Mark James Russell

Books, blog and other blather

Category: globalization (Page 2 of 3)

Big Changes in Barcelona

April 7, 2012 / / 0 Comments

La Vanguardia had a really interesting article a couple of days ago about immigration in Barcelona since 2000 (sorry, only in Spanish, as far as I know). Considering how international Barcelona feels today, it is kind of amazing to realize how recent a development that is. Today, there are about 282,000 foreigners living in Barcelona, or about 17.4% of the total population, way up from less than 4% in 2000.

That’s actually down a bit since the peak in 2010, when there were 294,000 foreigners here. But it is way, way up from 2000 when there were just about 50,000 foreigners. From 2000 on, the growth was incredible, doubling every couple of years for five years, then slowing down but still growing until 2010. Not surprisingly, Central and South Americans made up a fair bit of that growth — from about 35,000 to 115,000. Africans are up a bit. But Pakistanis and Chinese have been the biggest sources of growth.

I cannot begin to imagine how different this city must have been back then (well, I can imagine a little, thanks for some good books like these). I have some American friends who have lived here since the late 1980s, and one Korean friend who came here in 1980, and the stories they tell make it sound like a much more difficult and xenophobic city back then. For sure, Barcelona has become a far more interesting city thanks to these changes. And, judging by the shops I go to, much more prosperous, too.

Science of the Pop Business
or the Business of Pop Science?

March 23, 2012 / / 0 Comments

There’s a great look at how American pop hits are made these days in the New Yorker article “The Song Machine.” Of course, this sort of behind-the-scenes look at the sausage factory of pop music has been done before. But at the same time, pop music has never quite been how it is now. With hip hop having been transformed from into mainstream party anthems, the rise of “smart” pop (a la Phoenix, Peter, Bjorn & John, or Robyn), and rock mostly changing into party-rock, dance-pop has basically grown blob-like to absorb all of its former foes. Screw Goldman Sachs, today’s pop music is the true vampire squid.

Not that that’s a bad thing. Seriously, I think a lot of really good pop music is being made these days. It may not be Cole Porter, but it’s got a good beat and I can dance to it.

Great graph here:

Rihanna is often described as a “manufactured” pop star, because she doesn’t write her songs, but neither did Sinatra or Elvis. She embodies a song in the way an actor inhabits a role—and no one expects the actor to write the script. In the rock era, when the album was the standard unit of recorded music, listeners had ten or eleven songs to get to know the artist, but in the singles-oriented business of today the artist has only three or four minutes to put her personality across. The song must drip with attitude and swagger, or “swag,” and nobody delivers that better than Rihanna, even if a good deal of the swag originates with Ester Dean.

What a paradox, though, that in the most diverse musical age humanity has ever had, that one form should rise to rule them all.

No wonder K-pop is doing so well. Pop in the West is more uniform than ever, so how else can one exert one’s independence and rise above the crowd (and still be dance-friendly)? K-pop is like salsa for the next generation — catchy, danceable, and different.

But what do I know? I was at a Catalan bluegrass concert last night…

Globalizating TV

March 22, 2012 / / 1 Comment

There is an interesting and insightful article about Fox Networks’ new show TOUCH, which stars Kiefer Sutherland (and reportedly features a surprising lack of torture). TOUCH is going to roll out in 100 countries at pretty much the same time, the kind of international push that is common for blockbuster movies, but less common for television.

From the article:

To Tim Kring, the show’s creator, the shift is stark. In spring 2007, six months after his show “Heroes” started in the United States, he watched hundreds of “Heroes” fans line up for an event in Paris, even though the show had yet to be seen on television in France.

“Every single person there had seen every episode. They had all gotten it illegally off the Internet,” he said in an interview. It was then, he said, that he realized, “Audiences will find these shows no matter where they are.”

The article points out that the king of simultaneous roll-outs of WALKING DEAD, which airs in 120 countries around the same time.

Now, I have little doubt that TV execs are mostly doing this because they have to, trying to make a virtue out of a necessity. But that is how and why a lot of big changes happen. And frankly the change was way overdue. Shows like LOST and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, with their rabid fan bases, would not only get uploaded immediately to the Internet, they would also get translated within hours. It was pretty mind-blowing (and funny, as the instant translations often were error-filled, along with the occasional apology by the translator for not understanding sections).

