Asian+Studies+Final+Min+Ji+Kim

= =  T e l e v i s i o n D r a m a s //in Korea, Japan, China//

=Prologue =

It’s finally friday night, but you’re parents forbid you from going outside because of your current GPA. You can’t sleep at 8 p.m. on Friday because it’s Friday. How are you going to spend your precious time now? Well if I were you, I would watch a Chinese, Korean, or Japanese drama. I would even sacrifice my sleep on Friday night just to watch Korean, Japanese, or Chinese dramas. They not only teach the viewers about histories in certain eras, but also let viewers release stress from their lives and forget their problems for a while. Yes, television drama is one of the significant worldwide cultural assets and we need to pay respect to this prominent aspect of modern entertainment by learning about their history and characteristics.

** Korean Television Dramas **



Korean dramas are mostly miniseries, composed of 16 to 20 episodes, and longer series, mostly historical dramas or daily basis dramas, have more than 100 episodes. The prime time for Korean drama is from ten to eleven on weekdays. The majority of evening and morning dramas (아침드라마) are aired on a daily basis. The genres of dramas were limited to few in the early 2000s, but became much more diversified from the year 2008. The genres of Korean drama range from horror, suspense, thriller, romantic, comedy, historical, to combination of the above.

__**History of Korean Dramas**__
As the first Korean broadcasting station, HLKZ-TV, was established in May, 1956, Korean dramas started to air on television. The very first Korean television drama was “ Condemned Criminal (사형수)”, directed by Chang Bong Choi. It was not a miniseries - unlike today’s drama style- but a series with an hour and a half long episodes. After five years, KBS-TV was slated. Thenceforth, Korean dramas started to gain popularity. The dramas were diversified and lot of directors began to produce dramas. In December, 1968, three broadcasting companies were established and they started to produce daily soap operas ("Korean Drama of Early Days"). Up until that point, audiences of those dramas were primarily wealthy people, who had money to buy televisions. In the early 1980s, the government enacted a law for TV programs to be more accessible, so people started to have a rising interest in television dramas. Therefore, broadcasting companies attempted creating new genres of the dramas, such as historical dramas, political dramas, and romance dramas. Furthermore, as color television began to rise in imports to Korea, dramas that were similar to documentaries became popular. Yet, because the characters mainly talked about political groups and because there were a lot of media restrictions at the time, that genre gradually faced downfall. Also, many dramas appeared to simply copy Western TV drams, so many people condemned this style of drama. But the drama industry eventually attained popularity as the technology to produce dramas and content evolved (Doopedia).

__**Characteristics of Korean Dramas**__
The genre of Korean dramas today are mainly divided into two groups - soap opera and Korean historical drama. A love triangle is a necessity for every Korean soap opera (Wikepedia-Korean Drama). The main male character and another male character love the female main character, and female character always loves the male main character, who has always treated her badly; furthermore, most of the male protagonists are wealthy, high class men and they oftentimes already have a fiancé, chosen by his parents. Other common characteristics in Korean soap operas is that they always involve a tangle of conflicts - money bargaining, conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, secrets about one’s birth, and so on. Also, usually the female character is set up to live in a poor and small house, while the male character lives in a mansion.

