Pure love? Blah!

It is interesting to see someone post something on the concept of jun ai - “pure love.” It reminded me of something my favorite Japan Times columnist, Kaori Shoji, wrote two years ago about the obsession with pure love that gripped the Japanese female populace as Winter Sonata swept the archipelago (I chose Japan to reflect the internationalization of hallyu).

But before I unpack Shoji’s perspectives, I think it would be interesting to understand the allure of the lead actor, Bae Yong Joon. One wouldn’t necessarily consider Joon to be the epitome of masculinity. As Thomas Dillon memorably laments, “How has this one rather average fellow so enslaved the upper echelons of Japanese femininity? After all, Bae Yong Joon is not exactly Mr. Muscle. Stick me in a T-shirt and shorts and even I have a better build. In fact, toss the T-shirt and shorts on the floor and they have a better build than us both. Neither is Yong-sama especially handsome. He benefits from an earnest, puppy-dog grin that makes people yearn to pat him on the head…He could use a haircut as well.” I might disagree with his choice of language, but I do agree with him. Heck, even Won Bin is more masculine than Bae Yong Joon (I believe Prof. Kim will soon offer a platform for a more in-depth, substantiated debate on the Korean masculinity). So what exactly is his allure? Well, read on…

According to Sugii, Winter Sonata ignited a longing among the female populace for relationships modeled after the concept of jun-ai or “first love” - a relationship that “should be platonic or, at most, include just one sexual encounter.” As hatsukoi or “first love” experience is usually regarded as the only form of pure love, the central emotional momentums that fuel a jun-ai relationship are innocence and drama. Yes, drama. Ideally, one of them would die at the peak of their romance in order to preserve the purity of their love. Gone are the days of casual relationships. Indeed, it is no longer cool to have a string of sex friends but no real boyfriends – a trend that was popular among the younger Japanese female populace a decade ago as wealth afforded them more “social independence/liberalization.” A recent survey testifies towards this change of heart. Japanese women long more for intimacy over sex and “value the process of seduction more than its consummation.” Many tied this shift to the allure of Yong-sama - his inherent sensitivity towards the need of a woman, excessive care and eternal romanticism, the ideal man.

But as the Japanese female today starts gravitating towards this idea of a meaningful, pure relationship, the Japanese male on the other hand is moving away from such relationships, or relationships, period. Perhaps a decade of economic stagnation has raised their safeguards, with priorities reoriented back to work and hobbies. Shoji also argues that there might possibly be a revirginization (otome-ization) of the Japanese male – no more eyebrow-plucking or leg-shaving, and the rebirth of a disgust for sexual relationships. The concept of revirginization leaves a lot to be debated about, but I believe that the Japanese male’s somewhat repulsion of jun-ai is brought upon by the burdensome responsibilities that accompany such relationships. Frequent calls, thoughtful gifts, over-the-top emotions etc. Indeed, the emotional excess is enough to wear down the very toughest men, plus the material cost would almost certainly deplete the deepest wallets. To the Japanese male, there is just no profit to be gained from a love relationship. To hell with girlfriends, give me a FB*! To the Japanese female, there is everything to be gained from a love relationship. To hell with FBs, give me a BF*!

With the population moving in opposite trends, one can only imagine how barren the dating scene in Japan must be…

But to tie everything back to the context of Winter Sonata, I am always left wondering if people actually buy into such forms of idealized romanticisms. I highly doubt a columnist would have undertaken a comprehensive survey of the Japanese populace, but it is somewhat troubling to realize how a drama series can fuel cross-national changes in dating trends, or even romantic preferences. Japanese men grow up with the mentality that emotional restrain is a hallmark of masculinity. Japanese women are demanding the opposite. They long for the feeling of romantic innocence and vulnerability, to be swept away by the male embrace of passion and security (Can’t believe I wrote that). I am surprised that despite the large number of females in our class, no one has brought up the fact that Winter Sonata moves against the feminist movement by depicting women as helpless individuals, dancing to the rhythms set by her “model lover.”

