One of the things I do in my spare time is watching Asian soap operas, in part because my wife enjoys them, and in part because they are fun. Most have entertainment value only. These include Cantonese martial arts series dubbed in Vietnamese (a family tradition), Cantonese ghost stories (also dubbed in Vietnamese), and Vietnamese immitations of the last two, and true sopa operas, Chinese (Taiwan) love dramas, but also their Korean style equivalents in which male and female relations are often complicated by the implication that the principals may actually be brother and sister. This is a Korean thing now being immitated elsewhere in Asia, I note. But some are more serious and in their cases popular culture impinges on nationalism and probably political goals. Three stand out, one Chinese, and two Korean, and the Koreans, for all their brother and sister interests, probably now make by far the best historical dramas in the world, and that is saying something.

The Chinese soap opera I am speaking of is the lengthy series Han Wudi, which traces the life of that famous Han emperor (complete with a touching theme song of national yearing) from his birth, through the reign of the previous emperor, who was an interesting guy himself, down to Wudi’s death in 87 BC, after a reign of nearly 53 years, one of the longest in Chinese history. This is the Wudi who recentralized China, returning to Qin precedents, controlled his relatives with their great domains, kept the barbarians (principally the Xiongnu) at bay, and sent Zhang Qian to establish contact with the West. He is also the Wudi who is the center of some of China’s greatest prose, by grand historian Sima Qian. This prose, in fact, along with that of Ban Gu, the other Han historian, is one basis for the very dialogue of the series. What can one say? Wudi is made into an historial hero of the first magnitude, which he was, although more than a little jaded, and Han China is celebrated as a great era of expansion and Chinese power, which it also was. The series even found actors able to speak the beautiful Sian dialect, to lend authenticity. All in all, here is a most wonderful China that modern Chinese can take pride in and a clear nationalist message. While the connection between Mao and Wudi is not as apparent as in recent Chinese films treating, another Mao surrogate, Qin Shihuangdi, Wudi obviously had his Long March too, a long progress in the face of political adversity, and his external enemies, in this case the proto-Mongol Xiongnu, most crude barbarians who even do a wild sex dance when faced with captive Han ladies (much of their story is taken from the Secret History of the Mongols; not that part).

The two Korean historical soap operas are Dae Jang Geum, about a lady doctor during the Middle Yi period, and Yi San, produced by the same studio and team, about the era of two of Korea’s greatest Kings, extending thtrough the second half of the 18th century. The first thing that meets the eye in these two long series, besides the fact that both tell damn good stories, well, is their lavish detail, and the love with which the Korean past has been reconstructed. While South Korea, which produced them, is not going to be marching off anywhere soon, these dramas nonetheless validate Korean national existence and clearly assert the fact that Korea too was a major cultural power, if not political, in East asia. While there is no denying this, I wondered as I veiwed the dramas how much was true and how much fiction. The amazing answer, particularly in the case of the second drama, Yi San, is that, perhaps except for the love interest between the major characters (all we know is that his lady existed, had a child by the prince, and died young, little else), and a few other minor characters and details, it is all true. Yi San is, in fact, based closely on contemporary records, even contemporary paintings, and Korean court society was really like it is portrayed in the series. Not only that, but despite the court’s apparent disfunctionality, what with the bushwhacking and continual feuding, Korea was actually reasonably prosperious and relatively well governened. And, for the record, some of the primary sources I looked at were even more interesting than the dramas themselves. The real story is even more gripping and just as dramatical.

What are we to make of this? Well, first of all, the BBC does not make the best historical dramas any more. Second, East Asia is here to stay as a center of power and influence and these soap operas tell us just why.