This week's topic was Asian film-induced tourism, focusing on The Korean Wave, and a little on Bollywood and Indian film and tourism.
This seminar was a bit of an eye-opener, as I guess I'm fairly ignorant in noticing that other countries and cultures have their own popular cultures. Sometimes I think that because Australia is so heavily influenced by American culture, media, films, TV shows, news, information etc, that all the other countries are as well. Which really shows my lack of thinking, I think. Of course Asia is going to have a different culture, different media, and different celebrities to idolise.
I actually really like the name of the Korean Wave to describe the pop culture that is so popular in Asia, although the original name from the Chinese media of cold wave seems more negative as opposed to a positive and accepted pop culture. I also really enjoyed watching the episode of 'Winter Sonata', especially since I'm the type of person who is easily sucked into a new storyline, and can see why the series was so popular throughout Asia. I think it's also interesting to be able to watch a TV show that displays another culture acting out their day-to-day activities, since Australian free-to-air TV pretty much only shows the one culture over all of the hundreds of television series that are aired every year.
I'm just visiting the official site of Korea tourism now, and one of the links under Sights, Activities & Events, takes you 'filming location tours' which gives you the option to look at either drama sets or movie sets, both of which have over 20 different sets to choose from that show comprehensive information about the films and shows, stills from filming and matched locations. I don't think many other official tourism destination websites would base information so heavily around the popular culture TV series and films that are produced within the country.
I think for the tourism website to be able to post photos from the films and series', then they would have to have a good reciprocal with the TV and film studios, since sometimes they may want to keep filming locations secret to keep the mystery of the program. In Australia, the USA or the UK, it might be more difficult to negotiate with the studios to display such extensive information about the shows on external websites, especially if the websites give away plot details or have the potential to 'spoil' the show or film for future watchers, which the Korean site does.
Anyway, that'll do for this week. We don't have a seminar next week, so I probably wont write here, though I think I have to for the actual assessment piece. I think we're also about half way through the semester, which is scary... I have so much more work to do in a short amount of time. Better get my act together. Until next time.
Xoxox
