Koreans come back to Europe May 2022
The Korean Wave Comeback in Europe
May 2022
No
one with open eyes and ears in Europe could possibly have avoided the news of the
Koreans coming back to their continent in the month of May 2022. No sooner the
pandemic had shown signs of amenability than the K-Pop fans from 84
nationalities filled the Deutsche Bank Park stadium in Frankfurt chanting and rejoicing
in the comeback of the musical performers from Korea in the two-day
event named KPOP FLEX Frankfurt starting May 14. 1) One week later when the Premier League of U.K.
had just wrapped up its 2011-2022 season, you could hear the soccer attacker
Son’s name cited in the news as winner of the Golden Boot, award given to the
most goal scorer in the most prestigious league of the world. The following
week at Cannes Film Festival in France, two Koreans were called out as winner,
one for Best Director and the other for Best Actor. The movie that gave Song Gang Ho the
Best Actor award was directed by the Japanese Kore-eda Hirokazu, himself the
Palm d’Or winner back in 2018 with his movie Shoplifters, while the main female
character in the movie which presented Park Chan-Wook the Best Director award
was played by Chinese Actress Tang Wei.
Perhaps many in Europe may have first heard the news through their made-in-Korea TV in their living room with about 50% probability.2) If they came across the news in the car, they may have heard them in Hyundai or its sister Kia, who combined were straddling the 10% threshold in the market share coming into 2022, becoming the No.3 car manufacturer in European market only after Volkswagen and Stellantis of Fiat.3) While the national flag of Republic of Korea, the official ‘South Korea’, was hoisted as new participant of the NATO cybersecurity in its headquarter on May 5, for the first time as non-European and non-NATO country, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak was in Korea having series of meetings with his counterparts visiting the defense industry factories on the last days of May 2022, while the war was going on in his immediate neighbor Ukraine.4) Korea is now coming back to Europe stronger than ever, in a more well-rounded presence with a good balance between the hard and the soft.
1) According to the organizer SBC TV Broadcasting, the event was originally planned for one day for 40,000 seats. But as the tickets got sold out to the maximum performance event capacity of 44,000 quickly, the event was extended for two-day.
2) According to Omdia, the IT market research firm based in London, the two Korean electronics manufacturers rounded up 50.7% of the world market in terms of revenue in the first quarter of 2022. They are always stronger in U.S. and E.U. markets than the world average, which have to make up for the Chinese market where Korean brands have a near-nil market share.
3) According to European Automobile Manufacturers'
Association (ACEA), during the first quarter of 2022, Hyundai and Kia, which are sister companies under the same ownership, combined took the
9.8 % of the European market, with 21.3% increase over 2021 in number of cars
sold, while the Japanese cars all combined took 11.7%, selling 4.5 % less cars
than in the same period previous year. The market share difference of the two
countries in Europe narrowed from 4.1% of 2021 to 1.9% of 2022 in the first quarter.
4) NATO CCDCOE, officially the NATO Cooperative
Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence is a NATO organization to promote the
cybersecurity capability of the member countries. South Korea is the first
non-European country to be the official participant member, besides USA and
Canada, who are NATO members. Global Times, a mouthpiece for Chinese Communist
Party, tweeted the spiteful sentiment within CCP saying, “If South Korea takes
a path of turning hostile against its neighbors, the end of this path could be
a Ukraine.”
Why
suddenly is it Korea coming forth seemingly overshadowing the big names like China
and Japan these days? How come did Korea, the country the West has known as
peripheral to its bigger neighbors, which has always been associated with
poverty, war and national tragedies for its geopolitical location, soar like a
celebrity full of attractions not just with their handsome commodities but,
more distinctively, in such cultural fields as food, fashion, music and visual
entertainment, e-games, e-comic books and what not? Why was the world so blind
about the Korean potentials and almost totally unprepared for the Korean rise?
Why was the history so much of no use in giving even a slightest hint for the
surge of Korean power to come in the way we are witnessing right now? If the
‘History’ had failed to work its proper function concerning the Korean
all-round ascension, why and how? That is the question I believe worthy to make
to ourselves.
The
First Closest Korean Thing Europe may have encountered
It is still an ongoing
mystery who the Huns were, the people who suddenly appeared on the
Eastern bank of Danube River in 376 and would, for the following seven decades,
sweep the vast land of rich prairies and undulating hills, which was later to
be called Europe. The advent and dynamic presence of the alien power during
that period left a deep footprint in the course of the Western history by way
of the consequential Gothic migration that expedited collapse of the Roman Empire, which in
turn would initiate the formation of a new order in Europe, that had
eventually developed into what we now know as Europe. Yet, less known is the
fact that something parallel was taking place around the same period in the opposite
end of the Eurasian Continent. In the Shila Kingdom located at the Southeastern
corner of Korean Peninsula, there appeared a king who
established the hereditary throne of Kim, who later claimed they were of the Xiongnu
descent. It was from this period that the golden artifacts began to show up in
the Shila Kingdom predominantly. 5) Here I would not go in detail how
the Xiongnu who had been the dominant archenemy of ancient China for hundreds, actually the dominant one receiving tributes from Han China, is believed to have been the Huns, 6) but if the Xiongnu was Huns, one
thing is clear: while Huns failed to stay as dominant power in Europe despite
their immense impact there in the shaping of European history, they were
successful in doing more than that in the Korean Peninsula.6) They prospered
and flourished finally to be the leading force in unifying Korean Peninsula,
setting the path for what we now know as Korea, and in the course affected the
birth and commencement of Japan as a nation. Today Kim is the family name
shared by biggest population in Korea. 7) So, while it would be too far-fetched to say
that the Huns were the ancient Koreans, we would be able to say with modesty
that the modern Koreans are the people who carry the closest affinity to the
Huns who appeared in Europe about 1600 years ago, of all the ethnic groups
remaining on Earth these days. So, in a sense the Korean Wave Europe is witnessing today may
not be totally the first massive encounter with Koreans. If we say this one can be remotely the second one,
this time it seems to feel much more cordial and soft compared
to the one called “Scourge of God” of sixteen hundred years ago.
5) According to Samguk Sagi,
the History of the Three Kingdoms, Shila Kingdom was founded 57 BCE. It was its 17th king
Naemul, who was enthroned in 356, that established the hereditary throne of Kim.
The kingdom’s name had not been Shila until 503 AD when its 22nd king changed
the name from Saro to Shila. It was about 50 years after Attila died in Europe.
We do not know whether the name change of the Kingdom had any relation with
Attila or not.
6) The German TV ZDF released a
documentary episode in 1994 under its ‘The Secret of Sphinx’ series that put
forth the assertion that the Huns might have come from the Southern part of Korea.
As evidence, the episode laid out the common practices and artifacts the Huns
and the ancient Korean kingdoms of Shila and Kaya shared, such as the bronze
cauldron carried on the horseback, the practice of cranial deformation, the
compound bow, the golden artifacts with identical style and technics and so on.
7)
In
2000, 21.6% 0f Koreans were Kim according to the national census. The name
means gold or iron. The movie “Last Emperor” starts with the scene in the Chinese people's court, where the last emperor of Qing confesses his family name as Aisin, the
Manchurian meaning Gold or Iron. The respect
that ancient Northeast Asians had for Shila may have been the cause for the popularity
of the family name in the Northeast Asian region for a millennium.
