K-Pop and the Korean Wave with Jimmyn Parc - Transcript

Duration of the podcast: 30:05

Interviewer: S

Interviewee: J

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This is the Nordic Asia Podcast.

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S: Welcome to the Nordic Asia podcast a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region.

My name is Satoko Naito. I'm a docent at the Centre for East Asian studies at the University of Turku in Finland.

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S: Today I'm very excited to be joined by doctor Jimmyn Parc, who’ll be speaking about K-pop and factors behind its immense global popularity.

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S: Dr. Parc is a visiting lecturer at Paris Institute of Political Studies, and an Associated researcher at the EU Centre at Seoul National University.

His research is related to competitiveness between organizations, industries and countries, and the various strategies employed by these institutions.

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S: He has also taught a number of online courses for the Finnish University Network for Asian studies coordinated by the Centre for East Asian Studies here.

So thank you very much Jimmyn for your valuable contribution to - contributions to Asianet and of course for joining me here today.

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J: Thank you very much for your invitation. It is my great honor.

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S: Glad to hear thank you.

Before we get to K-pop in particular, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the so-called Korean wave. I think the first time I heard it, the phrase was hallyu in Japanese or hanryu, and

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S: And it was in Japan in the early to mid-2000s, I believe, and it has to had to do with Korean television dramas, they became extremely popular in Japan. But of course, a lot has happened in the last 20 years. Can you first explain to us what the phrase hallyu or Korean wave means in the global context?

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J: Okay. The Korean wave, as we know, the terminology itself was invented by a Chinese journalist in the late 1990s.

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J: Basically at the time, this was referring to praise, for all about Korea. So, Korean food like kimchi, Korean entertainment content like drama, and films, basically everything, even including art.

But one interesting point: nowadays is, if you say the Korean wave or hallyu, it means basically, it's very positive, right.

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J: But initially it was not. It means, basically if you know already the kanji, right.

Hanryu, which basically is “cold wave” they just replaced the first word, Cold, to Korea.

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J: So the pronunciation is han-ryu, which means basically cold wave. Which means that Chinese initially they did not welcome the Korean wave. They felt like this is not something good. But it has changed the meaning, and nowadays, if you say Hallyu, Hallyu contents, it has a positive meaning.

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S: A Positive meaning. So the word initially was comprised of two Chinese characters meaning Cold and Wave, then Cold was changed to Korea, a homonym, pronounced the same way. Interesting. And it went from a negative to a positive word. And now, as you've said elsewhere, Korea is a powerhouse producer of cultural content. How and when did that change come about?

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J: Well, internally, domestically, that is around 1990s. First thing is actually who, would be Korean music industry.

It was 1992, there is a Korean boy band called Seo Taijiwa aideul.

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S: Seo Taiji and Boys.

J: So they, they came to Korea with a different genre, like hip hop, rap, which was very new at the time in Korea.

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J: They were the ones who began this kind of music style. Also they brought a lot of different things from the US. Second one, which is very important, but a lot of people don’t talk about it: it was due to the diplomatic difficulties between Korea and Japan.

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J: Although I'm Korean, I have to be very objective when you talk about cultural things between Korea and Japan.

Korean cultural industry copied a lot of things from Japan. It's not just about K pop but drama, and films, and everything, basically.

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J: Even some kind of snacks, you know like wrapping,

You can see, basically they copied a lot things originally from Japan.

But then, it was after the economic crisis in 1997 at that time president Kim Daejung, he opened up the Korean market.

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J: The Korean culture industry looked towards Japan.

Which means basically that before we got any proper relationship with the cultural industry, which means Korean entertainment companies or Korean singers and bands, whatever they can copy Japanese contents without paying any copyright fees.

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S: So they did not pay copyright fees.

J: Because you know, we did not have any exchange in terms of culture, or cultural industry.

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J: And then they believe, Korean people, the Korean audience, they did not know this is from Japan, that is from Japan.

But once we opened up the market which means basically Japanese companies can accuse copyright infringement.

The Korean companies, they have to make the contents different from Japanese contents. So they cannot copy Japanese contents anymore.

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J: So, they tried to work more and harder in order to avoid all the copyright problems. So that pushed Korean companies to be more strategic in terms of contents and content making.

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S: I see. So so what were the kind of innovations, the creative measures that they took?

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J: Well, basically they kind of combined everything from here and there.

For example. Well, a lot of people think that culture is very unique, but from my view culture is not unique at all, right. There is a lot of global exchange. And then, also the global thing, has something unique look of which available locally and they combine together and they become culture somehow.

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J: So this means basically, well, in Korea, the K pop is completely different from Korean traditional music, so it is not really a Korean thing.

