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「Seoul Drama Awards 2006」もMHPで見られますね～。
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Male Celebrities Just Latest Twist in Asia-Wide Craze
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A01
TOKYO -- Thin and gorgeous in a slinky black dress,
Mikimoto pearls and a low-slung diamond Tiffany
pendant, 26-year-old Kazumi Yoshimura already has
looks, cash and accessories. There's only one more thing
this single Japanese woman says she needs to find
eternal bliss -- a Korean man.
She may just have to take a number and get in line. In
recent years, the wild success of male celebrities from
South Korea -- sensitive men but totally ripped -- has
redefined what Asian women want, from Bangkok to
Beijing, from Taipei to Tokyo. Gone are the martial arts
movie heroes and the stereotypical macho men of
mainstream Asian television. Today, South Korea's
trend-setting screen stars and singers dictate everything
from what hair gels people use in Vietnam to what jeans
are bought in China.
Yet for thousands of smitten Japanese women like
Yoshimura, collecting the odd poster or DVD is no
longer enough. They've set their sights far higher --
settling for nothing less than a real Seoulmate.
The lovelorn Yoshimura signed up last year with Rakuen Korea, a Japanese-Korean matchmaking service, to find
her own Korean bachelor. And she is hardly alone.
More than 6,400 female clients have signed up with the
company, which says its popularity has skyrocketed
since 2004, when "Winter Sonata" became the first of
many hot Korean television dramas to hit Japan. Even in Shinjuku ni-chome, Tokyo's biggest gay district, niche
bars with names such as Seoul Man have sprouted like
sprigs of ginseng in a Pusan autumn.
"South Koreans are so sweet and romantic -- not at all
like Japanese guys, who never say 'I love you,' "
Yoshimura said as she waited for her blind date, a single Korean man, in the 50th-floor bar of a chic Tokyo
skyscraper. A telephone operator who lives with her
parents in Hiroshima, she has spent thousands of dollars
on her quest for a Korean husband, flying to Seoul 10
times in the past two years and bullet-training to Tokyo
for seven blind dates with Korean men.
So far, though, she hasn't found the one she's looking
for.
"Maybe I'm living in a fantasy world," she said, pouting
her blood-red lips. "Maybe I'm looking for the TV stars
I can't really have. But we are all allowed a dream, aren't we?"
In part, the new allure of Korean men can be traced to a
larger phenomenon known as the "Korean Wave," a term coined a few years ago by Beijing journalists startled by
the growing popularity of South Koreans and South
Korean goods in China. Now, the craze for all things
Korean has spread across Asia, driving regional sales
of everything from cars to kimchi.
Meanwhile, the number of foreign tourists traveling to
South Korea leapt from 2.8 million in 2003 to 3.7 million in 2004. The bulk of the growth, South Korean tourism
officials say, stemmed from Korean Wave-loving
Asian women. Partial statistics for 2005 indicate the
feminine tide has not yet let up.
For the South Koreans -- who have long suffered
discrimination in Japan and who have hardly been known as sex symbols -- it all comes as something of a shock.
Korean male celebrities are now among the highest-paid
actors outside Hollywood. According to the South Korean media, "Winter Sonata" star Bae Yong Jun -- whose
character stood by his first love through 10 years of car
accidents and amnesia -- is now charging $5 million a
film, the steepest price anywhere in Asia. In a few short
years, Bae is said to have accumulated a merchandising
and acting-fee empire worth an estimated $100 million.
At least nine other Korean male stars earn more than
$10 million a year, according to a list published in June
by the Seoul-based Sports Hankook newspaper.
In Seoul, the neon-lit streets are mobbed these days by
visiting Asian women, many sporting rhinestone-studded T-shirts emblazoned with images of their favorite Korean stars. Some fans have been known to stake out famous
eateries for hours in the hopes of catching a glimpse of
their celluloid beaus.
"It's still a little hard to believe that it's gone this far," said tall, tanned Jang Dong Gun, now one of the highest-paid actors in Asia, during an interview in Seoul.
Jang said he was shocked when, during his first trip to
Vietnam in 1998 to promote his new Korean TV drama,
thousands of women mobbed his plane at the Hanoi
airport and an armada of female fans on motor scooters
chased his car all the way to his hotel.
In 2001, the Seoul-based manufacturer Daewoo
Electronics hired him as its Vietnam spokesman. Over
the past five years, the company said, its refrigerators'
market share in Vietnam went from a blip to a robust 34
percent.
"If we can give them a little more joy in their life and
show them another side of Korea, than I can only see that as a plus for us and them," he said.
In China, South Korean programs broadcast on
government TV networks now account for more than
all other foreign programs combined, including those
from the United States and Japan, according to South
Korean government statistics. Even in Mexico -- land of
the telenovela -- a flock of local women stood outside
South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun's hotel during a
recent visit, holding placards with Korean stars' names.
In the United States, the Seoul-based singer Rain played
two sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden in 2005. Also last year, sinewy Daniel Dae Kim, the Korean-born
actor from the hit show "Lost," was the only Asian to
land a spot in People magazine's "Sexiest Men Alive"
edition.
Entertainment industry leaders in Seoul credit the
phenomenon to good marketing coupled with an
uncanny response throughout Asia to the expressive
nature of the South Koreans -- long dubbed the Italians
of Asia. A hearty diet and two years of forced military
duty, industry leaders and fans insist, have also made
young South Korean men among the buffest in Asia.
Most important, however, has been the South Korean
entertainment industry's perfection of the strong, silent
type on screen -- typically rich, kind men with
coincidentally striking looks and a tendency to shower
women with unconditional love.
"It's a type of character that doesn't exist much in Asian
movies and television, and now it's what Asian women
think Korean men are like," said Kim Ok Hyun, director
of Star M, a major star management company in Seoul.
"But to tell you the truth," she said. "I still haven't met a
real one who fits that description."
Though the Korean Wave hit Japan relatively late,
washing ashore only within the past 24 to 36 months, the country has quickly become the largest market for Korean stars. Bae remains the biggest, but his supremacy is
being challenged. Actor Kwon Sang Woo, for instance, is charging $200 for some seats at an upcoming "fan
meeting" in Tokyo. Thousands of Japanese are
scrambling for a chance to watch him play games with
fans, chat and perform little song-and-dance numbers.
Some tickets are going for as much as $500 on online
auction sites.
Almost all the major Korean male stars have opened
lucrative "official stores" in Tokyo. In the three-story
boutique of Ryu Siwon, a baby-faced Korean actor-
crooner who sings in phonetic Japanese for the local
market, the top floor boasts a recreation of his living
room, complete with a life-size, high-tech plastic model
of Ryu lounging casually on a white leather sofa. It has
become a meeting place of sorts for his Japanese fans,
where a gaggle of women ages 17 to 61 sat and stared
longingly at his statue on a recent afternoon.
Some call it a fad. But Yoshimura -- whose latest blind
date turned out to be a slightly paunchy Korean
computer programmer -- says she is nevertheless digging in her extraordinarily high heels for the long run.
"I intend to keep looking until I find the right one," she
said.
Special correspondent Joohee Cho contributed to this report.