Alien love story goes viral in China

One of China's top seven Communist Party leaders, head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Wang Qishan, mentioned a Korean soap opera at a recent meeting with a delegation of visiting officials. Wang said, "This drama is now taking China by storm".

The high-ranking official said that the main reason for this drama's far-reaching ripple effects, across the U.S. and Europe as well as Chinese territory, is that, "The core and soul of the Korean soap opera is a distillation of traditional Chinese culture. It just propagates traditional Chinese culture in the form of a TV drama".

Beyond the world of top politicians, there is also a currently famous, somewhat outrageous, story concerning the show and involving a pregnant woman from Jiangsu, a province in eastern China. The expecting woman almost had a miscarriage after she stayed up too many nights in a row watching the TV show, binge drinking and eating fried chicken.

The SBS soap opera "My Love from the Star" stars actorKim Soo-hyeon-Ias Do Min-jun and actressJeon Ji-hyeonas Cheon Song-yi. (photo courtesy of the official website for "My Love from the Star")

The show that is creating all this buzz and which is driving the Chinese craze-both senior official and pregnant woman alike-is "My Love from the Star", aired on SBS. The soap opera has now reignited the already vast popularity of Korea-made dramas across China.

Aired from December last year until February 27, the plot of "My Love from the Star", revolves around an alien, Do Min-jun, who accidentally arrived on earth 400 years ago during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). He meets a haughty, famous female pop star, Cheon Song-yi, who lives across the way and, of course, they fall in love.

Looking the same as he did 400 years ago, with no wrinkles across his young face, Do has supernatural powers that let him see and hear things that ordinary people would never catch. He can also teleport from place to place and can even predict what will happen in the near future.

A great deal of trouble, however, happens to Do and Cheon. Even their first encounter is far from easy. Misunderstandings, and sometimes hatred, flourishes between the pair. At one point, they suddenly realize their feelings for each other.

As his feelings for the top star grow stronger and stronger, the 400-year-old alien faces an unexpected difficulty: he has to travel back to his own planet, from where he first came, to his star. Do has no choice but to return to his star homeland. However, he returns to earth to stay with Cheon, wrapping up the love story with a happy ending.

When the final episode was broadcast on February 27 in Korea, the Chinese audience, too, was able to watch it in real time. Simultaneous translation services provided simplified Chinese subtitles on screen, a first in Chinese TV history.

Media across the world have been reporting on this unprecedented degree of drama fever ballooning throughout the country.

The front-page article reads, "Chinese officials debate why China can't make a soap opera as good as South Korea's", in the Washington Post on March 8. (photo: captured image of the Washington Post homepage)

The Washington Post headlined an article on March 7 entitled, "Chinese officials debate why China can't make a soap opera as good as South Korea's". The article wrote about the way in which many Chinese are crazy about "My Love from the Star", saying, "It [the drama] has garnered more than 2.5 billion views online and has shot up to the top of the country's viewership".

It continued, "Well aware of the craze the drama has created in China, one committee of China's political advisory body spent a whole morning bemoaning why China can't make a show as good and as big of a hit". Many, it said, viewed the popularity of the Korean drama as a, "heavy blow to Chinese confidence in their culture".

The Gwangming Daily, a Chinese newspaper, also weighed in on the issue with an article on March 11 titled, "China needs to learn creativity of Korean dramas", wherein it said, "Korean dramas hold elements that strike at the core emotion of the viewers, as hard as it can. Such resulting mood swings allow them to freely explore a wide range of emotional beauty".

The article called the drama a great piece of work that portrays well the, "beauty of wide-ranging emotions", between people, from love all the way down to sympathy and affection. It also said that viewers came home, exhausted, after having a long day at work, and found in the soap opera, "emotional solace".

Although it is their eyes that are watching the drama, it continued, what is going on in their minds is that they are looking back on themselves, overlapping themselves with the on-screen characters. The daily analyzed that the drama stirred up such a social and cultural psychological effect in viewers and that that is why the show has struck a chord.

In the meantime, another Chinese newspaper, the Gyeonghwa Sibo, in a March 6 article broke down why "My Love from the Star" cannot help but draw such a huge audience from all across China.

It found that the first reason is the fact that, "The drama uses a precise and strong strategy to win over its targeted consumers, especially female viewers, while delivering a mysterious and unique sensation".

The report also pointed out that, "The opera shines a new light on Korean life styles, which trigger curiosity amongst the Chinese audience. They are curious what people and life in Korea might look like".

Finally, the drama creates a dreamlike atmosphere with its sophisticated and distinguished way of filming, it added.

Scenes from the soap opera "My Love from the Star". (captured images from the show's official website)

The success of "My Love from the Star" has even drawn attention to what the two main characters wore, touched, read and even ate. Many aspects of modern, urban Korean culture, spanning from food and literature all the way to fashion, have now become some of the most sought-after, best-selling business items in China.

After one scene featured Cheon, played by actressJeon Ji-hyeon, eating fried chicken and beer, or chimaek in Korean, many Chinese restaurants started offering beer-and-fried-chicken meals. Many of the chimaek restaurants have enormous queues around the block of patrons anxious to taste what their favorite characters enjoyed on TV.

Korean instant noodle brands have also been selling like hot cakes across China. After another scene where the main male character, Do Min-jun, played by actorKim Soo-hyeon-I, ate a bowl of noodles on a remote island, many Chinese fans sought out the exact same brand of noodles.

Meanwhile, Mandarin versions of "The Cloud Dream of the Nine", a classical Korean novel written by Joseon-era novelist Kim Man-jung (1637–1692), have been flying off Chinese shelves, ever since Do called it his favorite book.

Many Chinese TV stations have zeroed in on the two main characters, as well. China's Jiangsu Satellite TV paid KRW 1,000 million forKim Soo-hyeon-Ito appear on its variety show "Super Brain". The station offered Kim KRW 400 million as an appearance fee and the remainder covered expenses associated with the show in Nanjing on March 8, including hiring 600 security guards to protect the star.

ActressJeon Ji-hyeon(left) and actorKim Soo-hyeon-I, the two main characters from "My Love from the Star", appear at a press conference in December last year. (photo courtesy of the official website for "My Love from the Star".)

"Although it is not uncommon for a love-story drama starring top actors and actresses to become a mega hit, both at home and abroad, it is surreal and unprecedented that a U.S. leading daily newspaper and even a Chinese politician have talked about this drama", said a Korean drama critic. "This is a sign that China, a country anxious to become one of the world's superpowers, is likely to invest more into its popular culture as a means of developing a higher value-added business.

By Sohn JiAe
Korea.net Staff Writer
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