Why The K-Pop So Strong
Not many accounts are left of Hunnic society and culture, but their fondness for songs and the manner they enjoyed the singing seems to have impressed the rare visitors into their villages. When the Eastern Roman diplomat and historian Prius accompanied Attila into the Hunnic village, he came to witness the women mixing shoulder-to-shoulder with men, even with visitors like Pricus himself, singing in praise of Attila.8) The Hunnic custom of singing and free relationship between men and women reminds us of the people of the ancient northern Korean kingdoms of Buyeo and Koguryo, where, according to the Chinese records, men and women got together singing away all night and the sound of songs never ceased to be heard.9) Ancient Koreans not only liked to sing, but their instrumental music had an immense influence on the neighbor countries, China and Japan.10) The ancient Korean musical tradition has been passed down to modern time with its extended genres of music and dance. 11)
But, coming into the 20th
Century their music came to be influenced greatly by the Western popular music
both in instruments and vocalization. Even during the colonial period under
Japanese occupation, new generation of composers in modern style music created
songs for children and the general populace to ease the blunt of the national
tribulation. Those songs for children, such as Spring of My Home Village, Half
Moon and Missing Elder Brother, are still taught in the elementary schools
and remain favorites among the people for their musical attraction.12) For the
general populace, songs that would set the standard for one important genre of the
modern Korean popular songs, later to be dubbed Trot, were written and released to touch the
string of heart of many Koreans under the Japanese rule. The titles of songs
such as Ruins of the Abandoned Castle (황성옛터) , Living away from Home (타향살이) and Tears of Mokpo (목포의 눈물), released from late 1920s, by themselves
tell what the songs were about. 13) Alarmed by the sudden huge
popularity those new songs gained among the Korean people the Japanese colonial
government began to harness the popular song industry with the censorship from
1933. 14) Throughout the war and the hard time that followed, the
Korean society never stopped to produce music for people. Koreans swallowed
their tragedy with songs. Even the family separation and tragedy from the war
became the subject of songs.15)
8) E.A. Thompson in his book ‘The Huns’ refers
to the record of Pricus, the Eastern Roman diplomat who accompanied Attila into
the Hunnic village and witnessed their social custom. E.A. Thompson was
Professor of Classics at the University of Nottingham from 1948 to 1979 and his
study focused on the Huns and early Germans, Goths and early European society.
9) The ancient Korean kingdoms Buyeo and Koguryo were not Hunnish, but they were the immediate neighbors to the Xiongnu in the Manchuria. Their culture had agricultural background, but also carried nomadic elements too, sharing many features in the socio-cultural custom and practices, including the Shamanistic tradition, warring and horse-riding skills and culture. It is probable that the Huns and ancient korean Kingdoms all had been under the Go-Joseon polity before the spinouts after the fall of Go-Joseon.
Book of Later Han, Treatise on DongYi, Buyeo Part 後漢書 東夷列傳 夫餘國
Book of Later Han, Treatise on DongYi, Koguryo
Part 後漢書 東夷列傳 高句驪
10)
In Tang Dynasty Koguryo music was
included among the foreign music played in the Chinese Tang court along with its
dance, which the Tang’s famous poet Li Bai left a poem about in praise. Koguryo
Music is still played as favorite in Japanese royal court along with Toyo 唐樂 or Tang Music.
11)
12) ‘Half Moon‘ or 반달 was composed in 1924 by Yoon Geuk Young and it was the first modern song for children in Korea. It was translated in Chinese with the title 小白船 or ‘little white boat’ and was introduced in the textbook for music in China. The high school choir shows in the middle of the performance the clap play that goes with the song, popular among Korean girls.
14) The official decree was made public in 1933 by the colonial government. Son Mok In, composer of Tears of Mokpo
(1913-1999), testified in an interview with MBC Mokpo TV station that he was
recalled to the colonial police for some part of his song lyric suspected
suggestive of resistance when his song was released. After that incident, every
lyric had to get the preapproval from the colonial government.
15) The song titled ‘단장의 미아리 고개’ or ‘ Gut-Tearing Miari Hill’ released in 1956 was about the agony of a young wife watching her husband being taken away to the north as war prisoner tied in iron wire over a hill in Seoul, praying for his return alive. It was a big hit and still a favorite for some old people. Another song titled ‘누가 이 사람을 모르시나요’ or “Is There Anybody Who Knows this woman’ is a song in the narration of a young man who is looking for his lover lost in the smoke of war. It was composed as OST for a movie titled South and North originally, but it brought many to tears again when the song was used as background music for the TV campaign for war-separated family reunion in 1983. Here sung by the legendary singer Patti Kim. The video clips are from the real photos from the war and the 1983 TV reunion campaign.
Through 1960s and 70s, Koreans entertained the diversity of music from the West, including the Chanson from France and Canzone from Italy, along with its own genres of popular songs. As the first TV broadcasting started in the late 1960s, people began to see the singers who were westernized in appearance and manners on TV, most of whom had stage experience at the clubs in US Army bases in South Korea. The country was even poorer than Ethiopia and Philippines back then, the US Army night clubs not just provided the well-equipped stage, but served as one of the important sources of income to nurture the Korean pop music industry along with LP record industry.15) Coming into 1970s the boom of folk songs amidst the anti-war movement in America resonated with the Korean youth who, on their part, was resisting the military dictatorship. A new wave of Korean folk songs formed a new musical ecology, separate from the oldies, characterized by the amateur songwriters who were mostly college students playing guitar.16) In 1998 the newly elected President Kim Dae-Jung promulgated the principle of his administration’s policy on the cultural contents: Support but not interrupt. In time with the arrival of new age of digital media, the laws to protect the copyright for music and visual contents were legislated in 1999.17) It was yet before the time of YouTube, but Korean popular songs had begun to cross the border and gain the popularity silently in the Asian countries, especially in the Chinese speaking countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore entering 1990s. Many interpreted Korean songs sung by local singers made hits as Korean dramas made a huge splash across Asia, to the birth of the new cultural trend in the region coined Hallyu or Korean Wave.18) It was around this time, the pre-dawn period of the Internet age, that the SM Entertainment, the first of its kind who would beget the idol music genre that seems to dominate today’s K-pop scenery, charged out to the forefront of the pop music market targeting young people with the teen-ager girl named Boa who grabbed Asia-wide popularity with her song titled No.1.19) SM’s success was followed by new music producing houses and they all looked to the world market from the start, uploading their new release on YouTube with the fascinating video of the singers dancing out consummate choreography. With the timely advent of Big Bang and 2NE1 readily with their powerful line-up of catchy songs and videos, the K-pop literally became a global sensation, expanding its territory to South America to Europe and to Russia. K-pop did not replace. Because there had been no pop culture which had achieved such global resonance, like K-pop and K-drama before. It created its own market,with its own richness. It was not an extension of something. Coming into 2010s, in Anime Conventions in Europe, which had been known for the venue for Japanese culture maniacs, the K-pop cover dance corner began to be a must, uploading their video back to YouTube and soon the K-pop cover dance uploading became a worldwide trend for fervent K-pop fans around the world. Now the K-pop events such as K-Cons organized by CJ Entertainment and K-Pop Flex, MusicBank by TV broadcasting systems, are held around the world with an array of performance artists for each event while such artists as BTS, Blackpink and Twice, are holding the world tour of their own for the fans in the colossal outdoor sports stadiums and dorm venues in the major cities around the world.
