Hong-Chi Shiauqualities are valued. For instance, in Confucian tenets, the concept of wen emphasizes nurturing
and maintaining a healthy and strong mind/body balance. In some cases, the Confucian values of
wen masculinity are the exact opposite of the traditional or hegemonic masculinities of the west.
Although not far from the Western conception of being soft and even the derogatory moni-
ker, “nerdy,” Confucian wen highly values male qualities such as intellectualism, theory, cultural
nuance, self-restraint, and obedience to authority—the latter especially as applies to relationships
involving fathers and other older men (Jung 2011; Louie 2009).
This chapter analyzes Korean male celebrities, targeting young men in their twenties and
thirties who are featured in Men’s UNO—the most popular men’s fashion magazine in Taiwan.
The purpose of this study is to explore how Korean celebrities are being entangled in webs
of meaning through an analysis of a multimodal discourse analysis. Notably or perhaps argua-
b l y, Men’s UNO once promoted itself as the only “local magazine” and its cover was reserved
exclusively for Chinese celebrities—mostly actors or pop-singers—from Taiwan, Hong Kong,
and Mainland China. However, since 2003, when Satoshi Tsumabuki, a Japanese male actor,
was featured on the cover, a fissure appeared in this self-contained mediascape, challenging the
identity of Men’s UNO as the leader of the “Chinese” men’s fashion world. This fissure later
became a crack with the appearance on Men’s UNO’s cover of Hiroyuki Ikeuchi and Hidetoshi
Nakata. Given the strong Japanese influence suggested in the name of Men’s UNO, which is
close to Japan’s Men’s NON-NO, there was little surprise in Men’s UNO featuring a Japanese
celebrity on its cover. But when Ji Jin-hee was featured on the cover in 2005, becoming the
first Korean male celebrity to do so, the editor of Men’s UNO was making a bold decision to
challenge the status quo and “innovate.” This decision was made even more significant given the
longstanding hostility between Taiwanese and Korean men, and by the fact that Ji became just
the first of several Korean celebrities to appear on the cover during 2004. Taiwanese anti-Korean
sentiment had emerged in 1992 when Korea severed diplomatic ties with Taipei to establish ties
with Beijing. The Taiwanese felt betrayed by a country they had seen as their ally in the fight
against Communism (Chosun Ilbo 2009). Given Taiwan’s precarious international situation, it
faces unique barriers in its cultivation of diplomatic ties, making Korea’s diplomatic abandon-
ment all the more painful and strongly affecting popular perceptions of Koreans. Since 1992
anti-Korean resentment has been perpetuated among the Taiwanese public, most notable in
conversations about sports, and in particular, baseball. Due to the nature of sports events—where
the athletes and fans are primarily male—Korean athletes have long been perceived as the least
accomplished among the more nationalistic and heterosexual male sports fans in Taiwan. The
hatred towards Koreans is readily illustrated in the frequent use of derogatory terms such as
Han Gou (phonetically Korea but sounds like “Korean dog”) by Taiwanese netizens in online
chat forums centered on sports. Examples of sports disputes between Taiwan and Korea are not
difficult to come by. One recent, high-profile, and heated example was the Sockgate dispute,
involving a contested judgment in a taekwondo match in 2010, which saw Taiwanese netizens
rally to boycott Korean merchandise in response (China Post 2010). Korean sports teams or in
this case, judges, have long been perceived as manipulative and unfair by Taiwanese sports fans.
Given such entrenched hostility, it is intriguing, simultaneously perplexing and thus necessary to
unpack the Korean phenomenon in the popular culture scene at a time when the transcultural
presence of Korean masculinities continued to thrive and coexisted with such hostility. This
chapter thus aims to shed light on how these Korean male celebrities potentially overcame these
controversies, riding upon the Korean Wave, penetrating a mediascape that initially contained
hostility from Taiwanese male readers. Ji Jin-hee has now been featured on the cover of Men’s
UNO a total of three times since his first appearance in 2005, and moreover has been joined by
nine other Korean celebrities.