Panelists Discuss Ways to Open New Era for Hallyu

[ashiva.livejournal.com]

Participants listen during a forum on hallyu, or Korean wave, which was organized by the Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange in collaboration with the Federation of Korean Industries at the Koreana Hotel in Seoul, Tuesday. The forum was attended by entertainment industry professionals, business leaders, government officials and college students.

Younghoon David Kim, chairman of energy, environment and culture-based business Daesung Group, had a nice surprise in China two years ago when he was on a business trip.

An executive from China Film Group Corporation, the largest and most influential state-run film enterprise in China, expressed deep enthusiasm about forging a partnership with Kim's business which invested part of its capital in producing cultural products.

"I was told that Korean soap operas were very popular there. Due to the guidelines set by the government, Chinese people were allowed to watch made-in-Korea dramas only after 10 p.m. Despite the inconvenience, families gathered together in front of television late at night to watch Korean dramas," said the businessman.

Before the business trip, Kim confessed he thought the Chinese madness to hallyu was waning.

"To link the enthusiasm to business opportunities, I think we need to stop using the term hallyu that embraces some defensive meaning on made-in-Korea cultural products in China," he said.

Chinese media coined the term of hallyu ― meaning that foreign cultures are alarmingly assimilated into the local culture ― back in 1999 to refer to its people's quick fascination with Korean cultural products such as dramas, actors, actresses and singers.

To help the Korean wave become a global cultural icon, Kim said it was necessary for industry experts to look beyond narrow-minded national identity and seek partnerships at a global level.

Kim presented the ideas at a hallyu forum prepared by the Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange (KOFICE) in collaboration with the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) at a hotel in Seoul Tuesday.

Entertainment industry professionals, business leaders, think tank experts and government officials participated in the event in an effort to find room for a possible public/private partnership.

Prof. Park Jung-sook of the Institute of International Education at Kyung Hee University, a broadcast journalist-turned-culture expert, led the round table discussion as a moderator.

In a speech to the forum, Shin Hyun-taek, chairman of KOFICE, lauded made-in-Korea products for their contribution to building a positive image of Korea overseas.

Ko Jeong-min, chief researcher at Samsung Economic Research Institute, said the tourism industry benefited most from the Korean wave as Asian fans had first-hand experience in Korea by visiting the venues that had appeared on the hit dramas they watched.

Hwang In-hak, deputy secretary general of the industrial research division at the KFI, expressed concern about the waning effect of hallyu on the economy.

He advised the entertainment industry to generate creative stories with solid storylines to meet the rising expectations of viewers overseas.

During the forum, industry experts expressed worries over the challenges facing them.

"Seven out of ten dramas that we have produced fail to get the revenue that we aimed for," Park Chang-sik, vice president at KimJongHak Production, said of the grim reality facing production companies.

He continued, "There is a role that the public sector can play to help the entertainment industry, and providing businesses with low-interest loans will help us focus on creative activities."

Antonio Park, chief executive officer of Mnet Media Group, observed that producing cultural products with "coolness and creativity" is a core but demanding task facing the industry.

Ted Tae-geon Seo, general director of industry division at Korea Creative Content Agency, was positive about the prospects of the game industry.

He forecast that the industry will continue to grow by approximately 10 percent per year in the near future, adding poor resources regarding the global game market poses a business challenge.

Lee Chan-buom, director general of the Presidential Council on Nation Branding, said culture and tourism are priorities that the committee will focus on as part of its branding strategy.

Source

Comments

[fashionbang.livejournal.com]

I guess its kind of naive for me to say, but I always thought of Hallyu as more of a FORCE (that just kept growing) than a movement that like... had goals and people behind it.
It's weird (to me) to think of Hallyu as having specific goals and agendas that want to be met (though industry-wise it totally makes sense). It's like a commercially backed cultural movement almost...

[beauty0fparting.livejournal.com]

tl;dr but i know what could help to expand hallyu...
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or other languages... coz srsly, Korea.... that's common sense...

[crypticbluerose.livejournal.com]

trufax bb

and partner with popular sites.

[hp-groupie.livejournal.com]

FOR REAL.

