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Local Pop Culture Facing New Challenges

May 22nd, 2009
1 comment
Korea Times
05-22-2009 17:23

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Clockwise from top left, Korean blockbuster film“, Shiri”directed by Kang Je-gyu; BoA of SM Entertainment; Korean TV drama “Jewel in the Palace”starring Lee Young-ae / Korea Times File Photos

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By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter

Is hallyu, or Korean Wave, waning or still booming? There has been lots of talk about the sustainability of hallyu among industry insiders as the overseas success of some of Korea’s TV dramas and movies seemed to have declined in recent years.

Freelance writer Mark James Russell, however, dismisses the term, hallyu. He once jokingly called it “Zombie Wave” for these worriers, arguing that there never was a Korean Wave in the first place, so it couldn’t really be said to be dying or anything.

Then, what is the Korean Wave? Korean pop culture crosses many media, demographics and regions and it means very different things to different people.

“I don’t like the term, Korean Wave, because it is like a black box. It doesn’t really explain anything. Why is something popular with older women in Japan and with younger kids in Southeast Asia and middle-aged men in America? These are very different trends and forces that are happening,” Russell said in an interview with The Korea Times.

Russell, author of the new book “Pop Goes Korea,” said that there are a lot of negative connotations associated with Korean Wave ― shortsighted fad, poor financing and crude nationalism.

“Korea was at the forefront in Asia supplying this kind of lessons from the entertainment industries. Hong Kong is getting very aggressive in its movies, making its mo090522_p15_pop3vies pan-Asia’s blockbusters. Taiwan is trying very hard to emulate the Korean movie industries. Korea was very fortunate to be at the forefront of this change. … You have to fight and struggle to keep that cutting-edge trend,” he said.

The journalist came to Korea from Canada to teach English in 1996, and worked as a correspondent for the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. In his new book, Russell analyzes the evolution of the country’s pop culture from the past to the present.

The lively-looking book with colorful images of Korean celebrities delves into various genres of pop culture and features his abundant in-depth profiles of the entertainment moguls.

He portrays the film industry and infrastructure through the story of how big corporations such as CJ Entertainment stepped into film production and multiplex-building, transforming the local cinematic landscape and the economic dynamics of producing a blockbuster, shedding light on Kang Je-gyu’s big productions.

Concerning the screen quota, he said that “it is a placebo.”

“At best, it was a psychological aid,” he said. In his book, he argued that people buy tickets to movies they want to see; if there is nothing playing that they like, then they don’t buy tickets. Forcing theaters to show movies no one wants to see does not mean more box office receipts, it only hurts the theater owners and distributions.

Instead, he said that there are a lot of things that the government can do to help make the industry stronger. “Having a strong, reliable rule of a law or having good financing … things that you can trust … Enforcing copyrights. The government and the film industry have to put more energy into enforcing copyright than they do for the screen quota,” he said.

Japan has a protective market and strong copyright protection. DVD sales in Japan are also going down but physical sales in Japan have been strong for a long time. When it comes to Korea, everything is already full of piracy, he said. “Every street corner has tape guys and video CDs or whatever. The most important thing is creating good alternatives. I don’t think you need to put all your energy into cracking down on illegal stuff … you need to put more energy into providing reliable, convenient and affordable alternatives,” he said.

Also, one of the most serious problems facing Korean pop culture is the lack of historical connection, Russell argued. People buy today’s hit songs but they don’t buy the hits of yesterday. They flood the movie theaters, but they don’t watch films at the repertory cinemas or buy DVDs.

Compared to the Japanese who love to collect, Koreans are kind of the next generation, he said. “They don’t need such things as books or DVDs at home and they want to just hook up to the Internet and read it there. It’s a more immediate and next generation culture,” he said.

In America and Europe, movie theaters are less then half the revenue of a film. More revenue comes from all the other things ― TV and home videos. But in Korea, 80-85 percent of revenue comes from the movie theater. “Very risky and very unhealthy. People have shown that they are willing to pay for contents in many different ways,” he said.