Korea as a whole is not a small ethnic group, with the estimated population of over 80 million when including the North Korea and the immigrant expatriates, but South Korea had slightly over 51 million in 2021 in its land. You may easily call it a miracle that a country, with such a small size of population on top of their language shared by no other, has become the pop music powerhouse only next to the United States, but, throughout the history of modern Korean popular music, there were two constant factors that maintained the healthy and fertile ecology for the popular music industry in Korea, which are, the prolificity of the composers and the music-loving culture of the Korean society. The public recognized the name of famous composers and they always received and enjoyed the respect and admiration from the public. But it was after the copyright laws began to work to the last penny and the income from song rights got big enough ,with the overwhelming ubiquity of Karaoke shops around the country, which itself tells of the Korean love of the songs, that many jumped into the profession with the dream of becoming rich overnight with a hit song. Here, it would not be fair if one does not mention the connectivity with the United States of Korean society in discussing the success of K-pop. The huge Korean immigrant and student community in US served not just as conveyor of the American pop culture and trends but as an important source of talents in performance artists and songwriters.20) It was based on this strong and healthy pipeline, with its diversified sources of inspiration and talent, for music production in the first place that the strategy of the music houses to get their music known first through free globe-wide distribution via Internet worked so well, surpassing even their own expectation in such a short frame of time. Why were they so hungry for the world's attention? Even at the expense of the profit some times? It is not the main subject here, but the hint is in the history of Korea and Koreans, who had been the victim of the rumors and lies. They have been so eager to see the world to meet and find them as they are, not through Chinese or Japanese mouths. The world met Koreans for the first time through YouTube while Koreans could meet, speak, sing and dance to the world for the first time. It was to the world like encountering new aliens, who turned out to be Korean when they took off their space helmets. Now Korea over all is running like a well-grooved pop music production machine with the world’s top-level producer companies competing with each other, each equipped with its own proficiency horned over decades of experience in music composing, choreography, video production, stage organizing, management of global fandom, marketing and sale of albums and goods, recruiting and training the wannabe stars and even the in-house ability to dress its artists in different stage costume each time of their performance. Seoul is now on its way to become the hub of the Asian pop music industry overriding the fluctuating political relationship with its neighboring countries and the practice of cultural market blocking. And what would be their next?
15) Famous among them were Patti Kim, Yoon Bok-Hee, Lee Keum-Hee and Hyun-Mi. Shin Jung-Hyun, the composer and guitarist, who wrote ‘Beautiful Rivers and Mountains’ 아름다운 강산 also played in the army club in his early years. Apart from those early singers, singers with exquisite voices, such as Lee Mi-Ja, Ju Hyun-Mi, Kim Soo-Hee, Choi Jin-Hee and Im Hee-Sook, formed the mainstream of the modern traditional songs in Korea from 1960s to 1990s. This song ‘아름다운 강산’ or ‘This Beautiful Land’ was released in 1972 by the singer-song-writer Shin Joong-Hyun. In the same year Neil Diamond made a hit with ‘Song sung blue’, and Neil Young “Heart of gold’.
16) Song writers such as Cho Dong-Jin, Kim Min-Ki and Kim Chang-Wan of SanUlim were non- music major students from the Seoul National University. The female singer Yang Hee-Eun and her songs symbolize the dissident atmosphere of the Korean pop music of this period. Song Chang-Sik and Park In-Hee, both singer-song-writer, were among the talents of the time out of non-elite college background. This period was followed by the appearance of young talents out of the college student culture that the contests organized by the TV broadcasters discovered from late 1970s. ‘친구’ or ‘friend’ by singer-song-writer Kim Min-Gi was one of the most famous resistance songs of the time, released in 1971, missing a friend sacrificed in the struggle against the military dictatorship. Kim Min-Gi, himself an elite university student at the time, wrote many resistance songs including “The Morning Dew’ or “아침이슬’ sung by Yang Hee-Eun.
Another iconic song of the 1970s, ‘그리운 사람끼리’ or ‘Between the two loving people’ by singer-song-writer Park In-Hee was released in 1971, the same year ‘American Pie’ of Don McLean was released in USA.
18) Different Korean dramas made hits in China and Japan straddling the year 2000.The drama titled ‘What on earth is love’ 사랑이 뭐길래 first broadcasted in China 1997 made a big hit while ‘Winter Sonata’ 겨울연가 of 2003 created a new strata of Korean drama fans among Japanese middle-aged women making the main male actor Yon-Sama a superstar in Japan. Many Japanese youngsters in 2020s spent their young childhood under mothers or grandmothers who were fervent Yon-Sama fan. It was around this time that the girl band Baby Vox gained a huge popularity across Asia, being the trailblazer for the many to come from Korea. The female group, with all their catchy songs and dances in refined appearance, was a huge inspiration and eye-opener to many Asian countries, including China, for the look of the future pop music.
-Baby Vox performance in Beijing China in 2004, an eye-opener for Chinese.
19) The song was released in April 2002 and topped the chart for the two consecutive months in Korea. It was a huge hit in Japan and Taiwan too. No.1 by Boa of SM Entertainment.
20) Teddy, who wrote the most songs for 2NE1 and Blackpink, is the typical example of the US educated musicians who came back to Korea for a fame in the pop music industry. He started his career as singing member of a boy band. Psy, of Gangnam style, also went to college in California.
-Big Bang’s ‘Bad Boy’ was released in 2012
21) Most of the bands, both male and female, have members from other Asian countries, such as Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines. There used to be many Chinese members, but the Korean producers have come to be precautious about the talents from China because of the frequent problems with Chinese members for personal and political issues.
Saga of the Soccer in the
League of Northeast Asia
The soccer is known to be a
very politically touchy team sport that affects the national pride and
morale to an excessive, sometimes uncontrollable extent. The three countries in
the Northeast Asia have been no exception. The soccer matches between Japan and
South Korea have always drawn big audience and fever in the two countries,
while any match with South Korea or Japan attracts Chinese in the front of TV
longing to jwitness for just one precious Chinese win ever to be
made. 22) Ever since the start
of the Communist China in 1949, the sport never once answered to the expectation
of the party and the people, repeating the exhaustive cycle of raised hope,
disappointment, resignation and hibernation. Until 1977 under Mao when they
played mostly within the communist circle of the world, it was North Korea who repeatedly
defeated the Chinese at the culmination of raised hope hard earned after a
streak of wins over the weak teams from Southeast Asia and Africa.23) Under Deng Xiaoping after
1978 it was South Koreans who did the same to the Chinese soccer so that the
Chinese press coined the term Korea-Phobia Syndrome when China had won no A-match
against South Korea for 30 years since 1978. 24)
Many say that the 2002 World
Cup co-hosted by Japan and South Korea was the turning point in the sentiments
of Chinese people towards South Korea, especially among younger generation Chinese,
from not too bad to hostile, not just in soccer issues, but in
overall attitude towards South Korea. In the event the South Korean team defeated strong
European teams, Italy and then Portugal consecutively, to be the semi-finalist while
Chinese team got dropped in the first round scoring no goal and win in the
games where the Chinese team had been qualified to play for the first time in
history. The gap between the two as revealed in the games perhaps was too
much to take in for Chinese, so the overall response was that of denial. Since then, there
came about a trend for Chinese to cheer for European teams in soccer matches
Korean team played in. They seemed longing to see their belief confirmed that the Korean achievement in 2002 was a blip or the result of foul
play at best.25) It would be highly challenging a task to explain how the
collective psychology worked in the abrupt turn of the Chinese mind, but we don’t
seem to have much in hand but to resort to the modern Chinese history for any plausible interpretation when the Europeans are involved in the scene.
