Asian Journal of Communication

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rajc20

Between ironic pleasure and exotic nostalgia:

audience reception of Thai television dramas
among youth in China

Amporn Jirattikorn

To cite this article: Amporn Jirattikorn (2021) Between ironic pleasure and exotic nostalgia:
audience reception of Thai television dramas among youth in China, Asian Journal of
Communication, 31:2, 124-143, DOI: 10.1080/01292986.2021.1892786

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2021.1892786

Published online: 08 Mar 2021.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 189

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rajc20
ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION
2021, VOL. 31, NO. 2, 124–143
https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2021.1892786

Between ironic pleasure and exotic nostalgia: audience

reception of Thai television dramas among youth in China
Amporn Jirattikorn
Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Thai television dramas, which have been a staple of the nation’s TV Received 18 January 2020
landscape for over five decades, have recently expanded their Revised 29 October 2020
popularity to other Asian countries. Besides being exported for Accepted 12 February 2021
telecast, enthusiastic fans who voluntarily provide fan-subtitled
KEYWORDS
versions in various languages have made Thai dramas widely Thai television dramas;
accessible. The paper takes the case of Chinese viewers watching audience reception; ironic
Thai television dramas to examine how Thai dramas evoke pleasure; cultural differences;
different kinds of involvement and responses from young Chinese cultural stratification; China
audiences, who today can choose from a multitude of
entertainment options. As Thailand is not considered to share
cultural proximity with, nor is it more ‘advanced’ than China, the
paper seeks to investigate the aspects of audience reception
while examining the positions of both sending and receiving
countries, and the dynamics of relationships between countries in
the region. The paper employs the concepts of cultural proximity
and cultural differences, arguing that cultural proximity does not
necessarily lead to positive reception towards transnational texts.
Furthermore, the consumption of any popular culture needs not
be understood from audience reception analysis alone, but
cultural and political relationships between the sending and
receiving countries also need to be taken into account.

Introduction
Thai television dramas, which have been a staple of the nation’s TV landscape for over
five decades, tend to be what Thai people call ‘lakorn nam nao’ (polluted soaps). The
namnao or polluted characteristic lies in their portrayal of unreal life, presenting a
visual grammar of lavish and luxurious settings, over-exaggerated acting, and melodra-
matic plots. In the late 2000s, Thai television dramas surprisingly started to gain popu-
larity in Asia. Thai dramas entered Chinese television channels beginning in 2003,
followed by the success of many drama series in the later years. Following the success
in China’s television market, the past decade saw the interest of Thai television
dramas expand to many countries in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, Cambodia,
Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Although there has not been a regular flow of Thai cultural products to Asia and the
era of export for telecast in China has waned, the internet has changed the entire way of

CONTACT Amporn Jirattikorn ampornfa@gmail.com Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University
© AMIC/WKWSCI-NTU 2021
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 125

disseminating and viewing regional dramas. The emergence of enthusiastic fans who
obtain foreign cultural products, translate the text, then share subtitles for viewing,
has made Thai dramas more widely accessible. Today’s Asian audience of Thai TV
dramas have been built through the energies of those dedicated fans who have popular-
ized Thai drama content in diverse languages. Along with the fan-subtitled versions, web
TV in China began to buy copyright of Thai dramas to stream on their websites. This
suggests a new phase for the popularization of Thai television dramas in a digital era.
The outward flow of cultural content from Thailand, situated in a region that has long
been on the receiving end of global cultural flows, signifies a new media era where global
media flows have been decentralized. As Thai dramas navigate their entry into the intra-
regional flows, how have they been received by young audiences living with diverse
images and narratives from various parts of the world? What kind of cultural experience
do viewers receive from consuming Thai TV dramas that differ from dramas from other
economies? This paper considers the case of audience in mainland China to explore how
Chinese audience receive Thai TV dramas, and how Thai dramas evoke different kinds of
involvement and responses from young Chinese audiences who today can choose from
popular cultural products from around the world.
China provides an interesting case through which to examine aspects of audience
reception of Thai dramas for several reasons. First, Thailand is not considered as part
of inter-Asia regional flows that involves multilateral media connections of the East
Asian nations, whereby common cultural elements are often shared. Therefore, the
notion of cultural proximity, as well as a sense of ‘shared modernity’, which Iwabuchi
(2002) has suggested in the case of Taiwanese, Korean, and Singaporean audiences
watching Japanese trendy dramas, may not apply. Secondly, although Asia is now a
network across which all kinds of popular culture flows, Iwabuchi (2002) argues that
audience reception was influenced by social background and the state of capitalist devel-
opment of both sending and receiving countries. Similarly, as Siriyuvasak and Shin
(2007) have suggested, in the Asian pop pyramid structure, only the upper levels can
cross borders and become Asian pop, and other levels are still local. In this ‘Asian pop
pyramid structure’, Thailand is not considered as ‘advanced’ as Japan, Korea or
Taiwan whose cultural products are consumed widely in China. Hence, when its
popular culture can cross the cultural hierarchy to gain popularity in China (see Li,
2018; Tan, 2018), it is interesting to examine how it is received by Chinese audience
who today consume cultural products from various sources. Using interview materials
from 27 Chinese viewers across the country, the paper attempts to understand cultural
experiences the Chinese audience have when consuming cultural products from Thai-
land. How do Thai TV dramas provide emotional and cultural resources not available
in dramas from other economies?