Catalog sales are essential to any country’s pop culture, bringing in steady revenue streams that can tide companies over in the lean times and when big projects misfire. “That means the industry has to look at long-term development. It’s not about today’s hits. It’s about cultivating artists and it’s also making the companies more stable. Today’s hits tend to be things younger people are interested in. It’s limiting the market. The 35-year-olds don’t watch the same movie the 25-year-olds watch and the 45-year-olds don’t listen to music the 15-year-olds listen to,” he said.

He also pointed out that Korean music has become less diverse. “It’s easy to blame SM Entertainment or JYP. But if people start buying good music and different kinds of music, the record companies will respond,” he said.

It’s interesting to examine pop culture through personal profiles, such as the TV drama industry through the career of heartthrob Lee Byung-hun, the story of how Lee Soo-man of SM Entertainment produced BoA and Shinhwa and other profile stars and how internet file-sharing sites and services such as Soribada impacted the music industry and the manhwa culture.

“People find people stories and personal struggles interesting in terms of individual stories rather than the institutions ― Miky Lee from CJ Entertainment, Kang Je-gyu from blockbuster movies and Lee Soo-man rather than the music industry and Lee Byung-hun in the television industry in general and Sean Yang in Soribada,” he said.

The book reveals not only the challenges of Korean pop culture but also triumphs and feats in entertainment and arts with poignant analysis and anecdotes to help the industry move in a better direction.

“The question for Korea is how will its entertainment industries respond to the new challenges and competition heading their way. Ten years is a long time to shine and doubtlessly as other entertainment industries around Asia grow and learn, they will compete more and more intensely with Korea. Contending with this rising competition may be difficult, but it is also healthy, pushing creators and creative industries in Korea and across Asia,” he said.

chungay@koreatimes.co.kr

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(517) Merry Widows!

May 22nd, 2009
1 comment
Korea Times
05-22-2009 15:16

By Andrei Lanov

In old Korea, widows were viewed with deep suspicion. Everybody with even a cursory knowledge of pre-1900 Korean literature knows that widows were usually depicted as lecherous creatures, driven by their insatiable and immoral sexual desires ― and, as we shall see, any sexual desire in their case was immoral by definition.

The old fiction sometimes mentioned chaste widows as well, but it was often stressed that one had to be a woman of exceptional virtue to successfully resist the manifold temptations available.

Traditional Korean morals held that women should be “chaste”: virginal before marriage and unconditionally loyal to their husbands during the marriage. But what about widows who were bound to be numerous in a society with an average life expectancy in the early 1920s?

They had to remain loyal to their late husband. Thus, in the official parlance, a widow came to be known as “mimangin” or “not-yet-dead-person.” As the name suggested, a decent widow had to wait for her death. It was laudable or even advisable if she sped the process up by committing suicide, thus avoiding all dangerous and ruinous temptations.

But the works of fiction leave little doubt that Koreans did not believe that many women lived up to the lofty ideal of chaste widowhood. The marriage of a widow was formally banned until 1894, and even after it was lifted such marriages were discouraged.

These age-old fears resurfaced in the 1950s when Korean society had to deal with the “widow problem” on a hitherto unprecedented scale. Even though during the Korean War both sides demonstrated a remarkably equal approach to the sexes when it came to indiscriminate killing, men still had many more chances to perish.

Thus, according to the 1957 data, there were 550,000 war widows in Korea. Most of them were wives of South Korean soldiers and policemen killed in action during the Korean War (there was also a very small number of women whose husbands perished while fighting on the other side).

Only 34,000 were single, while others took care of families ― not only children but also elderly parents and younger siblings. Almost a million (910,000, to be more precise) people were members of families headed by the widows.

The situation was bad, since Korea was desperately poor and it could not provide adequate work even for able bodied and skilled men.

The opportunities for female employment were very limited, especially since only 640 war widows (or 0.1 percent of the total) had a college education, while approximately half of them had never attended any regular school at all.