When we look at the population differences among the three countries, which is 1 to 2.4 to 27.3 in the order of South Korea, Japan and China, the frustration the Chinese people and CCP government have over their soccer reality would be understandable.26) Another sport arena where the three countries compete is Go, the Oriental Chess. This is not a game of team play, nor is it a game where the physicals count much. Yet, the population ratio does not seem to work its due as an effective factor here either. In the most renowned international Go contests, Korean Go players can be said to have been dominant in the past two decades.27) One of the most dramatic scenes in the Go world of the three countries took place in 2005 in Shanghai. The Nongshim Cup contest had a unique contest scheme, whereby each country starts with 5 players and the country with the last survivor takes it all as winner. Korean players did not have good time in early rounds and only one player from Korea, Lee Chang-Ho, was left against the five others, three from China and two from Japan. From then on, he removed his opponents one by one in the five consecutive matches driving the world community of Go watchers into the frenzy of applause and admiration from one side, the sigh of laments and blames from the other. The legendary scene of him walking alone to the contest venue down the hotel corridor on that day was reproduced in an episode of the Korean drama ‘Reply 1988’, the Lee Chang-Ho character played by Park Bo-Gum.
Before the assertion associating the Huns to the ancient Koreans in the southern part of the peninsula, the ethnic identity of the Huns, especially that of the ruling group, was a quite contentious question among the camps for Turk, Mongol and even Iranian.28) But it could be meaningless to argue whether they were Turkish or Mongolian from the perspective of our time when you see the murals of Koguryo Kingdom where the people with Asiatic and Caucasian looks mixed together in sport matches. The Hunnish society, then neighboring the Koguryo Kingdom, would have been not much different in ethnic composition. One more factor that characterizes the Koreans, especially regarding their mindset vis-à-vis the world, is that Korea has been the marine country all along its history from the start as much as it was agricultural with nomadic contribution. Except for the period of the last dynasty Joseon, Korea was one of the countries most active in the international trade and open to the cultural exchange. Different from China where no one capital in their history has been coastal, Korea had its capital always near the sea with oceanic access in its history of four and half millennia.29) In a sense, Koreans were known to the world in the late 1800s in most unlike their true self with the image of intransigent Joseon bureaucrats against the opening of the country representing the country out of proportion. Koreans intrinsically have been open-minded towards foreign ethnicities and cultures out of millennia of their maritime elements in their culture. The rise of the Korean economy from 1960s based on export and overseas construction can be explained by the global orientation in their outlook and their innate capacity for working with people from different cultural sources.30) That brings us back to the story of the Tottenham striker Son Heung-Min.
Soccer is a team play and to
excel as attacker entails not only one’s skill and physical superiority but
also the trust and support from his colleagues. South Korea, the 29th
in FIFA ranking as of April 2022, had produced the two strikers who got the world-wide
fame prior to Son Heung Min: Cha Beum-Geun or Cha Boom of Bundesliga in 1970s
to 80s and Park Ji-Sung of the Premier League with the United Manchester 2007
to 2012. The Golden Boot Son won in the 2021-22 season testifies of the
relationship of trust and respect he had managed to build during the six years
he was with Tottenham Hotspur overcoming the language and cultural barriers. One
cannot talk about Son’s success without mentioning the presence of his father
Son Ung-Jeong. One episode well known in Korean soccer community seems to tell his role as personal mentor and
teacher to his son the best. When Son returned to the dormitory after his debut
game where he also scored his debut goal with Hamburg SV in Germany at his age
of 18 back in 2010, becoming the youngest goal scorer of the renowned club’s history, Father
Son said to his son, “You did well, but your goal today hasn’t changed anything
in the world and you have to prepare yourself for the next game as well.” and took
away his tablet to prevent the news of his son’s achievement from distracting his
young boy. He was a good son. Son’s habit of never failing to put his colleagues’ contribution first
in the interviews after games of his scoring is in line with his father’s incessant
stress on the humble attitude and gratefulness for the people around. Some say
such self-lowering attitude can undermine one’s celebrity value in the Western
culture, but it is certain that he would not have been able to obtain the
heart-felt trust and support as was so well manifested in the last game of
the season where he was able to score two through the single-minded assists of his colleagues,
at the cost of their own scoring, to make him the Golden Boot winner. Son’s
achievement would serve as a trail blazer and ceiling breaker for the community
of East Asian soccer, where the deep-seated belief has been that Asians
are handicapped in physical conditions in the type of sports like soccer. The mainstream
response of the Chinese soccer fans this time was of being proud as Asian while
envious of their neighbor having Son. The 2002 wins by South Korea over the
European teams may not have been a blip.
22) Of 80 A-matches between South Korea and Japan since
1954, South Korea won 42 while Japan got 23 and 15 ended in draw. But since the
inauguration of J-League in 1992 two countries have shown a near-par results,
7-6-4 for K-J-D out of 17 games at Asian
Games and Olympics. Of the 35 matches between South Korea and China since 1978,
South Korean won 20 while China won 2 with 13 draws. For more than 30 years
since 1978 China had recorded no win against South Korea until 2010 when they
recorded their first win over South Korea. China recorded no win against Japan
since 2000, with the record of 7 losses and 4 draws out of 11 matches against Japan.
There was a violent disturbance by Chinese soccer fans outside the stadium in
Chongqing in February 2008 after the match with Japan where the Chinese team lost to Japan following the prior loss to South Korea in the same event.
23) When China held the first pan-China soccer
contest to make a national team in
1951, out of the 8 regional teams, the Northeast team, which represented the
three Manchurian provinces, won the top place and all the 11 members were
chosen for the national team. Four of them were ethnic Korean from the bordering
area with North Korea. The current Chinese league is professional, so each team does not represent real locality any more. The Manchurian region was the territory of Gojoseon and the ancient
Korean kingdom Koguryo (37 BCE-668AD). It is interesting to see that the ancient Chinese observed
the Koguryo people were good at soccer-“人能蹴鞠 ”- in the ‘Book of Old Tang’. > Book
of Old Tang, Treatise on DongYi, Koguryo Part 舊唐書 東夷列傳 高句驪
24)
恐韓症 Kong Han Zheng
25) In
China, the soccer betting is a multi-billion Yuan business and apart from national
sentiments, the surprise wins by the weak tend to get rage from the mass.
26) Deng
Xiaoping was a fervent soccer fan himself and was known to have saved his lunch
money to watch the soccer games when he was student in Paris. Xi Jinping’s CCP
administration revamped their effort to advance Chinese soccer in 2015 with 50 detail
implementation guides.
