What’s the influence of Korean Wave in China? Research Paper

What’s the Influence of Korean Wave in China?
Northeast Asia has grown greatly in terms of an unprecedented cultural phenomenon that provides impact on the whole region – “Hallyu” since the 20th century. This Chinese term means Korean wave, is about the love of the cultural economy in Korea, exporting entertainment, movies, TV dramas, music, and even pop culture.
Korea has been setting a dedicated goal to become the leading provider of famous culture all over the world. It is Korea’s way to expand its “soft power”.1 Soft power means that the country of Korea was able to gain its popularity through its image, and not through hard force. In addition, Korean wave has become one of the greatest and fast-paced phenomena all over Asia in terms of culture. Korean wave has been dealing tremendous effect to other countries in the continent and outside the continent, and it boosts the economy of Korea. This makes Korean become futuristic and rich.
Introduction of Reality Shows in the Chinese Market
Before reality shows are introduced in the Chinese media industry, one critical problem in the TV industry of China was lacking of programming variety, and this has led mainly from a lack of producers for original TV programs. There are media scholars who warned TV producers that if they would not be able to move quickly on exploring the original and catchy media market soon enough, many of their viewers will see entertainment on other aspects, most likely on the World Wide Web. This gives them more options for more Western and Asian companies. The result is that Chinese producers and the country itself was becoming more open to the World Trade Organization and international entry, more particularly the Korean Wave. This is when China’s television entertainment market started facing many new opportunities, and entered the format business internationally.
China had a chance to watch reality TV shows in year 2000, which has become a new genre of TV program for them. During those times, Chinese TV stations has bought the content of famous reality shows from foreign countries and aired them nationally. Because of that, China has started entering the format business with international contents; and they started producing original variety shows. “Super Girl”, a Chinese variety show introduced in year 2004, got remarkable attention and great popularity in the Mainland China, and media professionals in the country started finding the potential of reality shows and international Korean market in China. This had sped up the introduction of variety shows all over the world. However, because it lacked originality, few years after it was aired, Chinese media started to partner with international shows and air them in TV stations to be able to attract Chinese viewers. As the international market became saturated, media started to pay attention to the variety shows of South Korea because of their advanced techniques in producing shows, established market strategies, and related cultural elements. Because of the rapid introduction of Korean wave in China, both countries have established official relations and developed in trade, tourism, economy, personnel exchanges, and investment. Cultural exchange between the countries has become closer, too. It is more likely that both are willing to promote each of their cultures and learn from one another.
The entertainment TV is one of the most significant products of the modern media market. As a new genre, reality TV, has been spread all over the world and became very famous in almost all regions and countries. The inevitable reality show development in the television market in China was contributed to three factors:
The opening-up and reform policy in 1990 had provided a great influence on the social, economic, political, and cultural development of the country. When Chinese lived in a stable social environment and had enough economic abilities to meet their physiological necessities, they start seeking satisfaction spiritually, leading to cultural consumption becoming a main demand – reality shows.
Industry forces has led to wide growth of reality TV and TV stations were becoming more competitive to get the viewers’ attention.
Reality TV had a direct impact on people’s lives, enabling them to relieve stress and forget any sadness.
Overall, it is definite that reality TV has been part of the rapid development of media in China.
Why “Running Man” Korean Variety Show Were Popular in China?
The global entertainment industry and media market is a powerful business with wide opportunities for development. A reality show in Korea, “Running Man”, has created a name all over Asia. The show has been classified as an urban variety with extreme action because its success came from its unique format every episode and the fun it provides to the entirety of audiences.
Every episode has the MCs, as well as the guests, participate and compete with one another in extraordinary game of different sorts. The game is normally set in a landmark of a major city in Korea, and the game could be as extreme as singing karaoke while riding a roller coaster and other extreme outdoor activities.
This unprecedented genre became so famous in China that a TV station in the country signed a deal with SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System). SBS is the original producer of the show and they work with Zhejiang Satellite TV to share and jointly produce a Chinese version of the variety shoes, which has been airing for years now.
Running Man shows how the Hallyu is now influencing the TV production of China. Even the top broadcaster in Hong Kong, TVB, is learning from the South Koreans. However, Running Man has been introduced to the country with a different business model and Chinese station, the Zhejiang Satellite TV, produced its own version, with the guidance of its production partners in Korea. Rather than just sending advises and few details about Running Man, the Korean SBS sent its own team China to help with the production.
