.29 per cent in 2007. This suggests that the historical drama format is not the major factor for the popularity of Dae Jang Geum. In fact, one could argue that Dae Jang Geum is extremely popular ‘in spite of ’ being set during ancient Korean history, because the favoured genre of South Korean TV soaps among audiences in Taiwan is usually the ‘modern idol drama’ (xiandai ouxiang ju); that is, drama serials set in modern times with the most popular stars of the day playing the leading roles. Therefore, the majority of the programmes in Table 1 are within this latter category (except for Dae Jang Geum, Jumong and Hwangjiny, which are historical costume dramas). I shall attempt to offer some explanations later in the chapter for the decline in ratings, be it for modern idol drama or otherwise, from 2006/7 onwards, as indicated in Table 1. Nevertheless, my main focus is examining how Dae Jang Geum has struck a chord with Chinese sentiments such as Confucianism and family values, and explain

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why the programme was loved and admired by the Chinese communities from Asia to America. It is worth noting that cultural flow is a multidirectional process. Researchers have noticed that American cultural ideas and products often become popular in Japan first and then, through its mediation, spread to Taiwan, Hong Kong and other Asian regions. Despite the political stalemate between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in recent years, popular culture has flowed three ways relatively freely between Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China (Curtin 2007). In fact, Taiwanese popular culture and cultural products often enjoy tremendous popularity on the Chinese mainland. For example, Michael Curtin noted that Taiwanese television productions ‘were playing in prime time on the leading terrestrial stations in Hong Kong and the PRC’ (2007: 138), while one of the top ten TV programmes in Taiwan in 2006 was a drama series imported from the mainland (see Table 2 on p. 224). From the perspective of personal experience, when I lived in China between 2005 and 2007, I also witnessed how, among the general public in the PRC, Taiwanese food and drink, pop songs, television dramas and celebrities were well received.5 Scholars have also identified a ‘tiered system’ in mainland China whereby certain cultural and consumer products may become highly desirable in large international cities such as Beijing and Shanghai first (e.g. the first-tier cities). Such crazes will often spread to the second- and third-tier cities such as Nanjing, Hanzhou, Ningbo Weihai, etc., because residents of lower-ranked cities usually aspire to the living standards and lifestyles of the more advanced ones (Hockx and Strauss 2005). Therefore, even when the popularity of a cultural product or phenomenon begins to decline in the first-tier or second-tier cities and areas, the product may continue to enjoy tremendous success in another part of the country or region for some time to come depending on how far the phenomenon has spread and to what extent.

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In the case of the Korean Wave, the ‘tiered system’ is a useful model in conceptualizing how interest in Korean television drama travels from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong to overseas Chinese communities that exist as far away as the US and Europe. It does not mean that the overseas Chinese communities, like the lowertier areas, necessarily aspire to the lifestyle of Taiwan as one of the first-tier regions in Asia. However, the geographical advantage of Taiwan made it much easier for its people to obtain Korean popular cultural products during the height of the Korean Wave than overseas Chinese or Asians living outside Asia. For example, Sangyeon Sung (2008a) has observed that ‘as a Korean living in Europe, I often notice the growing consumption of Korean popular culture among overseas Asians. There are active interchanges of Korean popular culture, such as sharing the DVDs of Korean television dramas and purchasing many Korean DVDs whenever overseas Asians return to their home country.’ Therefore, while Taiwanese audiences seem to have shown signs of fatigue towards Korean TV drama series since 2006 and 2007 as Table 1 reveals, it can be predicted that the Korean Wave may continue to touch the hearts of overseas Chinese communities for a considerable length of time.

The Reception of Korean TV Dramas in Taiwan Liberalization of the media began in Taiwan in the late 1980s and cable television was legalized in 1993 (Rawnsley 2003: 147–66). The number of legally operated television channels jumped from three national terrestrial stations in 1993 to 166 channels (including terrestrial and cable) in 2006 (Media Palette 2007). In the same year, the household penetration rate of cable television in Taiwan reached 84.2 per cent (Media Agencies Association 2007: 10), and 94.5 per cent of the population of four years old and over watched television regularly (Media Agencies Association 2007: 6). As previously mentioned, Taiwanese viewers began to be exposed to individual Korean television dramas between 1997 and 1999, and GTV is arguably the trendsetter for the Korean Wave 221

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in Taiwan. GTV was not the first Taiwanese station to purchase Korean TV dramas, but it was the first that devised a strategy for introducing Korean TV soaps steadily to Taiwanese viewers in a regular slot at the same time on the same channel.6 GTV purchased drama series from the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) in the late 1990s and early 2000 for financial reasons; Korean television dramas were much cheaper than the ones produced by other East Asian countries at the time. For example, Korean TV soaps cost about $1,000 per episode in 2000 and 2001, but Japanese dramas might have cost up to $15,000 and the ones from Hong Kong up to $10,000. Korean TV soaps were even cheaper than many locallyproduced Taiwanese dramas of equivalent quality in terms of production values (e.g. beautiful costumes, locations and shooting techniques), the production fees of which cost around $2,667 (e.g. NT$ 80,000) per hour (interview). Furthermore, Korean TV companies and stars were willing to cooperate with foreign buyers who purchased their programmes by attending promotional tours and meeting viewers abroad. This strategy has boosted the popularity of the Korean Wave and in turn has stimulated foreign buyers’ interest in importing Korean TV dramas (Lai 2007). As discussed earlier, when GTV first acquired Korean TV imports, the station dubbed them into local languages and provided Chinese subtitles. These Korean soaps were televised straight after locally produced programmes without being specially labelled as ‘foreign’ or ‘Korean’. Although the Korean imports did not garner more than 1 per cent of ratings at the earliest stages, they demonstrated strong commercial potential in the eyes of programme planners at GTV. Hence GTV decided in 2000 to devote a whole new channel, GTV Drama (bada xiju tai), to television drama series from neighbouring Asian countries. This channel was aimed at female audiences between the ages of 24 and 44. One of their strategies for attracting this demographic was the systematic broadcast of Korean TV soaps because of three attractive considerations: (1) beautiful locations and scenery portrayed in these dramas series; (2) a physically appealing cast with particularly idealized leading men

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and women; and (3) carefully designed camera shots which add to the appearance of high production quality (Lai 2007). When Firework was televised on GTV Drama in 2000 and attracted 4.9 per cent of viewers during its peak, other cable companies were so envious that they quickly joined the queue to import increasing numbers of Korean TV dramas, which resulted in the formal arrival of hanliu in Taiwan. Due to the huge number of cable channels available, competition between television stations is intense. Generally speaking, an individual programme will be seen as well received if it can regularly reach ratings of over 1 per cent, which means it attracts around 240,000 viewers. Therefore, as we can see in Table 1, Korean TV soap operas have been a phenomenon since 2000, recording highest ratings well above 2 and 3 per cent. The Korean Wave reached a peak in 2004 with the airing of Dae Jang Geum (6.35 per cent), gradually declining in 2005 and 2006 (between 3 and 5 per cent on average) and finally dropping to below 1 per cent in 2007, which is closer to normal figures in the context of Taiwan’s TV environment. If we compare Table 1 with Table 2, which indicates the top ten TV programmes in Taiwan in 2006, we will discover firstly that Taiwanese viewers still seemed to prefer domestic programmes in general (nine out of the top ten programmes in 2006 were all locally produced drama series and entertainment programmes), and secondly that the rating for the most popular programme was 6.73 per cent and that of the tenth popular programme was 3.33 per cent. Although the average ratings are always lower than the highest ratings, the fact that Korean soaps constantly delivered the highest ratings that were above 3 per cent between 2003 and 2006 has proven the level of their popularity in Taiwan. Why did the Taiwanese viewers like Korean drama series so much, and why Dae Jang Geum in particular?

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Table 2: Ratings of the top ten TV programmes in Taiwan, 2006 No.

Programme Title

Programme Type

Average Ratings (%)

1

Most Delicious (Tianxia diyi wei)

Domestic drama series in Taiwanese

2

Unforgettable (Yi nan wang)

Domestic drama series in Taiwanese

3

Magical Love Hairdresser (Aiqing mofashi)

Domestic drama series in Mandarin

4

Entertainment Big Winner (Zongyi da yingjia) Smiling PASTA (Weixiao PASTA)

Light entertainment

4.33

Domestic drama series in Mandarin

4.30

5

Entertainment Gathering Light entertainment (Zongyi da jihe) 7 Martial Couple With Magical Eagle Drama series (Shendiao xiaolü) imported from the PRC Love (Ai) 8 Domestic drama series in Taiwanese 9 Youthful Boys and Girls Domestic drama (Huayang shaonian shaonü) series in Mandarin 10 Entertainment Big Brother Light entertainment (Zongyi dage wangwang qing tuanyuan)

6

6.73 5.67 4.60

3.88 3.74

3.49 3.40 3.33

(Source: AGB Nielsen Media Research, quoted in Media Agencies Association 2007: 16.)

The Appeal of Korean TV Dramas As stated above, there are several technical factors that make Korean TV dramas particularly appealing to Chinese audiences in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, including stylized camera shots, sophisticated settings and costumes, the sense of material wealth and idolized stars who have become cultural icons across Asia. For 224

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example, Chinese viewers of Dae Jang Geum were so ‘swept off the ground by the exquisite beauty of Lee Young-ae, the actress who plays the title role’ (Zhou 2005: 14), it was reported that during the peak of her fame, some of her fans in Taiwan and China even tried to physically change their facial features in order to look like Lee by undergoing cosmetic surgery (Shim 2006a: 29). From the ‘content’ point of view, there are further reasons that can explain the appeal of Korean TV dramas. As Raymond Zhou has reported: The Chinese culture and the Korean culture overlap in many ways. So Chinese audiences can easily identify with the characters and their behaviours, said Jiao Yan, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. ‘We see a purer form of Confucianism and are refreshed by it because we feel a sense of belonging.’ Wang Li, a Beijing publisher who is on the South Korean bandwagon and has the Chinese rights to several South Korean best-sellers, concurs: ‘the Confucius tradition reflected in these Korean dramas and books are like déjà vu to us because we cannot find it in our own writers and artists. Besides, a whole family of several generations can enjoy a show together as it is devoid of sex and violence.’ (2005: 14)

Indeed, many Taiwanese viewers I encountered between 2004 and 2006 expressed similar opinions to those above. Nevertheless, I believe that Dae Jang Geum had something extra which allowed it to receive record ratings among its Korean counterparts and attract attention from Western broadcasters (BBC News 2007; Manila Bulletin 2006). After all, even if the elements of Confucianism and family values are important, traditional Korean soap operas such as Lady (TBC, Tongyang Broadcasting Company) in the 1970s and Chunwon (Diary of Country Life, MBC) in the 1980s always followed conventional moral principles, but never created a widespread ‘Korea-mania’ prior to 1997.7 Furthermore, domestically produced TV soaps in Taiwan have often expressed similar cultural sentiments to the Korean ones, 225

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but the ratings of these programmes have been unpredictable. For example, one of the most popular TV series produced in Taiwan in 1974 was Judge Bao (Bao qingtian), a historical drama about a clean and fair-minded dark-faced Mandarin who solved numerous crimes and brought justice to the weak, the wronged and the poor. The series was reproduced in 1993 and became a sensation in the greater China region and many countries in South East Asia for several years. However, not all historical dramas are able to stimulate the same positive response from the audiences as Judge Bao. While the emphasis of essential Confucian virtues such as patriotism (zhong), filial piety (xiao), morality and hierarchy (jie), as well as righteousness (yi), may be seen as the winning formula for one programme, the same elements may be rejected by contemporary viewers because they are perceived as outdated, old-fashioned and even politically incorrect for being supportive of sexism, feudalism and authoritarianism. In other words, what is important is not only which values are portrayed in a programme, but also how these values are expressed and explored by the storylines and the characters. In the case of the South Korean TV soaps imported since the late 1990s, I shall argue that it is not simply the ‘traditional values’ in these dramas but how these values are depicted that appeal to the viewers in Taiwan and other Asian countries. Thirdly, even though some observers (see Zhou 2005) felt that the ‘purer form of Confucianism’ in Korean soaps could not be found in Chinese cultural products, researchers have identified strong traditional values (e.g. family, patriotism, tradition) in addition to modern themes (e.g. modernity/technology, beauty/ youth, enjoyment/pleasure) in Chinese television programmes and commercials (Zhang and Harwood 2002: 247). It has also been discovered that Chinese viewers endorse values of interpersonal harmony much more highly than values of hierarchical relations because ‘the interpersonal harmony values represent the inner pole of Confucianism; they remained vital and the core of what it means to be Chinese’ (Zhang and Harwood 2002: 251). This echoes what

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I discussed above in that it is not ‘content’ per se but how the content is represented and traditional values articulated that will determine the response of the audience to a programme. Perhaps even more importantly, the key to the real success of a soap opera is how the value system of a particular drama series is perceived, internalized and interpreted by the viewers.

