Pop culture ties bind China and South Korea

Source:Global Times Published: 2014-11-27 20:03:01

Kim Hee-bum Photo: Park Gayoung/GT

Editor's Note:

The Chinese and South Korean publics have grown closer over the last few years, driven by shared pop culture and other organic factors. Now the two governments are looking at increasing their cooperation in the industry level, expecting to create complementary and synergistic effects. Kim Hee-bum (Kim), Vice Minister of Culture, Sports, Tourism of South Korea, talked with Chinese reporters recently to share his thoughts about how South Korea sees China in terms of cultural industry and how the two countries can cooperate in the future.

Q: How do you see the current status of the cultural exchanges between China and South Korea?

Kim: In South Korean universities, you see a lot of Chinese students, and in Korean shopping districts there are many Chinese tourists. While we are trying our best to improve at the government level, exchanges at the grass-roots level are the backbone of cultural exchanges between both countries.

With the visits of President Park Geun-hye to China last year and President Xi Jinping to South Korea this year, the cultural cooperation has also enhanced. Last year saw the first-ever memorandum of understanding between high-level officials. And this year, we signed another memorandum of understanding in the performance sector. As such, it's getting livelier, but we need to put more efforts.

We are planning to set up a total of 200 billion won ($182 million) in funds, with each side contributing equally, to prompt the cooperation in the movie and soap opera sectors.

The South Korean government has already allocated 40 billion won in the budget for next year. And the private sector will contribute 60 billion won.

When established, we can produce movies and soap operas and do the marketing together. With these kinds of efforts, I hope we can seek common benefits and interests.

Q: Some say there is a "trade deficit" in cultural exchange. Is this the case?

Kim:
It's not adequate to measure cultural exchange in financial terms. The vibrant cultural exchanges should be considered as evidence as to how close the two countries have become, rather than just on economic terms. The popularity of South Korea's cultural products is a relatively short phenomenon compared to China's long influence. I grew up reading The Romance of Three Kingdoms and Chinese ancient history books. And you have no idea how popular Chinese food is in South Korea.

Q: Why are South Korea's cultural products popular?

Kim:
I think the basic elements of Korean culture are love, compassion and mutual understanding. That's something naturally appealing to many audiences. You don't have to impose them on recipients.

In that respect, I think South Korean cultural products are appealing to the Chinese audience.

Q: What are some major obstacles and limits in the cultural exchanges between the two countries?

Kim:
I know Chinese people are very proud of their culture. Part of this is expressed as anti-Korean sentiment, unfortunately. But this is not productive.

In addition, we should take culture as something we share, rather than something that can be calculated. I also hope the two countries can learn from each other, enhancing each other's potential.

There are 1.3 billion people in China, so it's regretful that South Korea has only two cultural centers in Beijing and Shanghai. We should go to many places other than Beijing, and that's what we will do.

Q: What kind of synergy effects can the two countries create? How should they cooperate in the cultural industry?

Kim:
China has a huge potential with its IT technology rapidly developing, and it is a strategically important market for South Korea's cultural industry. Therefore, we'd like to cooperate not only in movies and TV shows, but also in other cultural fields such as games, animation, and musicals.

While South Korea has advanced experience in building scenarios and production of soap operas and movies, China has a huge market and capital power. If we cooperate in production and market products together, we can reach well beyond Asia.



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