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.
"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. "Maybe I'm looking
for the TV stars I can't really have. But we are all allowed a dream, aren't
we?"
'Korean Wave' craze
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 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.
Stalking the stars
In Seoul, the neon-lit streets are mobbed these days by 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 34 percent.
"If we can give them a little more joy in their life and show them another side
of Korea, then 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 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.
The Italians of Asia
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.
Lucrative fad
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 re-creation 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.
Washington Post. Special correspondent Joohee Cho contributed to this report
