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Popular culture in Asia, including music, is intensely transnational, involving not only exchanges with the West, but also the traffic of regional popular musics between Asian countries. The dynamics of intra-Asian popular cultural flows, however, are much more complicated and locality-specific than it may first appear to be. In this essay I address the contrast in pop musical “flows” between Japan and Korea. Recently the popular press has made much of the Korean Wave (the demand throughout Asia for Korean popular cultural products, including music). This has, indeed, been an important new development, an area that scholars have begun to document and interpret. However, the coverage is distorting, suggesting that Korea is replacing Japan as the main trend-setter in Asia. Japan’s continuing and substantial influences throughout Asia, and on contemporary Korean popular culture in particular, have been rather intentionally underestimated, I argue, and Korea’s recent influences in Japan have been exaggerated and overvalued. More specifically, the nature of Korean popular musical presence in Japan is categorically different from the Japanese presence in Korea. Korean pop music undergoes a process of “repackaging” by the Japanese music industry, rendering it, while not completely “de-Koreanized,” substantially “Japanized.” In contrast, Japanese pop is imported and consumed in Korea mostly “as is,” suggesting that Korean audiences relish new Japanese sounds and images in ways that are not reciprocated as Japanese encounter pop from Korea. I illustrate these contrasts with examples of recent pop from both countries and interpret them in light of the troubled history of Korea-Japan relations.

Taiwanese opera (gezaixi), the most vibrant type of traditional theatre in Taiwan today, is sustained as a living art primarily through temple performances and secondarily through government-sponsored events. During temple festivities, patrons hire troupes for daylong performances that include a ritual performance, and opera performances in the afternoon and evening. On any specific day, professional troupes usually perform in different styles for the afternoon and evening shows, with a notable variance in vocal musical repertoire. The music of the “classic style” opera performed in the afternoon consists of songs from a pool of uniquely Taiwanese opera tunes. In contrast, popular songs dominate the musical repertoire used for the evening’s “hybrid style” performances. Although hybrid style opera has been performed for over forty years and the two operatic styles are both equally important to the performance practices of professional troupes, hybrid style opera continues to be marginalized. Surprisingly, some practitioners and scholars reject and critique hybrid style opera as deviant and non-traditional, particularly in its inclusion of popular songs. Government-sponsored events heavily favor classic style operas. My field research experience with Taiwanese opera, however, has led me to deconstruct the disapproving viewpoint of hybrid style opera and reconsider the nature of the opera’s musical repertoire formation. Through analyses of performance practices and dramatic functions of songs, I contend that performers select and use popular songs in corresponding manners as they do for that of non-popular, that is, traditionally-based, music. Furthermore, I delve into the formation of the opera’s vocal repertoire to argue that the bulk of the repertoire is formed through the appropriation of existing songs. Performers’ selection and usage of songs from the popular music genres is part and parcel of the vocal repertoire’s formation process. The latest transformation is in the performance of popular songs and the ways in which actors are featured in unprecedented fashions.

Performing at Walt Disney World as often as six times a day, seven days a week, the kumidaiko group, Matsuriza, has the unique opportunity to expose thousands of people per day to the world of Japanese taiko performance. At the same time, the group serves as a form of ambassador for Japan, representing the country within a section of the Epcot theme park known as World Showcase. Their performance space is the Japan pavilion, part of a modern day World’s Fair that seeks to introduce tourists to various cultures from around the world. Matsuriza’s participation in Disney’s World’s Fair is not without its consequences, however. The group must grapple with issues of commoditization, authenticity, and representation that have long caught the eyes of scholars. At the same time, the group must deal with the expectations of tourists that have come to Epcot, expectations that are fueled in part by the atmosphere of the Japan pavilion created by the Walt Disney Company. In the end, kumidaiko at Walt Disney World as performed by Matsuriza is a reified art form, static and unchanging. Taiko is discussed by group members using a discourse that adheres to the sense of Japan created within the pavilion, and repertoire and performance practice are modified so as to not disrupt the atmosphere that has been created. Even as kumidaiko continues to grow and evolve outside of Epcot’s borders, within the theme park it is simply another exhibit on display for the paying tourist in the museum of culture that is World Showcase.

South Indian classical music in contemporary Chennai presents an array of traditional and modern musical and social practices. To be sure, the act of maintaining tradition and exploring innovative ideas in music is not a new phenomenon, and is a long-standing creative process in the history of Carnatic music. That said, it is not an exaggeration to suggest that the relationship between tradition and modernization has been remarkably tenuous since the twentieth century in response to rapid changes in society. In this paper, I explore the dynamics between tradition and modernity in Carnatic vocal music from the perspectives of teaching, performance, and audience reception. I focus specifically on the notion of spirituality to examine the ways in which this deep-rooted aspect of Carnatic music is negotiated by teachers, performers, and audience in the contemporary context.