But then, they are basically accepting a lot of things from United States and Japan and combining them. We know that-- we study a lot, we know, if we change this part, it can be more interesting. If we add something more, it can be more appealing.

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J: Okay, interesting is that- also this one is related to the consumer. When it comes to cultural industry, the most important thing is openness. If you open, basically, even though your local content is not really good, but by accepting or receiving cultural contents, which are from other countries of better quality, if the consumers get exposed to this kind of contents and then their sophistication, they increase.

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For example, let's say right after the Korean War, everything got destroyed. But at the time the United States Army they brought a lot of Hollywood films. So Korean consumers, they get exposed, they got exposed to those kinds of films. Although the Korean film industry could not produce a lot of films, consumers as they have been exposed to Hollywood films, they have sophistication. They can say, “oh, this film is good, this is not good”.

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S: So the Korean audience was exposed to Hollywood films, which made them more discerning, more sophisticated as consumers.

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J: Okay which means basically Korea although we did not open, but Korean film and music industry has received a lot of things from, from Japan and the United States legally and illegally. Yup, illegally and legally because before Kim Daejung, Korean companies cannot import Japanese music. They can’t show Japanese film, and then drama or anything.

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J: Okay? But there is all this demand. It's more like a pandora's box. before the government says you cannot do it but people are curious why you do it.

Although Korean did not have anything the almost banned Japanese cultural contents there are some people who are really interested in Japanese drama, J Pop and Japanese films.

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J: And then they adopted it. I know because personally when I was in high school in the 1990s, I was the one who was listening to Japanese J pop, like X Japan, Lunacy, okay?

And then while I sat with my friend, said with my friend "How come we don't produce any music like that? Japan produces great music, they can do it." Then actually

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J: as a J-pop lover I never expected that Korea was able to. But again, by exposing, gathering something from other countries you can enhance. which means basically the Korean market.

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J: Was somehow well developed. So the companies, they have to try, produce something to meet the demand. So by internationalized or globalized Korean sophistication is as you know as good as other countries, maybe the Japanese level or you know American level. So basically, when companies tried to meet the demand automatically they can make something appealing not just to Korean consumers but also to US and Japan consumers too.

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S: I do also remember in the 90s that J-Pop was big throughout East Asia. And around the end of the decade, some specific J-pop artists were getting ready to expand to Europe and the US, but soon after those efforts seemed to fizzle. Soon after I started hearing about K-pop and now of course I continue to hear about K-pop—really popular groups but almost never about J-Pop, so Can you talk a little bit about how that happened?

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J: What that interesting time as a J pop lover in high school, basically at the time, to buy Japanese music CD. Okay, the price was really expensive. Okay. It was almost like it was impossible to buy one as a high school student. Which basically means CDs very expensive in Japan.

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J: Other one, because of Korean companies cannot import Japanese CDs. OK? Meaning the availability is very low in Korea. So people if, you know I buy some CD, For example if my parents or my uncle went to Japan, Ok.

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J: I usually asked. “Can you please buy a CD for me? I want that and that”. And I got it and the next day when I go to school I showed it to my friend and “You know I saw, I bought this and this one” something like that.

The scarcity makes it more important, right.

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In Japan, the Japanese music industry in terms of market size, still is number two in the world, right after the United States. So, Japan's music industry is not failing at all. Still, it is maintaining its size and that is really quite strong enough. However, the big difference between J pop and K pop is international popularity.

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J: Now, Japan's, Japanese music industry has developed with technology, which means basically: when Sony developed Walkman, Japanese companies knew there is a huge consumption for music. So, you develop cassette tape and then later you move to CDs. So, always you should have something to play the music.

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J: That means basically, if the international fans want to consume Japanese music, they have to buy cassettes and CDs. Exports.

But what if there is no export but consumers can access those contents, and that is completely different story.

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J: That's Internet, actually, alright? Right now, before, Japan has number two music industry which is very large. Japanese companies they developed really well-developed copyright system.

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J: Because royalty is very important and they have to make good money in order to give the money to the songwriters, singers, you know, all the members. So, they made really complicated copyright system, which is well-developed. But the birth of Internet and digitalization, the situation is completely different.

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J: This basically means copyright hinders the distribution of music right now via Internet.

Still for Japan you need the copyright and if you go to Youtube you cannot find J pop online. Because the copyright is really strong.

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J: In Korea, it's a completely different story.

Korea was messy and people, they didn’t respect copyright at all.

The singers, they didn’t, and the companies, they didn’t. And they didn’t care about copyright.

So in 1990s, a lot of people were criticizing for the copyright infringement of consumer, they said there is no future for K pop and it will kill Korean music industry.

