More Reasons for the Enduring Popularity of Japanese over Korean Culture (updated)
Apologies to all those of you who have read the original version of this post, but the sloppiness of the writing in it really bugged me, and it didn’t help that the second half was completely off-topic either. This version is much the same, but hopefully much easier to read, and I decided to move the second half to the (impending) next post.
Still, a grave blogging faux pas for sure, but ultimately I decided I’d rather not have something heading my blog that I was, frankly, quite embarrassed to have written. From now on I’m definitely going to have to try and restrain myself from publishing as soon as I’ve finished typing the post up: after all, who cares if the original post gave the blog 636 “hits” yesterday, if 602 of them were for less than 5 seconds?
As a reward for those of you that do read the blog, be warned that the next couple of centimeters of the picture below, which marks the beginning of the original post, may be just ever so slightly NSFW. If you are at work, you might want to take care to scroll quickly past it.
( Source: naiyokaonkeitkokoraben )
To refresh people’s memories, I’ve already briefly discussed the historical background to this, and later I was happy to see fellow blogger Kevin take up some of my points and discuss them in more depth here. I’ve also mentioned the short-sighted and unsustainable way in which the Korean Wave was promoted (in contrast to its Japanese counterpart), and flooding the market with shoddily produced, repetitive Korean dramas may well have put East Asian audiences off them for the next decade. But then I saw the following post from the Korean Studies Discussion List, and it reminded me that there are still a myriad of small and subtle factors involved that never receive media attention, but the effects of which surely add up over time:
The 16th Cultural Program for Foreign Students and Scholars in Korean Studies
Nansook Jung yojh@aks.ac.kr wrote:
The Academy of Korean Studies is pleased to announce its 2008 Cultural Program for Foreigners. As an important part of the mission of AKS is to cultivate scholars and young leaders who can contribute to the development of Korean studies,…
Qualifications and Application Requirements: 1. Undergraduate students of second year or above and/or graduate students in Korean studies…
To which J. Scott Burgeson <jsburgeson@yahoo.com> replied:
One wonders if these kinds of programs would not be
more effective if the limit to students and academics
were not opened up to include independent scholars,
critics, journalists, novelists and other writers
outside the academy but still professionally dedicated
to the field of Korean studies. Ditto for research and
language-study grants here, which are also almost
always strictly limited to academics.Is it any wonder that number of books on Korea and
Korean culture aimed at a wider and more popular
audience in the West is so relatively impoverished, in
comparison to those produced about neighboring
countries like Japan and China, for instance?Just my two cents, of course.
(Illustration by Aquarius-Campio)
Yes, I’d be very very surprised if that wasn’t the same J. Scott Burgeson who wrote the hilarious but informative Korea Bug, and I couldn’t agree more. It reminds me of strands of International Relations Theory I learned while I was doing my MA called Institutionalism and Constructivism, but strangely neither article in Wikipedia mentions what I was taught was the core component of the former especially, namely how the effects of state elites of various countries often going to the same overseas universities, learning the same things, making networks there and maintaining them throughout their careers and so forth, is to provide the shared ideas, contacts, and exchanges that are in practice the oil that greases international trade and diplomacy.
Sure, that is mere common-sense, and the thought of various lackeys in Trade Ministries going on a bender with their overseas counterparts every now and then may sound like a somewhat trivial aspect of international affairs, but then consider the effects of Korean economics students in the 1960s starting to go to American rather than Japanese universities: the tension between relatively neoliberal young Turks in upper levels of the state apparatus, and the dirigisme of older officials at lower levels, and of the Korean population as a whole, is crucial to understanding much of Korean politics today. One fact little known by many Koreans (understandably), is the extent to which many junior officials in the Kim Dae-Jung government welcomed and encouraged the liberalization wrought by the IMF in 1998. Heresy for sure, but I can provide sources which demonstrate that they not only relished the opportunity previously denied them by their (now much-subdued) Japan-educated superiors, but even added to the IMF loan stipulations, feeling that they didn’t go far enough.
For a clearer, albeit non-Korean example, consider what the Economist says about the effects of shrinking UK-EU networks due to Britain’s Costly Disdain for the EU, which will surely have big impacts on relations in the coming decades as current old Europe-hands will lack suitably-qualified younger replacements.
(Illustration by Peter Schrank)
In short, ideas, exchanges and networks matter, and when I first read about the cultural program before I read Burgeson’s reply, I too was annoyed that I was technically excluded because I’d recently discontinued my MA: just in case you hadn’t noticed, I do still consider myself someone who “can contribute to the development of Korean studies,” and a good start would be reminding those few visitors still reading this post to sign up for the Korea Studies Discussion List that inspired it. Sure, much of it is announcements of public lectures in Tokyo or Washington that most readers wouldn’t be able to attend, but as you can see, events in Korea are mentioned time to time, and of course the discussions are still interesting. I’ll put it up in my blogroll as soon as I finish editing this post.
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Year ,but Korean wave gaining popularity now day’s .
Even Japanese are watching Korean dramas .