One of the first big examples of this change in TV releasing that I can recall was THE TUDORS. It was quite popular in Korea at first, but the distributor was getting screwed by piracy. So for the show’s second season, Sony set up a secure server where the Korean translator could watch the show and do her work a couple of weeks ahead of time, ensuring the show was ready to go with Korean subtitles almost immediately.

It’s a big change from when I first arrived in Asia, when terrible, long-since-canceled US television series rules the airwaves. It was incredible how much MR. BELVEDERE and ALF you could find, even in the late 1990s.

Of course, the Internet and globalization have not only forced Hollywood to give more respect to local audience around the world; they are the same forces that are allowing local cultures to get out of their home countries and find audiences elsewhere. Korean TV and music being the examples I am most familiar with. Some people complain that the world’s cultures are being homogenized; sorry, but from where I sit, I see people getting access to more choices from more places, and that’s a good thing.

Whither the Hammerman?

January 23, 2012 / / 0 Comments

What’s this, the Hammering Man? Does that mean Mark is back in Seoul?

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Alas, no. In fact, I was just in Basel, Switzerland, where they have their own Hammering Man — albeit smaller than Seoul’s version. Basel was quite lovely, though, a small Swiss city along the Rhine, with plenty of art galleries and other goodies. But $4.50 espressos? Yikes.

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Some random thoughts about my little trip:

– EuroAirport is pretty funky. Located right on the Swiss-France border, you constantly are walking back and forth between countries here. On one side, you pay in Swiss Francs, on the other, in euros.

– Yes, McDonald’s and Starbucks are a terrible form of cultural imperialism that America has inflicted upon the world. But judging by the incredible number of Donner Kebab restaurants and “Sushiland” discount sushi houses everywhere, it appears the world has gotten revenge.

– If you can handle a little chilly weather, tourism off-season in January is so much more relaxing than in summer and high season. Especially at tourism hot-spots like Strasbourg.

– No signs of any K-pop at the Virgin Megastore in Strasbourg. But there were a few Korean comic books (mixed in with the many, many Japanese comics).

Occupy Barcelona

October 16, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Last night I was walking through Barcelona, and accidentally stumbled upon the local “Occupy” march, and I must say it was quite impressive. Now, there is never any shortage of protests going on in Spain, whether in Puerta del Sol in Madrid or along the Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona (and they have had their own social movement, modeled on the Arab Spring, going strong since around May). But usually, compared to the “real” protests I got to enjoy when I was living in Korea, the ones in Spain seem pretty minor. The march of crowds coming to and going from Camp Nou for each Barca football home game is far larger (and rowdier).

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But Occupy Barcelona was different. Or October 15 Barcelona, I guess I should call it. For one, it was a lot bigger — police say 60,000 marched, activists say around 400,000. But it certainly felt big. People marched from Placa Catalunya, up Passeig de Gracia, then down Arago to Sant Joan, then to the Arc de Triomf and Parc Ciutadella. They were orderly and good-natured, and a pretty wide mix of ages and social groups. Seeing grandmothers marching with V for Vendetta masks is pretty striking (I wish I had taken a picture of them, but sadly I did not).

The nature of Occupy Barcelona is a bit different than Occupy Wall Street, which is natural, considering that the Spanish economy is quite different than America’s. Unemployment is huge here — 21%. They actually do need some business-minded reforms. Basically, a huge property bubble that ran from the late 1990s until about 2008 (thanks to cheap money from the Euro) led many here to think they were living in a German-sized economy. The readjusting to reality has been pretty ugly for most of the country.

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That said, though, I think the Occupy movement has a role to play here, too. Like America, a big reason for the property bubble was bank-business-government collusion, a distortion of the basic social contract that needs to be fixed.

In sports, no one likes the referees, but we know that referees are needed for the sake of the game. Wanting to fix the rules and support the referees doesn’t mean we are anti-football or anti-basketball (or whatever). We love our sports, we just want them played fairly and well. I think that is the core of what the Occupy movement is about. Most people are not anti-business, but we are seeing something essentially unfair and broken that needs fixing.