27)
The most two authoritative Go events would be Ing Cup hosted by China
and LG Cup hosted by the Korean electronic company. Of the 8 contests with Ing
Cup being held every fourth year since 1988, Korean players got 5 while China got the other three. With LG Cup held every year since 1996 Korea
got 13, China 11 and Japan 2. The two Japanese winners were naturalized Chinese.
28) Some argue that the ruling
class was Turkish because the way they
called their leader was proto -Turkish, while the visual description on Attila,depicted
as outlandish to the virgin eye of the ancient Europeans, supports the
Mongol camp.
29) The
current capital Beijing is the one located closest to the coast of all the
Chinese capitals in history. From the
time of Gojoseon, Koreans placed their capital near the sea, typically by the
lower river with the oceanic access by vessel, with the exception of the early
years of Koguryo when they had to defend their vast land in Manchuria against their
neighbors with highly mobile force.
30) Export accounts for 32.84 % of Korean GDP while
it was 17.5% in Japan and 14.24 % in China. While more than 40% of South Koreans have the
passport issued, under 25% of Japanese hold passport. According to World Data
Atlas, in 2019 before the pandemic, total of 20.2 million Japanese made overseas
trip while 28.7 million Koreans did the same. Japan has 2.4 times bigger
population than South Korea.
K-Drama and Movies
South Korea is a multi-religious society, where Christianity and Buddhism are known to be the two most popular beliefs 31), but one cannot talk about the Koreans’ inner world of belief without mentioning the presence of the ‘Hananim’ in the basement of the Korean mind. Hananim, which can be interpreted ‘Lord Heaven’ word for word, is a Supreme Ruler of the Universe, to whom the human souls return to after life and who makes sure the ultimate justice prevails in the human affairs, in and after life.32) The American protestant missionaries in the late 1800s took the name of the being in place of Jehovah for its monotheistic notion, to facilitate their mission, so now many in Korea know it as the name of Christian God. 33) However, the fundamental difference between the two lies in the fact that, Hananim, different from Jehovah, does not put forth conditions of faith and birth in his relationship with human souls, live and dead, Gentile or Jew. Hananim does not care which temple you attend. He is not interested whether you believe in Him or not. The notion of Hananim sounds very similar to that of Tengri, also meaning the Heaven God, the worship of which was widespread among the peoples of Eurasian steppe, including Turks, Mongols and Huns, but if the two were of the same origin, the deviation seems to have taken place with the start of the ancient Korean country Ko-Joseon, when the religious authority got integrated with the secular political power, about four and half millennia ago according to the Korean records of history, while in most Eurasian areas the Shamanic Tengri priests seem to have co-existed with the secular political powers until the time of Genghis Khan in 13th century AD, sometimes to the conflict between the two. 34) So, in the case of the past Korean belief in the Heaven took, there has been no separate need for priests, church or temple for Hananim, thus presumably less chance of contamination, by the priestly authority and practice, of the original notion of the Heaven God, whichever it was called, being better preserved down to our time.35) The notion of Hananim, as remains in the Korean mind, is definitely monotheistic and everyone is equal before Hananim regardless of birth and faith as long as one has life and exists under Heaven. And that explains why South Korea in its modern history was able to build one of the most democratic countries in the world with the social cohesion based on equality among its members in such a short time. 36)
31) According to Religions of Republic of Korea 2018 <2018년 한국의 종교 현황> by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 19.5% of South Koreans claimed to be Protestants, 15.5% Buddhists and 9.7% Catholics with 56% claiming to be non-religious.
32) Homer B. Hulbert (1863-1949), in his book “The Passing of Korea”, in P.404, said, “The Koreans all consider this being to be the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. He is entirely separated from and outside the circle of the various spirits and demons that infest all nature. Considered from this standpoint, the Koreans are strictly monotheists, and the attributes and powers ascribed to this being are in such consonance with those of Jehovah that the foreign missionaries ( Protestant ) have almost universally accepted the term for use in teaching Christianity.” Homer B. Hulbert was an American missionary, journalist and active political activist, who advocated the Korean independence and advised to the last King of the Joseon Dynasty. He also made a significant contribution in advancement of Hangeul, the Korean alphabet system.
33) Underwood of Korea, a biography of Dr. Horace G. Underwood written by his wife, Lillias H. Underwood, M.D., in its pages 121-126, describes how the name came to be adopted in place of Jehovah despite Underwood’s objection.
34) The founder of Ko-Joseon, the kingdom Koreans believe they come from, was Dan- Gun Wang-Geom. Dan-Gun 檀君 단군 represents the preiestly authority while Wang-Geom 王儉 왕검 means the king, the secular power. Thus, the king himself carried out the duty of rite service to Hananim, from the start of the Kingdom. According to the Korean records, the kingdom was founded in 2333BCE. These days the belief in Hananim, or Haneunim otherwise pronounced, reveals itself in the Korean expressions in daily life, such as “He went back to Hananim” meaning that he passed away and “Hananim Mapsosa” meaning ‘Oh, God, No!’ and “Is he not afraid of the Hananim (or Heaven)?” meaning the punishment of Hananim will be ahead. The Hananim itself never once had physical representation, but there still remains the altar, on the top of a mountain in Gwanghwa Island in Korea near Seoul, where Dan Gun, the founder of the first Korean kingdom, is known by tradition to have prayed to the Heaven or Hananim. The rite had been serviced at the altar until the early Joseon Dynasty by the royal court.
35) There is an scholastic argument about the notion of Tengri, whether it is monotheistic or polytheistic comprising the Shamanistic elements. In light of the Korean concept of Hananim, where the religious authority was combined into the political leadership and where the notion of Hananim is detached from the gods of matters, it is probable the polytheistic elements in the notion of Tengri came about as result of contamination by the prolonged Shamanic practices by the Tengri priests.
36) According to Korean historical records, including Samguk Yusa, the Records of the Three Kingdom, Dan Gun, the founder of Ko-Joseon, the kingdom Koreans identify as their first, promulgated as his reigning guideline “ Hong-Ik In Gan” (홍익인간 弘益人間), which can be translated as “ to broadly benefit the human society”. Many say the introduction of Farmland Reform in 1950 and the National Medical Insurance System in 1963, the two pillars that backed South Korea’s economic success, were successful due to the notion of the social justice and equality that Koreans had carried in the belief of Hananim.