Cultural Representations in Dae Jang Geum It has been noted that ‘filmmakers in all film genres turn to food to communicate important aspects of characters’ emotions, along with their personal and cultural identities’ (Bower 2004: 1). Much of Dae Jang Geum is devoted to showing various characters preparing lavish banquets or simple foods for different people for a variety of reasons. I shall argue that the identities of many of the characters and the quality of their relationships portrayed in the programme are actually manifested by food and drink. Dae Jang Geum has revealed many philosophies on life and human relations through the cultural representation of taste that is familiar to the Chinese community. Moreover, food in the programme, especially in women’s eyes, embodies competence, knowledge and power. Thus, food can often be associated with self-image and identity, as well as translated into status and hierarchy. The show is the fictionalized tale of Korea’s first female royal physician, Seo Jang Geum. The story was set in the early days of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) when Korean society followed extremely strict Confucian rules with a clearly defined class system. Sexes had distinctive social roles and women were taught to be obedient and submissive to men. Like many other popular melodramas, the title character Jang Geum goes through hardships and tough times including palace conflicts, power struggles, personal tragedies, conspiracy, misunderstandings, betrayals and persecution, but she endures. She grew up an orphan and her lifelong ambition was to become the chief royal chef because of family reasons. It should be an impossible 227

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dream because of her impoverished background, but she triumphs against all odds. In fact, she achieves more than she originally hoped for. Her knowledge of food and drink and skill in cooking and practising medicine, as well as her wisdom and virtue, won over the emperor, who decided to appoint her the one and only female royal physician in Joseon history. Because women were not allowed to be mandarins, Jang Geum was granted an honorary title by the emperor, the Great Jang Geum. Furthermore, when the emperor passed away and a more conservative political power took over, Jang Geum’s lover was determined to give up his political career and ran away with her. As fugitives he grew to share her devotion to helping and curing the sick and the unfortunate for the rest of their lives. Dae Jang Geum is not a typical story of romantic love or of a love triangle. Nor is the character of Jang Geum a stereotypical Korean female who is simply passive, helpless, obedient and submissive, as seen in many other Korean series both before and after this drama. Her proactive attitude, independent thinking and stubborn determination in seeking knowledge, pursuing truth and helping others make her closer to a modern-day feminist rather than an old-time beauty in need of rescue by her hero in a male-dominated world. Moreover, Dae Jang Geum ‘imparts moral values and tips on how to live a good and healthy life’ (Valdez-Pua 2006), and all of these are portrayed through the cultural representations of food and drink which can be categorized in three ways: (i) Cooking as Expression of Feelings and Relationships Jang Geum’s mentor in the royal kitchen is Lady Han, who taught the young Jang Geum how to identify the tastes and different uses of hundreds of herbs. Equipped with the teachings of Lady Han, knowledge from books and her own endless endeavour, Jang Geum constantly expands her horizons and improves her skills through experiment, research and practice. The relationship between Jang Geum and Lady Han is not only that of a student and teacher, but the love shared between them also creates a bond more like a mother and daughter. We see how Jang Geum gradually moves her position

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in the royal kitchen to centre stage (and takes charge in cooking nutritious food for the Emperor which symbolizes the changing hierarchy among royal chefs and Jang Geum’s advancement from a junior trainee to a master chef), and Lady Han is as happy as the audience with Jang Geum’s progress. Food in the programme can be manipulative because it is synonymous with love. One can be seduced into doing something by food; one can also be hurt by deprivation of food or by being offered wrong kinds of food. Indeed, food plays an important part in palace politics. When the Emperor’s many wives vie for status and attention, one of the most common tricks is to bribe royal chefs to use harmful ingredients in their dishes so that their imperial competitors either become sick or unable to produce an heir to the throne. A further example is when Jang Geum wishes to express her gratitude to the young mandarin who one day will become her husband. The only method she knows is to prepare a delicious meal with all her heart because the imperial regulations do not allow any physical contact between unmarried men and women. Yet when the young mandarin accepts the food parcel from Jang Geum with an adoring smile, the audience can tell immediately that love between the young couple is secretly growing. (ii) Cooking as a Spiritual Journey Cooking in the programme is often portrayed as an analogy of spiritual experiences and the process of self-improvement. The characters always discuss food and drink with a sense of passion because, to the master royal chefs, cooking is an essential part of who they are. This general attitude towards food and drink makes cooking much more complex and interesting than simply an ordinary action that is a mundane part of daily life. Jang Geum’s journey of seeking understanding and knowledge about food, which can be medicine or poison depending on the situation, often leads her to deeper wisdom and self-discovery. For example, Jang Geum once temporarily damaged her taste buds as a result of her experiment to find a cure for an illness. Only then did she finally

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realize that the real sense of taste is not derived from mouth and tongue, but from a variety of sources such as touch, imagination, smell, feeling and more. Comparable ideas are represented elsewhere. Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s comedy film, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (1994), conveys almost the same message about taste and life. The central character of the film, Chef Zhu, is losing his sense of taste because of his advancing age, but he continues to be the best and the most respected chef in modern Taipei. Hence the comparison between chefs and musicians advanced by his best friend, Chef Wen, who says that a good chef (such as Mr Zhu) does not rely on his tongue for cooking because good taste is not in the mouth, just as an excellent musician (such as Beethoven) does not rely on his hearing for composing because good music is not in the ears (Rawnsley 2008). Hence, like Chef Zhu of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, the profound wisdom of cooking discovered by Jang Geum enables her to continue to invent and cook delicious cuisines despite not being able to taste the dishes herself. In addition, the more knowledge the characters obtain about food and medicine, the more they struggle with moral dilemmas. For example, when Jang Geum becomes a skilful physician and earns a good reputation in the palace, her enemy begins to seek her medical help. Jang Geum goes through internal turmoil, asking herself tough moral questions: What kind of responsibility does a doctor have towards her patients? Can a doctor ever abandon her duty because she does not want to treat a particular patient when she has the ability to cure that person? Jang Geum’s sense of humanity makes her respect all human lives and prevents her from watching suffering without attempting to offer any help. Her heartfelt answers, arrived at through much soul-searching, not only strengthen her character but also enhance her self-worth. (iii) Cooking as Self, Cultural and National Identities As Raymond Zhou has noted: ‘Dae Jang Geum grabs, tickles and warms us because it seems exotic’ (2005: 14). This is precisely because

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of ‘the delicate craft of Korean cuisine and medicine’ presented in the programme: ‘in the show, the preparation of Korean food is shown as meticulously presented as in a cooking programme. It is so instructive that it has become something like a Martha Stewart episode on how to eat well and eat healthy’ (2005: 14). The elaborate culinary skills and passion for cooking demonstrated in Dae Jang Geum offer an additional form of spectacle for the soap’s viewers. There are indeed numerous cooking scenes throughout the series. Sometimes what is being prepared is an ordinary family meal; sometimes it is the occasion for serious competition between royal chefs and/or trainees; sometimes it is a lavish imperial banquet. Yet whatever the occasion, the main dishes are rarely repeated. There are always variations either by using different ingredients or adopting different methods of cooking. In this way, the different personalities of the chefs are expressed and explained through their taste and habits when preparing food. The huge variety of cooking also gives an impression of the richness and diversity of Korean cuisine and the profundity of the philosophies behind the art of cooking. One of the best examples in the programme is when a new Chinese ambassador from the Ming dynasty arrives in Korea and Jang Geum and Lady Han are assigned to cook for him. He is an extremely picky eater with exquisite taste. However, the ambassador suffers from an illness that means rich food harms his health without his knowing. Jang Geum and Lady Han deliberately prepare for him a healthy diet while at the same time trying their hardest to make simple ingredients as tasty as possible. The ambassador hates the banquet at first as he thinks that he is being insulted by not being presented with the most expensive, complicated and rarest dishes. Yet when he feels better in himself after eating the food, he begins to appreciate the invaluable goodness of the Korean royal chefs’ skills and virtues. The programme praises the art of Chinese cooking by admitting the Koreans learnt a huge amount from China; it also honours the wisdom of Korean cooking by demonstrating how

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the Koreans appropriated what they learnt from ancient Chinese civilization and made it Korean. As Sang-yeon Sung (2008a) has recorded, one of her interviewees said that ‘I think Koreans are very proud of their culture and tradition … They try to express “Korea”… I could just feel how Koreans are proud of their tradition and culture.’ When Korean TV dramas such as Dae Jang Geum are able to articulate their pride in Korean culture in this way, the viewers respond. To summarize, food imagery has served multiple purposes in Dae Jang Geum and the analysis of its representations helps us to understand why and how the programme appeals so much to the Chinese, and perhaps, other Asian viewers: firstly, food references help enrich the portrayal of characters and the Chinese audiences can easily identify with these characters and their behaviours; secondly, activities concerning food, such as eating and cooking, symbolize power relations between characters. As the relations are structured by a Confucian tradition, the Chinese audiences see a refreshed yet familiar viewpoint and feel a sense of belonging; and thirdly, the depiction of Korean culinary skills in the programme is a method of glorifying indigenous cultures. Therefore, while viewers feel comfortable with the manner in which cultural values are represented in Dae Jang Geum, the programme also seems very ‘Korean’ and thus gives a sense of exoticism that both domestic and foreign audiences can enjoy.

