I’m Bill Tsutsui with another Postcard from Asia from the Center for East Asian Studies.

This installment of Postcards from Asia is brought to you by the letters J and K and the number 1 with a bullet. That’s J for J pop and K for K pop, and number 1 with a bullet is where they’re headed on the charts in Asia. J pop stands for Japanese pop music and K pop stands for Korean pop music. For a long time K pop has been popular in Japan. And now, apparently, J pop is becoming quite popular in Korea. So much so that Korea has launched a concert series entitled “Fighting K Pop” aimed at encouraging Korean fans to support the Korean music industry. With J and K pops firmly in place, can Chinese C pop be far behind?

With thanks to Randi Hacker for this text, from the Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Bill Tsutsui. Wish you were here.