Finding Mr. Perfect: K-Drama, Pop Culture, Romance, and Race

Finding Mr. Perfect explores the romantic relationships between Korean men and women who were inspired by romantic Korean televisual depictions of Korean masculinity to travel to Korea as tourists. Author Min Joo Lee argues that disparate racialized erotic desires of Korean pop culture fans, foreign tourists to Korea, Korean men, and the Korean nation converge to configure the interracial and transnational relationships between these tourists and Korean men. Lee observes how racial prejudices are developed and manifested through interracial and transnational intimate desires and encounters. This book is the first to examine the interracial relationships between Hallyu tourists and Korean men. Furthermore, it is the first to analyze Korea as a popular romance tourist destination for heterosexual women. Finding Mr. Perfect illuminates South Korean popular culture’s transnational fandom and tourism as a global phenomenon where fantasies and realities converge to have a tangible impact on individual lives.

MIN JOO LEE is an assistant professor in the Department of Asian Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California.

Contents

Introduction

1. Mouth Agape and Ecstatically Screaming: National Media and Industry Personnel’s Conception of Foreign Hallyu Fans
2. Romance and Masculinity in Korean Television Dramas
3. Digitalized Intimacies of Hallyu
4. “Korean Men are So Bad Because They Are Perfect”: Hallyu Tourists’ Experiences in Korea
5. “How Can We Compete with Men Like That?”: Korean Men’s Perception of Their New-Found Popularity

Epilogue

Source: publisher’s website