What is the Difference between Asian and Korean Shows like Running Man?
The popularity of leading brands of Korea all over the world has highlighted particular key dimensions of the Korean’s success, which include revolutionary designs and superior quality. Nearly all business sectors has absorbed this lesson, which saw an improved investment in development and research so as to create/develop superior quality brands. Entertainment productions like music, movies, and variety shows like Running Man have been described to have superior production quality. The entertainment products of Korean are now the same production quality and value of that in Hollywood. This focus on the quality was found to have enticed many new customers, providing great help in sustaining the popularity of music, movies, and variety shows like Running Man, which is the primary product that drives this popularity.
As the movies and music’s popularity, especially Running Man, increased diversity in the constituency, the result also provided them improved efficiency in creativity. Starting 1999s up to now, there are lots of other appealing and innovative Korean movies that have been released including Swiri, The Virgin Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Joint Security Area, My Sassy Girl, Friend (Ching), Fallen, Silmido, Memories of Murder, Taeguki, Scandal Makers, Haeundae, The Man fron Nowhere, Miracle in Cell No. 7, Train to Busan, and A Taxi Driver, along with a few more must-watch Korean movies. This has resulted Korean producers to have the capability of sourcing capital for these movies, including variety shows like Running Man, from many other countries around Asia and around the globe. People in many countries like Vietnam, China, and Singapore, as well as Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong are provided with increasing numbers of movies all throughout the years.
Aside from movies, the music by Korean brands also increased in popularity across the last decade. There is no need to be a fan of K-pop music in order to hear brands like BTS, Girls’ Generation, Big Bang, or PSY. These famous music brands in Korea have sold more or less 240 millions of records all over the world. These days, Korea has a minimum of 115 active K-pop groups (girl and boy groups combined) with online presence and among these numbers, there are 92 who have debuted in year 2010 or later. With this, it actually has gained 35M Korean wave fans in 86 countries in year 2015, 26 million of them came from Oceania and Asia, 7.6M people living in the United States, and 1.6M fans from Europe. This shows capacities about the explosiveness and how entertainment industry in Korea proliferated the world in the last decade.
Furthermore, even Korean series like soap operas emerged greatly as a well-packed product with a great quantity of emotional and visual appeal. Most of those soap operas portrayed serene and exotic rural and shoreline areas, focusing on the underlying values of audience in Asia – family melodrama that has a lot of emotions.
The Korean historical variety show “Running Man” has experienced extensive commercial success around the world including Asian countries like Japan, Hong Kong, China, Cambodia, Philippines, Singapore, India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. This growth in quality and quantity of music, movies, along with variety shoes has helped in maintaining the development of Korean wave.
Why Do Chinese like Variety Shows like Running Man?
Korean dramas [and variety shows] have exceptional storylines, together with characters, that are well-designed and directing system that are really sophisticated.3 Aside from that, Korean series also has excellent original background music, plus the fun and creativeness of the team of Running Man. Their innovations and resourcefulness in emerging games and stories has gotten the curiosity and interest of the people to see the next episode.
The appearance of handsome guests and MC’s, their hairstyles and stylish fashions, and excellent acting capabilities are the best among other actors in Asia. The background, location, and improved technology has assimilated to each other wonderfully.
Another reason why Chinese people loves the variety show is because it shows kindness and virtue. It shows that people are friendly and how families show harmony.3 It is specified how juniors show respect for the elders and the elders cherish juniors. Such extraordinary episodes and encouraging stories draw interest to large range of age groups. Elder grandparents and elementary school children watch together. Many of the shows and movies in the western areas of the world have suggestive scenes content to be able to express the lessons. The value in family that has been shown in this reality show evoked nostalgic feeling toward Chinese families. With the national campaign and Cultural Revolution in China of a one-child policy3, big families have been eliminated in China. In line with this, the older generations in China reminisce memories they had when they were little and they have big family. These Chinese generations received satisfaction as they enjoy Running Man.
While Asian countries are bound with similar traditions and culture, respect and family orientation has not been lost in China and Japan. The Korean society and its harmonious aspects that are reflected on variety show played vital role in promoting this phenomenon in 2 cultures. Not only does Korean cultural industry increase in popularity but also the derivative products like accessories, cosmetics, clothes, tour, and food that are linked with the contents. These products are not the cultural content but they have close relation to the Korean Wave.