ARC

* Friend with benefits. I have clearly refrained from using the more common slang due its lack of taste and vulgarity :)
* Boyfriend

Sources:

Shoji, Kaori. “Men Retreat from the ‘Hassle’ of Loving Relationships.” The Japan Times. January 10, 2006.
Shoji, Kaori. “Obsession with Pure Love.” The Japan Times. December 30, 2004.
Dillon, Thomas. “Winter Sonata Blues - Revisited.” The Japan Times. October 15, 2005.

Japanese versus Korean commercialism

To elaborate on my previous post concerning "manhwa" (sp?), Korean comics, and the international marketing behind it, I have posted this New York Times article. More than hostility lies behind Japanese and Korean interactions since jealousy and attention for westernization play important roles. Enjoy. (EB)


Ugly images of Asian rivals become best sellers in Japan
By NORIMITSU ONISHI (11/21-05)

TOKYO - A young Japanese woman in the comic book "Hating the Korean Wave" exclaims, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" In another passage the book states that "there is nothing at all in Korean culture to be proud of."

In another comic book, "Introduction to China," which portrays the Chinese as a depraved people obsessed with cannibalism, a woman of Japanese origin says: "Take the China of today, its principles, thought, literature, art, science, institutions. There's nothing attractive."

The two comic books, portraying Chinese and Koreans as base peoples and advocating confrontation with them, have become runaway best sellers in Japan in the last four months. In their graphic and unflattering drawings of Japan's fellow Asians and in the unapologetic, often offensive contents of their speech bubbles, the books reveal some of the sentiments underlying Japan's worsening relations with the rest of Asia. They also point to Japan's longstanding unease with the rest of Asia and its own sense of identity, which is akin to Britain's apartness from the Continent. Much of Japan's history in the last century and a half has been guided by the goal of becoming more like the West and less like Asia. Today, China and South Korea's rise to challenge Japan's position as Asia's economic, diplomatic and cultural leader is inspiring renewed xenophobia against them here.

Kanji Nishio, a scholar of German literature, is honorary chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, the nationalist organization that has pushed to have references to the country's wartime atrocities eliminated from junior high school textbooks. Mr. Nishio is blunt about how Japan should deal with its neighbors, saying nothing has changed since 1885, when one of modern Japan's most influential intellectuals, Yukichi Fukuzawa, said Japan should emulate the advanced nations of the West and leave Asia by dissociating itself from its backward neighbors, especially China and Korea.

"I wonder why they haven't grown up at all," Mr. Nishio said. "They don't change. I wonder why China and Korea haven't learned anything."

Mr. Nishio, who wrote a chapter in the comic book about South Korea, said Japan should try to cut itself off from China and South Korea, as Fukuzawa advocated. "Currently we cannot ignore South Korea and China," Mr. Nishio said. "Economically, it's difficult. But in our hearts, psychologically, we should remain composed and keep that attitude."

The reality that South Korea had emerged as a rival hit many Japanese with full force in 2002, when the countries were co-hosts of soccer's World Cup and South Korea advanced further than Japan. At the same time, the so-called Korean Wave - television dramas, movies and music from South Korea - swept Japan and the rest of Asia, often displacing Japanese pop cultural exports.

The wave, though popular among Japanese women, gave rise to a countermovement, especially on the Internet. Sharin Yamano, the young cartoonist behind "Hating the Korean Wave," began his strip on his own Web site then.

"The 'Hate Korea' feelings have spread explosively since the World Cup," said Akihide Tange, an editor at Shinyusha, the publisher of the comic book. Still, the number of sales, 360,000 so far, surprised the book's editors, suggesting that the Hate Korea movement was far larger than they had believed.

"We weren't expecting there'd be so many," said Susumu Yamanaka, another editor at Shinyusha. "But when the lid was actually taken off, we found a tremendous number of people feeling this way."

