A Korean increase in Japan triggered by a South Korean tv drama sequence that aired twenty years in the past is gaining a brand new lease of life with a youthful era of Japanese who are sometimes drawn by Ok-pop.
“Winter Sonata” first aired in Japan on public broadcaster NHK’s satellite tv for pc channel on April 3, 2003, sparking a social phenomenon with an explosion of curiosity within the language and historical past of Japan’s nearest neighbor.
Hiromi Ono, 69, in Muroran, Hokkaido, was one in all them. That night time after returning house, she tuned into the primary episode by probability and was instantly hooked.
Ono, who not often watched TV on the time due to work and caregiving commitments, could not wait to seek out out when the subsequent episodes have been displaying within the newspaper the next day. “I thought, what a beautiful drama!” she stated. “I was absolutely riveted by the beautiful music and scenes.”
She started devouring different South Korean TV dramas too, hoping to be taught as a lot as she might concerning the nation.
Studying the trendy histories of Japan and South Korea anew, she would usually search out amenities that confirmed the historical past of Japan’s oppression of Korea throughout its colonial rule of the peninsula (1910-1945). Ono and others, who grew to become pals by means of the shared expertise of watching the drama, invited South Korean lecturers to occasions and discovered the language.
“‘Winter Sonata’ has enriched my life. The fever still hasn’t worn off,” she stated.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization and others, because the airing of Winter Sonata, the variety of Japanese vacationers visiting places that appeared within the drama has risen. There additionally has been a steep improve in Japanese finding out the Korean language. For the primary time in 2021, over 40,000 took the Test of Proficiency in Korean.
“While Japanese people who began to learn the Korean language were mainly women who wanted to understand Korean dramas through actors’ lines, male adults and teenagers wishing to become K-pop idols are increasing these days,” stated Kong Hyung Sik, director of the Korean Cultural Center in Japan.
Throngs of younger folks go to Tokyo’s Shin-Okubo, one in all Japan’s most well-known Korean cities. A 3rd-year highschool lady stated, “I’ve been a fan of K-pop ever since dancing to the music of Girls’ Generation (a South Korean girl group) at my elementary school’s sports festival in first grade.”
A 3rd-year junior highschool lady patronizing a Korean beauty store stated she is “a big fan” of the boy band BTS and finds South Korean items engaging.
Before Winter Sonata, Asian tradition remained a subculture in Japan, in line with Masayuki Furuya, a Korean popular culture journalist, with the nation sustaining a way of superiority towards its Asian neighbors. But, by successful the hearts of many ladies in Japan, the drama “paved the way for (Japanese people) to objectively acknowledge the value of other countries,” he stated.
As for the present Korean increase, “it is a movement among young people who have an even gaze and want to absorb and enjoy good things, and South Korea happens to be the target of many of them,” Furuya stated, including that he thinks curiosity in Ok-Pop and different parts of the Korean wave present no indicators of waning.
In South Korea, widespread curiosity in Japanese tradition, together with films and anime, has grown stronger. “The time has likely come for the two countries to plant seeds for the provision of new Asian-born cultures making use of their own strengths,” Furuya stated.
© KYODO