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China's youth look to Seoul for inspiration
(New York Times)
Updated: 2006-01-04 09:03
"If a Japanese television set stopped working, the Chinese would say
something's wrong with the power lines," said Ohn Dae Sung, the manager of a
Korean restaurant, Suboksung, who has been here since 1993. "If a South Korean
television set stopped working, they'd say it was the fault of the set."
The Korean Wave has been gathering for some time, with its roots traceable to
several developments, including the Seoul Olympics in 1988. The first civilian
president was elected in 1992, ending nearly 32 years of military rule and
ushering in tumultuous change.
A newly confident South Korea has pursued an increasingly independent foreign
policy, often to Washington's displeasure, warming up to China and to North
Korea. Social changes that took decades elsewhere were compressed into a few
years, as new freedoms yielded a rich civil society, but also caused strains
between generations and the sexes, leading to one of the world's highest divorce
rates and lowest birth rates.
As South Korea quickly became the world's most wired nation, new online news
sites challenged the conservative mainstream media's monopoly; press clubs, a
Japanese colonial legacy that controlled the flow of news, were weakened or
eliminated. Unlike other Asian nations, South Korea has tackled head-on taboo
subjects in its society, including the legacy of military rule and collaboration
during Japanese colonial rule.
Here, at a computer center on a recent evening, young Chinese could be seen
playing South Korean online games. Cyworld, the largest online community service
in South Korea, is announcing its arrival in China by plastering ads on city
buses.
Thanks to the Korean Wave and South Korea's new image, being Korean helps
business.
"I'm sure there is a connection, though we don't have exact figures," Jim
Sohn, the chief executive of LG Electronics China, said in an interview inside
the company's brand new $400 million headquarters here.
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