So far the two books, each running about 300 pages and costing around $10, have drawn little criticism from public officials, intellectuals or the mainstream news media. For example, Japan's most conservative national daily, Sankei Shimbun, said the Korea book described issues between the countries "extremely rationally, without losing its balance."

As nationalists and revisionists have come to dominate the public debate in Japan, figures advocating an honest view of history are being silenced, said Yutaka Yoshida, a historian at Hitotsubashi University here. Mr. Yoshida said the growing movement to deny history, like the Rape of Nanjing, was a sort of "religion" for an increasingly insecure nation.

"Lacking confidence, they need a story of healing," Mr. Yoshida said. "Even if we say that story is different from facts, it doesn't mean anything to them."

The Korea book's cartoonist, who is working on a sequel, has turned down interview requests. The book centers on a Japanese teenager, Kaname, who attains a "correct" understanding of Korea. It begins with a chapter on how South Korea's soccer team supposedly cheated to advance in the 2002 Word Cup; later chapters show how Kaname realizes that South Korea owes its current success to Japanese colonialism.

"It is Japan who made it possible for Koreans to join the ranks of major nations, not themselves," Mr. Nishio said of colonial Korea.

But the comic book, perhaps inadvertently, also betrays Japan's conflicted identity, its longstanding feelings of superiority toward Asia and of inferiority toward the West. The Japanese characters in the book are drawn with big eyes, blond hair and Caucasian features; the Koreans are drawn with black hair, narrow eyes and very Asian features.

That peculiar aesthetic, so entrenched in pop culture that most Japanese are unaware of it, has its roots in the Meiji Restoration of the late 19th century, when Japanese leaders decided that the best way to stop Western imperialists from reaching here was to emulate them.

In 1885, Fukuzawa - who is revered to this day as the intellectual father of modern Japan and adorns the 10,000 yen bill (the rough equivalent of a $100 bill) - wrote "Leaving Asia," the essay that many scholars believe provided the intellectual underpinning of Japan's subsequent invasion and colonization of Asian nations.

Fukuzawa bemoaned the fact that Japan's neighbors were hopelessly backward.

Writing that "those with bad companions cannot avoid bad reputations," Fukuzawa said Japan should depart from Asia and "cast our lot with the civilized countries of the West." He wrote of Japan's Asian neighbors, "We should deal with them exactly as the Westerners do."

As those sentiments took root, the Japanese began acquiring Caucasian features in popular drawing. The biggest change occurred during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905, when drawings of the war showed Japanese standing taller than Russians, with straight noses and other features that made them look more European than their European enemies.

"The Japanese had to look more handsome than the enemy," said Mr. Nagayama.

Many of the same influences are at work in the other new comic book, "An Introduction to China," which depicts the Chinese as obsessed with cannibalism and prostitution, and has sold 180,000 copies.

The book describes China as the "world's prostitution superpower" and says, without offering evidence, that prostitution accounts for 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product. It describes China as a source of disease and depicts Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi saying, "I hear that most of the epidemics that broke out in Japan on a large scale are from China."

The book waves away Japan's worst wartime atrocities in China. It dismisses the Rape of Nanjing, in which historians say 100,000 to 300,000 Chinese were killed by Japanese soldiers in 1937-38, as a fabrication of the Chinese government devised to spread anti-Japanese sentiment.

The book also says the Japanese Imperial Army's Unit 731 - which researched biological warfare and conducted vivisections, amputations and other experiments on thousands of Chinese and other prisoners - was actually formed to defend Japanese soldiers against the Chinese.

"The only attractive thing that China has to offer is Chinese food," said Ko Bunyu, a Taiwan-born writer who provided the script for the comic book. Mr. Ko, 66, has written more than 50 books on China, some on cannibalism and others arguing that Japanese were the real victims of their wartime atrocities in China. The book's main author and cartoonist, a Japanese named George Akiyama, declined to be interviewed.