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J: But with Internet, actually people did copy a lot of music from CD and casette tape and it can be moved freely without paying anything. But they just uploaded online. Then the international fans, they discovered K pop.

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J: Especially young students you know, for them, ten euro is something, although ten euros is nothing for us. So without paying anything, contents are available and it’s they can enjoy it and whenever they liked it they just downloaded it

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J: So it's a completely different thing. Also, as I explained, during the 1990s, Korean K pop enhanced its quality a lot. So it's a good quality, it’s interesting.

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J: Also, another aspect: because the way people consume K pop music is very different.

I mean it's not just K pop actually, but nowadays because they are using computer, tablet, PC, and smartphone.

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J: The way you consume music is not just to listen to music, but it is more like listening to music at the same time as watching the music video, right?

This is why the Korean companies they also focus on group dance. They need to provide something visible, a visual image that can please the consumers.

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J: This is why some people criticize boy band, they have makeup on their face. They say it’s not really man, macho, whatever. But then, actually this is related to the visual theme. Group dance too, in order to increase the impact of group so they do their group dance. This became a unique feature of K pop.

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J: Basically, K pop use these kind of things. Whenever they release new song, they have their own channel on YouTube, and then right next day or right after the next hour, you can watch the new music video and then are available online.

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J: It’s not just K pop but also Korean dramas, after 1 hour you can see it, without paying anything, people already put the subtitles in English, Japanese, Vietnamese, Turkish. So the contents, they are available online and the people enjoy it.

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J: The next day, the young people, they love to talk about something new. They say: “Ooh that BTS just released a new song, this is awesome”. But when it comes J pop, because copyright is well-protected, the new song--you know, people know there is something new, but they are not available online. So, you know, they cannot talk about it.

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S: I see so it's a big difference of access in terms of access, for the consumer. So that, that makes a lot of sense about the growing popularity of K pop and other Korean soft culture products.

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S: But it also then it makes me wonder of course I guess they get revenue from YouTube channels.

But otherwise, how there's a reason why the Japanese copyright laws were so strict. As you said, because of royalties to the artists and various people who produce the music and the videos. So how does that work? Sounds to me like for K-pop as a whole and for the kind of Korean cultural brand this is all very good, but are the artists themselves, the people who work on these, on the content, are they being compensated, do you think, fairly?

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J: Yes, very good question, you are right. Copyright is there in order to guarantee some sort of income or revenue for singers and songwriters, that’s true. When there was no internet, copyright was very important but with Internet actually the revenue source has changed. Which means basically, for a long time it was just CDs and cassettes. Nowadays, it’s not the case anymore because, in Japan it’s the same. How many CD players do we have at your place?

S: Right.

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J: Okay then why do people buy CDs? Okay so this means basically, people buy CDs not to listen to the music there, but because there is something others. Now people, they don’t buy CDs and Korean companies realize this.

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J: Which means basically it looks like they don't make a lot of money from sales of CDs but they found another source, which is Youtube. It used to be very interesting because now income is related to the advertisement. So if Korean contents have a lot of advertisement people click it, and Youtube makes a lot of money and then Youtube gives some part of the money to Korean companies

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J: So, content itself doesn’t make any money, but for YouTube the number of clicks or advertisement--that is more important. They know that. The Japanese company Johnny's asked YouTube: "Hey YouTube, you have music video by fans so for that you have to pay copyright fee”. YouTube says: "Excuse me, it is not us, we just provide consumers with a platform. It is your fans who would like to share your music with others. So we don't need to pay anything”.

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J: Alright, then Johnny’s says: “In this case we'll do something. And you will hear something from our lawyer”. Then YouTube: “Alright if you don't like, well okay, that is fine but that is your, you know, your mistake”.

S: Johnny's is probably Japan's most famous music entertainment company that represents the biggest boybands.

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J: Later if you go to YouTube anonymously and then just put J pop and K pop and click, just in the same ratio, one to one, so BTS, Girl's Generation, AKB48, and on the right side, the recommended videos, you can see a lot of K Pop. Because by using K pop contents they don’t have to pay copyright fees. Korean companies can take a lot of a lot fees by increasing the number of clicks from watchers.

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J: Okay? so people watch it. It's not just music video songs but people keep using Korean content to make their own content. Like music reaction video. Okay, for example you make a kind of BTS music video and the copyright fee goes not to you but to BTS. This makes it you know a totally different game. The second, it is not just about Youtube, but also huge secondary sources, such as concerts.