The Future of the Korean Wave As indicated in Table 1, the ratings for Korean drama serials in Taiwan began to decline in 2006. According to Mr Tsung-Pi Lai, who has been in charge of programme buying for GTV since the late 1990s, he has witnessed signs of the Korean Wave waning in East and South East Asia in recent years through his meetings with various TV programme buyers and sellers in Asia (interview). Moreover, there seem to be different reasons for this decline in different regions. For example, while Dae Jang Geum expresses 232

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admiration towards ancient Chinese civilization, it portrays Japan as an enemy. Although it is hard to establish that Japan shortened available schedules for televising Korean drama series in the couple of years following Dae Jang Geum, it is noticeable that Japan did reduce screening slots for Korean TV soaps. Moreover, several Korean historical drama series in 2006 discussed the territorial issues of North East China. This may have resulted in the decision by the Chinese government to impose stricter rules on the selection of Korean TV imports.8 In other words, the political dimensions of cultural exchange within Asia may have played an important role in ‘managing’ the Korean Wave and should not be ignored. As for the cases of Taiwan and South East Asia, Korean TV soaps are gradually losing their commercial appeal for two reasons. Firstly, the price of Korean soaps has risen as much as tenfold compared with the price in 2000. While the average price of Korean drama series was around $1,000 per hour in 2000, it cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per hour for top-quality (e.g. A+ class)9 Korean TV soaps in 2004 and 2005 (interview). Secondly, the viewers have become increasingly used to and have perhaps gradually tired of the generic formula, such as the cast of idolized stars, location shootings, recurrent plot elements, etc., and there has not been as unique and fascinating a script as Dae Jang Geum. Nevertheless, it is far too early to announce the end of the Korean Wave in Asia. The effect of the ‘tiered system’ is still powerful outside East and South East Asia. If the Korean Wave makes a significant impact in the Western cultural industries, it is highly possible that the trend may travel back to Asia and enjoy a second wave. Moreover, its long-term popularity has made the ‘Korean Wave’ a recognized brand name. Although viewers are showing signs of fatigue towards TV soaps from Korea, generally speaking people in Asia are still interested in these soaps and confident in their quality if no preferred programmes are televised at the same time. I believe that the most important element which will ensure the continuity of the Korean Wave is to maintain the strength of creativity and the quality of the cultural product. In the case of

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television soap operas, it is the quality of the script which makes efforts in finding innovative ways to tell a story. As Dong-Hoon Ma (1993: 51–2) has pointed out, the first TV drama serial was screened in Korea in 1962. Although by the 1970s the soap opera became one of the most popular programme formats in the country, it also received harsh criticism because of repetitiveness in storylines and unimaginative narratives. The 1980s saw some changes when a series of government reforms regulated ratings wars between TV companies and encouraged creativity. The reforms of the 1980s ‘provided a momentum for television’s dramatic format to turn its attention to other possible variations, such as large scale drama series or single television films, based on modern literature and history’ (Ma 1993: 53). The tired narrative style of the 1980s10 was injected with a new kind of energy during the era of the Korean Wave which has finally allowed Korean TV soaps to find a new generation of international audiences. To conclude, it is only through continuous innovation that TV drama series survive and thrive in Korea and other countries through different times. The technical formula of the ‘Korean Wave’ TV soaps may have been inspirational during the late 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium, but it is difficult to imagine that it will be forever a panacea that ensures constant popularity. As analysed earlier, the reasons for the decline of the Korean Wave in Asia in recent years are complex. Yet beside the individual country’s political and financial considerations which are out of the control of Korean TV producers, the one thing that the production forces behind the Korean TV soap operas can do is to continue stimulating further creativity in order to ensure future success. The moral values of Confucianism, the physical appearances of the cast and the beautiful camera shots may all be very important for the popularity of Dae Jang Geum and other successful Korean TV drama series. But most important of all is that the various themes and cultural elements are tied together by an excellent script and represented in a way that can be appreciated by viewers all over the world.

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 1

  2

  3

The greater China region in this chapter refers to mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities around the world. The term ‘soap opera’ usually refers to fictional programmes broadcast on radio or television that are episodic and continuous without ever reaching an ultimate conclusion. However, neither Korea nor the greater China region have produced never-ending or rather openended fictional TV programmes such as Home and Away (7 Network 1988–) in Australia, Coronation Street (Granada 1960–) in the UK or General Hospital (ABC 1963–) in the US. Hence ‘soap opera’ in this chapter refers to an episodic drama series which is televised on a regular basis, often five days a week. It is within this context that ‘TV soaps’ are used interchangeably with ‘drama series/serials’ in this chapter. I must point out that different observers may provide slightly different versions of how the Korean Wave started in Asia. Hyun Mee Kim said that ‘it was in 1999 that reports of an emerging “Korean Wave” in China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong and other Asian countries first started to come out’ (2005: 184). Both Doobo Shim (2006a) and Sangyeon Sung (2008a) believed that it began sometime in 1997 in China, quickly followed by Taiwan. However, while Shim thought the title of the programme was What is Love All About? and the station was China Central Television, Sung thought the programme was Stars in My Heart and the station was Phoenix TV. According to my interview with Mr Tsung-Pi Lai, Vice President of the Planning Department, Gala Television Corporation (28 March 2008), although between 1997 and 1999 individual Korean TV dramas received good ratings in China and Taiwan, the popularity did not translate into the Korean Wave until his station launched a dedicated TV channel in Taiwan in 2000 which scheduled consistent slots to broadcast Korean drama series. Mr Lai believed that the Korean Wave in the greater China region began in Taiwan in 2000 and then quickly spread to China, Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities.

‘Korean Wave’ in Taiwan

Notes

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 4

  5

  6

 7

Mandarin is the national language in Taiwan and Taiwanese is the mother tongue of almost 70 per cent of the population on the island. Hence TV soaps produced in Taiwan usually either use Mandarin or Taiwanese. Moreover, dubbing is common in Taiwan for imports from Hong Kong and mainland China and sometimes even for locally produced programmes. I worked and lived at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China (UNNC) from the beginning of August 2005 to the end of January 2007. During my time in China, I noticed that Taiwanese coffee houses and bakeries were very popular in all the Chinese cities I visited including Ningbo, Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and many more. Taiwanese singer Jack Chou was (and still is) a big star across the Taiwan Strait and played a major role in Zhang Yimou’s blockbuster movie Curse of the Golden Flower (2007). When I visited Ningbo in mid-March 2008, I even saw a TV trailer for one of the most popular Taiwanese TV soaps, Taiwan Lightening Fire (2002), originally a Taiwanese-speaking series, but dubbed into Mandarin for broadcast on a major terrestrial TV channel in the PRC. It is worth noting that the TV drama series, or ‘soap’, is not the only genre imported into Taiwan from South Korea. Game shows are also very popular. But as TV soaps are the major import and the focus of this chapter, other types of programming are not addressed here. Lady is set between the 1930s and the 1950s, and is about a virtuous woman who is unloved by her husband and hated by her mother-inlaw. But the woman continues to devote herself to her husband’s family, including his illegitimate son who was born as a result of his careless one-night stand. Chunwon traces the struggles and development of a rural Korean family during the post-Korean War period. Traditional Confucian virtues such as filial piety and family unity are strong themes throughout the series. For more details see Ma (1993). I would also like to acknowledge a conversation I had with Mr Jae-Won Joo, PhD candidate, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, on 29 September 2008 in Leeds. The conversation helped me to understand traditional Korean TV drama further.

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10

For example, the story of Jumong is set in 108 BC when Korea was at war with China. Jumong is a Korean hero who defeated the enemy and restored the territory occupied by the foreign power (China in this instance). Mr Lai of GTV did not offer a scientific model of how ‘top quality’ is defined in the industry. It is roughly gauged by how famous the cast are, especially the leading man and lady, and how beautiful or expensive the programme appears in terms of production values. According to Ma (1993: 53–4), traditional narratives of the Korean TV drama serials ‘had a tendency to postpone their climax, and to prolong the storylines as long as possible without losing the audience’s attention … Lengthy facial or scenic shots and monologue type narratives were frequently used.’

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  8

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10

Say Hallyu, Wave Goodbye: The Rise and Fall of Korean Wave Drama Jeongmee Kim Over the last few years South Korea (hereafter Korea) has been responsible for a cultural phenomenon known as hallyu, or the Korean Wave. Its television output, a hugely important aspect of this wave, has been exported to numerous East Asian and South East Asian countries including Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Mongolia, China and Japan, and has made international celebrities out of many of its stars. Tom Vick begins his chapter on Korean cinema in Asian Cinema: An Expedition through the Dynamic World of Asian Film with these words: ‘a small peninsula suspended between China and Japan, Korea’s history is bound up with influences – not to mention invasion and subjugation – from both of those nations’ (2007: 143). It is now well recognized that this ‘small peninsula suspended between China and Japan’ has become a centre of transnational cultural exchange in Asia. Vick’s brief introduction, one that conjures the image of a country long in the shadow of others, gives a strong indication as to why Korea has utilized hallyu as a powerful tool in the construction and export of its national image and further has perceived it to be an indicator of 239

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‘the long awaited cultural ascendancy and Asian-wide recognition of Korea’ (Kim 2007: 56). The cultural insignificance of Korea in Asia has come to an end since the unprecedented popularity of Korean television drama, film and music across Asia. The New York Times reported that ‘[i]n 2003, South Korea exported $650 million in cultural products’, pointing out that ‘the amount was so insignificant before 1998 that the government could not provide figures’ (Onishi 2005: A3). The Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism reported that ‘the total amount of Korean television programme exports increased as many as 13 times between 1995 and 2004, from $5.5million in 1995 to $71.4 million in 2004’ (Jin 2007: 753). By 2009, hallyu products were having a significant impact upon Korea’s domestic product, raising it by 0.2 per cent (Lee, Keehyeung 2008: 178) as the country apparently ‘exported nearly $3 billion in entertainment ... [and had] ... up to 400 independent studios creating content for domestic and international markets’ (Farrar 2010). Prior to this boom, Korea was a recipient of foreign culture rather than a producer. The influence of American culture had been dominant in Korean society like so much of the rest of the world; in addition, Japan was another major source of cultural influence. Japanese cultural products were actually banned in Korea until 1998 and the signing of the Joint Declaration of the New Twenty-First Century Korea-Japan Partnership,1 after which the ban was relaxed until supposedly being completely lifted in 2004 (although Japanese dramas were still not screened on terrestrial television). Japan had long taken the pivotal role as mediator in interpreting Western culture which Korea then in turn imitated or, as Dong-Ho Lee more delicately puts it, ‘internalized’ (2004b: 37). Despite the ban, therefore, Japanese influence was still clearly evident in Korean programmes (Lee 2004b). With Japan leading the way and Korea faithfully but discreetly following, it was hugely surprising, as many commentators have noted, that the success of Korean culture in the Asian region seemingly happened overnight. It even came as a surprise to Koreans themselves (Shim 2008: 31). Once seen as ‘a backwater for

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popular culture’, Korea was suddenly perceived, as John Burton of the Financial Times states, as ‘Asia’s new entertainment powerhouse’ (2001: 4). This overwhelming wave of Korean cultural pro­ ducts across Asia did not go unnoticed, and the popularity and pan-Asian cultural impact of Korean television drama, which was at the centre of hallyu, has been widely recognized and discussed. This chapter will examine the role of television drama in relation to (and in many ways as the focal point of) the Korean Wave phenomenon. It will also explore the cultural and social impact of hallyu television drama both at home and abroad, and examine the ramifications of its initial success and recent decline. What is particularly revealing about the hallyu phenomenon is not just why it has been so successful, but also the particular meanings that have been applied to the term over time (see Kim, Jeongmee 2007; 2012). Rather than focusing on the success of hallyu, this chapter will discuss the implications of this success in Korea and the ways in which the term hallyu has been utilized. For example, Korean cultural products cannot be immediately labelled as hallyu by Koreans. Hallyu is a term that can only be applied to a cultural product once it has been exposed to foreign audiences. In other words, not every Korean drama or film or pop song, no matter how popular in Korea, will be labelled hallyu – only those that have been exported and been successful. Winter Sonata (KBS 2002–3) is a good case in point to demonstrate this. Winter Sonata had not actually been that popular in Korea when first broadcast in 2002, but following its Japanese success2 it was re-broadcast in April 2005 and did much better. Only after its successful exportation was Winter Sonata, this second time around, labelled a hallyu drama.3 However, the term hallyu is applied differently in the overseas market where hallyu is used to describe Korean dramas in general. This contrasts with Korea where Korean drama and hallyu drama signify two different things. Hallyu refers only to those dramas that have gained success in the Asian overseas market, are to be exported or contain hallyu stars who are internationally recognized so that it is anticipated that they will be eventually exported and prove

