EMQ » April–June 2019 » Volume 55 Issue 3
By Song (Joseph) Cho
Superhero movies seem to be everywhere nowadays. From Batman to Iron Man, these comic book based movies continue to dominate the box office. It would not be uncommon for a pastor in the US to describe Jesus Christ as the real superhero, who is always there to protect us. In this way, an illustration drawn from the world of superheroes can be utilized to talk about the Gospel. Can Korean pop culture be used in a similar fashion? More specifically, can Korean dramas be employed to address some of the deepest human longings from a Christian perspective? It should be noted that throughout history Christians have borrowed elements of the wider culture to introduce the Gospel. As Ken Myers points out, “John lifted the idea for his Logos Christology from contemporary philosophy, Paul quoted pagan poets, and Luther borrowed tunes from drinking songs for hymns.”[i]
Korean Pop Culture
The popularity of Korean culture is commonly known as the Korean Wave, or Hallyu. South Korea has become “the Hollywood of the East.”[ii] In 2012, South Korean singer Psy took the world by storm with his hit song “Gangnam Style.” The music video became an instant Internet sensation, drawing unprecedented attention to the Korean music industry. Korean dramas, commonly referred to as K-dramas, have also become very popular. Ranging from the historical to the present, these well-crafted, highly entertaining and informative dramas are capturing the hearts and imaginations of viewers as they hit airwaves across the globe. For instance, consider My Love From the Star (2014). This romantic comedy about an alien stranded on earth falling in love with a woman was so popular in China that Chinese officials were left wondering why they could not duplicate the success of K-dramas.[iii]
Western Fairy Tale Elements in K-Dramas
People all over the world are watching Korean dramas. What makes them so globally attractive? To answer this question, it may be helpful to keep in mind that many of these dramas draw their narrative nourishment from Western fairy tales in which the good characters live “happily ever after.” It is no coincidence that many K-dramas are named after popular fairy tales such as The Idle Mermaid (2014), Pinocchio (2014-2015), and Cinderella and Four Knights (2016), to name just a few.
J.R.R. Tolkien once pointed out that the “consolation” of fairy tales is “the joy of the happy ending.”[iv] K-dramas’ feel-good, happy endings are particularly appealing for fans, who find these television series to be more palatable to their cultural sensibilities and substantially more family-friendly than Hollywood films. Not unexpectedly, fans often draw parallels between K-dramas and Western fairy tales especially the story of Cinderella. For Tolkien, these fairy tales point to the greatest happy ending─ the Good News of Jesus Christ. K-drama fans are drawn to the fairy tale elements. In Faerie Gold: Treasures from the Lands of Enchantment, Kathryn Lindskoog and Ranelda Mack Hunsicker outline the reasons for reading fairy tales:
“1. They stimulate imagination and creativity. 2. They help readers empathize with others and develop compassion. 3. They carry readers beyond the restrictions of time and space and promote a sense of mystery and transcendence. 4. They satisfy the innate desire for communion with other living things. 5. They show how the small and powerless can triumph through perseverance and patience. 6. They awaken higher ideals without preaching. 7. They help readers envision a better society where intelligence, courage, and compassion prevail.”[v]
In his sermon titled “Beholding the Love of God,” Tim Keller says:
“And the Christian understanding of art is a very profound one. The Christian understanding of art is: All good stories, all the stories that we love, all the stories that move us are really about Jesus. The great thing about being a Christian is that every story is two stories, every song is two songs. Think of it this way: Are you a Christian? Then you know what? We are going to fly like Peter Pan. Are you a Christian? Then there is a handsome prince who will kiss us and wake us out of sleep. Are you a Christian? Then someday someone will, a beauty will come and kiss us and though we are beasts make us something gorgeous.”[vi]
In considering this genre, it is of interest to note that Hollywood has been churning out a number of fairy tale movies recently, such as Alice in Wonderland (2010), Mirror Mirror (2012), Snow White and The Huntsman (2012), Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), Frozen (2013), Maleficent (2014), Cinderella (2015), The Huntsman: Winter’s War, and Beauty and the Beast (2017). This fact alone testifies to their enduring appeal for both young and old. Fairy tale expert Jack Zipes makes the following claim: “So it is not by chance that the fairy-tale film has become the most popular cultural commodity in America, if not the world.”[vii]
