Crossing Musical Borders

While blogging about the topic of Chinese here, I was reminded of a topic that I've been fascinated by, which is the successful export of Japanese, and to a lesser extent, Korean pop culture to the West relative to the export of Chinese pop culture. Music affioncados in Europe and the States sometimes adore Japanese/Korean pop/rock. Some of my American friends love Korean boybands. Some indie music blogs will post news of Namie Amuro or something. Bascially, one could say that there's some sort of niche audience for J/K-pop in the West, and they've sorta got cult status. It would be 'cool' to like L'Arc-en-Ciel, like how it's 'cool' to like the Animal Collective, if you get what I mean.

It's not the same for movies though. Japanese movies are of course appreciated in the West, with the likes of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai being universally acknowledged as a classic. South Korea's Park Chan-Wook attained cult status too. But Chinese films also get love from the West. John Woo and Ang Lee have crossed over to Hollywood, and directors like Wong Kar Wai, Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao Hsien are respected internationally.

But somehow, that is not the case for Chinese music, which puzzles me. The closest thing I can think of would be Faye Wong when she did 'Eyes on Me' for Final Fantasy. But still, no one was interested in her Chinese work. Even the indie-est of indie music lovers would not be into Chinese music. And I wonder why. Is it the ballad-heavy nature of Chinese music that doesn't translate? Is it that there is more originality to be found in J/K-pop, compared to Chinese pop, which I must say can be highly derivative? Is there some sort of cultural affinity that the West feels towards Japan, and to a lesser extent, Korea? Does Japan's status as a first-world, G7 country have anything to do with said cultural affinity? I don't know. I just feel like there is a lot of good to be found in Chinese music and I'd like for it to gain a wider audience beyond Chinese-speaking shores.