The FT's Seoul Correspondent looks at Japan/Korea relations through the prism of BoA
A young female pop star, dressed in a white suit and stilettos, lying provocatively on a flat bed, is lowered towards the stage from a mock spacecraft. Her east-Asian features are disguised by a blonde wig dashed with pink. The 16,000-strong audience at Osaka Castle rise to their feet and applaud as she starts singing a tender ballad in Japanese. It could be any of Japan's galaxy of youthful songstresses who churn out crowd-pleasing J-pop, the name given to Japanese pop music. The only detail that sets apart BoA - real name Kwon Bo-a - is that she is Korean.
..."I want to help turn Asia into one giant music market, bigger than the US or Europe," says Lee, whose spiky black hair, frameless glasses and grey shirt unbuttoned to his chest belie his 52 years. "Korea can become the heart of Asian pop culture because we are good entertainers. We know how to dance and sing and, as a nation, we have never been a threat to other countries so other Asian people don't have bad feelings towards us."
..."Last year, the Chinese music market was two-thirds the size of Korea's but the Japanese market is 30 times bigger than ours," says Han Se-min, SM Entertain-ment's head of investor relations. "BoA's revenues in Japan will soon exceed the entire Korean market."
..."I don't know what Koreans think about us," says Miki Okatake, a 26-year-old BoA fan. "I would need to know more about what exactly happened before deciding who should apologise." Yuko Okatake, 23, is less equivocal. "I know that Japan occupied Korea and that Japan forced them to speak Japanese and adopt Japanese names. I understand why Koreans feel angry. Someone should apologise."
...However, Korea's understanding of history is also selective. There is little discussion in Korea of the willing role played in Japan's occupation by collaborators.
Even after being told it was Japanese, they still love it. Odd.
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