Like some in Taiwan who are virulently anti-mainland, Mr. Ko is fiercely pro-Japanese and has lived here for four decades. A longtime favorite of the Japanese right, Mr. Ko said anti-Japan demonstrations in Chinese mainland early this year had earned him a wider audience. Sales of his books surged this year, to one million.

"I have to thank the mainland, really," Mr. Ko said. "But I'm disappointed that the sales of my books could have been more than one or two million if they had continued the demonstrations."

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-11/21/content_496553.htm

Musical 'Winter Sonata' moves audience in winter wonderland

I could realize the power of "Winter Sonata" once again from this article. :)


SAPPORO, Japan - Even without "Yonsama" or "Jiwoohime," "Winter Sonata," a Korean television drama with enormous popularity in Japan and across Asia, still has a magic hold on its Japanese fans.
On Monday, Odori Park stretching from east to west through downtown Sapporo was filled with state-of-the-art snow sculptures of various sizes. It was the first day of the world famous Sapporo Snow Festival, which attracts millions of people to the city from here and abroad every year.
On the same day, the musical version of the soap opera made its come back to Sapporo Education and Cultural Hall, bringing tears to the eyes of the audience with its story of unfaltering love.
The musical version of "Winter Sonata" is performed at Sapporo Education and Cultural Hall."The story is not exactly the same with the original drama, but I like it as it is," Asada Keiko, a housewife living in Sapporo, told The Korea Herald after the show. "I've seen the original drama a hundred times, but I weep again almost automatically when I hear the drama's theme music at the beginning of the musical," said Uchida Kiyomi, another housewife who came to see the musical. The musical was not sold-out, with only about a quarter of the seats taken. The figure, however, was encouraging enough considering it was the opening night of the snow festival and there were many other things to do to have fun out there.
The audience was overwhelmingly Japanese housewives, the key contributors to the drama's phenomenal success. Reporters from Japanese media including weekly magazine Aera and monthly Nikkei Entertainment also came to cover the show, proving the popularity of the drama in the country.
Yun Suk-ho, producer of the television series, also attended the performance. In fact, the producer, who is also the artistic director for the musical version, was the true star of the night. Many Japanese fans recognized him and surrounded him to get his autograph at the end of the show.
"It was tricky to make the musical something new while keeping all the key factors of the original television series in it," Yun told The Korea Herald during the intermission. "Overall, it was okay but I guess it will need more work on details."
As Yun said, the musical's scores composed by one of Korea's leading pop music composers, Kim Hyung-seok, was a definite plus for the musical. The composer of such hit songs as Kim Kun-mo's "First Impression (Cheodinsang)" and Park Jin-young's "Right Here behind You (Neoe duieseo)," Kim has provided a fresh feel to the story of double love triangles through his music, in which he experimented with various styles of music from bossa nova to rock music.
The musical doesn't deviate much from the soap opera in story, with only minor changes in its plot. Different from the television series where Jun-sang (Bae Yong-jun), Eu-jin (Choi Ji-woo), Sang Hyuk (Park Yong-ha) and Chae-rin (Park Sol-mi) are all school friends, the musical version made Chae-rin a stranger to Eu-jin to good dramatic effect.
Overrall the story flowed smoothly, but it could have been better if a little more care if details about the episode when Jun-sang and Eu-jin became lovers was added. It seems that too much of the show is spent explaining how the two get together again, while too little attention is given to the key part - how the two became romantically involved.
Ko Young-bin's Jun-sang was good and Suh Jung-hyun's characterization of Eu-jin was a little meek but fine. No one on the stage, though, grabbed the audience's attention as much as Jiny playing Chae-rin did.
The former member of popular girl group Diva boasted her all-around talents. Unfortunately, her charmingly husky rock voice and charismatic sexy dance stole much of the praise and applause other members of the stellar cast deserved.
Japanese audiences are said to be quieter and less expressive than Koreans. One of the show's cast jokingly complained that it was hard to know whether or not Japanese audiences appreciated the show. However, the happy smiles on their faces and traces of tears down their cheeks, well testified to how much they enjoyed it.
"Winter Sonata" will be performed at the venue until tomorrow. Yoon's Color, the Korean multimedia production that produced the musical, plans to stage the show in Sapporo every year through 2010 in time with the snow festival.
(danlee@heraldm.com)
By Lee Yong-sung

