The Korean Wave (Hallyu) in East Asia: A Comparison of Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese Audiences Who Watch Korean TV Dramas*

The major purpose of this study is to find out what factors are responsible for Hallyu, the flow and popularity of Korean popular cultural products in East Asia, and which direction Hallyu is heading for. To do this, recent structural and institutional changes in the region are examined and the 2008 EASS data analyzed. Opening up of the cultural market and development of the mass media industry, especially television, laid the ground for Hallyu in East Asia. The 2008 EASS data reveal that social proximity and two demographic variables are common factors for the rise of Hallyu in East Asia, but globalization and modernity variables had no effect on Hallyu. Females are more attracted to Korean TV dramas than males, but typical Hallyu fans are youngest in China, followed by Taiwan, and Japan the oldest. Besides these characteristics of Hallyu fans, the quality of Korean cultural products is an important factor in their success abroad. Since the second decade of the new millennium, Hallyu evolves into a new, or second, stage in which its contents, strategy, and media change considerably. Hallyu, representing a case of alternative globalization, signals a new phase in the recent history of globalization. Keywords: Hallyu (the Korean wave), East Asia, popular culture, Audience, Korean TV drama. Introduction It has now been more than a decade since Korean1 popular culture has made a massive inroad into East Asia and, subsequently, other Asian countries. The mass media and concerned scholars have given the appellation of "Korean Wave" (Hallyu in Korean) to such Korean cultural products as television dramas, popular music, and movies becoming so popular in these countries.2 Since the mid-1990s, Korean popular culture has spread over the pan ethnic-Chinese countries including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore at first, then over such Southeast Asian countries as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, followed by Mongolia, Japan, and even beyond East Asia.3 The Hallyu boom in Japan was ignited by a 2004 television drama, Winter Sonata, and has since drawn a great deal of scholarly attention, because Japan is the first modernized or Westernized country in Asia and Japanese popular culture has been dominant in many East Asian countries for several decades. Korea is not an exception; its popular culture has also been strongly influenced by Japanese pop culture. Now, at least some members of the Japanese population are fascinated with Korean popular culture. Thus, some scholars regard Hallyu as "a counter-case to media imperialism: a fissure in West-centered globalization" (Kim 2009, pp. 732-37) or as a case proving that globalization is not a one-way traffic but a two-way flow (Cho-Han 2003, p. 40). The surge of popularity of Korean popular culture in these countries has drawn "anti-Hallyu" sentiments and campaigns by a few local intellectuals, popular culture industries, and mass media (Chae et al. 2009), especially in China (Kang 2008; Yong-chan Kim 2008; Leung 2008; Yun 2009), Taiwan (Lin 2006), and Japan (Hanaki et al. 2007), with China and Japan historically having had either superior power or colonial power over Korea. These anti- Hallyu movements, combined with the fact that only a particular drama (for example, Winter Sonata in Japan) or a particular genre (e.g., trendy dramas with a love story) has been popular in these countries, have led some scholars to conclude that "Hallyu" is a short-term phenomenon that would last only a few years (Kyeong-mi Shin 2006; Yoon-Whan Shin 2006). Despite the suspicion that the Korean Wave is only a temporal and isolated trend like a short-lived fashion, it has not only survived but expanded to more diverse and wider products and to countries beyond East Asia. Thus, a major Korean newspaper recently featured an article entitled "Evolving 'Hallyu'... Japan Is Now Attracted by Korean Culture." This article quotes a Japanese manager of an advertisement and events company saying, "The 'Hallyu' boom, which was initially limited to such TV dramas as Winter Sonata and its main actor Yong-joon Bae, has now expanded to such areas as Korean language, food and culture, and has evolved from passive reception to active participation in everything Korean" (Chosun ilbo Oct. …