Trade, singers and soap operas: Chinese switch from North to South Korea

Trade, singers and soap operas: Chinese switch from North to South Korea

Cindy Sui, Agence France Presse, Beijing

In Jin Zi's family, loyalties towards North and South Korea are clearly divided between the generations.

"If South Korea and North Korea had a soccer match, I would cheer for North Korea," said Jin, a Beijing shopkeeper of Korean descent.

"But my children, they don't care about North Korea at all. They think it's very far removed from other countries."

Her children, and many other Chinese youths, are crazy about South Korean culture, humming the tunes of the South's pop singer Kim Hee-sun, spending long hours playing its video games and soaking up its television series.

In just one generation, people in China, including the estimated 1.9 million ethnic Korean minorities, have undergone a clear shift in interests from the neighboring North to the farther-away South.

And it's not just youngsters. Chinese people have practically forgotten about their Communist former brother-in-arms but are fascinated with South Korea, considered a capitalist enemy not long ago.

Even Jin, who was born and raised in China but has uncles and cousins in North Korea, admitted her generation has become detached from the North.

"When my parents were alive, we had contact with our relatives in North Korea. But this generation, we have no feelings towards them," Jin said.

Apathy for the North is reflected in the lack of interest shown by Chinese people in the six-nation talks going on in Beijing this week on the North's nuclear weapons program, despite the potential threat such munitions could pose.

Instead, the Chinese are embracing South Korean culture. The lighthearted South Korean TV drama I Can't Take My Eyes Off You -- which centers around traditional family values and two sisters' quest to get married -- is the most watched program each night at 11pm, according to China Central Television.

South Korea has also become a popular vacation spot for well- off Chinese.

The change among Chinese people reflects a parallel shift by their government from the North to the South, analysts said.

"In the past, China only had one friend in the Korean peninsula. Now China wants to find a balance. It's become a three-way relationship," said Wu Guoguang, a political analyst at the Chinese University in Hong Kong.

"Trade is one reason. It's also for geopolitical balance." From the 1950s to 1980s, North Koreans were seen by the Chinese as ideological brothers and sisters, bound by a common communist cause. An estimated 900,000 Chinese were killed or wounded fighting alongside North Koreans during the 1950-53 Korean War against the South, which was supported by a US-led coalition.

"My generation can all sing the songs of North Korean movies. We still use terminology from those movies," said Wu, who grew up in mainland China.

In the 1970s, North Korean and Albanian movies were the only foreign films shown in a closed-off China.

"Everyone was really impressed with North Korea's living standards, which were better than China's, at least in the movies. They showed farmers living in apartments. That was unheard of in China at the time," Wu said.

But since China normalized relations with Seoul in 1992, relations between Beijing and the South have flourished. Trade reached 63 billion dollars last year, compared to just one billion dollars with the North, according to Chinese official figures.

While South Korean investments in China are soaring, China has to donate massive amounts of fuel and food to the North.

But analysts said China has realized during the past 16-month standoff over the North's nuclear program that its ties with Pyongyang can increase its bargaining power with South Korea, Japan, and most importantly, the United States.

"The Chinese government will not see North Korea as a burden. Without North Korea, its relations with the United States wouldn't have become so much better," Wu said.

However middle-aged people like Jin, taught at a young age to side with the North rather than the South, still cannot forget their biases.

Even kimchi -- the traditional Korean dish of pickled cabbage -- and grooming styles are a source of debate about the North and South.

"South Koreans change Korean culture too much. They add so many types of ingredients to their kimchi. It's like their people. They fix up themselves up too much -- plastic surgeries, colored hair, heavy makeup," Jin said.

"North Koreans are more traditional."