Diplomatic Record Reveals Seoul's Conflict over Japanese Culture

Seoul, March 29 (Jiji Press)--A declassified South Korean diplomatic record has revealed how certain songs were exceptionally allowed to be sung in Japanese in 1994, when Japanese popular culture was still been banned in South Korea due to Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula in 1910-1945.

The record, released by South Korea's Foreign Ministry on Friday, showed that how to handle the matter was a source of headache for the South Korean government at the time.

According to the declassified diplomatic record, major Japanese travel agency JTB Corp. was planning to hold an entertainment show featuring South Korean singer Kye Eun-sook, also popular in Japan, at a hotel in Seoul in February 1994.

With the show targeted at 800 Japanese tourists, the company asked the South Korean government to allow songs to be sung in Japanese at the event.

South Korea's then ambassador to Japan called on the home government to consider approving the request, noting that the event had been planned only for Japanese people and would therefore have no negative impact on South Koreans.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]