The historical dramas are basically exaggerated and fictionalized Korean history (Wikipedia-Korean Drama). They often times involve more complicated relationships than those of soap operas because they usually do not focus on the theme of love. Rather, it highlights how the main character, oftentimes female, succeeds by overcoming the hindrances set by society and attaining her goal. For example, a famous historical drama, “Queen Seundeok”, talk about how an abandoned princess named Seundeok in Shilla dynasty becomes a queen despite her gender and place in society. Also, “Daejangeum” highlights how a young nurse becomes the first female physician in Choseon Dynasty, which was a time that strictly forbade a female’s act as physician. Last but not least, “Dong Yi” also focus on how the young peasant girl, Dong Yi becomes the queen of Choseon Dynasty by overcoming lot of obstacles ("Korean Drama of Early Days"). These dramas are shot in folk villages, so that the drama seems more realistic. Moreover, male characters in the historical dramas oftentimes do martial arts and enact traditional plays for increased authenticity. Other important characteristics about Korean historical dramas is that it oftentimes they have false information. For example, some say that the screen writers of the famous Korean drama “Queen Min” depicted the last emperor of Choseon dynasty as a women, resembling the image of Joan of Arc (Eunkyung). In the drama, she is a democratic, brave and warm hearted lady, always being fair to her oppositions. Yet in reality, she was hostile towards her opponents and did not consider their opinions at all. Another example can be found in “Queen Seondeok”. The main conflict in the drama was the power struggle between Seondeok and Misil - a powerful political female figure in Shilla dynasty, who opposes Seondok from ruling Shilla. But in real history, the historical figure Misil died even before Queen Seondeok was born; Queen Seondeok was born in 612 and Misil was dead in 609. This implies how Korean screen writers of historical dramas distort the true Korean history for the sake of entertainment.

** Japanese Television Dramas ** 

Japanese television dramas, or //terebi dorama//, are broadcasted daily. They are composed of many genres, such as horror, romance, comedy, suspense, and detective. There are not only miniseries of dramas, which end in one season, but also dramas with multiple seasons, like U.S. dramas. The first season is broadcasted for three months, and after few months, season two of that drama comes out. For example, “Boys Over Flowers”, was broadcasted in two seasons. Most of the dramas are aired on weekdays, from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. Other than that, dramas, like morning dramas (asadora) and evening dramas, are broadcasted on a daily basis. The biggest difference between morning dramas and evening dramas is the number of episodes each drama has. Morning dramas have more than thirty episodes, but evening dramas only have eleven (Wikepdia-Japanese Drama).

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">__** History of Japanese Dramas **__

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">The very first Japanese drama was aired on television in 1952 - it was the same year when television emerged in Japan, therefore, most of the dramas were live telecasts(Wikepedia-Korean Dramas). American family dramas and movies were famous at that time, but as the private and public Japanese TV stations began to produce their own type of dramas, the popularity of American dramas and movies waned. The dramas in the 1950s and 1960s highlighted socially controversial topics, including Japanese overtime war and social conflicts. Therefore, people did not watch dramas for “pure entertainment”, unlike today. Rather, they watched for gaining knowledge about current issues. This implies Japanese dramas at that time were more like broadcasted social commentaries rather than the soap operas of modern days. Yet, the number of TV dramas and ratings decreased significantly in the 1980s. In spite of thd decrease in the ratings, drama producers and authors still wrote dramas that condemned and displayed social problems, such as teenage violence, child abuse, and modern family life, so that dramas were more realistic. This format of drama, which constantly emphasized the social problems and real life of Japan were called “Trendy dramas” (Wikipedia-Japanese Drama). Most of the dramas were about the lives of urban middle class families because the problems had kept arising from that environment. Therefore, these dramas became redundant and lost popular appeal. In order for dramas to attain popularity again and become diversified, Japanese broadcasting companies attempted new things. From 1954 to 2000, Japanese dramas started to branch out into various fields. They began airing dramas that purely focused on love stories, or on dramas with unique plot lines, such as relationships between non-Asians and Japanese and so on.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">__** Characteristics of Japanese Drama **__

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Japanese dramas are typically divided into three sections: love-story based dramas, ethical dramas, and historical dramas. Historical dramas, of course, focus on the history of Japan, specifically Japan in Meiji era, Japan in Heian period, or Japan in other significant eras. Most of the historical dramas are shot in Tokyo, a past military capital. Other dramas depict people taking journeys and moving place to place. For example, the drama “Abarenbō Shogun” depicts the life of the eighth Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune ("Best Japanese Drama Series"). Unlike Korean dramas, Japanese dramas avoid exaggerating the true history of Japan. A prime example is “Atsushime”. The drama is about how the 13th shogun’ wife, Atsushime, had lived and worked for the peaceful surrender of Edo Castle when a revolt broke out. In the drama, Japanese are depicted as three-dimensional characters who make mistakes but also forgive mistakes, unlike the one-dimensional, unforgiving characters of Korean dramas.Therefore, Japanese historical dramas try to be as realistic as possible("Best Japanese Drama Series").