Literature review
The rapid flows of Asian cultural products over the past two decades have created a
fissure in Western-centered globalization (Kim, 2009). As Thussu (2007) has suggested,
the global media landscape in the first decade of the twenty-first century represents a
complex terrain of multi-vocal, multimedia, and multi-directional flows. Against the
background of a cultural imperialism approach, which argues that media content of
126 A. JIRATTIKORN

one country can dominate other countries’ media consumption and consequently dom-
inate their values and ideologies, scholars working on regional cultural flows proposed
the idea of ‘cultural proximity’. Against the cultural imperialism approach, which
views audiences as being easily duped, the cultural proximity concept argues that local
audiences actively consume foreign cultural products that are more relevant and closer
to their local customs and values.
Cultural proximity is a complex notion with many dimensions, including language, as
well as religion, dress, music, non-verbal codes, humor, story pacing, and ethnic types
(Iwabuchi, 2002). Straubhaar (2003) adds other factors for considering cultural proximity
such as gender images, lifestyle, knowledge about other lifestyles, values, and education.
The existence of geo-linguistic and geo-cultural TV markets is evidence of the notion of
cultural proximity. Iwabuchi (2002) indicates that the popularity of Japanese dramas
among Taiwanese audiences lies in proximities of physical appearance, and the sense
that Taiwan shares the same modern temporality with Japan. Scholars argue that the
success of Korean cultural products in Asia may also be attributed to the notion of cul-
tural proximity (Jung, 2009; Kim, 2007; Richstad, 1998). In the case of Korean dramas,
Jung (2009) and Kim (2007), among others, indicate a sense of Asianness, which lies
in shared norms of beauty, mannerisms, family-oriented values, and respect for elders
as contributing to the positive reception of Korean dramas in Asian countries.
Similar to the cultural proximity concept, Hoskins and Mirus (1988) developed a
concept of ‘cultural discount’ referring to diminished appeal when a media product
crosses borders, as viewers find it difficult to identify with the style, values, beliefs, insti-
tutions and behavioral patterns of the country in question. They contend that the cul-
tural discount concept helps explain why the US has been successful as the world’s
leading exporter in the international TV programming trade: because they have the
least cultural discount effect. Viewing cultural discount concept as being Western-
centric and ignoring about historical context and structural issues underlying transna-
tional cultural flows, Iwabuchi proposed the concept of ‘cultural odorlessness’. Cultural
odor explains ‘cultural features’ of a country of origin and images or ideas of its national,
in most cases stereotyped, way of life as being associated positively with a particular
product in the consumption process (Iwabuchi, 2002, p. 27). Iwabuchi argued that Japa-
nese cultural products such as comics and cartoons, video games, and consumer pro-
ducts contain ‘cultural odorlessness’ as corporations try to avoid the articulation of
the national image with the cultural products. To Iwabuchi, these cultural products
are ‘culturally odorless’ as ‘lacking any nationality’ (Iwabuchi, 2002, p. 28). Nonetheless,
Iwabuchi contended that cultural odorlessness cannot be explained merely from the pro-
duction side as the receiving countries also hybridized and indigenized foreign cultural
products in various ways.
Criticism of the concept of cultural proximity emerged as scholars argued that cultural
proximity is often linked to a sense of cultural essentialism. Furthermore, the concept of
cultural proximity is hardly problematized in relation to nationalism. As O’Regan (1992)
argues, cultural products originating from culturally proximate countries can be per-
ceived as more threatening to local culture. The cultural proximity argument over-sim-
plifies and conceals the complicated issues that involve multiple political economic
factors, including nationalist sentiments toward the sending country, and cultural
policy, as well as multiple ways in which an audience defines what is ‘proximate’.
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 127

