When separatist rebels in the remote Indian state of Manipur banned Hindi movies a decade ago, they had little idea it would trigger a cultural invasion from a country more than 3,200km away.
However, when Bollywood was forced out, the Koreans moved in.
In the markets of the state capital Imphal, shops are packed with DVDs of South Korean films and TV soap operas, as well as CDs of Korean pop stars, with a particular focus on preening boy bands.
Photo: AFP
Hairdressing salons are covered with headshots of Korean celebrities and offer a wide range of spiky, “Korean-style” cuts, which are hugely popular with young Manipuris of both sexes.
Teenagers also trawl through Gambhir Market, a three-story warren of tiny boutiques, for skinny jeans and other clothing trends inspired by Korean TV shows.
Even the language has made inroads, with Korean phrases like annyeong-haseyo (“hello”), kamsahamnida (“thank you”) and sarang-haeyo (“I love you”) peppering conversations in schoolyards and market places.
Photo: AFP
“When we’re back at boarding school, my friends and I practice our few phrases of Korean and often talk about what it would be like growing up in Korea,” female student Akshaya Longjam, 14, said.
“It just seems so much fun and everybody is good looking; the girls are pretty and the boys are so cute,” said Longjam, a dedicated fan of the Korean boy band Big Bang and its star singer G-Dragon.
At first glance, Manipur would seem the unlikeliest of takers for the so-called “Korean Wave” of pop culture that swept over China, Japan and much of Southeast Asia at the beginning of the last decade.
Tiny, landlocked and with a population of less than 3 million, Manipur borders Myanmar and is one of India’s “Seven Sisters” — seven northeastern states connected to the rest of India by a sliver of land that arches over Bangladesh.
In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, entertainment for Manipuris was largely supplied by India’s dominant cultural force, Bollywood.
However, in 2000, a number of the multiple armed secessionist groups that have been active in Manipur since the 1960s ordered a ban on Hindi movies and Hindi satellite TV channels, in a professed bid to “protect” Manipuri culture.
Backed by threats to bomb recalcitrant cinemas and cable operators, the ban was extremely effective and remains in force today.
Desperate to fill the vacuum, cable operators experimented with whatever came to hand, including Arirang TV, a 24-hour, English-language network based in Seoul that began beaming in a diet of dramas and cultural features.
South Korea’s KBS World followed with its own stable of subtitled soap operas and, within a few months, Manipur was hooked.
“Watching Korean soaps and films takes me away from the realities of daily life in Manipur,” said Soma Lhishram, a 19-year-old college student. “We have a problem with water, electricity, roads ... you name it, but everything looks so perfect in Korea. It’s like a fantasy world.”
The attraction is partly a cultural one. The Mongol roots of ethnic Manipuris mean their physical features are far closer to those of Koreans than other Indians.
The family-oriented soap operas resonate strongly in what is a socially conservative state, while teen romance dramas have a mass following among the young.
Lhishram, a part-time actress, is a particular fan of the high school drama Boys Over Flowers and one of its heartthrob stars, Lee Min-hoo.
“It’s a big dream of mine to travel to Korea and to work on a film there,” she said during a break in shooting for a Manipuri language music video in the grounds of a local college.
Endless repeat viewings of all shows are also available thanks to thousands of English-subtitled DVDs — many of them pirated — which are smuggled in from Myanmar and retail in Imphal markets for less than US$1.
Otojit Kshetrimayum, a research academic in sociology at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, has written an academic paper on the phenomenal popularity of all things Korean in Manipur.
“The key factor is cultural proximity, both in appearance and values,” Kshetrimayum said. “The themes and characters that the Korean movies and dramas depict strike a chord with both the younger and older generations in Manipur.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of