Mike, in all due respect, did you read any of the links in the first paragraph? America would be the only place the Korean Wave will be gaining in popularity if at all, and personally I’m doubtful given that most English-language sources on it are also Korean. Meanwhile, Japanese pop culture has been popular for decades, but the Korean Wave has definitely fizzled out across most of East Asia.
For anyone interested in the Korean Wave’s impact on America specifically, see the Korea Society’s podcast on that I discuss here.
Burgeson’s point is good. Korea has NO idea how to market itself outside of Korea, particularly to western nations.
Academic translations and cultural exchanges played the smallest part.
Aggressive and clever marketing of materials, sake, and sushi did. So did writing ABOUT Japan (One Clavell who wrote about Korea would help) and making Japan a tourist destination was the final bit..
Korea has been poor at all of this…
I think this might be the subject of my PhuD…
You’re quite right Roger. In hindsight I shouldn’t really have lumped academic and cultural exchanges under the rubric of the (failed) Korean Wave at all. Still important in their own right, but like you said, they would have only played the smallest part in the fortunes of the Korean Wave itself.
If anyone’s still interested in the reasons for the declining popularity of the Korean Wave, may I recommend this podcast of Michael Hurt’s from December. It’s a little long, and goes completely off topic for most of it, but it has some good points that I haven’t seen or heard mentioned elsewhere.
On the internet, Japanese dramas are gaining popularity due to its freshness and original storylines. Taiwanese and Korean are buying Japanese manga copyrights. This is to show you that they are running out of creativities.
hi James I’m really amazed at the energy you are putting into these discussions. Any personal reasons why it’s so important for you to point out what you are pointing out here? You seem so religious about it — if the facts “speak for themselves” as you seem to think they do, why do you have to sweat so much pointing out “the obvious”?
Could it be that things aren’t as obvious as you make them out to be and you are suppressing any facts that might contradict what you think? Just makes you wonder you know. I mean what are you exactly saying anyway? If you are so in love with Japanese culture, be in love. Let others find what they like on their own.
ps. japan was decades/centuries ahead of korea in promoting their culture around the world. korea only just got started. too early to go on about “enduring” whatnot.
I have to agree with soupset on the fact that japan has had many decades more to promote its self. It has only had what… 50 or 60 years of freedom from japan? And most of that time was spent catching up to everyone else in the world. Why would they worry about promoting them selves????
Adding one, i agree- korea was closed from the rest of the world (while Japan began trading and communicating with western countries) right until they got conqured by the japanese and even after that the korean war pushed it into complete poverty. Only lately has Korea begone doing anything really. In terms or poorer countries (such as Vietnam), Korea is far more popular than Japan.
Even in countries like Japan and China stuff such as k-pop is probably most dominant. Take for example that Japan has only now started making plans about entering the korean market while Lorea has, for years had great pop music sucess in Japan with the likes of TVXQ while in China Super Junior is a great hit. TVXQ is actually the most popular boyband in the world and also has a collasal fanbase of 800,000 which is actually the biggest fanbase in the world.
As for Dramas, Koreas has been getting stronger for years, but of course there will be the odd blip. Actually, korean film exports have increased this year.
oops lots of spelling mistakes my bad
Jono, no need to apologize for spelling mistakes. But you and just about every other commenter on this post seem to be missing the point of the post, which is that Koreans are incredibly short-sighted in whom they consider worthy of and/or qualified to receive Korea Studies-related grants and participate in conferences and cultural events and things, the effects of which are not insignificant over time.
I never actually disagreed with or even mentioned the fact that Japan has had far longer than Korea to promote itself overseas. Maybe my silence in the comments to this post implies otherwise, but then you can understand my reticence after “so–upset” set the tone.
I AM a student studying Korean Studies and therefore – rather strangely it seems among people commenting on this piece – on of the ones who should be part of the “included” ones when it comes to the forums and events. However, seeing it form the inside, I can quite easily confirm what James has said that the Koreans who are trying to promote themselves do so in a way that is very counter-productive, by trying to maintain a tight-knit group of “recognised” academics to keep at the core of Korean cultural promotion. They certainly could do with opening up to other people whose professional focus was Korea or Korean studies.
The simple fact of the matter is, organisations such as the Academy of Korean Studies, among others, are really very internal about developing externally. There seems to be very little awareness – as has been mentioned – of what foreigners want to discover or learn about Korea, or about what cultural aspects could prove successful. If they were aware or inquisitive enough to ask people from OUTSIDE their traditional network, they would include novelists (currently there are very few novels about Korea written by non-Koreans, and those that do exist typically focus on the Korean War, but it’s a start, right?), film critics and producers, and they’d maybe give more attention to musicians who aren’t completely controlled by the big entertainment companies.
To stoke the fires of the Korean Wave, they clearly need more Oldboy and less 아내의 유혹, and they could also do with opening up to people who aren’t just the ones on the list of the usual academic suspects.
Thanks for the comment Seamus, although I confess I can’t really think of much to say in reply! One thing you might be interested in though, which I’d highlight as a prime example of what I describe in the text if I was writing the post today, is the online financial blogger Minerva being criticized and dismissed by his former supporters for being merely a smart guy, rather than a professor or member of an economic think tank or so on with the authority to make the predictions that he did. Unbelievable.
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