This paper attempts to find explanations as to why Thai dramas are well received in
China. As stated, Thailand is not considered to share cultural proximity with, nor is it
more ‘advanced’ than, China (Chan, 2016). What is it then that attracts a Chinese audi-
ence to watch Thai dramas? Besides, Thailand did not intend to export its cultural pro-
ducts to other countries. Unlike what the Korean government did in the 1997 economic
crisis by developing a policy aiming to export its cultural products, the outward flows of
Thai cultural products can be considered as having happened by accident. The ideas of
cultural odorlessness or cultural discount have not been part of the strategies Thai TV
dramas employ to export themselves. Instead of cultural proximity, the paper follows
what Chua (2008) and Iwabuchi (2002) have suggested: that cultural distance or foreign-
ness can be the major element that attracts the audience to watch a transnational cultural
product. Iwabuchi contends that foreignness can be seen as more attractive because the
program is seen as ‘exotic’, ‘different’ or less ‘boring’ (2002, p. 26). This paper attempts to
explore what parts of Thai TV dramas audiences define as proximate and foreign, and
what in fact attracted them to watch Thai dramas.
Since the emergence of an Asian popular culture trend, not only has the concept of cul-
tural proximity or cultural discount been often used as an explanation, but the term ‘Asian
modernity’ has also become commonplace to explain the reception of intra-Asia cultural
flows. Chua and Iwabuchi (2008) proposed a framework for analyzing pan-Asian trans-
national pop cultural flows based on Asian modernity in two situations: flow from a lower
developed country to a higher developed country, and flow from a higher developed
country to a lower developed country (cited in Tai, 2013, p. 73). While the former pro-
vides the audience a nostalgic gaze, as in the case of a Japanese audience watching
Hong Kong dramas, the latter provides a ‘future-oriented gaze’, as in the case of many
countries in Asia consuming Japanese products. In the latter case, the present of Japan
is the future of the rest of Asia, where capitalist consumerism is less developed, thus
enabling audiences from the other nations to desire, identify and embrace Japan as a rep-
resentation of their future (Chua, 2008, p. 82). As the notion of modernity is not mono-
lithic, Asian modernity desired by a Chinese female audience differs from the above cases,
as it is based on a hybridization of both modern (e.g. pursuit of choice in love and careers)
and traditional values (conservative family and sexuality values). Chua and Iwabuchi
(2008) conclude that the term ‘modern’ is fluid and ambiguous.
The Asian modernity framework thus contends that the consumption of pop culture is
closely tied to the social situation and the state of capitalist development of the sending
and receiving countries. Jirattikorn (2016) argues that the reason Thai TV dramas gained
popularity in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar is that they depicted modernity in terms of
material wealth, display of new technologies and a more ‘advanced’ economy that some
of these countries’ viewers aspire to experience. Chua (2008:, p. 82) argues that among
East Asian countries – Japan, South Korean, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore – the
audiences imagine themselves as part of the linear temporality of capitalist consumerist
modernity, i.e. sharing the same level of modernity. This formation allows them to dis-
tance themselves from their counterparts and media products from less developed econ-
omies as being ‘backward’ Others who are also ‘Asians’. While Thailand may be seen as
‘backward’ in the eyes of many Chinese audience members (Chan, 2016), the rise of Thai
popular cultural products in China needs to be further examined in relation to the larger
context of Thailand’s position within Asian modernity.
128 A. JIRATTIKORN

With regard to an audience reception approach, the concern is what happens when
images and narratives cross national and cultural borders. The earlier trend of transna-
tional audience reception was dominated by the success of Dallas, a series that enjoyed
global popularity in the 1980s. Scholars discovered the multiple ways in which the show
was given meaning by different transnational viewers (Ang, 1985; Liebes, 1988; Liebes &
Katz, 1990). Of particular relevance here is Ang’s seminal work (1985) on the Dutch
audience watching Dallas. Ang discovered two major ways in which the show was
given meaning by different viewers. Ang argued that those who loved the show
adopted a viewing position that affirms the emotional realism of a ‘tragic structure of
feeling’. While they were attracted to the show by the heightened emotional highs and
lows of the narrative, others disdained the overtly sentimental character of the show.
Ang refers to the latter mode of enjoyment, when audience members say that ‘I love it
because it is so bad,’ as ‘ironic pleasure’. Ironic pleasure can be read as a form of cultural
capital that empowers those who possess it to construct a relativist relationship to tele-
vision; one that is appreciative of its pleasures, but does not fully succumb to them; it
is ‘in the know’ about its textual tricks and therefore able to good humouredly play
with them (Ang, 2007).
In the following sections, the paper will illustrate that when watching Thai television
dramas, some members of the Chinese audience express irony in a manner similar to
those in Ang’s study. But just as viewing any TV program today is an active, conscious
choice, shaped in part by the very multitude of entertainment options, those who do not
like the show can simply switch channels. We cannot conclude that people like to watch a
show from an ironic perspective. What makes people watch a show they look down upon
hence needs to be further examined. This paper attempts to develop a more complicated
and integrative approach, which investigates reception analysis while carefully examining
the positions of both sending and the receiving countries and the dynamics of relation-
ships between countries in the region.

