Another good cultural studies link

http://www.culturemachine.net/csearch

An interesting online journal

should have a look at it
http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/7-1/7-1index.htm

dramas and soft power: about an anecdote from Coffee Prince

Remembering my former MA thesis while watching a Korean drama, Coffee Prince.

Episode 7: the Japanese waffle cooker (most handsome guy in the whole serie, which is not filled with eye candies except for that Japanese guy) at Coffee Prince reveals that he used to date a Korean girl, and had a baby with her.

This is the very first time -I suppose. And, if you disagree and have evidence, you are more than welcome to write a comment below!- that in a Korean drama, a Japanese guy dates a Korean girl.
Until now, Korean men would date Japanese women. The reverse (Korean women dating Japanese men) would represent a definite "no no", an impossible happening on television.
Lee Dong-Ho, professor at Incheon University contended, in articles, a book chapter (see her contribution to Feeling Asian modernities, edited by Koichi Iwabuchi), and during an interview which was part of my field work, that it is unthinkable for a Korean drama director to let a Korean women fall in love for a Japanese man because such love configuration would recall the unbearable diplomatic relationship between Japan and Korea. Letting the Japanese male actor dominate the relationship with a Korean female actor would be tauntamont to recalling the Japanese imperialist domination over Korea in some ways.
By letting a Japanese male character have an affair/long lasting relationship with a Korean female character, Coffee Prince is announcing a profound improvement in the Japanese-Korean diplomatic relations. The so-called "profound scar" of the Japanese imperialism has then been slightly erased, by the power of a drama, by the magic of a secondary character in a drama...

Analysis to be continued...

Currently reading: Watching Dallas, by Ien Ang

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