Blockbusters, Korean Movies and More

July 18, 2011 / / 0 Comments

– Kim Kiduk is pissed off. Again. This time, he sent out a press release for POONGSAN (which he wrote and produced), complaining about how hard it is for different kinds of films to get screens in Korea, which tend to be dominated by blockbusters (sorry, no link… but I have been looking for one).

Which is true enough … although I notice that this sort of rant rarely talks about the responsibility a filmmaker has to audiences, to make something they might want to see. Or the responsibility of audiences to see non-blockbusters. If there were hordes of people pushing to get into indie films, which were being forced out of theaters while still doing good business, then I would be much more sympathetic. But if a theater owner can make X dollars with an indie film, and 10X with a blockbuster, why should the owner take a loss? Just to make Kim Kiduk and other self-important artistes feel better? That’s culture?

Ezra Pound had a great quote:

Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance… poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music

And I think there is a similar delicacy to movies. They atrophy when they get too far from the dance. They might be a slow dance, a tango, a Lindy Hop or a late-night techno crunk, but they still dance.

(Of course, everything atrophies when it gets too close to money, so the opposite is not great either).

– Anyhow, I think my point is, if people are not enjoying the art you think they should, maybe you should do something about it, rather than just complain. Get aggressive with social media and personal marketing. If audiences don’t “get” your film, engage and work with them, help show them what there is to get.

Or turn to writing or comics (much cheaper than making movies). But if you want to spend millions of dollars to tell a story and it is not your money, don’t be surprised if people get all money-minded.

I also hate it when indie musicians complain about not being well supported in Korea, but then do precious little to make the scene better. They sit around complaining about how everyone else is failing, but do not take charge of their own lives and careers. Happily, though, that is beginning to change, and I think a lot of bands are being a lot more active about promoting themselves, getting better, and building the scene.

– After being out about a month, TRANSFORMERS 3: DAFT SIDE OF THE LOON looks like it is following the last two Transformers movies, making oodles of money at the box office in Korea. TRANSFORMERS was the top foreign film ever in Korea when it came out, with 7.3 million admissions. TRANSFORMERS 2 did slightly better with 7.4 million. And now, TRANSFORMERS 3 has 6.9 million admissions and is still going strong (637,000 admissions last weekend). So I think it has a very good chance of overtaking both of its predecessors.

(Of course, AVATAR kicked everyone’s butts last year, topping 13 million admissions and becoming the biggest film ever in Korea).

– HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 did okay in Korea, in its debut weekend, with 1.7 million admissions — okay, but not great. But whenever a HARRY POTTER film comes out, I always remember what it was like when the first one was released. I was working at the JoongAng Ilbo at the time, and when a reporter asked about the title, I thought it best to go with the story’s original title: HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE. Turns out Warner Bros. hated that (they wanted the American dummy title, THE SORCERER’S STONE), and yelled at the reporter. A lot.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS was really huge, but standards have really changed since then. It opened on 295 screens, about a third of all the screens in Korea then — today, there are around 2,000 screens, and big openings can get up to 900 screens. CHAMBER OF SECRETS was the biggest opening weekend Korea had ever seen then … with 1 million admissions. Today, plenty of films have opened to over 2 million.

The first two Potter films had around 4 million admissions (if I recall correctly), but since then, the others have been in the 2-3 million admission range.

– I’m pretty ambivalent about DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2, for what it’s worth. Yes, I was one of the lemmings that saw it opening weekend. It was definitely the most action-filled of the Potter films. And the CGI was really impressive — at times, even beautiful. The contrast between it and the first couple of Potter films is incredible (with their second-rate effects, bad child actors and really dull direction). But despite all its good points, I can barely remember DEATHLY HALLOWS 2. And at its core, HP is yet another “chosen one”, might-makes-right superhero story, far more American than British (despite the public school trappings). And it makes me want to re-read the original BOOKS OF MAGIC miniseries.

