FEATURE: Textbook controversy flavors E. Asian pop-culture stew

0 Comments | Asian Political News, Sept 17, 2001

TOKYO, Sept. 12 Kyodo

It's really too bad that the current textbook controversy has resulted in a decision by the South Korean government to freeze the ongoing liberalization of Japanese pop-culture imports into South Korea.

South Korea began opening its markets to Japanese imports in 1998 as part of President Kim Dae Jung's efforts to improve bilateral ties, and that was very welcome news for those of us eager to see a rapprochement between the former colonial power and its one-time colony, whose relations were still steeped in animosity.

Among the items that have since been allowed into South Korea are Japanese magazines, comic books, non-age-restricted movies, award-winning animated films, TV documentaries, computer games and non-Japanese language music recordings.

The fact that you can't sell music with Japanese vocals in South Korea is obviously a big problem as far as the Japanese music industry is concerned.

But that hasn't prevented many forward-looking Japanese music companies from steadily expanding their presence in the Korean market.

Avex, for example, last November signed a licensing deal with leading South Korean label S.M. Entertainment under which Avex CDs will be released in South Korea by S.M. and Avex will release S.M. recordings in Japan.

It was the first such deal between Japanese and South Korean labels, and a big step forward in the development of Japan-South Korea relations.

Last year also saw production company Amuse open a Korean subsidiary that is being used by several Japanese record labels as their point of entry into the tough South Korean market.

But while the market may be tough, it is also potentially very rewarding, which is a particularly welcome prospect for Japanese companies given the steady decline in music sales in Japan.

And the truth is that despite the ban on J-pop, Japanese music sells well in South Korea, albeit as pirate product.

One of the first fruits of the collaboration between Avex and S.M. Entertainment was the Japanese debut of Korean female vocalist BoA, whom Avex is giving the full-on promotion treatment in Japan.

BoA is part of a recent trend in which ''K-pop'' acts such as female vocalist Lee-tzsche and dance music trio To-Ya are making inroads into the Japanese market, as more and more Japanese become interested in their neighboring country of South Korea.

Anyone who knows their history understands why Koreans want to protect their culture against what they see as a threat posed by Japanese cultural influences. However, I think people like President Kim realized that the ban had outlived its usefulness, and that Korean culture is strong and capable of holding its own against the J-pop juggernaut.

And given the many obvious social and cultural similarities between the two countries, the continuing political friction and bad feeling between South Korea and Japan is all the more regrettable.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the realm of pop culture: Korean and Japanese kids are part of the same great East Asian pop-culture stew, where ''cute'' is king and a unique anime/manga-oriented visual sense -- markedly different from North American and European cultural templates -- prevails.

Speaking of North America, Korea's long-standing prohibition of Japanese culture reminds me in some ways of the attempts by Canada, my native country, to protect Canadian culture.

Canadian radio stations, for example, must by law play a certain percentage of ''Canadian content.'' The idea is to give domestic artists and record companies, who may not have the promotional clout of their American counterparts, a better chance of getting their music out to the public.

Whether this works or not is a controversial issue. In the last few years, several world-class artists have emerged from Canada, including Sarah McLachlan, Celine Dion and Bryan Adams, and I suspect that their talent is strong enough that they would have made it big internationally regardless of the Canadian content regulations.

Back in the 1970s, when the regulations were first introduced, I always found that they resulted in DJs playing the same old stuff by Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot and Anne Murray.

New artists didn't get much more radio time.

So while I'm sympathetic to South Korea's antipathy to any large-scale influx of Japanese pop culture, I'm skeptical of attempts by governments telling people what it's OK to watch or listen to.

Governments should support local culture through grants or tax breaks instead of blocking cultural imports or setting quotas like those in Canada.

And this is the path that President Kim had chosen to follow before the recent textbook controversy.

My guess is that the two governments will work out some sort of mutually agreeable solution to the textbook controversy and restart the liberalization of Japanese cultural imports well before the May 31, 2002, start of the World Cup soccer tournament, which is being co-hosted by South Korea and Japan.