Korean actors fascinating Japanese women

When I visited my parents' house about five years ago, I was surprised to find a mug with a picture of a popular Korean actor, Bae Yong Joon, on it. I immediately asked my mother where and how she had got the mug while gazing at it with round eyes. She happily said that she had gone on a short trip to Korea and had bought it there since she was fascinated by the very popular Korean TV show, Winter Sonata, and its starring actor, Bae Yong Joon.

About eight years ago, the show was broadcast and it ignited a Korean boom in Japan. Since then, the actor has been popular. Although I realized how popular some Korean actors and Korean TV shows were among Japanese women over 50, I didn't imagine that my mother was intrigued by that show and Bae Yong Joon.

Although I don't know Korean TV shows well, I think that many of them present platonic love and pure love in a romantic way. It's been said that such stories remind Japanese women over 60 of their bittersweet experiences. This is partly because many of them weren't allowed to marry the man whom they really loved because arranged marriage was common when they were young. In other words, these shows make them feel as if they could return to their youth when they were falling in love, since they can find similarities between the stories and their own experiences. The virtual romances seem to give them energy to deal with a harsh reality that they have to get along with their retired husbands who hadn't paid attention to them for many years until their retirement.

On the 30th of Jun, another popular Korean actor, Park Yongha, who was also in the public limelight in Japan when the aforementioned Korean TV show was broadcast, committed suicide. According to the news, the 32-year-old actor went to heaven, being watched by a large number of his female fans dressing in mourning. Surprisingly, 90 percent of them were Japanese women even though his funeral was held in Seoul only two days after his death. Most of them were seemingly middle-aged. They were collapsing into tears.

ご冥福をお祈りいたします。

the very popular Korean TV show, Winter Sonata