– The Korean film SUNNY is still chugging along, doing impressive business. It opened May 4, but it is still in third place, with 6.9 million admissions. But of course I have not had a chance to see it, so I don’t have any real opinions about it.

– Oh, POONGSAN has had nearly 700,000 admissions since its release on June 23, in case you are interested.

Dark Sides, Conquering Europe, and More K-Pop Stuff

June 17, 2011 / / 2 Comments

In the wake of SM Entertainment’s quite successful concerts in Paris, the BBC has come out with another takedown of the K-pop industry, ominously titled THE DARK SIDE OF SOUTH KOREAN POP MUSIC. And for the most part, Lucy Williamson’s story is quite good. The story does not really break new ground, except for getting the members of the K-pop group group Rainbow to complain about their low wages on the record, but it is still worth a read.

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Some highlights:

But the industry also has a less glamorous side: a history of controversy and legal disputes over the way it treats its young artists, which it is still struggling to shake.

That is, I think, a fair thesis. It says that there has been trouble, but the industry is trying to get past it. The courts have sided with the artists on several big cases involving unfair contracts and the Fair Trade Commission has tried to create better ones for the industry. But, as one lawyer notes:

“Until now, there hasn’t been much of a culture of hard negotiation in Asia, especially if you’re new to the industry,” says Sang-hyuk Im, an entertainment lawyer who represents both music companies and artists.

Attitudes are changing, he says, but there are some things that even new contracts and new attitudes cannot fix.

Williamson’s story mentions an artist union, but does not follow up the thought. It seems to me that if the performers were willing to get together, they could change the industry pretty radically overnight. After all, if management insists on treating pop music like a factory, it makes sense that the workers and apprentices treat it like a factory, too. And with so few workers earning 90 percent of the revenues, the top 10-20 groups and artists could potentially have a huge say. But, given the background of most artists and the structure of the biz, that is just not going to happen.

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Contrary to some opinions, pop music has been a big part of the Korean music scene for years. In fact, there was probably a lot more diversity in the Korean music scene back in the 1970s, when you had trot, rock, folk, and pop, all with significant followings. Of course, money was tight back then, the recording technology generally was not great, and you did not have the elaborate pop culture industry to mold and perfect pop stars.

But even back in the 1970s, you could see many similarities to the music industry today. Back then, you had a small number of labels controlling access to studios and the airwaves. Also at the time, you had artists complaining that they did not make any money from their recordings, with the bulk of their revenues coming from concerts. And you had artists like the Hee Sisters or Lee Myoung-hoon (of Fevers) who were at least as famous for their looks and dancing as their music.

(Luckily, there is a book on its way all about the history of Korean rock and pop music from that period. I hope to be able to mention more about it soon.)

So, if the problems with Korean pop go back decades, to pop music’s origins in the 1970s, what can be done to fix things now? To be honest, I am not sure. With all respect to Bernie Cho (the head of the digital distributor DFSB Kollective, who is quoted in the BBC article), I do not think undervalued digital sales has much to do with the problem, and is probably more a symptom than a cause.

I suspect that this is another issue that internationalization is going to help with. As Korean artists get out and play other countries more, working with global artists, they are going to discover other ways of doing things. Not only are Korean artists getting out more, but international music labels, like Universal Music Group, are coming into Korea, working with the Korean companies in a variety of ways.

K-pop Paris

Despite the best intentions of government officials (and, often, their less-than-best intentions), learning by example is far more powerful than government directives. Look at Korea’s movie industry, which was helped far more by creators studying and working abroad than it was by the Ministry of Culture or Korean Film Council.

The question is, as always, will the industry be able to get its act together in time, before the next, hungrier competitor comes along? I do not think K-pop is in danger of disappearing, but people and the media are always on the lookout for the next big thing. The world today is full of music producers and performers who are studying the Korean example, looking to take it to the next level. After all, improving conditions for K-pop’s artists is not just about making the stars rich, it is about making the entire industry healthier.

Links and Thinks

May 5, 2011 / / 0 Comments

– There is a very interesting article by Andrei Lankov here about North Korea and how the North Korean people, following the eventual fall of their current regime, will likely remember the Kim family with nostalgia rather than outrage.