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J: Alright. CDs and cassettes you can copy, but a concert you cannot copy at all, actually. You can enjoy or you can watch the concerts online, but this is completely different from the on-site concert. So the people that listen to K-pop and they love it, and then there’s a huge desire, or demand: oh I want to go to the concert of a K pop group. Okay, so they go there, a lot. I think it was 2018.

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J: One of K pop group, Big Bang, their concert ranked number 10 in terms of sales. Recently since I think last year, since 2019, a BTS concert was one of the most successful concerts. They made a lot of money. So the concert is a huge thing.

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J: Another interesting aspect, they also produce a lot of secondary goods. Some goods have a members' face, or you know like a scarf, and then accessories like you know so this is another income source. Of course, we copied that from Japan.

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S: OK. So early on, K pop included some elements from J-Pop and American hip-hop, as you've said. But you mentioned adding qualities to improve upon those elements. What kind of quality exactly are you talking about?

J: Okay well alright, well you have to understand the history actually. Which means basically when you buy CD or cassette, basically there are eight or ten music, right? And among eight or ten music, how many do you like?

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J: Do you like all of the songs, or one or two songs?

S: Right, usually the latter.

J: Exactly. Well, in Korea, as I told before, we did not respect copyright, which means they just use really good songs. The companies, they realise, ok, there are some people, illegal venders, who just collect good songs from group A, group B and group C and they make some kind of compilation album.

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J: Then the Korean companies realize this is not an album, this is about one song, we have to produce good, quality songs. Now, within Korea they figured out, it is almost impossible to produce good quality song. So initially the SM Entertainment they contacted Japan.

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J: There's huge differences at the time, in Korea the man genre of music, song, is the ballad. You know basically, mellow. But Japan has a completely different past, which means because of the Walkman, it was widely available in Japan. A long time ago the earphones, the quality was not good, right?

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J: So, if you want people to listen to the music really well. You have to increase--or make the beats really strong, okay? So, in the 90s the Korean music, the Japanese music was really like you know noisy to Korean ears, right? So, Korea contacted these Japanese companies then they received some music but from Korea’s view, the consumer’s view the music is not good, it’s too noisy too much, you know, they said alright, what we have to do.

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And then the SM entertainment people, they travelled around Europe and then they found one music which was really, really nice. Then they contacted the songwriter. The songwriter said: “I don't know who you are, I don’t know Korea, I don’t know SM entertainment, but if you like I can give you the right to use my music”. So the SM entertainment they have one girl band, they released a cover song, Dreams Come True.

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J: Actually, that was written by a Finnish songwriter. It was very successful in Korea. Then they said alright it’s not Japan, it's Europe.

We need to go to Europe, find some songwriters, then work together. They came. Since then, SM Entertainment has had a lot of collaboration with Swedish, Danish, Finnish musicians.

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J: Actually, I visited Stockholm to meet one of the songwriters, a famous one. Yeah. I talked to him, and then he also wrote a lot of songs for Britney Spears. The same person, his comment was very interesting, he said “I was the one who wrote music for Britney Spears. I was the one who is writing some music for Girls Generation and Big Bang. And people criticizing Korean bands because the music is not good. I don’t understand”. That’s what he said. But anyway, so by collaborating with the best musicians, of course Swedish music is well known because there is Abba and a lot of famous groups before.

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J: So by collaborating with them, the Korean music companies were able to enhance the music quality, right? Now, Korea produced and then they release on YouTube and a lot of consumers you know leave comments, “ I like that, I didn’t like that, you can be better if you add something.” Korean music has a lot of contact with consumers.

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J: By doing so, Korean companies got to know, “Oh, the audiences like this kind of music, that kind of music." If you pay some money to Youtube, they give you more detailed information, like “people from Japan like this music, people from, you know, Finland like that kind of music, people from France like this kind of music” etc. So, the companies they do have a lot of datasets, right?

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J: This is why if you go over The BTS song, or the Girls’ Generation or whatever they have very different genres. Somehow, they are testing it at the same time. They’re trying to figure out what kind of music people like.

Okay so, kind of using the foreign ability and nowadays a lot of Korean companies also work alone. They can work alone, already. The market, you know, is very sophisticated.

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S: So there is international collaboration but also close systematic attention paid to consumer preferences. Thank you so much, the history and state of K pop is really fascinating.

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S: We were speaking earlier and you mentioned you're working on three book simultaneously so. And also, may I say congratulations on your new baby. So you have a lot happening right now.

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Best wishes to you and thank you so much for taking time out of your really extremely super busy schedule to talk with us.

J: Thank you very much again for inviting me.

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And to our listener's thank you for joining the Nordic Asia podcast showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia. Thanks again.

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You have been listening to the Nordic Asia podcast.