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Lee Ji-sun (28) is an office worker with a firm in Seoul¡¯s Gwanghwamun area. Before arriving at her office, she likes to drop in at Mister Donut to enjoy a breakfast consisting of coffee and a doughnut. Her favorite dress brand is Uniqlo. After hours, she frequently goes to Pomunoki, an omelet restaurant in Sinchon, with friends. Sometimes after dinner, she goes to a pub called Haikaraya. What these brands have in common is that all of them are Japanese.
Lee takes no great interest in the Japanese culture, but before she knows it, a lot of Japanese culture has seeped into her life. Experts say in the past, when Koreans were poor, they wished to buy Japanese-made electronic appliances as an expression of worship for Japan, an advanced country. But now they are following trends in Japanese clothing, or dietary patterns as part of the well-being trend -- a different kind of boom of all things Japanese.
Mister Donut only came to Korea in April last year. Unlike American doughnuts, Mister Donut's doughnuts are more to Koreans' taste as they are more chewy and blander than the original. Korea's first Mister Donut outlet, a 100 sq. m store that opened in Myeong-dong, Seoul, earns average daily sales of W6 million (US$1=W939). "The amount is nearly double the sales of our rival shops in the vicinity,¡± a Mister Donut staffer said. ¡°On the strength of this popularity, we're planning to increase the number of shops to about 30 this year."
Japanese trends are also conspicuous on the imported goods shelves of department stores. In case of the Shinsegae Department Store, foodstuffs of about 3,000 brands imported from some 20 countries are displayed on the food shelves. Among them, Japanese goods are the bestsellers. The most popular are fermented soybeans, soy sauce, soybean paste, candy and ramen noodles, which account for 40 percent of the all imported foodstuffs, a Shinsegae staffer says. In the case of fermented soybeans, a health food, only three brands were sold in 2005, but now eight brands are being imported. Sales have been increasing by approximately 50 percent every year."
Japanese brands are also showing bullish tendency in the clothing market. The physique and taste of Koreans are much closer to those of their Japanese counterparts than to those of Westerners. Since it opened its first shop in Korea in September 2005, Uniqlo has been growing rapidly. Annual sales have drastically increased to W50 billion. Yoo Hwa (26), an office worker, recently went to the Uniqlo store in Myeong-dong. She said she began taking interest in this brand when a friend who had come back from studying in Japan gave her a Uniqlo T-shirt. "In the shop, you can buy superior-quality clothes, including cashmere knitwear at low prices,¡± she says.
¡±And you don¡¯t have to worry about passing fads because the clothes don't have labels on them." Uniqlo sells a cashmere knitwear item for W100,000, a pair of pants for W40,000, and a jacket for W70,000.
Large Internet shopping malls are also introducing Japanese-style clothing. Lotte.com is currently operating a mall-in-mall website, www.tokyoholic.com, in affiliation with the Marui Department Store in Japan. GSeShop has a mall-in-mall called Nissen Fashion Mall, an import agent for Japanese clothing brands. KT Mall is managing a mall-in-mall called japanenjoy, another import agent website for Japanese clothes. And private blogs and small online shopping malls are also busy introducing Japanese clothing brands.
Lee Sang-hun, director of the Institute of Business Incubation, said, "Until recently, many businesspeople were reluctant to deal in Japanese franchise brands due to difficulties in importing them. But now an increasing number of firms are handling Japanese brands to meet consumer demands for superior quality. In addition, goods imported from Japan maintain relatively high price competitiveness because of the weakening yen, so a lot more goods are being imported from Japan now."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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