The Korean Wave 2006 - Korean Cultural Service

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Rain is inspired by American pop music, but his
interpretations provide, at the least, an Asian
face and filter. His producer, Jin-Young Park,
describes Rain’s music as more “sensitive and delicate”
than American R & B and says that his choreography is
crisper and more precise, influenced by classical dance
and martial arts.
“In Rain, Asians might see the spirit of Usher or
Timberlake or even Michael Jackson, but he makes the
music theirs,” said Nusrat Durrani, senior vice president
and general manager of MTV World. “He is a huge star
in the making, but, at the same time, he is a very indigenous
artist and a source of local pride.”
Last year, Rain sold out arenas across Korea, China
and Japan, playing to more than 40,000 in Beijing and
20,000 in the Budokan in Tokyo. America, with its growing
interest in Asian popular culture, from Pokémon to
Bollywood, was the obvious next frontier.
But Mr. Park – a 34-year-old impresario who is Rain’s
Henry Higgins – said that Rain will be not be officially
ready to cross over until approximately October. That,
according to a meticulously devised business plan, is
when he is expected to achieve basic fluency in English,
to release an English-language album and to smite the
hearts of American young women.
The performances at the Theater at Madison Square
Garden on Thursday and Friday are merely a prelude.
“This is for the American music industry,” said Mr. Park,
“basically introducing Rain, giving a taste, and everybody
is coming.”
Most of the 10,000 people coming, however, will need
no introduction. Like Julie Cho, 25, vice president of
the Young Korean American Network in New York, who
considers Rain “a really good dancer” and “very humble,”
they are already fans.
Immigrants or children of immigrants, they live in an era
when technology makes it easy to connect with their homeland.
Small- time entrepreneurs have long catered to the
immigrant appetite for culture from back home. But what
used to happen on a neighborhood level – a Colombian
dance troupe at a Queens community center – is now
taking place on a much larger scale. Like Rain, foreign
artists are filling mainstream venues, their fans primed by
the songs, videos, television shows and films that are ever
more accessible through the Web, satellite television and
new media outlets targeting hyphenated Americans.
Thus, word spread very quickly through New York’s
Korean community that a Korean pop star was coming
to town. “There is definitely a sense of Rain-mania
washing across the 32nd Street land here in Manhattan,”
Minya Oh, a D.J. on New York’s Hot 97 radio station,
said, referring to the city’s small Koreatown.
This is not Rain’s first performance in the States. He played
at a Korean festival at the Hollywood Bowl last year, and
Susan Kim, a sociologist in Los Angeles, regrets that she
missed the show. She and her American-born children
discovered Rain, whom they refer to by his Korean name,
Bi (pronounced Bee), on a Korean music Web site called
Bugs. Then they sought out videos of a Korean mini-series,
“Full House,” in which Rain plays a pop star.
As of this month, “Full House” became available with
English subtitles on New York cable, too, through
ImaginAsian TV, which bills itself as America’s first 24/7
Asian-American network.
And soon, Rain’s music videos will find a platform on
MTV-K, a channel catering to Korean-Americans that
will begin later this year. MTV-K will feature a diverse
array of Seoul music, including hip-hop artists like M.C.
Mong, boy bands like HOT and melodic harmonizers like
SG Wannabe (the SG stands for Simon and Garfunkel).
Inevitably, non-Asian-Americans are discovering such
easily accessible foreign culture, too. Because of the
“multidirectional flow of cultural goods around the
world,” there is a “new pop cosmopolitanism,” according
to Henry Jenkins, professor of comparative media studies
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In an
essay in “Globalization” (University of California Press,
2004), Professor Jenkins writes that “younger Americans
are distinguishing themselves from their parents’ culture
through their consumption of Japanese anime and
manga, Bollywood films and bhangra, and Hong Kong
action movies.”
Indeed, Michael Hong, chief executive officer of
ImaginAsian Entertainment, said that 60 percent of those
who watch his company’s Asian channels are not of Asian
ethnicity. Similarly, at his company’s two-year-old East
59th Street movie theater in Manhattan, which shows only
Asian films, 70 percent of the audience is non-Asian.
“There is a great deal of interest in Asian content right
now,” said Mr. Hong, who helped set up and promote
the Madison Square Garden concert. “Rain is just the tip
of the iceberg.”
In the recent interview, Rain said that he had been dreaming
about Madison Square Garden since he was a child
imitating Michael Jackson’s moves. “It is an incredible
honor to perform there,’’ he said. And yet he is preparing
himself for failure: “In the case that my music is not
loved by the American people, I will work very hard to fix
things and hope to please them the next time.”
Rain is a self-flagellating superstar.
‘In Rain, Asians might see the spirit of Usher or Timberlake.’
“He thinks he’s not good at all,” Mr. Park, who spoke
from Los Angeles, said in flawless English. “He’s always
worried. He thinks he’s not blessed or talented. He thinks
people are being fooled, that it’s an illusion. He wants to
catch up to that illusion.”
Rain’s family was living in a one-room house in Seoul
when Mr. Park and Rain first met. “There was something
sad about him then, and there still is, something cool and
gloomy,” Mr. Park said.
That’s how the stage name came about. “I was told that
when I’m dancing I give off the feeling of a rainy day,”
Rain said, in a speaking voice that is deep and rich.
Rain said that he first discovered “the euphoria” of performing
during a sixth-grade talent show, after which he
tried to hang around some professional dancers in his
neighborhood. But hesaid they treated him terribly, finally
beating him up and stealing his winter jacket.
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