Now when trying to understand what is happening today in the film industry of the three countries in the Northeast Asia, one needs to take a look at, firstly, the gap that has formed during the past decades in the levels of freedom of expression among the three national societies and then, secondly, into the creative environment and system in terms of how much the creative works are encouraged. There once was a time when Hong Kong was famous for the popularity of their movies and acting stars, especially in the genres of noir and wuxia, but no one believes that their days would come back now that the city has come under the grip of the Chinese communist party. China evinced great potentials in the film-making with the advent of maestros such as Zhang Yi-Mou under the barren movie environment of the post Cultural-Revolution China in 1980s and 90s.37) The Chinese society in the rural areas depicted in the films of Director Zhang, notably in the Story of Qui Ju 秋菊打官司 of 1992 and Not One Less 一个都不能少, is so faithful to the reality down to details, free of any pretense or cosmetic work, that the 1980s of the rural China would remain as the specific society of a certain period in the human history with the most faithful visual records left. But the movies that represent China these days are the wuxia and the nationalistic movies, the two genres that have proven viable under the CCP censorship but not with much of the universal appeal for most of the world audience. According to the Speech Freedom Index provided by Reporters Without Borders, China ranked 178th out of 180 countries. The problem is that the CCP decides what to watch and what not and what to make for the people and film industry. The Tiananmen Square incident of 1989 remains as a forbidden subject, even as a remote background while the movies with nationalistic themes, such as of the Chinese military heroes in the Korea War, make the box office records, generating a wave of nationalistic fever across the country to the pleasure of the CCP.38)
Ever since the Chinese
Communist government placed a cultural embargo targeting K-Pop and K-Dramas and
movies, of which the growing influence in the Chinese society CCP had feared,
on the excuse of the THAAD situation in 2016, 39) Chinese have tried to foster
their own ecology of modern popular culture promoting the domestic dramas with
popular motifs for young generation while the door stays shut to the Korean entertainments, but, the Korean visual contents have been widely circulated all the
same, this time through illegal paths on Internet, in violation of intellectual
property rights.40)
The Chinese cultural embargo was received at first as a shock to Korean
contents industry since it meant loss of a significant source of income, but now
it has proved a turning point for the Korean entertainments to get more universal
while being more faithful to its own agendas. In 2017, the year following the
Chinese cultural embargo, Netflix began to stream the Korean dramas and from
2019 the Netflix original series of Korean drama started with the Kingdom.
What was special about the TV series ‘What on earth is love?’, the first Korean drama that made a big splash in Chinese society, broadcasted by CCTV in 1997, was the celebrity of the female TV screenwriter Kim Soo-Hyun. 41) In Korea there has been formed in the TV production circle a pattern of pecking order, whereby a screenwriter not only takes the lion's share of the income from the series they write, but also wields a great power in the course of the production, particularly in the selection of the actors. So, like what happened to the profession of songwriters for K-pop, there came about an influx of young, I mean relatively, and fresh talents into the screenwriter profession, that led to the series of the global hits such as "Dae Jang Geum", "My Love from the Star", "Crash Landing on You" and "Reply 1988".42)
It was unusual that Abe Shinzo, who was known for his fondness of grand standing, championing the Japanese glory, did not send any congratulatory message to the film director Kore-eda Hirokazu when he won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival with his work “Shoplifters” in 2018. When there was some criticism about the governmental silence, the Education Minister belatedly offered to hold an event to celebrate, but this time Kore-eda demurred. From this incident Kore-eda was dubbed “Shoplifting Director” by a pro-government commentator for his ungratefulness to the government who subsidized movies in part.43) Japan ranked 67th in the Speech Freedom Index in 2019 that juxtaposed with 48th of USA and 41st of South Korea in the same year, but it would look even more impressive when compared with its 11th place in 2010. Yet, the post-Cannes episode the Japanese Director had to go through may be telling more than the Japan’s ranking in the index. The reason why Abe and his administration exhibited such unwelcoming gesture to the director and his works was in the inconvenience to the Japanese leadership, who has sought the recovery of Japan's past national glory in recent years, of the maverick director's favorite subject and material, which is the bleak reality of isolated and socially invisible families as depicted nonchalantly in his works. What is unique about the Japanese society is that the general populace share the sentiment of extreme abhorrence against its underside being shown to the outside world. Such tendency of Japanese society was counter-mirrored well when they bothered to title the Korean award-winning movie “Parasite” of 2020 as “The Family of the Half-Basement Unit” in Japanese, as if trying to redress the national disgrace. The parochial characteristic of the Japanese society resurfaced when the title role of the 2019 movie “Journalist” based on the published story about the newspaper reporter investigating a real-life scandal involving the prime minister had to be given to a Korean actress after the difficulty in finding a Japanese one. 44) It is interesting to see the Korean moviegoers shows an exact opposite stance on those social issues as subjects of film works. The reality of injustice and economic chasm in their society is taken by the Korean audience as one of the subjects left for movies to tackle, which nevertheless has proved not incompatible with commercial success. 45)
Director Kore-eda's view on the reality of the Japanese film ecology seems to offer a good diagnosis on the impediments dwindling its once-flourishing industry that led and represented the Asian movies. Like in the pop music industry, Japanese movie community is suffering Galapagos Syndrome, where domestic films and animated movies occupy the top ten box office chart exclusively. Japanese consumers are not interested in foreign movies while production companies exhibit no willingness to take the risk from targeting the global market. Aggravating the situation further is the practice of revenue sharing in Japanese film industry, where the creative directors usually can not expect his due share from the commercial success, while in Korea the production team including the director gets up to 24% of the total revenue, assuring the creators of enough income to focus on their next work. Without addressing these problems, he is afraid, the Japanese cinema community is bound to lose its competitiveness fast with the inflow of young and ambitious creators into the industry no more sustainable.46) The real problem for Japan is that the film industry can be the tip of the iceberg.
37) Zhang
Yi-Mou studied the cinema in Beijing Film Academy in the first-year class after
the Cultural revolution and started his career as cinematographer, but the
scarcity of directors in the aftermath of Cultural Revolution led to his debut
as director with Red Sorghum with Gong Li as main actress in 1988.
38) The
movie “ Battle at Lake Changjin” ( 長津湖 戰鬪 ) released
in September 2021 reaped around 900 million USD in box office revenue,
a record in the history of film industry
so far. The movie is about the heroic prowess in the battle that took place
during the Korea War. The movie made a wave of national pride and patriotism in
the Chinese society, especially among the young generation, much to the
pleasure of the CCP leadership, who wanted to remind its people and the world
of its vested interest in the peninsula.
39) THAAD
stands for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. It was deployed in April 2017 amidst
the fierce opposition and threats from China. The retaliatory measures by China
included the ban of tourism to South Korea, the shuttering-down of the Lotte department
store chain, the ban of the Korean entertainment contents and artists in the
Chinese market.
40) In the movie review site named Douban, it is not rare Korean movies and dramas get tens of thousands of reviews.
41) Kim
Soo-Hyun is a female screenwriter whose specialty is in the subjects of familial
conflicts and bonds. She is famous for her entourage of actors and actresses,
called Kim Soo-Hyun Brigade in Korea, that she favors for her work.
42) Dae Jang Geum was such a huge hit across the
world, not just in Asia, but also in Central Asia and Middle East. In Iran Dae
Jang Geum had 80% viewership, making Korea a favorite country for Iranians
overnight. Many Iranian youngsters, especially females, are coming to Korea these
days to study and work. My Love from The Star was first broadcasted in December
2013 in China and hit the Chinese society with a syndrome. Young couples had to
wait hours in line to have the combination of fried Chicken and beer while the
cosmetics and accessories of the main female character sold out right after their
appearance in episodes. The auto-lock with the touch buttons became a must in
China in the apartment buildings influenced by the series.
43) Sunday Profile, New York Times, Feb.08, 2019 by
Motoko Rich https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/world/asia/shoplifters-movie-hirokazu-koreeda.html
44) Korean actress Shim Eun-Kyung was awarded The Best Leading Actress in the Japan Academy Awards in 2019 for her role in the movie. The drama version of the movie was released on Netflix in January 2022, the leading role played by Ryoko Yonekura.