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

the kdramas here on tv have subs idk

[onerainysunday.livejournal.com]

personally i don't like the impact hallyu has had in china, not that i don't want chinese people to get exposure to the korean entertainment industry but it's spawned a lot of copycat singers and groups that specifically model themselves after kpop artists and bring nothing original to the cpop industry.

[skystreaked.livejournal.com]

agreed. fahrenheit are one of those bands that stand by themselves, have their own music and has their own style, and not like a copycat group/singer. there are so few of those real, true bands with their own styles anymore :\

[cfensi.livejournal.com]

BOBO :(

http://www.youtube.com/user/bobomint

They're completely themselves, very cpop, and they can sing.

[thats--hot.livejournal.com]

korean netizens have been brutal to chinese people so there has been a backlash against anything korean in china.

[wend1zzle.livejournal.com]

that is true too. hard to say whose at fault (copycats of snsd etc) or the people who insult it... etc


at least we can say china likes suju. or at least their chinese members. lol

[thats--hot.livejournal.com]

if you're talking about hey girl, the taiwanese girl group, they debuted before snsd, in 2005.
and you really cant compare the two because they're made up of tv personalities whereas snsd was trained from the ground up.

[thats--hot.livejournal.com]

its more like korean netizens make fun of chinese people for enjoying korean entertainment. theres definitely a nationalist tint with this wave which is mentioned in this article.

[wend1zzle.livejournal.com]

hmmm. thats very intersting. and true too.
do you by chance know why? or any particular factors...

perhaps some possible solutions.

this is gona make me think for a while.

[onerainysunday.livejournal.com]

this is just my personal experience but a lot of koreans i've come across think k-entertainment is superior to everything else and they don't like lowly fobs (chinese/vietnamese etc people) getting into their stuff.

[thats--hot.livejournal.com]

they got too arrogant/over exaggerate their influence/ use their media to stereotype or make chinese ppl look bad/ falsely accuse chinese of copy cating lol, oh much much more.

if these korean ppl dont want other people to watch their stuff, tell them companies to stop coming up with schemes to try to get into other peoples markets. simple as that.

[rikayla.livejournal.com]

so true. = =" i get so annoyed when chinese netizens make a big deal out of liyin... "is she korean? or is she chinese?" and fans are always like "CHINESE."

>___>

what the hell...

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_Kenkanryu

the fact that shit shit was popular enough to spawn sequels sickens me.

Re: what the hell...

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

lulz shuddered

Re: what the hell...

[onerainysunday.livejournal.com]

oh japan... always bringing the crazy

Re: what the hell...

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

It's funny how the koreans look asian in the mangas but the japanese have big ~*pretty*~ eyes and great hair lulz

Re: what the hell...

[onerainysunday.livejournal.com]

ROFL i never understood why japan hates foreigners so much and yet white-washing and caucasian-envy is such an integral part of their culture

Re: what the hell...

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

When I look at this manga and the way they drew themselves and then the way they drew koreans its like uhm do you not realize you are asian too?

[cfensi.livejournal.com]

Basically you're talking about two boybands: Top Combine and HIT-5

You know, you can say that for HIT-5, but I don't see how Top Combine brought nothing original to Cpop.

One of its member composed Cotton Candy, a straight-up cpop song, and it is this song that has made them famous in China, not the kpop stuff.

[onerainysunday.livejournal.com]

i honestly don't know very much about either group but i've randomly come across a few of their songs and kpop copycat is the impression they gave me. i've also seen various mvs and heard songs by some other new cpop artists that are, imo, very much kpop influenced and of poor quality (although kpop isn't exactly known for its quality either). my relatives in china tell me chinese entertainment companies are now using the korean business model to train and market artists, and even styling them like kpop stars, which irks me, as i think china should do its own thing and develop more singers of substance.

[cfensi.livejournal.com]

I agree that they should develop singers of substance, but Top Combine is pretty substantial from what I've seen so far. Their first EP was very Korean influenced because part of it was produced by a Korean company Doreimi, but the song that I kept heard being played in China when I went there, was Cotton Candy, which was written by one of its members. And that by itself is something awesome, because I can't remember the last time I heard of a boyband that composed a song for their first release, let alone have it be their breakout hit. So does TC have talent? I'd say yes. I can't say they're 100% original just yet, but they seem to have strong opinions on their music and the direction they want it to go in. And this is what they had to say about their own first Ep and its Koreaness.