It is said that sooner or later this fate will befall statues of Kim Il-sung, in 1945 a minor guerrilla commander who, with much Soviet backing, took power in North Korea and remained its absolute ruler until his death in 1994. However, this author is somewhat skeptical about the prospects: I would not be surprised to learn that some time in the 2030s it is trendy to keep a portrait of the long-deceased dictator in a North Korean house.

Lankov mostly uses Russia, his homeland, as a template for how people’s thinking might evolve after an authoritarian regime falls. Something related that he does not really talk about, though, is how poverty can be a united force. More specifically, mass poverty.

My Mongolian friends talk about how back in their communist days, everyone was poor, so being poor did not feel so bad. Today, Mongolia is free and there are more successful people. But those successes create much envy, and that envy can be a really poisonous emotion.

Let’s face it, people tend to think comparatively, not in absolutes. We don’t care so much about how we are doing as how our success compares to other people’s successes. Everyone wants to be the big man in his tribe (however one defines “tribe” these days).

North Korea may be one of the biggest failed states of modern times, but there are so few riches on display there, I could imagine the average North Korean has very few opportunities to feel envy (which I guess was one of the points of Barbara Demick’s book NOTHING TO ENVY). Which is perhaps one reason that the North’s propaganda has been so successful there for so long.

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– While there have been many articles about how K-Pop became such a big success (including, of course, POP GOES KOREA), most of them have focused on the Korean side of the phenomenon, how Korean music companies grew more popular internationally (also including my book). But The Guardian had a really insightful story recently about how international music has helped build K-Pop.

The article looks at Universal Music Group, which has seen Korean grow into one of its most important markets, thanks to K-Pop. Because while local music in Korea dominates sales, the Korean music labels have known for a while that to compete internationally, they need to use the highest-quality songs and producers.

There’s also a lot of sync income in Korea. The song Top Billing Love – written by Karen Poole, Bloodshy and Avant, responsible for hits for artists like Kylie and Britney – almost made it onto a Britney Spears album in 2002. SME did a deal with mobile phone manufacturer LG and its biggest girl groups, Girls’ Generation and FX, did a version each of the song, calling it Chocolate Love, since LG were launching a new brown phone.

Girls’ Generation’s version went straight to number one. A few weeks later they released the FX version , which also went to number one. Then they released a joint version for LG, which also went to the top of the charts.

It is always useful to be reminded that globalization is a two-way thing, requiring giving and taking to be successful. As good as Korean music companies have been with the marketing and packaging, they still need great songs to create fans.

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– Random crazy-guy babble coming up. Apologies in advance.

Growing up, when it came to politics, I remember a popular saying going something like: “If you are 20 and not a communist, you have no heart. If you are 40 and still a communist, you have no brain.” But I am beginning to wonder if the opposite might be true for my generation.

Back in the 80s, between Ronald Reagan, Wall Street (the Oliver Stone film), and Alex P. Keaton of Family Ties, I think a lot of people in my age group bought into conservativism too early. But just as leftist politics were coasting off of the fumes of the 1960s well after that era had passed, I think modern conservativism is in many ways doing the same thing, using the rhetoric and memory of an era that is no longer relevant.

When I look at international finance today, globalization, and today’s economies, I do not see much that is “conservative” about what passes for the common wisdom. Minimal regulation doesn’t mean no regulation. Collusion, corruption, and cronyism is not efficiency. Free markets only work when the referees are neutral, and the system is as transparent and accountable as possible.

That said, it was good to see the Tories do so well in last week’s Canadian election. I was just graduating university when they were shellacked in the post-Mulroney election, reduced to just three seats in Parliament. But today, they have a majority government again.

Korea Vs. the LA Times

May 4, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Very strange post on the LA Times’ Big Picture movie blog (thanks to The Marmot for finding this) — it talks about why Korea is getting IRON MAN 2 before Japan, saying that it is mostly because of Korea’s high rates of online piracy.

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I say strange because I have no idea why Korea is getting singled out. IRON MAN 2 was released in over 50 territories last weekend, all over the world. Day-and-date releases from Hollywood are increasingly the norm, and have been unremarkable for quite some time.