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successful. Thanks to the popularity of Korean dramas in the Asian market over the last few years, many Korean dramas have been in the enviable position of being able to attract Asian buyers at the very earliest stages of production. For instance, Spring Waltz (KBS 2006) was pre-sold to eight Asian countries including Japan and Taiwan at its pre-production stage in 2004. As I have argued elsewhere, within Korea hallyu is a term that is not reliant on any particular notion of artistic quality, aesthetic principle or generic content: [Rather the term is] … an evaluation of the ‘exportability’ of Korean products. The term inextricably carries with it the notion of selling Korean-ness to the rest of Asia, and has thus become extremely important to Koreans not only as a source of entertainment but also of national pride. Rather than just being symptomatic of the economic rise of Korea and its investment in its cultural industries, Hallyu has become emblematic of the rise of Korea within Asia and of its cultural influence on its neighbours. (2007: 50)

Overtly nationalistic commentary is not the only viewpoint to be considered, however, when discussing the impact of hallyu in Korea. There are many critics warning against mainstream nationalistic sentiments that abound in the worlds of Korean politics and economics in relation to hallyu.4 No-Ja Park (2005), for example, objects to the use of ‘pseudo-colonial’ terminology such as ‘conquest’ which has frequently been associated with hallyu in media reports in Korea. Seong-Uk Lee (2005: 69–75) contends, in relation to the Korean film industry, that it would be preferable to establish an Asian network on the basis of ‘cooperation’ rather than aiming to ‘conquer’ Asian markets. However, it is extremely difficult to get past the nationalistic connotations applied to hallyu in Korea. Television drama has become a very visible signifier of Korean national identity and the country’s growth and development, particularly in relation to how Korea imagines it is perceived abroad. 242

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In light of the national importance of hallyu, let us consider Kean, Fung and Moran’s contention that ‘[e]xport of creative content is … important, not so much for its material dividends, as for its intangible outcomes. Exports bring multiplier effects: they promote confidence, provide openings for others to follow, and help to reduce the rhetoric of cultural protectionism’ (2007: 39). Rather than just simply protecting Korean culture in economic terms, however, the rhetoric surrounding hallyu suggests that it has become something far more, something to be cherished and safeguarded. Thus, Kean, Fung and Moran’s assertion regarding the multiplier affects of exports are insufficient in relation to hallyu. The first outcome they identify is indeed the case, but the second less so and the third less so still. The figures support this. In 2005, the export of Korean television content increased 72.8 per cent from the previous year, whilst import increased a mere 18.9 per cent. This does not indicate a decline in cultural protectionism. What needs to be taken into account is that whilst the main receivers of Korean programmes were Asian countries who made up a total of 95.3 per cent of the export market (Japan 60.1 per cent, Taiwan 11.4 per cent, China 9.9 per cent, the Philippines 3.7 per cent and so on),5 the majority of imported programmes were mostly from the West (the United States 62.5 per cent, Japan 18.4 per cent, the United Kingdom 6.9 per cent, China 2 per cent and Canada 2 per cent). Of these exports to Asian countries, the overwhelming majority were television dramas, taking up 92 per cent of export. Thus, while Korea was clearly exporting dramas to Asia on a mass scale, most of its imported television programmes were coming from the US. Even though 2005 did show an increase in imports of Japanese dramas and films, this was primarily due to the lifting of the ban on Japanese cultural products that had occurred in 2004 (Korean Broadcasting Institute 2009). In 2006, the contrast between exports and imports was even bigger, with exports increasing 31.1 per cent from 2005 whilst imports decreased by 14.5 per cent in the same period. This pattern of exports to Asia and imports from the US also persisted, with imports from Japan decreasing 17.8 per

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cent between 2005 and 2006; this was attributed, by the Korean Broadcasting Institute (KBI), to Korean audiences losing interest in what Japan was offering. Yet the beginnings of a decline in Korea’s own export market was also starting to become evident with the KBI additionally reporting that even though overall exports had increased since 2005 and drama still remained the main genre of export (68.3 per cent), the total figure for TV drama export had actually decreased (Korean Broadcasting Institute 2007). Whilst this Asian export/American import pattern appeared unproblematic at the height of hallyu, it is interesting to note that when the export of TV drama to Asia began noticeably to decrease in 2006 (by 15.5 per cent), the KBI attributed this to anti-hallyu sentiment in the region (Korean Broadcasting Institute 2007). Thus, even though Korea was not engaging in transcultural Asian exchange with any conviction, once other countries started to reduce their cultural input from Korea this was read as anti-Korean, suggesting just how bound up hallyu had become with Korean national identity and Korea’s newly-perceived position within Asia. It is in fact unsurprising that there were anti-hallyu movements in other Asian countries. The Korean Wave began to be criticized on the grounds that the Korean government had too much input into the Korean cultural industries. The huge popularity of hallyu television drama and the consequent hallyu-related media coverage evoked a backlash of resentment towards Korean ‘cultural imperialism’. In Japan, for example, blogs and manga appeared that expressed anti-Korean Wave sentiment (Maliangkay 2006). In Taiwan, a song entitled ‘The Invasion of the Korean Wave’ was performed by the Taiwanese rapper Chang Zhen-yue at a rock concert on the day Bae Yong-joon visited the country to promote his new film April Snow (dir. Hur Jin-ho) in 2005.6 In addition to such ground-level public resentment, anti-hallyu sentiment was also detectable in the governmental policies of various Asian countries. In 2006, The Korea Times reported that China’s State Administration of Film and Television intended to reduce the allowed quota of Korean imported dramas by half. The Taiwanese government

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was also reported to be considering the introduction of a tariff on foreign dramas shown during prime time. This was interpreted by the Korea Times as a measure specifically directed against popular Korean dramas (Korea Times 2006). What all this indicates is that the nationalistic dimensions surrounding the Korean Wave were being recognized in the receiving countries and not only in Korea. Whilst Korea could take pride in what it saw as its ‘cultural ascendancy’, it is understandable that the countries buying its dramas should react against this aspect; that they were not so willing to buy and should perceive it, as Chang Zhen-yue’s rap suggested, as a form of ‘invasion’. Additionally, such resentment is at odds with the generally accepted view that, following the success of Japanese television drama in the region, hallyu had played a key role in engendering a greater sense of Asian-ness through its invocation of ‘cultural proximity’ (Iwabuchi 2002b; Straubhaar 1991). Rather than just highlighting sameness, Korean drama also seemed to be doing a reasonably good job of highlighting difference and touching various raw nerves in relation to each country’s own sense of national pride and their own perceived position in Asia. For Korea, the wave itself came about as a result of successful exportation and within Korea the term hallyu came to essentially mean ‘successfully exported’. Yet inter-Asian cultural exchange, the swapping of cultural materials, was never engaged in equitably. Japanese and Taiwanese dramas, for example, were not available on network television, and only appeared on cable and satellite television channels (Chosun Ilbo 2007a; 2007b). Korea therefore enjoyed the best of a rather one-sided arrangement on its way to the long-awaited recognition of Korea in Asia and elsewhere, a perception of the country which the Korean government has also played an important part in perpetuating, as will be discussed later. A major problem for Korean ‘cultural ascendancy’, however, is that ‘some say the Korean Wave is over … as the exports of Korean TV dramas … have decreased’ (Jung 2009: 78). One may detect a reason for this downturn in its international popularity in an

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economic context, with Korean television dramas no longer being cost-effective in the Asian international market due to their high production costs. Korean dramas were initially a cheap alternative to Japanese dramas, but this is no longer the case as the cost of making and buying them has increased. One can identify a further reason for the decline in the fact that hallyu dramas have proven repetitious – providing overly familiar storylines and utilizing the same actors again and again (Korea Times 2009).7 However, such a decline was always on the cards due to the fact that hallyu by its very definition (popular in Asia) was always going to be unsustainable indefinitely. There have been various academic accounts to explain the rise of hallyu in the Asian market focusing on cultural proximity (Kwon 2006; Leung 2004a), similarity in physiognomies (Chua 2008: 78), racial proximity (Erni and Chua 2005: 7; Vinculado 2006), the rise of the middle class across Asia (Chua 2006; Otmazgin 2005), economic and political reasons such as media deregulation (Banerjee 2002: 526; Hong and Hsu 1999: 228; Lin 2006; Murdock 2004: 30; Shim 2006a: 28; Son 2001), the crisis in the Tiger economy (Jin 2002) and so on. As such works reveal, the mass consumption of Korean television drama has raised many interesting discussions relating to transnational cultural exchange, its impact on the region and the reinforcement of pan-Asian identity (what it means to be Asian). The textual pleasures derived from Korean television serials by Asian audiences are also commonly seen to be intertwined with shared experiences on the part of Asian audiences. Ien Ang asserts in relation to soap opera (citing a discussion with Stuart Hall) that certain genre forms can become ‘active in the collective cultural consciousness’ (Ang 1985: 5). Certain genres of Japanese and Korean drama certainly managed to achieve this ‘active’ status. Koichi Iwabuchi’s insightful works on the consumption of Japanese dramas in the 1990s across Asia (2001a; 2002b; 2004a) additionally argued that they provided an Asian audience with ‘a sense of living in the shared time and common experience of a certain (post)modernity which cannot be represented well by

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American popular culture’ (2001a: 56). Following on from this hugely influential work, Korean drama has similarly been read as providing a cultural space through which Asian audiences can negotiate a pan-Asian identity. One particular feature of Korean television drama that has been commonly identified as supporting and providing for an imagined community of Asia is its capacity to cater to a sense of shared Asian modernity – a concept discussed in numerous academic works, such as: Hae-Joang Cho’s (2005) ‘Reading the “Korean Wave” as a Sign of Global Shift’; Chua Beng Huat’s (2006) article ‘East Asian Pop Culture: Consumer Communities and Politics of the National’ and his chapter (2008), ‘Structure of Identification and Distancing in Watching East Asian Television Drama’; Jung-Sun Park’s (2004) ‘Korean American Youth’s Consumption of Korean and Japanese TV Dramas and Its Implications’; and Doobo Shim’s (2006a) article ‘Hybridity and the Rise of Korean Popular Culture’. Korean television drama has also been discussed as a cultural space that allows for the expression of an Asian transnational feminine modernity. Angel Lin and Avin Tong’s (2008) chapter, ‘Reimagining a Cosmopolitan “Asian Us”: Korean Media Flows and Imaginaries of Asian Modern Femininities’ is a case in point.8 Other works have explored the multifaceted process of localizing Korean television drama within other Asian countries; for example, Hyun Mee Kim’s ‘Korean TV Dramas in Taiwan: With an Emphasis on the Localization Process’ (2005) and Kelly Fu Su Yin and Kai Khiun Liew’s ‘Hallyu in Singapore: Korean Cosmopolitanism or the Consumption of Chineseness?’ (2005). What all of these academic works appear to agree upon is that Korean drama has touched upon the consciousness of contemporary Asians whose pasts, presents and imagined futures contain shared concerns. Korean dramas are seen to appeal to Asian audiences’ aspirations towards Asian modernity whilst, at the same time, evoking nostalgia for the values of a pre-modern Asia. However, since the popularity of hallyu drama has apparently ‘dwindled’ (Kang 2011), new questions clearly arise. Are Korean dramas no