45) The
movie “Dogani”, released in 2011 with English title “Silenced”,where Gong Yoo
played the leading actor, was a film accusing the abuse and irregularities in
the welfare organizations for the hearing-impeded. The movie brought about the
closing of the welfare organization and reactivated the initiatives for new
legislation. The“Attorney” of 2013 and “Taxi-Driver” of 2017, both leading role
played by Song Gang-Ho, were produced in accusation of the injustice and human
right violation committed by the Military dictatorship under the hypocrisy of national
security and interest. All the movies were commercial success too.
46) Interview Report by Gendai Business Nov. 28,
2016 https://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/-/50258
One of the episodes in the Japanese Netflix series “Midnight Diner” featured the harsh environment a young Manga writer faces in the industry, living off his girlfriend, subjected to servitude to please the disdainful publishers to make his debut. 47) Japan has been the champion of the comic book industry for decades in the age of paper books, but a new horizon of environment has opened for the manga industry with the arrival of the digital society where the desktop PCs in the bedroom of young creators connected to the consumer devices via the Internet and mobile network have replaced the big loud printing machines that churned out the comic books and the trucks that delivered the books to the manga stores. While Japanese manga industry was undergoing the process of debilitation fettered to the shackles of the prosperous past, Korean on-line service companies charged forward with the Webtoon platforms in the global market, creating a new alternative ecology for the manga or comic-book writers.48) There is no need for tears any more for the new aspiring manga writers to get the debut in the world of webtoons “since leading platforms like Naver and Kakao Webtoons offer creators tools to create and upload webtoons for free, giving audiences a near-unlimited range of content”. 49) The Korean Webtoon platforms made near one billion USD in revenue in 2021 in Korea alone, doubling from the previous year, with the 750,000 creators and 82 million monthly active readers. Outside Korea, the Japan is the biggest market followed by China, Southeast Asia, USA and EU. The Korean Webtoon platforms grew into the second-top grossing non-gaming app in the world, only second to TikTok. While in Korea now there has formed a new legion of young affluent webtoon writers, mostly Korean for now but in the process of diversification, Naver Webtoon bought the Wattpad of Canada for 600 million USD, a platform for user-generated written stories with 94 million users of its own, mostly English-speaking. The world is changing. Fastly.
47) The Netflix
series itself was based on a successful Manga series with the same title, 深夜食堂; Shinya Shokudō.
48) According to Data AI, Piccoma, the Kakao subsidiary in Japan, achieved a one-billion USD milestone as of October 2021 from the Japanese market alone. https://www.data.ai/en/insights/market-data/piccoma-1-billion-spend/ In 2021, six webtoon platforms out of the top ten in revenue were Korean companies. The word “webtoon” itself was coined by Koreans in 2000 when its rudimentary form appeared on the early on-line community in Korea.
49) Financial Times report 03/25/2022 https://www.ft.com/content/e07dc473-cfcb-47be-b757-c4f4b63871f2
Back to our first questions:
Why we were so clueless of the Korean rise?
It has been more than two decades since the Korean Wave hit Asian and world community, starting with China and Japan, yet it doesn’t seem to show signs of abating. China can be said to have been one of the countries most influenced by the Korean pop culture, perhaps because, different from Japan, who had had their own history and genres of modern pop culture, China had not had enough time since the opening of their country to come up with a modern popular culture of their own taste and color. The Korean popular culture in dramas, music and reality shows, accompanied by all their social and physical trappings, set the example for the Chinese to follow, so that now the Chinese entertainment industry over all looks mirroring the Korean pop culture. The 2016 cultural embargo by the Communist Party does not seem to have stopped the influx of Korean influence 50) and we are yet to see whether China would be able to build an ecology of their own popular culture capable of generating its share of creative contributions to the global cultural assets of the mankind.
Knowing what has been going on in the field of popular culture in Asia, especially in Northeast Asia of the three countries, it would be only natural for one to come up with certain questions. Is this the first time Korea has become the cultural leader in the region in the history? Where has gone the cultural legacy and potentials of China, the originator of the Yellow River civilization that has been taught to be one of the four ancient civilizations in the world history? How come was the small country Korea able to charge forward with such a force in all sectors of entertainment and industry, as if readied, with the arrival of the digital and Internet age? How come was the world so much clueless about the Korean ascension? Why does the history as we have known of the Northeast Asia look so irreconcilable with what we witness taking place today?
The
answer, I believe, is in the problems innate with the fraught framework of the view that the study of the Northeast Asian
history and cultures has never been free of since the time of its birth.
Firstly, the Western outlook to the new world of Asia started overwhelmed by the shock of amazement from the Marco Polo’s accounts, which originally had been taken in disbelief, and the following arrival to Europe of the White and Blue Porcelain, the aesthetic and technical superiority of which overwhelmed Europeans and abolished at once the doubt on the Marco Polo’s accounts on China, that led to the China-centered view on the Asian culture and history without being challenged. There is no question that China, under the reign of Mongols though, was the largest polity with the biggest cities in the world when witnessed by the young European, but he was in no position to know China was not the only source of culture and technologies in the region and that it was not necessarily the superior one to the other cultural block in the Northeast Asia that Korea and Japan belonged to.51) He thought he was telling the truth, but there sure was no way for him to know that his accounts might not be the whole truth. In the time of Marco Polo’s stay in China under Yuan Dynasty of Mongols, Koryo was making the best celadons in the region, that Chinese admired, which left a great influence on the Blue-and-White Porcelains that followed in the technics and aesthetics.52) Koreans, under Koryo Dynasty then, produced the best paper in Asia and invented the first metal moving types in the world.53) Though we could not say Korea and Japan were superior to China in all areas, at least we can say Koreans influenced the Chinese society and culture significantly in important technologies and culture. There was a record during the early Ming Dynasty Korean fashion was in such a frenzy among the upper class in the capital that the Ming ruler had to issue a decree to ban the Korean fashion.54) The essential and pivotal knowledge demanded for the proper and balanced understanding of the history and culture of the Northeast Asian region, which unfortunately has been so faithfully lacking in the conventional historical interpretations on the region, is that China and the block of Korea and Japan had clearly separated cultural roots and that the difference in the cultural derivation between the two was fundamental down to the level of language, social behavior and relationship, diet and culinary culture, and dwelling environment and architecture. The most comprehensive cross-disciplinary studies ever made, based on the triangular approaches in linguistics, archaeology and genetic biology, was released on the separate origins of the two cultures in the Northeast Asian region and their respective dispersal quite recently. 55) According to the Nature article released on November 10th of 2021, the culture of the Korean and Japanese language speakers derived from the neolithic agricultural community who cultivated broomcorn millet in the West Liao Basin area around 9,000 years BP while the Chinese culture came down from the fox farmers millet around the middle stream of Yellow River around 7200 BP. The cultural demarcation has been maintained down to our time. Different to the general perception, the oldest culture started in the region was not that of Yellow River, but that of the Transeurasian language speakers in Southern Manchuria harboring the sea bay, including ancient Koreans and Japanese, thus the chances are the latter had more influence on the fore-mentioned than the other way round, if not equally affected. It is under this context that the widely-disseminated view that unfoundedly places the Northeast Asian culture under the wing of the Yellow River civilization will keep us failing in the balanced interpretation of the past history, baffling our ability to get the clue for the future developments in the region. That explains why we were so clueless of Korean rise as cultural juggernaut out of the region.56) Worse yet, the situation can turn quite treacherous when the wrong notion that happened to be accepted widely, can be taken advantage of for false claims on the cultural assets with potentials to cause conflicts in the region. The situation may have already started.