Winter Sonata in Japan
Every once in a while a television drama comes along that perfectly captures the zeitgeist of a particular social group. Winter Sonata (2003) was just such a series. This critically acclaimed K-Drama (known as Fuyu no sonata in Japan) holds the distinction of being the melodrama that triggered the Korean Wave, tapping into deep-seated nostalgia among middle-aged Japanese women who describe the love in the drama as pure and innocent. Norimitsu Onishi explains its popularity as follows:
“Fads come and go in Japan, but this one touches upon several deep issues in Japanese society and its relationship with South Korea. In a society gripped by a pervasive malaise, where uncertainty and pessimism fill magazines with headlines about men and women who don’t marry, don’t have children, don’t have sex, Yon-sama seems to touch upon middle-aged women’s yearning for an emotional connection that they lack and perhaps believe they cannot find in Japan.”[viii]
Starring Bae Yong-joon, the actor is affectionately known as “Yon-sama” in Japan. It is worth noting that the word “sama” is an honorific title reserved for royalty and aristocrats. So popular was the Korean actor in Japan that the then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, “I will make great efforts so that I will be as popular as Yon-sama and be called Jun-sama.”[ix] According to Youna Kim, “The hero’s unconditional love for a woman— faithful and devoted to one lover, sensitive and understanding of a woman’s emotional needs— captivated many women in Japan. Fans of Winter Sonata in Japan are particularly women in their thirties and fifties, and the depth of their adulation for the hero is striking: ‘If ever was ever such a man in Japan, then I wouldn’t be suffering like this.’”[x] Another fan described the actor in the following manner: “There is no man like him in Japan. Have you ever met a man like him? He is like a prince. But he might not be. We might not be able to meet him somewhere. I feel very close to him.”[xi]
Winter Sonata pulsates with the power of unconditional love. It ripples with sacrificial love. Filled with stirring moments, everything in the series is redolent of the power of first love. These are the intertwined themes to which the fans were acutely and emotionally attuned. The Gospel tells the story of such love. To quote C.S. Lewis, “God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.”[xii] Carryingechoes of the Gospel, this K-drama is a work of art, and “all great art contains elements of the true story: the story of the good creation, the fallen world, and the longing for redemption.”[xiii] Japanese popular culture expert Kinko Ito observes:
“One of the reasons why Winter Sonata appeals to so many people is that watching the melodrama is a spiritual or religious experience […] An opportunity to be able to meet again deceased loved ones is one of the most basic desires of human experience, and Winter Sonata fulfills that need very nicely.”[xiv]
Can missionaries in Japan make references to this drama as a springboard to talk about the unconditional and sacrificial love of Christ? Can they employ a K-Drama like Winter Sonata to talk about Christ, the ultimate Prince who is always faithful and tender? What if someone told the above viewers that Prince Charming does indeed exist? That someone loves them sacrificially and unconditionally? The Cinderella and Prince Charming figures often reflected in K-dramas provide powerful imageries that can be used in a sermon. This is important if the missionary seeks to preach to the heart. To preach in a way that engages the heart, Tim Keller encourages pastors to: “1) Preach culturally, 2) Preach from the heart, 3) Preach imaginatively, 4) Preach practically, 5) Preach wondrously, 6) Preach Christocentrically.”[xv]
Hallyu and Korean Missionaries
It is not a stretch to say that people’s familiarity with Korea comes primarily from Korean popular culture. For Korean missionaries, there has probably never been a more propitious time for evangelism than the present. The Korean Wave has in a curious fashion provided a fertile ground for them to use Korean popular culture products such as K-dramas as a springboard to introduce the Gospel message. They would do well to remember what founding religion editor for Publishers Weekly Phyllis Tickle once said concerning television: “more theology is conveyed in, and retained from, one hour of popular television than from all the sermons that are also delivered on any given weekend in America’s synagogues, churches, and mosques.[xvi]”
With this in mind, it behooves them to take a fresh look at Hallyu as an evangelistic tool.