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longer inspiring Asian viewers or providing them with points of nostalgia? If they no longer reveal the cultural Zeitgeist in terms of fashion and trendy lifestyles or afford a negotiation between what can be attained and what has been lost, what do they reveal now? One of the major difficulties confronting the critical discussion of hallyu as it is today is its associations with the discursive practices used to explain it. Contemporary fashion and trendiness, along with other aspects of modernity, have become indelibly tied to reading hallyu and they all imply ‘nowness’. This is why hallyu dramas have been so readable as cultural texts because, by definition (popular in Asia), they have been considered trendy, current and fashionable. However, now that they have begun to go out of fashion, with the wave running out of momentum, the problem arises as to what hallyu means today. Do we have to wait for the next wave or shift our attention to Korean music (K-pop), which appears to be supplanting drama as Korea’s primary cultural export (see introduction), in order to be able, once again, to find common ground that can be used to discuss shared Asian interests? Some have provided alternative avenues for discussion by attributing the success of Korean drama to the particular ways in which television drama is consumed. Chua (2006: 103–4), for example, has suggested that the format of television and the specificity of the television-viewing experience partially accounts for the success of Korean drama, particularly in relation to the serialization form. Korean drama is generally serialized and most commonly consists of 16 to 24 episodes, with Firebird (MBC 1987), an eight-part mini-series, being the first to introduce the miniseries format into Korea. Before this introduction, dramas were either daily soap operas or one-off specials (Lee 2004a: 262). Since then, the miniseries has become the most common Korean drama format, although it is not always called ‘mini-series’ in Korea. Sometimes it is called a ‘Mon/Tue’, ‘Tue/Wed’ or ‘Weekend’ drama, derived from its scheduling. On occasion there is nothing ‘mini’ about these series at all and they can go on for well over 50 episodes. For instance, Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace, MBC

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2003–4), which gained a huge following throughout Asia, lasted an eye-taxing total of 54 episodes. Korean/hallyu dramas are generally serials with ongoing storylines. Due to their episodic narratives and frequent cliffhanger endings, like soap operas they encourage, to apply the words of Newcombe, ‘audience involvement, a sense of becoming a part of the lives and actions of the characters they see’ (1974: 253). In his discussion of the television serial format, Glen Creeber additionally suggests that the twin characteristics of ‘intimacy’ and ‘continuity’ which the serial ‘shares with the soap opera’ enable serials or miniseries to ‘transform history so that it gradually becomes identifiable, empathetic and discursive to a mass audience’ (2001: 453). The continuity of viewing experience leads to greater audience involvement and thus explains the loyal followings garnered by these programmes. However, this serialized format is universal to television drama – both Eastern and Western. As the format is still doing well in other parts of the world and in Asia, the format itself does not help explain why the popularity of Korean drama is waning. Has this process of identification and empathy just stopped working in relation to Korean drama? Similarly, Hyun Mee Kim’s (2005) assertion that the success of Korean dramas was attributable to being open texts that were easily transformed through localization processes raises a similar question. Has this ‘reprocessing’ (Kim, Hyun Mee 2005: 203) just stopped? When looking at hallyu drama, hallyu as a descriptive adjective is extremely vague. In contrast, what it is describing – television drama – has generic conventions that are identifiable to audiences. The popularity of Korean dramas perhaps has less to do with their ‘Korean-ness’ than nationalistic discourse pertaining to hallyu would have us believe. The generic conventions of Korean drama are not just culturally specific. They are love stories that are comical or tragic – human stories. In comparison to television dramas produced in the West, it is fair to say that the Korean stories are related in a more conservative form in relation to modes of dress, depiction of sex and focus on family duties. However, this does not

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mean that they are ‘open texts’; they are, in a sense, always already half-closed by only being readable to Asian audiences. In 2006, I screened an episode of Autumn in My Heart (KBS 2000) at the TV Fiction Exchange: Local/Regional/National/Global conference at Manchester Metropolitan University in England. I was giving a talk on hallyu and the purpose of the screening was simple: to give the delegates a taste of Korean drama as most of them had never had the chance to see one before. The response amazed me. The screening was so popular that I had to screen the following episode at their request. After a whole day of conference activities and even though it was quite late in the evening, the delegates became thoroughly involved in the drama. They were fascinated by the convention of the main characters consistently just missing each other. One delegate asked me, with some optimism after the screening: ‘do they finally meet?’ Another delegate said how good-looking the main male character was. Except for a few of us, the vast majority of the delegates were Western academics who I dare say had not had much contact with Asian culture. I took, as a Korean, some pride in just how much they enjoyed this Korean drama, clearly wrapped up in the story of heartache and emotional longing. They responded to the universal theme of a love story just as much as they would have, perhaps, to a Douglas Sirk melodrama. Despite my pride, this incident of cross-cultural connection reminded me that Korean dramas contain universal themes such as love, loss and regret that reinforce our global commonality. As opposed to limiting views of Korean cultural ascendancy or the wider, but equally boundarysetting view of it as speaking exclusively to Asians, hallyu dramas, as I said before, tell human stories that all humans can choose to enjoy irrespective of their cultural proximity. Korean dramas have proven popular in the Middle East, Africa and South America where shared Confucian values and cultural proximity cannot be adequately used to explain their acceptance. This is not to say that Korean dramas do not have Korean particularity or local ingredients (local actors, local language, costumes, locations and lifestyle also play their part) and, most

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noticeably, local sentimentality is also present. It is also fair to say that Korean dramas speak to regional culture and sentimentality too. However, there are also clearly universal elements of television drama present. Thus it is not enough only to discuss the Koreanness or Asian-ness of hallyu drama. It is insufficient to distinguish commonality and Korean-ness/Asian-ness in Korean drama to the exclusion of the format they adopt which exists throughout the world. Looking at Korean/hallyu drama only as a signifier of panAsianism overlooks how the actual texts operate and the ways in which this particular art form exists as a global cultural practice. Korean drama is also a genre that contains global as well as Asian and Korean elements. Iwabuchi’s work on Japanese television drama, as I have mentioned, has been hugely influential, to the point that what has followed reveals as much about critical practice as it reveals about the texts that flow throughout Asia themselves. In the introduction to The Inter-Asia Cultural Studies: Reader, Chen and Huat express the need ‘to movementize scholarship’ (2007: 4), and in this movement hallyu has increasingly become politicized as a means to comment upon various nationalistic positions and formations of Asian and personal identities. Such positions have included pro-Korean, anti-Korean, pan-Asian and Asian as distinct from the West. Hallyu has become a means to articulate difference (Asia as distinct from the West, Korea over and above the rest of Asia and the receiving countries’ resistance to this notion). Hallyu has also become a means to articulate similarity and Asian solidarity with various academic works applying notions of cultural proximity, racial proximity, shared Confucian values and so on. Given the number of potential responses generated by the term, I now want to move away temporarily from what Korean dramas contextually and transnationally signify and take a closer look at the texts themselves as a generic form, in order to focus on their value as cultural materials in their own right. Just as hallyu has been utilized to articulate sameness and difference, genre formation and development operates on a similar principle. Steve Neale (1980) for example, suggests the genre needs

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to meet audiences’ expectations by providing them with what they are familiar, whilst also providing new and different content to prevent the genre from becoming stale. Rick Altman points out that genre is actually ‘a complex concept with multiple meanings’ (1999: 14) and provides an extremely useful framework (‘blueprint’, ‘structure’, ‘label’, ‘contract’, 1999: 14) for considering the various functions of genre, which I will now apply to hallyu drama to help consider the series of transformations that have occurred to make hallyu drama a success, but which have also contributed to its faltering in the long term.

(i) Blueprint Korean dramas did not emerge from nowhere. What Korean drama offered to Asian audiences was something familiar because, in many respects, Japanese television drama had paved the way for Korean drama in the Asian market. Doobo Shim explains, in relation to South East Asia: …the popularity of Japanese popular culture in South East Asia in the 1990s facilitated an easier introduction of Korean popular culture there because of their similar aesthetic and cultural styles to the eyes of South East Asian audiences. Quite a few interviewees in Singapore and Malaysia reported that they were rather confused between Japanese cultural productions and Korean ones. … In fact, some of the interviewees reported that they began to consume Korean television dramas because of their certain similarities in styles and forms to Japanese television dramas after having been exposed to the latter. Consequently, where there is now a Korean Wave, there was previously a Japanese cultural fever. (2005: 249)

Like any genre, Korean drama is a transformed form of a previous genre – in this case, one popularized in the region by Japanese dramas. As John Fiske suggests, genre is ‘a shifting provisional set of characteristics which is modified as each new example is produced’ 252

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(1987: 111). At its beginnings, Korean drama was not dissimilar to Japanese drama, with both containing aesthetic similarities and sentimentalized narratives. Stronach, for example, points out that Japanese dramas were ‘very pleasing to the eyes’ (Stronach 1989: 155), an aspect of viewing that Chua Beng Huat similarly applies to Korean drama (2006: 98). Such resemblance is unsurprising considering the fact that Japan had played such a key role in shaping Korean popular culture. For Japanese audiences, Korean dramas were nothing astoundingly new. They were familiar but with important differences that provided a degree of novelty. Yukie Hirata, for example, when discussing Korean/hallyu dramas in relation to the Japanese dramatic tradition, asserts that Korean dramas are a hybrid of Japanese home drama (sometimes called family drama) and trendy drama9 (2005: 35). Just as in the Japanese trendy genre, Korean trendy drama depicted love stories between city youngsters. However, within Korean trendy dramas relationships with family members often disrupted the narrative, a generic component not present in the Japanese progenitor. The family was a new generic element that led, as Hirata suggests, to ‘Korean trendy dramas’ becoming ‘something refreshing in [...] noughties Japan’ (2005: 34). She also goes on to argue that the added element of family made Korean drama appealing to a broader audience in Japan (2005: 34–5). While the Japanese Wave was very much ‘a youth affair’ (Ang 2004: 306), the Korean Wave was not solely a youth affair as can be discerned from the large Japanese middle-aged female fan base of hallyu drama. Thus, it can be concluded that the blueprint was redesigned with both repeated and different elements that enabled it to maintain an audience and find a new one.