Thus, in 1957, half of the widows had no jobs, or had jobs that did not pay enough to support their families.

The government established special centers for widows where they could find housing and support. Throughout the 1950s, there were some 60 to 65 such centers (for example, 64 in 1957) with 7,000 to 8,000 women resident at any one time.

But this was but a tiny fraction of all the widows. Since only a small number of women could be possibly accepted, the centers were usually open only to widows with small children.

Such centers not only provided women with housing and food, but also gave them some training in potentially useful occupations: hairdressing, dressmaking or knitting. However, it would be overstating the case to say that those women left the shelters with marketable skills: The data we have indicates that their employment rate was low.

Apart from the shelters, there were also vocational training centers, but they hardly fared much better. For most women, the 1950s and early 1960s was a period when they had to struggle along with odd jobs (largely in small trade) until their children grew old enough to take care of themselves and their aging mothers. Fortunately, for most widows, this was eventually the case.

And, of course, society could not stop worrying about widows’ sexual mores. According to established tradition, the chaste widows were to be glorified: In 1955 Pak Nam-ok, one of the few female directors then active in Korea, produced a movie called “Widow” which tells the story of a brave and chaste woman resisting all temptations and advances of predatory males.

However, should such advances always be resisted? In 1956, well-known novelist Chang Tok-jo published an essay in which he stated that for a childless woman re-marriage and perhaps even love affairs could be permissible.

However, he did not doubt that for a widow with children such frivolities should not be tolerated, and he also made clear that a love affair of a childless widow should in due course lead to a proper marriage and motherhood.

Some authors went even further, and challenged the centuries-old assumptions, even suggesting that re-marriage could be suitable even for those widows who were taking care of children.

Amusingly, in their polemic they often cited the alleged sexual insatiability of widows, which could lead to social incidents and complications.

A female journalist wrote, “If [widows] cannot control their sexual desires, remarriage is much more suitable and honorable [solution]” ― presumably, more suitable and honorable than promiscuous liaisons with married men.

Indeed, the 1950s was a time when many old assumptions about proper behavior met with a powerful challenge.

Prof. Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. He has recently published “The Dawn of Modern Korea,” which is now on sale at Kyobo Book Center and other major bookstores. The book is based on columns published in The Korea Times. He can be reached at anlankov@yahoo.com

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Dadohae Offers Spectacular Views of Southern Islands

May 22nd, 2009
14 comments
Korea Times
05-21-2009 20:41
 

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Tourists appreciate the scenic view of nearby islands at a viewpoint on Mt. Dori, Sangjo Island. / Courtesy of Jindo County

By Kim Young-il
Contributing writer

In his interview with Napoleon Bonaparte at St. Helena in 1816, Basil Hall, a traveler and author, introduces an interesting reference to Korea. The Emperor expressed his curiosity about Korean culture. He was quoted as saying, “(It) would be interesting in trying to wear `gat’ (traditional cylindrical Korean hat) and smoking a cigarette with a long bamboo pipe.” He made the remarks when Hall presented a sketch of “Corean Chief and His Secretary” drawn by artist William Havell.

Apparently, Hall had the privilege to interview Napoleon on his way to England after his expedition to the western coast of Korea as his father was Napoleon’s classmate at the military college of Brienne.

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According to Hall’s book “A Voyage of Discovery to the Western Coast of Corea and the Great Loo-Choo Island,” on Sept. 5, 1816, he disembarked from his ship the Lyra on the shore of Sangjo Island and climbed up the peak there, Mt. Dori. Fascinated with the spectacular birds-eye view of the hundreds of islands spread out over the open sea, he spent five days surveying and mapping the area.

Descending from the peak, Hall apparently offered a bottle of South African Constantia wine to the villagers to reciprocate the offer of smoking a long bamboo pipe. It is interesting to note that the fortunate person who enjoyed tasting the very first Western wine in Korean history probably was a senior villager from a remote island off the southwestern coast of South Jeolla Province.