Taking a cue from their American counterparts who do not hesitate to use Hollywood materials, Korean dramas can serve as a cultural bridge between them and the people they are serving by providing an ideal forum to introduce the Gospel.
Dr. Song (Joseph) Cho recently received his doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Western Seminary (Portland, OR). The title of his dissertation was: “A Missiological Study of the Use of Korean Popular Culture (Hallyu, The Korean Wave) for Evangelism in Japan and Peru.” He has published articles on biblical allusions in English literature such as “The Book of Proverbs in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice” and “Charles Dickens’ Jacob Marley and the Gospel of St. Mark.”
[i] Ken Myers, All God’s Children & Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 20.
[ii] Lara Farrar, “‘Korean Wave’ of pop culture sweeps across Asia,” CNN, December 31, 2010 <http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/12/31/korea.entertainment/>.
[iii] William Wan, “Chinese officials debate why China can’t make a good soap opera as good as South Korea’s,” The Washington Post, March 7, 2014 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-officials-debate-why-china-cant-make-a-soap-opera-as-good-as-south-koreas/2014/03/07/94b86678-a5f3-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html>
[iv] Tolkien, J.R.R., Tolkien on Fairy-stories (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008), 75.
[v] Kathryn Lindskoog and Ranelda Mack Hunsicker, Faerie Gold: Treasures from the Lands of Enchantment (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2005), 268-272.
[vi] Tim Keller, “Beholding the Love of God,” April 2, 1995 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LjjcW1KoTg>
[vii] Jack Zipes, Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children and the Culture Industry (New York, NY: Routledge, 1997), 1.
[viii] Norimitsu Onishi, “What’s Korean for ‘Real Man?’ Ask a Japanese Woman,” New York Times, December 23, 2004 <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/world/asia/whats-korean-for-real-man-ask-a-japanese-woman.html?_r=0>
[ix] Norimitsu Onishi, “What’s Korean for ‘Real Man?’ Ask a Japanese Woman,” The New York Times, December 23, 2004 <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/world/asia/whats-korean-for-real-man-ask-a-japanese-woman.html?_r=0>
[x] Youna Kim, “The Rising East Asian ‘Wave,’” Media on the Move: Global Flow and Contra-flow. Ed. Daya Kishan Thussu (New York, NY: Routledge, 2007), 141. Reference is made to Philip Brasor’s “Korean Wave may Help Erode Discrimination,” The Japan Times, June 27, 2004.
[xi] Yukie Hirata, “Touring ‘Dramatic Korea’: Japanese Women as Viewers of Hanryu Dramas and Tourists on Hanryu Tours,” East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave. Eds. Chua Beng Huat and Koichi Iwabuchi (Hong Kong University Press, 2008), 149.
[xii] C.S. Lewis, The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 640.
[xiii] Jerram Barrs, Echoes of Eden: Reflections of Christianity, Literature, and the Arts (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 67.
[xiv] Kinko Ito, “Middle-aged Japanese Women’s Love Affair with Winter Sonata and Its Social Implications,” (Japan Studies Review 10, 2006), 65. (my emphasis)
[xv] Gavin Ortlund, “Why Sermons Often Bore,” The Gospel Coalition, May 5, 2015 <https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-sermons-often-bore>.
[xvi] Phyllis A. Tickle, God-Talk in America (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 126. Quoted in Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor’s A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Popular Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 216.
