Chua Beng HuatJapanese and Korean pop culture flowing into China and very little reverse flow; and second, the
relative positions of power in international relations, with China as an emerging “global” power,
Korea as a regional middle power, and Japan’s inability to translate its economic power into mili-
tary strength, hobbled as it were by its postwar peace constitution. This chapter aims to chart out
the relative positions of these three nations and to assess the efficacy of media culture as a resource
and an instrument of soft power in positively influencing transnational audiences.
Evidence of popularity and influence
To achieve the objectives of soft power, the exported pop culture must be able to shift its
audience’s perceptions, preferences, interpretative frameworks, and emotions, that is, a set of
cognitive processes, so as to create a generally positive disposition towards, and attraction to, the
exporting country. So, let us first examine evidence of this positive influence. There is evidence
that Japanese and Korean pop cultures have shifted regional audience sentiments in favor of
the two countries. For example, the cognitive and ideological effects of Japanese and Korean
pop music on their respective young audiences in Taiwan and China are captured in the terms
harizu and hahanzu (哈日族 and 哈韩族)—ha (哈) is a Taiwanese colloquialism for “yearning,”
“desire,” “admiration,” and “being interested” (Lee Ming Tsung 2009, 121, my translation) and
zu is “tribe.” Harizu refers to the “tribe” that identifies with Japanese culture; hahanzu are those
who identify with Korean culture (Ko 2004, 108; Lee 2004, 133; Pease 2009, 158).
Undoubtedly, Japanese television “trendy” or “idol” dramas were regionally popular through-
out the 1990s. They were displaced and replaced by Korean television dramas by the end of
that decade, while Japanese and Korean pop music remained “a niche in the market” (Pease
2009, 155; see also Otmazgin 2008a). Illustrative is the popularity of the 2003 Korean TV
drama, Daejanggeum or Jewel in the Palace. The last episode garnered 47 percent of the total tele-
vision audience the evening it aired in Hong Kong, the highest rating ever recorded in local
television history. Jewel was also dubbed in Mandarin by a Taiwan station and was subsequently
broadcast in Singapore and China to equally enthusiastic receptions (Leung 2008). Its ratings
may have been superseded in 2014 by the Korean TV drama Byeoreseo on geudae (My Love from
the Star), which was so hot in China that it was reported that each episode sold for a record-
breaking US$80,000. It was the unprecedented success of the urban tragic-romance drama
Winter Sonata in 2003 that signaled the breakthrough for Korean TV dramas in Japan (Mōri
2008). Its greatest impact was on the middle-aged Japanese women audience, constituting them
as an active audience that had until then been missed by media observers (Mōri 2008, 137).
Many of these women began to learn the Korean language and study Japanese–Korean colonial
history, expressing the desire to be “cultural bridges” to ameliorate the underlying animosity
between the two nations, a legacy of the nearly fifty-year colonization of Korea by Japan. They
began this process by challenging indifferent or unfriendly attitudes towards Korean diasporas in
Japan, communities that have long been discriminated against (Iwabuchi 2008).
Beyond the specific fan groups and their positive attitudes towards exporting nations, there
is also anecdotal evidence that Koreans have benefited in a more diffuse way. A Korean woman
living in Singapore said,
In the past, taxi drivers would ask me whether I was from Japan. These days they and
other local people would greet me in “An-nyong haseyo,” adding that Korean women
are the most beautiful stock in Asia, or asking whether I can provide them with Bae
Yong Jun’s photo.
(cited in Shim 2005:75)