Secondly, the timing of the country Korea known to the West in the second half of 19th century could be characterized not only for the severe tardiness compared to its neighbors, who more than geographically blocked the access to the peninsula, but also for the state that the country was in under late Joseon Dynasty at the time of its opening to the West, stripped of all its past brilliance and dignity. Until the time of King Sejong in 15th century, Korea had stayed as one of the most advanced countries in the world, if not the top, but the two invasions straddling 1600 from Japan and the Manchurians who established the new Chinese dynasty Qing seem to have initiated its downslide from the overhemorrhaging of human resources and the collective PTSD that made the whole nation take refuge to the Confucian cocoon.56) By the 19th century when the West found the country, most of the literati bureaucrats of the country were thinking of themselves as Neo-Confucianists and were voluntary supporters of the Sino-centric world view, endorsing the fraught perspective the West had had on the Northeast Asian culture and history, which eventually led to the notion of the “Yellow River Civilization” as the single source that nourished and civilized all East Asian societies and cultures.
Thirdly, the Sino-centric framework as blended into the Chinese historical records was accepted without the necessary steps of doubt and questioning while there seem to have been no special reason for the Chinese history to be exempted of the academic due diligence. The worldly outlook that Shiji, or The Records of Great Historian presented, that was of China vs. four neighboring barbarians, was repeated so consistently, and often creatively, by later Chinese records that they were successful in framing the perspective the Western scholars look at the East Asian history and cultures. Given the importance and the huge presence of the Dong Yi people, who represented the Transeurasian line of culture, in the formation of the Chinese culture and society as we know now, the time setting of the monumental historical record, that came out right after the establishment of Han Dynasty that replaced the Qin, should be taken into account in interpretation of the record and other following historical narratives written on the same line of disparaging the Dong Yi people, whom the ancient Koreans are traced back to. We now know the Shang Dynasty was the polity of Dong Yi and the First Emperor of Qin was of Dong Yi descent, a spin-out of Shang. The Chinese history before Han, if we can call that Chinese, was more of Dong Yi’s than of the Huaxia 華夏 and the trick of the Great Historian in his book was in staging the Huaxia as the main builder of Chinese culture through the disparagement and concealment of the prevalent contribution of Dong Yi by way of placing it among the four barbarian enemies. These days we are witnessing Chinese government is treating the history as a project.57) As we can see in the Northeast History Project carried out by the CCP to fulfill their political objectives, it would be too naïve if we believe that the historical records by “the first Chinese” over two millennia ago were written purely in pursuit of the historical truth, free of intention for manipulation and distortion. The first Chinese record’s main scheme was "Korea erasing", in the vocabulary of our time. And this Korea erasing has been the constant guideline in historical narratives for millennia, not only by Chinese but also by Japanese, often in ostensible collaboration, and they can be getting more fiery to defend their achievements made so far to fight against the arrival of the new findings based on science exposing the lies implanted in the name of history. The difference is that only now with the help of scientific approaches and of the easier and widened access to the historical records and studies thanks to the development of Internet, we are now in a better position to get to the truth than any time in the past.
50) According to the report of Korea Creative Content Agency submitted to the Korean parliament in 2020, there were 20 cases of the intellectual property right infringement on 18 reality show formats from 2016 to the first half of 2020, 19 of which took place in China. Almost all successful Korean reality shows were imitated in China during the period. In the area of dramas and movies, the remake by licensing was quite active. According to Endata report on 2022 China Remake Market Research Report ( 艺恩：2022中国翻拍剧市场研究报告 ), 55% of imported remake licensing for the period of 2019 to 1Q 2022 was from South Korea and 23% was from Japan.
51) “The
Travels of Marco Polo” mentions about the Mongolian invasion of Japan. But, his
knowledge on Japan in the book was limited to what he had heard from Chinese
and Mongols.
52) The papers from Korea were regarded in China and Japan as best for more than a millennium from the time of Shila to Joseon Dynasty. The oldest wooden block printing of the world was made in Shila before 751AD and the Buddhist book, "Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests' Zen Teachings" 白雲和尙抄錄佛祖直指心體要節 published in 1377 is the oldest book in the world, printed by metal movable types, about 7 decades earlier than Gutenberg’s Bible. The royal court and aristocrats of Song Dynasty admired the Koryo celadon as best. The Chinese book “Brocade in Sleeves” 袖中錦 published in Song Dynasty ( by 太平老人) referred to the occult color of Koryo celadons as the best in the world that could not be copied.
53) The
last empress of Yuan Dynasty was a Koryo lady. A record on Yuan Dynasty said,”
Since the Empress was from Koryo, the nobles were influenced so that only when
they get spouse from Koryo, they were recognized as noble enough. Half of the
court ladies were from Koryo, so everything from the clothes to shoes, hats and
household items was Koryo style. Thing
were getting crazy.” ( 續資治通鑒 卷214, 元紀 32 ) Coming into Ming Dynasty, the Korean style
skirt, Horsetail Skirt 馬尾裙 gained a popularity among the nobles and riches so that only the petty officials and servants were left not
wearing the Koryo fashion. Ming Emperor Hongzhi had to issue decree to ban the
Korean style around the end of 15th century. The earliest record on
Korean fashion goes back to 7th century BCE at the time of
Duke Huan of Qi. ( 管子·輕重篇 / “發朝鮮不朝，請文皮毤。服而以為幣乎” )
54) “Dated language Phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tib PNAS, May 6, 2019
“Triangulation supports agricultural
spread of the Transeurasian languages” Nature, November 10, 2021
55) The word “juggernaut” in association of
Korean pop culture was first in the article of
Yale Insight in 2016. Since then many journalists used the expression
“cultural juggernaut” in reference to the global influence of Korean pop
culture.
56) The
Imjin War lasted for 7 years from 1592
to 1598. Japanese often call it “Porcelain War” reflecting their intention and
achievements from the invasion. The Qing invasion of Joseon lasted for three months in the winter of 1636.
57) According
to Wikidepia,”the Northeast Project (东北工程; 東北工程), which is short for the Serial
Research Project on the History and Current State of the Northeast Borderland ( 东北边疆历史与现状系列研究工程; 東北邊疆歷史與現狀系列研究工程 ), was a five-year research project on the history and current
situation of the frontiers of Northeast China which lasted from 2002 to
2007.[1] It was launched by the Chinese
Academy of Social Science (CASS) and received financial support from both the
Chinese government and the CASS.” The project’s political goal is to incorporate
the ancient Korean history and culture into the Chinese not only for the
territorial claim, but also the cultural legacies of those ancient Korean
kingdoms, such as Ko-joseon, Buyeo and Koguryo.
end
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