(ii) Structure It is difficult to define the structural components of Korean drama, as it incorporates various aesthetic and narrative styles. Even though it is not my intention at all to establish the generic boundaries for 253

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Korean dramas through identifying textual elements that define it, it is worth looking at one attempt to do this in order to consider the structure of Korean/hallyu drama. In her comparative study of Japanese and Korean drama, Lisa Y.M. Leung (2004a) identifies the ‘Korean formula’ as ‘slow pace, glamorized professions, intense serendipitous romance, and tragedy, but packaged with the coating of aestheticized and idol-laden setting’, all of which she argues offer ‘an Asian-specific formula’. Her formula is helpful in that there are characteristics which are clearly ‘recognizable’ to audiences as belonging to Korean drama. Like any other genre, once the generic term has been applied the content of the drama tends to be read in relation to the perceived formula. Yet it is difficult to agree that identifying generic components present in Korean dramas makes them Asian-specific as numerous American miniseries can be seen to adhere to the same formula. Scruples (Warner Bros. Television 1980), for example, featured the popular television star Lindsay Wagner attempting to forge a fashion business over the course of a mini-series, enjoying her share of romance and tragedy along the way alongside beautiful colleagues also falling in and out of love in glamorous ‘aestheticized’ settings whilst dressed in the latest outfits. What also needs to be taken into account in relation to Leung’s ‘Asian-specific’ formula is that different countries import different Korean dramas which differ in popularity in different regions. Some dramas succeed, some fail. Some hallyu stars achieve huge popularity, others do not. For example, after the success of Winter Sonata, Korean dramas such as All In (SBS 2003) and Stairway to Heaven (SBS 2004) were well received in Japan. On the other hand, Soon Poong Clinic (SBS 1998–2000) and Glass Slipper (SBS 2002), which proved popular in the Greater China region, did not go down as well with Japanese audiences. Stars also did better in some regions than others. Whilst Ahn Jae-wook and Kim Hee-seon were very popular in the Chinese market, in Japan it was Bae Yong-joon, Jang Dong-kun, Lee Byung-hun and Won Bin who were popularly embraced, being labelled ‘the Four Kings of Hallyu’ (Hirata 2005: 21). Given such differences in tastes in both dramas and stars, it is

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extremely difficult to justify attempting to apply or discover ‘Asianspecific’ formulas. Given the variety of structures and diversity of appeal, such a statement of identifiable Asian-ness actually casts greater light on the emblematic nature of hallyu drama to cultural critics as a signifier of pan-Asian-ness than on the distinctive generic conventions of the dramas themselves. In relation to the structure of Korean/hallyu drama, a more mundane formula is perhaps more applicable. Richard Dyer suggests that ‘a standard model for the history of a genre could be divided into three periods: primitive, mature and decadent’ (2002: 60). Having reached its mature period in which the balance between familiarity and difference reached a harmonious peak (very familiar to audiences but also still maintaining a sense of novelty and freshness), hallyu drama has now arguably reached its decadent stage – too familiar, no longer fresh and with hallyu producers scrambling to find ways to reinvigorate it by incorporating a mishmash of different elements in the hope of breathing new life into it – further blurring generic conventions.

(iii) Label Hallyu’s usage as a label has been employed to classify more and more products to the degree that in Asia it has virtually come to describe ‘all things Korean’ (Visser 2002: A23). Within Korea itself, hallyu’s actual meaning is similarly hard to pin down other than to signify the perceived success of something exported from Korea, a brand applied to its cultural output similar to the ‘made in Korea’ that is stamped on exportable merchandise. As discussed earlier, hallyu is not a term that is reliant on any particular notion of artistic quality, aesthetic principle or generic content, but rather today is an evaluative term that relates to ‘exportability’. It refers to an intangible concept and as a result there has been much effort made to materialize hallyu, to make it manifest and visible. Television drama has been a key component in achieving this. In May 2007, a hallyu museum called ‘Four Seasons House’ opened in Seoul 255

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in a building that had formerly housed director Yoon Suk-ho’s production company. Yoon made his ‘hallyu’ director reputation on the success of Autumn in My Heart and Winter Sonata – two parts of the Four Seasons Quartet along with Summer Scent (KBS 2003) and Spring Waltz. The building was also used as one of the main Spring Waltz locations and so this building is very familiar to those who have watched the drama. A part of the building is still Yoon’s working office but most of it has now been transformed into a museum – or, rather, a shrine. Each room is filled with a number of props, costumes and photos from the four hallyu dramas. One of the glass cabinets standing next to the costumes and memorable scarves of Yu-jin and Jun-sang (Winter Sonata’s lead characters) is filled with fan letters, mainly from Japan. In the garden, you can find Eun-yeong’s pink truck from Spring Waltz from which Eunyeong conducted her jewellery business. The truck has life-size cardboard cut-outs of Eun-yeong (played by Han Hyo-joo) and Phillip (played by Daniel Henney) and you can take a picture sitting next to them. You can also visit Eun-yeong’s pink room (where some scenes were actually filmed) and an Autumn in My Heart room and a Spring Waltz room. You can sit on a ‘Winter Sonata Bench’ and a ‘Spring Waltz Bench’ and you can enjoy the replica ‘Summer Scent Proposal Room’. At the end of 2012 an 85,400-foot square hallyu museum will also open in the International Business Complex of Incheon Airport. ‘On top of dramas and music,’ it is planned that ‘the museum will also showcase Korean food and fashion, allowing visitors to see, hear, and feel the contents of Hallyu’ (Allkpop.com 2012). As well as the museums, hallyu has been further materialized through the well-known phenomenon of television drama tour packages. There are ‘drama tour’ itineraries for hallyu fans in Seoul, for example, where you can easily pick up a number of pamphlets promoting hallyu drama-related tour packages such as a ‘Winter Sonata Full Day Tour’ or a ‘Dae Jang Geum Half Day Tour’. The Korea Tourism Organization’s promotional films for 2009 included the ‘Korean Wave Experience’ which introduced Namiseom (an

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island where visually memorable scenes from Winter Sonata were filmed) and Dae Jang Geum theme park (a drama set converted into a theme park after the international success of the drama). The organization’s 2010 tour guide, Travelguide Korea, featured a section called ‘Hallyu – The Korean Wave’. In it, a tour of Jejudo Island (the biggest domestic resort well-known for its beautiful beaches and exotic scenery) was presented via descriptions of the filming locations of Taewangsansingi (The Four Guardian Gods of the King, MBC 2007). The impact of hallyu on Korean tourism has been discussed in numerous academic works and these provide plenty of evidence about changes in Asian audiences’ perceptions of Korea and Korean people.10 In addition to the booming Korean tourist industry, with fans coming from abroad, hallyu-related museums and merchandise also mean something to Koreans as well as other Asian fans because museums and tourists enable the intangible notion of hallyu to become a visible and tangible part of their lives. As hallyu designates dramas, music, fashions, museums and tours inter alia, it is well-nigh impossible to detect how hallyu relates to Korean drama specifically. Fang-chih Irene Yang suggests viewing the term as one that ‘uses the nation-state to designate all dramatic genres produced there’ (2008c: 277), but of course in Korea it only designates the exportable ones. There was no formula for the success of hallyu from the beginning; success was the modus operandi and thus what the label came to mean. To continue a somewhat circular argument, this label that initially meant Korean success has possibly begun to mean Korean failure. Perhaps this was inevitable: success, vibrancy, energy and trendiness, all of the values associated with hallyu, ultimately dissipate or become tired and worn-out. Now that hallyu has started to falter, it has a problem. How can you have a Korean Wave which is not washing over the markets abroad? How can a term that means success survive when it begins to become associated with decline? And what impact does this have upon the dramas identified by the hallyu label when it does not relate to their generic components but rather to their success abroad? As producers increasingly tinker, perhaps hallyu

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television drama has begun to lose its identity, which complicates matters in relation to generic features that audiences expect from hallyu, the market value of the hallyu label itself and academics who use the dramas to identify what matters to Asians.

(iv) Contract The makers of television programmes promise to deliver a certain type of content, and audiences accept the absence of other types of content provided that the content they do expect is present. As John Corner explains: ‘genre is a principal factor in the directing of audience choice and of audience expectations’ (1998: 121). What hallyu drama initially promised was something new and exciting, different and vibrant. It was different from the Japanese drama before it, but was still also young, stylish and like that Japanese drama. To reiterate the words of Hirata, it was something ‘refreshing’ (2005: 34). However, the inevitable winding-down inherent in any cycle has, perhaps, begun. There have recently been a few dramas that have designated themselves as hallyu dramas from as early as pre-production, such as Sad Love Story (MBC 2005), Spring Waltz and Star’s Lover (SBS 2008– 9). Such recent hallyu dramas have all tried different approaches to recapture past success, variously claiming to be big-budget, the first blockbuster melodrama, visually sumptuous, emphasizing picturesque foreign non-Asian locations and so on. For instance, in huge anticipation of its success in the Asian market as well as the domestic, and in order to ensure visual quality, Spring Waltz was filmed using HD Sony cameras (usually used in film-making) with special German HD lenses (Cine 21 2006). The drama displays astonishing scenery of canola flower fields in Cheongsando Island, off the south east coast of Korea. The two main characters, Jae-ha and Eun-yeong, spend their childhood together playing in the fields overlooking a beach with blossoming canola flowers surrounding them. The location becomes a focal point of the story again later on, when the now adult and successful pianist Jae-ha films his

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music video on the island. Jae-ha in his black tuxedo playing a white grand piano in the middle of the blossoming yellow flowers is more than just eye-catching. The intensity of colour is enhanced by elaborate crane shots that move across the field. This emphasis on the visual also applies to scenes in Austria where the adult Jaeha and Eun-yeong meet each other after their separation without realizing each other’s identity. Here, snowy Salzburg is beautifully filmed and offers more breathtaking, exotic scenery. It is an attempt to introduce another ‘refreshing’ element, but notably this time the element is not Asian. With the exception of the drama Taewongsasingi, which did well in Korea (although not abroad), the recent self-proclaimed hallyu dramas including Sad Love Story, Spring Waltz and Star’s Lover have all failed to attract large domestic audiences and have not achieved notable success abroad either. The Korean media has subsequently pointed out that these hallyu dramas are too reliant on hallyu stars and as a result the content is not good – they cannot disguise the lack of an engrossing or original story. They also point an accusing finger at a deliberate focus on what foreign fans want, with too much effort being made to find universal formulas which can appeal to Asian audiences at the expense of domestic audiences and Korean sentimentality (Weekly Dong-A 2006: 79; Hankookilbo).11 Hallyu can thus be seen to be becoming an increasingly rather confusing term: does it mean today a Korean Wave popular at home that promotes Korea or a cultural product made in Korea, but primarily designed to appeal to Asian audiences? Korea itself seems to be unsure. There had been worries about the decline of hallyu in Korea as early as 2006 (Film 2.0 2006: 10–11) and now these worries are more widespread (Korea Times 2008). Thus, there have been efforts made to find out the reasons and identify the remedy to reinvigorate the boom, to get the wave flowing again. After MBC News, a weekly current affairs programme in Korea, broadcast a special report on the decline of hallyu, entitled ‘Hallyu, since …’ (6 March 2009). The report concluded that the Korean entertainment industry

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should be restructured. Hollywood was used as an example, and Sex and the City (HBO 1998–2004), Lost (ABC 2004–10) and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS 2000–) were presented as examples to illustrate just how much financial input there was for successful globally exported programmes such as these. It also reported that some MPs strongly supported changes to the media laws in order for huge levels of finance to be made available for production. The Korean Broadcasting Institute (KBI) announced in March 2009 that it would make efforts to encourage the development of ‘killer contents’ which would work in the Korean market as well as abroad in order to create the second hallyu drama boom (Asia Ilbo 2009). These all appear to be desperate acts, trying to create a second wave before the first one dissipates. The United States is being referenced in order to perpetuate or recreate the wave that has been praised by so many as providing an Asian alternative to American media imperialism. Hallyu drama, then, can be seen to be in crisis. As a label its meaning is becoming increasingly ill-defined and the cultural products it identifies are being transformed into other forms, which means audiences are increasingly unsure as to what they are going to get. Korean national pride is intertwined with hallyu and so is also bound up with genre decline which, as with all genres, is an inevitability. Hallyu was a spark which ignited Korea in many significant ways and the light from it illuminated throughout Asia. As the flame has started to splutter, producers are floundering to find the methods for its reignition at home and on foreign shores. This has repercussions for Korean national identity and its cultural output because, as the term ‘the Korean Wave’ suggests, once it crested it would have to ebb before it could potentially flow again. Whether it will or not only the sands of time will tell.