Big Hollywood films, especially those released in the May-June area, have usually been released in Korea at the same time as in the United States for years now. Korea usually saves up its big blockbusters for later in the summer, in July and August, often causing Hollywood films to move their opening dates to avoid the biggest Korean films then. But May is the biggest time of the year for Hollywood in Korea.

That said, even films that get a delayed release can do well. MAMMA MIA! was released in Korea two months after it was in the United States and much of the West, but it made $25 million in Korea and was the fifth-biggest film of 2008. Sure, Korea has a lot of online and offline piracy, but perhaps the situation is more nuanced (and profitable) than some people would like to bellyache.

I especially dislike media executives complaining about online piracy without any comment about what their RESPONSIBILITIES are. Like they can hold on to their movies, music, TV shows or whatever and release them whenever they want. Sorry, but this is the Internet age, and if you do not give customers a fair chance to buy your content, they are not going to wait patiently for you to release something when you feel like it. Yes, consumers need to respect copyright. But producers also have a responsibility to make sure their content is available in a timely, convenient manner.

The LA Times would have been much better off asking the more interesting question — Why is Japan still releasing so many movies so much later than the rest of the world? The Japan market is the unusual one that needs an explanation, not Korea.

(And in case you are interested, the reason Hollywood films are released so much later in Japan has more to do with its tricky theatrical market than its respect for copyrights. In Japan, it can be hard to book screens, hard to market movies, there is relatively low theatrical attendance for the country’s population, high ticket prices and a whole host of difficulties.)

(Note: Cross-posted at Korea Pop Wars).

Fashioning Korean Fashions

April 6, 2010 / / 0 Comments

A very interesting article in the New York Times today on Seoul Fashion Week and the trends and big ideas in Korean fashion in general. The general theme of the article is on how style in Korea is so different between men and women — men being elegant, women being very girlie. I am not sure if I agree, but it is definitely a good read.

Some choice bits:

Once you get past the bright-colored girlie girls, what really stands out in Seoul is the chic, bordering on the obsessively refined, look of the Korean young men, from college kids and young professionals in their early 20s to men in their 40s.

I really like this quote from fashion blogger Hong Sukwoo:

“Young Koreans haven’t found their own style yet, so they’re copying images they find on the Internet,” he says. “It’s a form of stylish cosplay.”

Hong Sukwoo on Korea's style divide

Hong Sukwoo on Korea's style divide


And then there was this comment from fashion designer Juun J.:

“There needs to be a revolutionary generation of women’s designers to come out and lead women into something new,” he said. “Designers in their early 20s are still learning, and they’re the ones who will do it.”

Johnny Hates Jazz - from Seoul Fashion Week

Johnny Hates Jazz - from Seoul Fashion Week


As someone who remembers Korea in the mid-1990s, honestly I do not find Korea’s rise in the fashion world that surprising. Even if the clothes and general style were not so hip back in the day, even then Koreans put a lot of energy and thought into their appearance. And from time to time, when I met students who were studying fashion (usually in Daegu), they were invariably much more interesting than the average Yonsei or Seoul National University egghead.

How much did the rise of Korean pop culture lead the fashion industry and how much did it follow? Or was it even caused by the fashion industry? I will let braver (and more fashionable) people than myself offer their theories. I suspect the two are intertwined.

But the biggest plus of these changes, in my humble opinion, is how the rise of fashion has led to diversity. Sure, Korea remains one of the most incredibly trendy places for fashion I have ever seen (from Burberry coats of the late 1990s to the mushroom hairdos of a year or two ago). But you do see a lot more variety than you used to. Beauty may be only skin deep, but individuality goes to the core.

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As long as I am on the subject of style in Korea, I really should point out the great magazine GRAPHIC. It has been around since 2006, but last year it went bilingual. Sadly, you cannot download the magazine online, but you can buy it online and have it shipped to you.

If you are looking for a sign of how far Korean design has come, GRAPHIC magazine is really revealing. Tellingly, it is an independent magazine, without government money or major sponsors (which are usually behind the curve on art and culture, and rarely really “get it”). Plus it is just a great magazine for anyone interested in typography and graphic design.

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