"MXY:Maybe it's because of the collaboration with a Korean company. It doesn't include our future EPs and albums. We'll consider European, American, Japanese, and more Chinese influences."

HIT-5 on the other hand - very Korean influenced. Except more metro.

I don't really know who else there is besides them that's really kpop, and considering I run a Chinese entertainment site and check that sort of thing, that's saying a lot. In general, there is so much, much more going on than just the few new boybands here and there. People are going in all sorts of different directions and that's just one of them.

I wish Chinese people abroad would look into it more though...I know kpop is easy to access and stuff, but people could certainly try.

[rikayla.livejournal.com]

I wish Chinese people abroad would look into it more though...I know kpop is easy to access and stuff, but people could certainly try.
All that I know about Mainland C-Pop is from your site, but soooo true. It's annoying when C-Pop is mainly defined by Taiwanese pop music and the handful of HK singers who cannot sing, lol.

[cfensi.livejournal.com]

Too be honest, I didn't really know the extent of mainland C-pop until I started blogging. Or that is was changing so rapidly. It's crazy.

There are so many good Cpop artists in TW/HK/everywhere and I get not all of it is in the commercialized pop form, and I know that commercialized pop is the easiest thing to notice, but I wish Chinese people wouldn't write off the entirety of cpop if they have looked beyond that.

.

[cfensi.livejournal.com]

*haven't

[onerainysunday.livejournal.com]

i do like cotton candy, but i remember being turned off by the mv. i also thought two of the guys were korean (due to the way they were styled) and it turned out that both were chinese. i tried to listen to some cpop years ago, came across vicki zhao's albums and thought, this is the crap that's popular nowadays? wtf? the only current chinese artist i like is jane zhang and i have yet to come across another cpop artist with her level of vocal ability. what's your site address? i'd love to find more artists with substance.

[cfensi.livejournal.com]

Lol, one of them must have been Liu Zhoucheng. He's had that girly style since before he was signed onto a company, when he was in his teens. Trust me, that style is not exclusive to kpop, or even celebs. South China seemed to have a lot of it.

I wouldn't say every singer I or the other has Jane's vocal ability, but really, there's not many who do. And it must be remembered that many compose their own songs in Cpop, so their vocals may lack a little. Zhao Wei sells simply because people still love her from Princess Returning Pearl.

http://cfensi.wordpress.com/
^Not everything I have on there is "substantial" though. I'd skip over Li Yifeng, and the HIT-5 posts.

These medleys give you kind of an idea of what was popular in China/Greater China. I like both of the singers too. Zhang Jie is pretty amazing and BOBO harmonized amazingly.

BOBO - Medley of the top 2008 mainland songs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80ah1t3Ab28

Zhang Jie - Medley of the top 2008 HK/Tw songs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZQRiPq-CTE

For non-mainland singers that are new that I like:

TW - Joanna Wang
HK - GEM Tang

Both have gorgeous vocals and have written their own songs.

[ficcy.livejournal.com]

Only Korean dramas have reached the Philippines so far (unless you count the increasing fascination with the Wondergirls) and they're dubbed in Tagalog. They're also only shown at around 10 pm.

PLZ to be hitting the country with KPOP.

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

Aw, they play korean dramas here in canada.

[kittykitt129.livejournal.com]

They can't all be hits.

[anicaasharp.livejournal.com]

best comment i've heard all day.

[kittykitt129.livejournal.com]

"Seven out of ten dramas that we have produced fail to get the revenue that we aimed for,"
It's like, really? You can't expect them to all be successes like Hana Yori Dango/Kkotboda Namja; I thought this was the real world, where expectations are let down at times.
I find it absurd that he would even present the idea that possibly every show they thought was good would be an absolute smash among Korean citizens.

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

They could endorse omonatheydidnt~ we get the word out. And shit I wish I got paid for this cause it aint easy sometimes lol

[ohlilu.livejournal.com]

hahahaha. THIS.

i still believe this community is Going Places.

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

gurl ty for always believing~

[herro-is-vip.livejournal.com]

I watch dramas aired on KBS World on my TV with english subs. It's how I watched BOF. But I know that channel is really directed towards koreans living abroad because the only things subbed are the dramas and music bank.