Why Korean Shows Successful like Running Man?
The reason why Korean Wave has been so appealing is that it has its presence at the center of mainstream culture. Its secrets lie within the Korean traditions of appreciating the arts. The strengths of this Korean fever can simply be summarized as universality, originality, and sophistication.
Universality is seen through the show’s power to attract fans all over the world with its addictiveness. This is because of thorough globalization and not accepting to settle for small Korean market.
Originality can be seen through an exotic charm that differentiate the Asian and Western culture. The show was able to strike a chord with Chinese people because it revived the sense of innocence that had become rare in their dramas. With this, Korean shows like Running Man became a hit as people had also grown tired of Western shows.
Sophistication shines as actors in Running Man perform with creativity and accuracy. This is because they are prestigious actors and actresses of different Korean series. They learn how to sing, dance, act and even speak foreign languages. Even with a long-term contract, the members received thorough language and history courses, and even a Chinese member was being included in the team in order to target Chinese market.
Running Man is also very unpredictable. There are more than a hundred episodes of Running Man but the show still manages to continuously surprise the audience. Each episode provides new rules, new challenges, and new formations of teams (depending on the guests and rotations of those who were already teammates before), which made it a very unpredictable reality event. The show is being filmed in various places in Korea.
It has been indicated that the major reason for the show’s success was because using non-descript commercial and public spaces in a creative way, and the Running Man team is turning these into lively areas of play and thus, refreshing the location. The variety show is about having to take the audience to different places not only in the city, but the other regions, too. With the fast-pacing cultures in the urban areas of Asia, Running Man helps in providing a release from the tensions of everyday life that those featured buildings and streets are associated with.5 Moreover, the comedy that makes everyone laughs always gave more impact to the popularity of the show, aside from wanting to watch their favorite celebrity guests.
Different from other western variety shows, the Korean variety shows can express the same feelings of Chinese people. From the 1980s, Taiwan and Hong Kong are learning the games and jokes from the Hollywood variety shows (Curtin 98). At that time, the variety show industry in mainland China just began. Most of the audiences enjoy some famous Taiwan shows, like “Kangxi Coming” and “Guess”. Those Taiwan variety shows took responsibility of exchanging the ideas and views of the audiences across Taiwan Strait (Cai 35). Korean variety shows are exchanging the views as well. Furthermore, Korean variety shows contain same values of the Chinese people. Chinese people like unity, growth, and warmth of the composition (Dai and Mo 2). Different from some European and American variety shows, western stars in the shows are like mad quarrels, which cannot be accepted by some traditional Chinese audiences (Dai and Mo 2). By comparing the U.S. variety show, “Man vs. Wild” and “Infinite Challenge”, although both have been introduced in China, the conclusion of Chinese preferences can be summarized.
“Man vs. Wild” and “Infinite Challenge” are both imported to China in 2015, but “Infinite Challenge” had more sharing of audiences than “Survivor Games” which is led by Bear Grylls. According to Douban.com, one independent reviewing website of China, Chinese “Infinite Challenge” has an average score of 8.8/10.0 based on 16,667 reviews. And “Survivor Games” gets only 6.5/10.0 with 2,761 reviewers (Douban.com). Both of them are adventures variety shows, in which guests need to finish difficult tasks together. However, “Infinite Challenge” shows the unity and hardworking of the ordinary people, while, “Survivor Games” is exploring the nature. For the preferences of Chinese viewers, they want to get a laugh as well as growth and warmth from the variety shows. Korean variety shows have natural advantages when importing to China. There will be the more solid foundation of audiences for such shows.
Other than the unity and growth feeling of the variety shows, Chinese audiences enjoy more about the imagined life based on reality. The most recent trends of variety shows are called “reality shows” in China, due to the reality features and real life experience in the shows. In the old-fashioned western and Taiwan variety shows, most of the guests need to performance and make some dumb jokes in the front of the cameras (Curtin 169). Korean shows are based on the reality, with more specific facts of real life. It makes the distance between audiences and stars closer. Unlike the talk shows, some imported Korean variety shows do not contain interviews, or the interviews are only used for connection of each activity. The advantages of the reality shows attract Chinese viewers so much.
For instance, “Dad! Where Are We Going?” by Human Television has been broadcasted for four seasons. It is still one of the most fam...