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 1   2   3

  4   5   6

 7

  8

The ban on the import of all Japanese cultural products had existed since 1945. See Chua (2008b: 3). For the cultural impact of Korean dramas in Japan and Japanese fandom, see Han, (2008), Miller (2008) and Mōri (2008). In October 2009 the animation Winter Sonata: Another Story aired in Japan on two satellite channels: DATV and Sky Perfect TV. Reports in the Korean media anticipated that its success would lead to the revival of the hallyu boom in Japan (Now News 2009). This revival has, however, failed to happen. For a discussion of hallyu in Korea see also Lee, Keehyeung (2008). The lowest percentages were not specified in the source material. Bae is the star of Winter Sonata and, following the success of the drama, he became a prominent hallyu star in Asia as well as Korea. See Yang (2008b) for further discussion of the song and Taiwanese attitudes towards the Korean Wave. The Korea Times wrote an article about foreigners and their perspectives on hallyu, and referred to a survey held by ‘the “Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism” and the “Korean Foundation for International Culture Exchange” (KOFICE). The survey asked 3,600 people from countries including China, Japan, Thailand, the U.S. and France their thoughts on hallyu’s continued success. 60% of the 3,600 individuals that responded stated that the “fad for Korean culture – K-Pop, movies, and TV dramas and soap operas – will decline over the next few years … According to “20.5 percent of respondents” the reason is that they are “tired of standardized content” ’ (soompi.com 2012). Hae-Joang Cho similarly asserts that the Korean Wave has offered ‘a new subjectivity for a rapidly changing Asia, especially by defining “Asian Femininity” ’ (2005: 176). However, the rather undifferentiated response she assigns to Asian women’s viewing of Korean drama does not account for how class and culture impact upon women’s engagement with Korean drama. In contrast, Yang’s (2008a) research into Taiwanese viewers of Korean drama found that the workingclass women she interviewed expressed a high level of identification

Say Hallyu, Wave Goodbye

Notes

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  9

10 11

with the domestic roles of female characters in Korean drama, whilst the middle-class women were far more resistant to the domestic female roles depicted. ‘Trendy drama’ primarily refers to Japanese dramas of the early 1990s that were well received in East and South East Asia. They tended to feature sentimental music and youthful love, and depicted young people’s working lives, domestic lives and leisure pursuits in an urban setting. They are commonly seen to reflect the consumerist trends of younger viewers during the era of the Japanese bubble-economy. However, Ōta Tōru, a Fuji TV producer of Tokyo Story (1991), suggests that Japanese trendy dramas that were produced from 1991 onwards should be distinguished from the trendy dramas of the late 1980s and 1990. The later dramas, he asserts, placed emphasis on the love and relationships of urban youth, while the earlier ones merely emphasized an idealized representation of urban youth lifestyle through design and fashion (Ōta 2004). See also Dong-Hoo Lee (2004a) for a discussion of Japanese trendy drama’s impact on Korean trendy drama and the differences between them. For instance, see Chan (2007). Dong-Hoo Lee points out that the quest for successful ‘transnational narratives’ has also negatively impacted upon international coproductions, citing the example of When Beijing, My Love, a ChineseKorean co-production between KBS and CCTV which aired in 2004: ‘It earned an average 4.9 percent audience share in Korea, one of the lowest among dramas. Audiences complained that its main theme was neither innovative nor entertaining, and that the narrative depicting cultural differences was not realistic and sophisticated enough.’ He concludes that such ‘market-oriented dramas co-produced by Korean and Chinese producers have shown limited imagination. They tend to reproduce the already-verified characters and plots, install popular stars, and rely upon well-known formats, genres and cultural codes in order to reduce risk and uncertainty in production and distribution’ (2009: 198; 200).

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Index 2046 163 Ahn, Jae-wook 199, 254 Albums by the Riverside 162 All About Eve 174 All In 254 analogue television 84 anime 54–56, 75, 77, 84, 93, 95, 96 Anime Academy 55 anti-Korean 41, 42, 44, 244, 251 April Snow 244 Asia boom 147, 148, 164 Asia Television (ATV) 38, 103 AsianFanatics 94, 95 Asian female 14, 16, 186 Asianized 67, 139 Asian modernity 10, 14, 34, 35, 126, 127, 130, 134, 137, 247 Asian-ness 10, 29–31, 40, 140, 151, 245, 251, 255 Asian-pop 85 Asian rising 44 Asian Us 139, 247

Asian values 10, 33, 34, 130, 131, 139, 176 Astro Boy 55, 56, 62, 67 ATV 103–121 audiences Asian 28, 29, 31–35, 43, 49–53, 171, 216, 246, 247, 250, 252, 259 British 50, 64 Chinese 105, 216, 224, 225, 232 Confucian 33 female 172, 188, 222 Japanese 15, 60, 253, 254 Korean 55, 244 local 11, 37, 52, 66, 84 overseas 106 regional 216 Taiwanese 57, 221 Western 53, 65, 67, 77 younger 74, 104, 115 Autumn in My Heart 31, 104, 134, 177, 218, 250, 256 AZN Television 76

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Bae, Yong-joon 15, 16, 42, 61, 76, 148, 158, 159, 170, 244, 254 Bawang Putih Bawang Merah (Garlic and Onions) 135 BBC 62, 64, 70, 71, 225 Be Strong Geum-soon 218 Beijing Watermelon 149 Betty Boop 56 bilingual moderators 92 blockbuster 48, 60, 258 blogs 77, 82, 85, 87, 88, 93, 95, 244 Bold and the Beautiful, The 141 bourgeois public sphere 125 Bride of the Main Family, The 150 bukan Melayu (not Malay) 130 bumiputera 128 Cantonese pop music 154 Cartoon Network 77 Cha, In-pyo 173 Chan, Jenny 150 Chan Ho, Moses 115 Chang, Zhen-yue 244, 245 Channel V 110 Channel V MTV 110 chat rooms 82 Chen, Kelly 149, 150 Cheng, Ekin 152–155 Children of the Earth 150 China National Radio 104 China Times 17 Chinese Central Television (CCTV) 103, 112, 113, 116, 169 Chinese diaspora 105

Chinese Entertainment TV 110 Chinese International Television Limited 13, 113 Chinese Wave 20 Choi, Ji-woo 158 Choi, Jin-sil 199 Chosun dynasty 29 Chungking Express 8 Chunhyang 177 Chunwon 225 Cinderella’s Stepsister 17 Clazziquai 200 Confucian 2, 4, 14, 18, 30, 32, 33, 44, 53, 126, 127, 139, 141, 171, 172, 179, 183, 219, 225, 232, 250, 251 ideals 183 tradition 172, 232 values 18, 30, 32, 33, 44, 53, 139, 171, 179, 250, 251 Confucianism 10, 30, 32, 219, 225, 226, 234 consumer capitalism 129 cosmopolitan canop(ies) 83 cosmopolitan spaces 77, 83 cosmopolitanism 97, 125, 247 Cowboy Bebop 55 cross-border television 4, 44 cross-border transformations 47, 66 crunchyroll 86, 93, 94, 96 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation 77, 260 cultural affinity 2, 9, 31, 35, 51, 171 cyberspace 12

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D-Addicts 85, 89, 91 Dae Jang Geum 9, 18, 29–31, 41, 47, 48, 50, 170, 215–219, 223, 225, 225, 227, 228, 234, 248, 256, 257 Dalja’s Spring 218 Dallas 134–136, 141 Days of Our Lives 141 daytime soaps 134 deliberate disguise 54 derogatory distortion 54, 60 descriptive designation 54, 57 dialogical imagination 144 digital revolution 84 Disney 56 Don’t Forget 193, 205–209 Dr Bong 218 Drive of Life, The 13, 111, 113, 114, 116 dubbing 51, 60–65, 199

index

DNA 40 export 21, 248 flow 4, 126, 220 hierarchy 216 imagination 32 imperialism 5, 27, 40, 41, 67, 244 inferiority fever 37 odour 62, 81 proximity 10, 29, 44, 47, 49–54, 59, 66, 127, 138–141, 164, 170, 171, 201, 245, 246, 250, 251 Revolution 104 values 14, 32, 51, 68, 232

East Asian drama 1, 4, 6, 28, 29–34, 44, 45 modernity 134 television 1–10, 13, 14, 17, 19, 27–34, 44, 45, 247 Eat, Drink, Man, Woman 230 Elmsdale 106 Entertainment Big Brother 224 Entertainment Big Winner 224 Entertainment Gathering 224 False Love 150 family drama 253 Fan of a Hong Kong Star 149–151, 154, 162 fan-driven online sites 80 Fantastic Couple 198 Fashion 70s 200, 218 FAW Car Company 113 feminine modernity 126, 247 Fighting Girl 156 Firebird 248 Firework 218, 220, 223 First Time, The 202, 205 Fixed Telecommunications Network Services (FTNS) 107 Fleischer, Max 56 Fly to the Sky 200 Forbidden Palace, The 115 Forever 199 forum culture 75, 88, 89, 94 Four Kings of Hallyu 254 Four Seasons House 255 Foxy Lady 218 French New Wave 56

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Friends 156, 177 From the Beginning until Now 202, 205 Fujiwara, Tatsuya 61 Fukada, Kyoko 150 Full House 57, 174, 218 Galaxy Channel 108 Galaxy Satellite Broadcasting Limited 106 Game of Thrones 77 glam rock 56 Glass Slipper 254 global conglomeration 67 global cultural centrality 49 global localization 81 global spaces 78 global village 38 globalization 13, 19, 36, 48, 50, 117 glocalization 10, 52, 81, 136 Glorious Return 13, 111, 114, 116 Good Old Days, The 104 Greater China 5, 108, 199, 215, 226, 254 GTV 18, 57, 58, 218–223, 232 GTV Drama 222, 223 Guangzhou Television 110 hallyu 7, 9, 15–19, 21, 22, , 42, 50, 58, 61, 76, 77, 169, 170, 178, 187, 195, 199, 215, 239, 241–261 hallyu dramas 9, 16–18, 21, 50, 58, 241, 246, 249–256,258–260 halryu 195 Han, Hyo-joo 256

hanliu 104, 195, 215, 217, 223 hanryu 195, 215 Harrison, Tony 61 hegemony 49, 81, 130, 134, 172 Henney, Daniel 256 Herbalist 111 Hero 163 Highest Love 156 Hollywood 3, 28, 67, 147, 260 Hong Kong boom 8 Hong Kong Broadcasting Authority (HKBA) 106–108 Hong Kong-China co-production 112 Hong Kong culture 103, 114, 117 Hong Kong DTV Company 106 Hong Kong Network TV 106 Hong Kong stars 115, 148, 149, 151, 154 Hong Kong Wave 164 Hotelier 159 House of Devils 150 How Deep is Your Love 203 Hunan Satellite Television 116 Hutchison Global Communications Limited 107 Hwangjiny 218, 219 hybridized localities 78 hyperlinked blogs 82 I’m a Fool to Want You 203 I’m Sorry I Love You 200 i-Cable 106 ideal woman 130 idol drama 57, 58, 219

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Jang, Dong-kun 254 Jang, Nara 178, 187 Japanese Cultural Fever 8, 9, 19, 252 Japanese fans 15, 17, 39, 151, 163, 175, 178 Japanese home drama 253 Japanese idol dramas 57 Japanese Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV) 62 Japanese pop music 81 Japanese stars 16, 57, 149, 150 Japanese Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) 60, 61, 149, 156, 159, 177 jdorama 94 J-dorama 8, 23 Jealousy 196

index

imaginary landscapes 49 imagination, dialogical 144 imagined communities 50, 66, 216, 247 Indonesia 5, 134, 216 Infotainment 105 inter-Asian cooperation 163 Internet citizens 77 Internet protocol television (IPTV) 97 InuYasha 55 Invasion 13, 22, 41, 48, 111, 239, 244, 245 Iran 28, 50, 60, 61 Iris 60–62 Isaura 134 Itazura na Kiss 95 It Started With a Kiss 95

