Asian Cultural Integration: Japanese Dorama vs Korean Drama

              It is a constant debate on the issue of Western culture or (in another term) American popular culture imperializing their influences globally and especially towards Asia. Although it is a fact to an extend that the current lifestyle that we are living now are very much infused with Western influence, however, it does not mean that we are culturally homogenized with Western culture in general. Following this, we will be looking in to the Asia’s influence towards the East/Southest Asia’s culture through the presence of Japanese TV dramas and to a certain extend Korean TV dramas and how the fusion of these dramas comes into the picture.

              From the late 80’s to the 90’s, Japan’s influence has been subtly entering into the East/Southeast Asia’s culture. And one of the influences is the Japanese TV dramas – from Tokyo Love Story, Long Vacation, Beach Boys to Love Generation and Overtime. It is the type of dramas that we have been watching during the younger days, feeling emotionally attached with the characters that were depicted in the stories and at the same time trying to be as culturally connected with them as possible. It was the popular trend then that young adults are hyped about actors such as Kimura Takuya, Takeneuchi Yutaka, or are keen to learn Japanese language, visiting the country in order to feel connected with the dramas and even collecting posters, CDs, merchandises, etc.

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              It is a wonder as to why we associate so intensively and quickly towards Japanese TV dramas in contrast to us accepting the Western dramas. It may be due to cultural proximity that resulted our acceptance so easily towards these dramas in comparison with Western dramas. The storyline and the characters shown in the dramas, the intensity of these young adults striving to find their love and career at a big city that generally resulted many urbanites to relate to their stories (Iwabuchi, 2004:13). Or perhaps it is as Ko indicated on how Japanese TV dramas triggered a certain notion of “reality” and “imaginary” towards the Tokyo/urban lifestyle for the young working adults in Asia (Iwabuchi, 2004:13-14). It is these sorts of depictions that resulted many young adult audience to become so fondly attached towards the Japanese culture.

              This cultural integration followed through from the Japanese-pop culture to the present hype of Korean-pop culture. By breaking down and viewing the Korean TV dramas with the Japanese TV dramas, one can’t help but notice the similarities in the trend. Both depicting the stories of urban young adults chasing after love, career and their dreams, except that Korean dramas linked their family relationships very strongly in comparison to the solo urban youth’s adventure that was usually portrayed in Japanese TV dramas (Iwabuchi, 2004:17).

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The Korean-pop culture uses the same method of entering to the East/Southeast Asia market as the Japanese-pop culture which is through the collaboration with local broadcasting companies, in this case the Arirang TV via Asia Sat No 3 broadcasting satellite (Suh, Cho and Kwon, n.d.:6). Though there are views of disassociating the relations between both the Japanese-pop culture with Korean-pop culture, the methods of influence are similar and so does the ‘popular wave’ that followed through as well. Young adults are now going excited about actors such as Lee Min Ho, Jang Geun Suk, where these actors were made famous due to the TV dramas they were acting in. Perhaps the only difference is that Korean influence is more vocal and distinct in comparison to Japanese’s subtle influence. The indication of being more distinct in a way shows especially when these Korean actors or celebrities, once just recently claimed a certain level of fame in the Asia market was quickly recruited to become spokesperson for a selected number of product (usually Korean products). This first promotes the selected products in association with Korea’s brand and secondly, further promotes the Korean celebrity even further. This method of branding is rarely seen for the Japanese actors or celebrities during the peak of Japanese-pop culture in East/Southeast Asia. And it may be one of the cultural influence methods that see Korean-pop culture influence grew stronger and more widely associated in comparison to Japan.

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This brought us in to the upcoming Asia’s fusion TV drama trend.  The desire to provide a popular TV drama that will be well-received by their local audiences, generated this new trend of obtaining an initial storyline from an already well-received, popular Japanese TV drama and converting it - using their own local actors and locations – their own version of the exact TV drama. Few of the examples are Boys Over Flowers, To The Beautiful You, It Started With a Kiss, etc. Perhaps, this may further encourage the cultural proximity between the Asian audience and even a deeper cultural localization in within the respective countries.

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                For now, one thing is clear that Western influence may have generally infused in the global context however, we are yet to be termed as culturally homogenized.  Instead, cultural hybridization would be considered a better term – not only a hybrid between the local culture with Western culture, but also inclusive with a mixture of Asia’s cultural influence.

References

Iwabuchi, K. 2004, ‘Introduction: Cultural Globalisation and Asian Media Connections’, Feeling Asian Modernities: Transnational Consumption of Japanese TV Dramas, Aberdeen, Hongkong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 1-22.

Suh, C.S., Cho, Y.D. and Kwon, S.H. n.d., The Korean Wave in Southeast Asia: An Analysis of Cultural Proximity and the globalization of the Korean Cultural Products, 3^rd Congress, Research paper, World Congress of Korean Studies: South Korea, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://congress.aks.ac.kr/korean/files/2_1358476377.pdf>

Image Sources

Fig. 1, Tokyo Love Story, n.d., Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://www.dramastyle.com/drama/Tokyo-Love-Story-Tokyo-Love-Story/#.UiYYG9JRB8E>

Fig. 2, Long Vacation,n.d., Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://www.yesasia.com/us/long-vacation-japan-version/1001819891-0-0-0-en/info.html>

Fig. 3, Love Generation, 2010, Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://malaysiangenius.blogspot.com/>

Fig. 4, Winter Sonata, n.d., Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://www.tokodvd.com/detail/drama-korea-lain2-406.html>

Fig. 5, Summer Scent, n.d., Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://www.lovelydvd.com/SummerScent-247.html>

Fig. 6, Nature Republic, 2011, Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://pinkyreg.wordpress.com/tag/nature-republic-grand-opening-sm-north-edsa-the-block/>

Fig. 7, Holika Holika, 2011, Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://www.iwantibuyitalk.com/2011/07/holika-holika.html>

Fig. 8, Meteor Garden, 2009, Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://mytika07.blogspot.com/2009/05/wallpaper.html>

Fig. 9, Boys over Flowers, 2013, Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_Over_Flowers_(TV_series)>

Fig. 10, Hana Yori Dango, 2013, Google Image, viewed 3 September 2013, <http://tokyosuite.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/review-hana-yori-dango-season-1/>