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">The love-story based dramas are unrealistic and extremely comical because most of them are based on comic books. For example, the popular love-story based movie, You’re my pet, starts out with a beautiful lady in her late 20s offering the male protagonist to become her pet, just because she saves him from death and he says he has nowhere to go. This would be impossible in real life because normally women do not allow strangers to live with them and then treat that stranger as a pet. Another example is “Q10”, a drama about a robot who disguises her identity as a robot and goes to school with the boy she falls in love with ("Best Drama Series"). Another characteristic of romance dramas is that the story line moves very quickly because these dramas are only composed of ten episodes in each series (Eunkyung).

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">The ethical drama, as the word “ethical” suggests, teaches lessons to the audience. For example, the drama Gokusen, is a drama about the granddaughter of gangsters who teaches juvenile delinquents and guides them to the right path ("Best Drama Series"). This makes one feel that there is still hope for juvenile delinquents to live a right life.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">** Chinese Television Dramas ** <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Chinese television dramas are generally very lengthy. They are composed of more than 20 episodes each and they are aired all day. Because Chinese often use stories that are too long to be made into movies, Chinese TV dramas are mostly very long. Each series have a lot of details and set stories on specific areas, such as high school, college, companies, and so on. Moreover, the dramas oftentimes focus on specific jobs as well, so that viewer can understand the characters’ feelings about their environment. Like any other dramas in any county, these series are generated into specific genres like comedy, horror, family dramas, sports, historical dramas, or any combination of the above ("Chinese Television Drama-Wikepdia).

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">**__ History of Chinese Television Dramas __** <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Starting from mid 1980’s, Chinese started to air dramas on television. In the year of 1986, the central government allowed a production company to produce a drama based on revolutionary history under the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. Up until 2005, Chinese dramas were considered cheap, prosaic, and poorly made because of old technologies used in making dramas, but nowadays, Chinese have started to develop their tactics in making dramas ("History of Chinese Dramas"). The Chinese have always had a history of media censorship, especially with their tv shows. Chinese government suspended the production and airing of any kind of detective shows, spy thrillers, or dramas about time travel. During Propaganda Week, broadcasting companies had to broadcast programs lionizing the Communist Party in order to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the creation of the Chinese government<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 90%;"> (Grammaticas). <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">**__ Characteristics of Chinese Television Dramas __** <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Chinese dramas are mostly romantic series ("Chinese Television Drama-Wikepdia). The most common conflict is that the main character, male or female, has dark past that restrains them from having a relationship with the one he or she loves ("Best Taiwanese and Chinese Dramas"). Also, the dramas unsurprisingly have a love-triangle most of the time. Other dramas focus on real life, like the conflict between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, much like Korean dramas. For example, the famous drama named “Dui Mian Jian” depicted how a daughter-in-law, who is a famous announcer, struggles to live with her mother in law ("Best Taiwanese and Chinese Dramas"). Interestingly, these kind of dramas minimize make-up and decorations on actresses to make them to look more realistic. And of course, Chinese TV companies do not have any kind of drama that condemn current government policies or figures because TV regulators oftentimes ban such programs.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">__** Video: Why is Korean Drama Popular? **__ <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">media type="youtube" key="PkKhisVJNxc" height="390" width="640"

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Statistics : ("What types of dramas do you prefer? - AsianFanatics Forum.") <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 17.6px;"> (Saleff)

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">__** Video 2: Public Opinions of Asian Dramas **__ <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">media type="youtube" key="uRnH36ZcvdU" height="390" width="640"

<span style="color: #96961f; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">_**Citation**__

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">Self Evaluation