Jewel in the Palace 9, 19, 29, 47, 48, 50, 71, 170, 215, 248 J-horror 2 Jo, Sung-mo 199 Joint Declaration of the New Twenty-First Century KoreaJapan Partnership 240 Joy News 61 Judge Bao 226 Jumong 17, 60, 61, 104, 218, 219 K-drama 76, 85–88, 195–202, 212 K-pop 31, 85, 198–200, 248 video 199, 200 Keats, John 43 Kim, Beom-soo 200 Kim, Bobby 200 Kim, Hee-seon 254 Kimura, Takuya 57, 77, 163 Koizumi, P.M. Junichiro 15 Korea Herald 42, 76, 197 Korea Times 17, 43, 244–246, 259 Korea Tourism Organization 76, 256 Korea-mania 225 Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) 32, 178, 197, 222 Korean drama 5, 13, 15–19, 29, 31– 33, 37, 39–43, 48, 53, 57, 58, 60, 75, 82, 84, 88, 90, 94, 104, 157, 159, 161–163, 171, 174, 175, 196–199, 200, 217, 223, 225, 232, 233, 235, 241, 242, 245–257 Korean-ness 19, 58, 242, 249, 251 Korean Pop music 170, 195, 197 c.f. K-pop

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Korean popular culture 31, 37, 40, 85, 137, 138, 169, 179, 215, 221, 247, 252, 253 Korean ‘soft power’ 42, 43 Korean TV series 148, 159 Korean Wave 7, 9, 15, 17–20, 29, 31, 37–44, 50, 57, 58, 76, 82, 126, 127, 157, 159, 164, , 169, 170, 195, 215–217, 244–247, 224, 253, 256–260 Kung Fu 8, 64–66 kung fu cinema 8, 64–66 Kurosawa, Akira 163 Kwon, Sang-woo 76 Lady 225 Lee, Byung-hun 61, 76, 254 Lee, Young-ae 30, 173, 225 Lethal Weapon of Love and Passion 116 Little Bride 174 localization 81, 247, 249 Long Vacation 8, 57 Look East 128, 134, 139 Lost 260 Love 224 Loveholic 200 Love Rain 5 Lovers in Paris 31, 218 Magical Love Hairdresser 224 Mahathir, P.M. 128 main theme (zhuxuanlu) 114 Malay woman 125, 127, 131, 133 Malay women 14, 126, 129, 134, 136, 143, 144

Malaysia, Asianized 139 Malaysia modernization 125 Malaysian Wave 20 manga 93–96, 244 martial arts drama 65 Martial Couple With Magical Eagle 224 media pirates 11 Melayu Baru (New Malay) 128 melodrama 17, 31, 174, 193–195, 198, 210, 250, 258 Memory inside My Heart, A 202 Metro Ethernet 107 Mingguan Wanita (Women’s Weekly) 133 mixed-race characters 138 modernization 34, 35, 125, 128, 129, 171, 196, 216 Monday Morning 5:19 203 Monkey 62 monolingual 92 Moon, Eric 200 Moon that Embraces Sun, The 17, 18 Most Delicious 224 mukokuseki 56 Murdoch, Rupert 110 Muslim values 44 Muslimness 132 My Love Patzzi 187 My Lovely Sam-soon 17, 104, 200, 218 My Memory 202, 205 Mysoju 86 Nakamura, Toru 163

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Oldboy 9 One More Kiss 156 online forums 75, 77, 84 Only You 202 Orient 67, 74, 132 Orientalist attitudes 67 Orientalist nostalgia 59 Oshin 7, 134 Outlaws of the Marsh 62 Pacific Century Cyberworks Limited (PCCW) 107 Pacific Digital Media HK 106 pan-Asian 7, 10, 28–33, 38, 53, 68, 82, 216, 241, 246, 247, 251, 255 pan-Asianism 28, 44, 251 Park, Yong-ha 158, 212 pay-television 106, 107 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 104 People’s Republic of China 5, 101, 108, 220 Perhaps Love 204 Philippines 52, 134, 171, 178, 216, 239, 243

Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Limited 104 Pokemon 55 pop culture 6, 12, 29, 31, 32, 36, 42, 126, 197, 247 pop music 9, 18, 194, 197–200, 203, 215 Cantonese 154 Japanese 81 Korean 170, 195, 197 popular culture 8, 20, 30, 31, 36, 54, 125, 126, 134, 144, 151, 163, 164, 174, 175, 179, 216, 220, 221, 241 American 48, 53, 216, 247 Asian 2, 30, 53, 59, 134, 151, 163 imported 36 Japanese 31, 163, 252 Korean 31, 37, 40, 41, 85, 137, 138, 169, 215, 221, 247, 253 local 117 Taiwanese 220 Western 30, 31 post-colonial 20, 35, 67, 73 post-modern 78, 80, 129, 131 post-trendy 196 power geometry 19 PRC 101, 102, 108, 109, 113, 118, 220, 224 Pride of Chao Zhou, The 104 Prince of Legend (Jumong) 104 Princess Hours 174, 218 Promise, The 149, 159–163, 205, 258 purdah 133 pure love 17, 30, 176, 201

index

Nanfang TV 110 national identity-culture 12 netizens 77–83 Never My Love 203 Newly Born Woman, The 13 NHK 28, 39, 150, 155 Nielsen survey 23 Nihei, Wataru 150 Now TV 106–107

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pure women 16 putonghua 117 Qiongyao drama 57, 58 Rain 156, 157, 160, 200 Rain Shower 156, 157 Rain Shower-Murderous Intentions after the Rain 156 Rashomon 163 Red flag 114 Return of the Pink Panther, The 63 Rin Hanne Koma 134 Ring, The 3 Ringu 3 Ronde-Dance in a Circle 158 Rooftop Prince 18 Rosy Life 218 Ryu, Siwon 178, 187 Sad Love Story 258, 259 Sangdo 177 Say Goodnight 203 Scruples 254 Secret Garden 17 Seoul 34, 76, 91, 157, 181, 184, 208, 255, 256 Sex and the City 260 Sheh, Charmaine Si Man 115 Silent Tear 104 Silk Cotton Kasaya 114 sinetron 134, 137 Singapore 5, 8, 36, 52, 58, 59, 81, 130, 139, 140, 170, 175–179, 215, 239, 247, 252

Sky 218 Sky is the Limit, The 111 slapstick 8 SMAPxSMAP 77 Smiling PASTA 224 Snow Queen, The 200 soap opera 13, 37, 41, 125, 126, 135, 136, 141, 143, 144, 169, 195, 196, 215, 223, 225, 227, 234, 246, 248, 249 social networking 80, 82, 97 Soompi 41, 85, 88, 89, 91 Soon Poong Clinic 254 Sound of Silence, The 203 South Korean dramas 37, 42, 104 Pop 169, 197 popular culture 41, 169 television drama 18, 194–195, 209 TV 177, 217, 219, 226 Southern Media Group 110 Sparks 173, 174 Spring Waltz 242, 256, 258, 259 Stairway to Heaven 200, 218, 254 Star in My Heart 199, 200 Star’s Echo 156, 157 Star’s Lover 258, 259 State Administration of Radio 108, 115 Stories From Afar 105 Stories of a Driving School 150 Story of a Mermaid 218 Strange Woman, Strange Man 218 Success Story of a Bright Girl 187 Summer Scent 256

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Taewangsansingi [The Four Guardian Gods of the King] 257 Taipei Times 37, 42 Taiwan 2–5, 8–11, 18, 31, 36–37, 42, 43, 52, 53, 57, 58, 78, 81, 95, 108, 128, 139, 170–173, 178, 179, 188, 195, 215–234, 242–244, 247 Taiwanese National Communications Commission 42 Taiwanese Wave 20 Takahashi, Kazuya 61 Tale of Autumn, A 31 Tehran Times 60 telenovelas 134 television American 52, 56 Asian 1, 3–7, 9–16, 20, 27–36, 38, 44, 45, 47–52, 66, 67, 75–85, 97, 98, 247 Asian online 77 British 49, 62, 64, 65 cable 106, 107, 109, 179, 221 Chinese 4, 105, 111, 113, 119, 120, 169, 219 Chinese International 13, 113 digital 107 fictions 28, 35 formats 3, 30 Gala Corporation 18, 42, 57, 218, 219

Hong Kong 13, 101, 105, 108–113, 115–118 inter-Asian trade in 10 Japanese 16, 36, 39, 53, 82, 163, 245, 251, 252 Korean 16, 18, 32, 35, 38, 76, 170, 189, 193–194, 200, 209, 216, 217, 221, 222, 240, 241, 243, 246, 247, 252 Malaysia 134 melodrama 14, 31 pay 106, 107 satellite 104, 108, 116, 148, 169, 201, 245 Taiwanese 217, 220 terrestrial 60, 103, 105, 106, 169, 240 US 49, 53 Television Broadcast Limited (TVB) 103 Tezuka, Osamu 56 Thailand 31, 37, 52, 134 Tiananmen Square 115 Tokyo Love Story 8, 47, 196 To My Mother 198 Tower Records 48 transnational consumption 171 transnational flows 7, 172, 177 transnational media 125, 134, 171 trendy dramas 8, 11, 15, 17, 36, 173, 174, 196 Japanese 8, 11, 17, 36, 171 Korean 15, 173, 174, 189, 196, 253 true love 158, 159

index

Super Girl 3 Super Rookie Ranger 218 Super Trouper 203

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reading asian television drama

Tsui, Siu-ming 114 TVB 13, 103–108, 110, 113–117 TVB Pay Vision 106, 107 TVB8 108 tv-links.co.uk 96 Twin of Brothers 116 Undercover Lady Detective, The 17 Unforgettable 224 United Malays National Organization (UMNO) 135 United States 5, 27, 48, 55, 67, 75, 77, 180, 197, 204, 243, 260 Valley Where Cherries Bear Fruit, The 150 VeohTV 86 Viacom 110 video-sharing 77, 82, 96 Vietnamese 20, 31, 84, 87, 89 Vietnamese viewers 31 Vietnamese Wave 20 Views of Tokyo Bay 158 Vincent 193, 203 Violet 202 voice-over 63, 64 Wada, Emi 163 Wal-Mart 48 Wang, Joey 149 War and Beauty 116 Water Margin, The 62–67 Weakest Link, The 3 Wedding 16, 172, 174, 178–184 Wednesday Feature, The 61

Western Orientalism 10 Westernization 34, 117 Wharf Cable 106 What is Love All About? 169, 217 When Love Fails 202, 204, 208, 209 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? 3, 52 Winter Sonata 9, 15, 18, 21, 38–40, 46, 50, 61, 98, 104, 134–140, 148, 149, 157–162, 169, 170, 174–178, 200–203, 206, 209, 218, 241, 254, 256 Woman from Hong Kong 149 women, see Malay women women’s magazines 8, 132, 133, 138 Won, Bin 57, 157, 254 Wong, Faye 150 Wong, Karwai 163 World Apartment Horror 149 wuxia genre 64 Xing Kong TV 110 Xu, Vivian 150 Yamada, Taichi 151 Yang, Jin-woo 159 Yo so Betty la Fea (I am Betty, the Ugly One) 134 Yoon, Son-ha 156 Yoon, Suk-ho 256 You are Beautiful 17 Young and the Restless, The 141 Youthful Boys and Girls 224

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Zimbabwe 29, 30

index

YouTube 22, 86, 96 Yu-Gi-Oh 55

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