Cinematographic Excellence of a Generic Drama

The Winter Sonata narrative, although significant for penetrating the international market and achieving fame for Korea, was generic and blasé in the first few episodes, which will only be discussed in this short review. John Storey noted that popular culture’s most noteworthy form is through television, which challenges social norms and world ideologies. However, the female protagonist, Yujin, in her schoolgirl days is neither shy nor defiant and the character she portrays is “flat”. The lack of a round character is not limited to Yujin but also incorporates the teenage males. Joon Sang personifies the stereotypical front of a aloof “bad boy” with hidden sensitivity and charm for only the girl of choice, Yujin. Sang Hyuk suffers from the childhood friend syndrome: once a friend always a friend although his emotions escalate into emotional attachment for Yujin. His overly compassionate persona could not be seen as genuine since it is extremely simulated. Although the actors endure trite roles, they establish an identity outside the dialogue and through body language.

Although Yujin’s personality is universal, the populace is able to effortlessly relate to Yujin especially when she desires “to hold someone’s hand”. This association to the general public exceeds local and continental fame through success in the global market, which counteracts the struggle of Korean cinema a decade earlier. The wholesome love shown between Yujin and Joon Sang lacked crudeness and lust, and, therefore, the brilliant director Yun Soek Ho can incorporate a larger audience and expand internationally.

The drama’s central focus for recognition is through kinesics and cinematography. Although the main musical theme is unforgettable, the soundtrack does not coincide with the scene’s mood through its childish and corny manner. The melodies lack emotional stirring and elevating tension. Instead, Yun Soek Ho concentrates on slow motion and angles as well as body motion. Yujin’s constant hand motion in Joon Sang’s direction, in addition to a variety of other gestures, embodies Peter Brooks’ theory on melodrama. Brooks notes that albeit a plot is superficial, the kinesics, even if frivolous, embellish the intense inner drama of each character.

In addition, Yujin’s constant desire to unlock Joon Sang’s secrets creates memorable scenes such as the piano incident. While Joon Sang reveals his superb instrumental skills, the midday sun’s light reflects downward through the window, casting a shadow on Joon Sang and fully illuminating Yujin. Metaphors articulate a sentiment louder than words, and this occurrence signifies Joon Sang’s mysterious character whereas she is easily decipherable. During their schooldays, the scene denoting the first date with snowfall is spectacular. While in slow motion, Joon Sang gently flings snow into the air and it glistens as it travels downward on Yujin. The entire scene is beautiful with the angle of the sun and the crisp freshness of the snow. Joon Sang’s light-hearted behavior represents the opening of his heart to Yujin, but more importantly, this scenic view illustrates the magnificence of Korea as a hot tourist spot. Most of the film is reflects on Korea’s natural wonders and commercialism indirectly.

On an analytical level, the male central characters represent Korea. Sang Hyuk symbolizes traditional values, marriage, and the childhood Korean friend. Whereas Joon Sang is a modernized Korea, swaying Yujin, contemporary Korea, to chose between traditional moral values of the older generation or a more modernized view on life. Tension between the conventional Korean parent and the modernized less nationalistic teenager, who seeks exposure to Western ideals including English, has been a surfacing qualm in contemporary Korea and this drama serves as an example of the importance of choosing innately (preferring Joon Sang over Sang Hyuk), Western aspects of life. (EB)