When I read this book, I could not resist the temptation of following Hall’s footsteps. During the long holiday earlier this month, we headed for Paengmok Pier to take a ferry to the islands.

The highways were packed with cars from early in the morning. It appeared as if we were locked in the middle of a huge elongated shaped parking lot stretching from Seoul all the way to Gunsan, North Jeolla Province. In a desperate bid to avoid the traffic hell, we tried to zigzag from one highway to another but with no luck.

Suddenly, French economist Jacques Attali’s lecture came to mind ― “Koreans’ roots are from nomads thus they are mobile people. Because of this mobility heritage, Koreans fit well to this IT age; cars, mobile phones and portable computer devices will take care of everything.”

It is said that Korea is now in an unprecedented economic hardship. However, when I saw the heavy highway traffic on Saturday morning, I wondered whether we are really in an economic crunch. Signs of a slump were hardly seen, at least on the highway.

On my trip from Seoul to Jindo Island, yellowish green leaves of persimmon trees attracted my attention. The scenery of refreshing bundles of persimmon enriches Koreans’ sentiment.

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Sea of Many Islands

As we got aboard the ferry, we decided to climb the peak of Sangjo Island from where Hall counted 135 islands over the surrounding sea and where he exclaimed, “This is the most shocking view in the world.” Disembarking at Hajo Island pier, we drove on the tiny bridge connecting Hajo to Sangjo Island and headed to Mt. Dori. The weather was cloudy.

When we reached the peak, we experienced a thrilling panoramic view through the sea mist. As the word “Dadohae” literally means many islands, the sapphire waters were dotted with myriads of islands. The seascape was really spectacular and breathtaking. I was just speechless. We came to fully understand why the explorer Hall proclaimed the view as the most beautiful scenery.

This inexplicable scenery was created by the erosion processes following the repeated fall and rise of sea levels during the Pleistocene Era (Ice Age). This spectacular view was indescribable. With a curiosity as to how it would appear under the morning sunlight, we all headed to a motel with the determination to return in the morning.

 

As it was two hours away from breakfast time, we headed to the Hajo Island Light House. I felt I was totally free from my spring allergies due to clean air. Breakfast was quite nice. It included home-dried grilled yellow corvine, fresh wild edible greens, egg stew, homemade pickled oysters with a freshly cooked bowl of rice.

As I glanced around the restaurant wall, I noticed the movie director Im Kwon-taek’s framed autograph with a phrase, “I had dinner at this restaurant, Nov. 4, 2006.” Apparently he stopped over when he was shooting the movie “Cheonnyeonhak” (Beyond the Years).

We headed to our next destination, Gwanmae Island. As clouds cleared away, our team was in an upbeat mood. I drove to the beach first. The huge, hypnotic white beach seemed too big for a small island. As the gradient of the beach face was so low, it almost gave an impression of flatness. It was the lowest gradient beach that I have seen in this area.

Although it requires a boat trip to view all eight recommended scenes on the island, an exotic boulder and Banga Island can be seen by land. According to a folk tale, Heavenly Angels accidentally dropped the huge boulder lying on the surface on the northern beach. When we interpret it scientifically, the boulder is a tor (core stone), which fell from the top of the mountain and rested on the wave-cut shore platform.

On the northeast tip of the island, there is a tiny island called Banga. At the top of this island, there are many tors exposed. Local folklore metaphorically described this as a man’s organ. It is ironic that in 1816, Hall named this rock “Huntley Lodge” as the rock reminded him of a square-shaped roof of a church. What a different observation of this same rock by East versus West.
These islands offered a lingering affection for us. We promised to revisit them islands in the near future.

While we were heading back to our base camp at Jindo Island for dinner, I suggested to our team that we take deep breaths of this fresh island air to revive our worn out lungs from the polluted air in Seoul.

The writer is president of Woo-Il Company Ltd. He can be reached at yikim@jskt.co.kr.

 

 

 

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