i don’t know about the back story on the zhao wei series. surely there are overzealous people on both sides, but also “pacifists” who think this squabbling is a bit silly — even if they’re in the minority. why would broadcasters, who mostly are ruled by money than nationalism if they had any sense, try to suppress zhao wei’s series? perhaps they were trying to promote their own show, which they had bigger investment in than what they paid for to distribute the zhao show? that is, they stood to lose more if the korean series didn’t do good enough, while the zhao show already earned back what they paid? i’m not saying they’re not fishy, but matters of money can make it more complicated than “suppress the chinese culture in korea”. and obviously this is infuriating to chinese point of view, who WOULD like to see “chinese culture “invade” korea”, to counterbalance korean wave LOL

kwfong: i learned from “X” on twitch (who now writes only in korean, his own blog) about saeguk. it is the term for historical/costume drama as a genre. for revenue, do you mean who does better biz on K-drama, between chinese TV and pirates? i thought china’s own historical epic dramas are competitive too. K-drama has the “exotic” factor, the beautiful faces across the board, glossy production, and generally just something different. i’d think if The Legends is off-limits to chinese TV, they’ll just show something else chinese. there may not be BYJ’s type of TV star in china, but not all of china is under his spell either, true?

Princess pearl by Vickie Zao (Zao Wei), remember that drama?? Was also broadcast in korea back in the year 2000. Because it went too well, koreans move the drama to 11:00 o’clock.
Why is that???

I’ve never been to china, but one thing you can’t deny is china is currently moving to become the world power.
And yes, some part of china is still in poverty, but that doesn’t mean that is everything.

All I could say is, don’t let the media fool your eyes.

akon n ed: well, relationships bet neigbouring countries have always been dicey and sometimes strained, some of the reasons given by Ed. Just like France with Britain and Spain, Malaysia with Singapore and Indonesia, China with Taiwan, Japan and Tibet n vice versa, and the list continues!! It is territorial rights=money, power and in case of China in tis context, pride at work. In the name of sovereignty, all tension mounts!

Ed: what is “saeguks”? I agree the pirates make big biz on the streets and they even went upmarket by moving into big shopping malls selling their wares, I personally know of a street pedler moving to a shopping mall in expensive Pudong, Shanghai doing the same illegal biz openly. However, Kmovies were a little difficult to get (copyright) when I was there last Nov but American movies were still readily available! However banning these 5 kdramas will cost an impact on the numerous televsion stations in China as they will never have to buy these dramas for screening to their viewing audience. I am not sure which has a bigger ticket value in terms of loss of revenue: piracy or broadcasting rights. The pirated DVDs do not necessary give the same quality of the production, i.e. missing episodes, only option of chinese subtitles, poorer quality, etc.. but due to its cheap pricing i.e. rmb5 (approx. USD0.75) for each DVD (a 16 episode drama in VCDs cld easily cramped into 2 DVDs) works out to be far cheaper than buying an original pack of VCDs. Eg. Jumong´s 45 episodes crammed into 1 DVD, so really poor quality. Advance markets like Japan will not be affected as they value quality and shuns piracy, so Yoonsama will be save there!

Read abt Korean soaps in Crisis: http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200709/200709070016.html