Methodology
Data presented in this paper is the result of my long-term research on the cross-cultural
reception of Thai television dramas in the region. Between 2014 and 2016, I conducted
field research in Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar, looking at audience reception and
factors facilitating the flows of Thai dramas. In 2017, I expanded my research to cover
three additional countries: China, Indonesia and the Philippines. I also revisited
Vietnam to update research on changing trends in the consumption and (re)production
of Thai television dramas. As for China, I made three field visits between 2017 and 2018
in the northern cities, including Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, and Beijing, and in the
southern cities Guangzhou and Hong Kong. I conducted in-depth interviews with
about 27 viewers regarding various aspects of consuming Thai television dramas. I
have also interviewed three Thai drama fan groups who dedicated their time to subtitle
Thai dramas into Chinese language. Such fans are called ‘fansubbers’ in this paper.
The viewers whom I interviewed in China consisted of 23 women and 4 men, from
19–36 years old. All have university education or are currently attending university.
As for those who have a university degree, they work as lawyers, teachers or workers
in IT-related businesses. Most of the 27 interviewed have watched Thai dramas for
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 129

between one and five years. While the majority were introduced to Thai dramas by their
friends, a few had watched Thai dramas since they were young with their family, during
the time when Thai television dramas were broadcast on Chinese satellite television. The
interviews usually lasted between one and two hours. They were conducted in Chinese
with the help of a translator who could speak both Thai and Chinese. The interviews
covered personal background, their patterns of consumption, views on gender relations,
the portrayal of Thai culture in the Thai dramas, as well as their view on Thai TV dramas
in comparison with other national TV dramas.

Thai television drama: A new player in the Asian Media scene

The outward flows of Thai television dramas initially occurred in its neighboring
countries of Thailand, with whom Thailand has cultural and linguistic commonalities.
This geo-linguistic-cultural audience, that is Cambodia, Laos, and some ethnic minorities
living along the Thailand-Myanmar border, has consumed Thai TV dramas for more
than two decades due to a lack of domestic production and the perception of Thailand
as the main reference of modernity in those places. Their channels of consumption
consist of spillover signals, illegally dubbed VCDs and DVDs, and direct satellite
signals from Thailand. In new marketplaces such as Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines,
and China, audiences have been familiar with Thai television dramas for only the past
decade. These new viewers watched them through two main channels: local companies
or satellite TV channels imported for telecast in their countries such as China and
Vietnam, and fan-subtitled Thai series in various languages. In some countries such as
the Philippines and Indonesia, where there is little demand for imported Thai dramas
on television, audiences mostly watch them through fan-subtitled versions.
As for China, the opening up to the importation of non-native audiovisual products,
which began in the late 1980s, was followed by the popularity of Hong Kong, Taiwan
and South Korean TV dramas. South Korean dramas saw their highest influx into the
China market in the early 2000s. However, they began to lose favor with the Chinese audi-
ence from 2006 for various reasons: the overemphasis on cast and disregard for strong plo-
tlines; a slow importation rate, which led to reruns; and the end of the Chinese broadcasters’
monopolistic favoritism towards Korean dramas (Saejang, 2019, p. 140). These reasons led
to Thailand becoming China’s prime TV drama exporter. The success of Thai dramas in
China was also credited to a Thai-Chinese media agency, Han Media Culture, which pio-
neered the importation of Thai soap operas into China. Between 2002 and 2011, Han Media
Culture imported more than 80% of the Thai dramas in China (Jirattikorn, 2016).
The most successful Thai TV drama that gave rise to the popularity of Thai dramas in
China was Battle of Angels aired in 2009. It featured female flight attendants fighting over
male pilots. After Battle of Angels was aired on Anhui Satellite TV and generated massive
public buzz in China, national and regional channels began to televise Thai dramas, total-
ing around 8–10 series per year (Phongpatcharathornthep, 2012). As Thai dramas began to
gain popularity, in 2012, then prime minister of Thailand, Abhisit Vejjajiva, signed an
agreement with Chinese government officials that allowed Thai TV dramas to be exempted
from the yearly allowance and quotas for export to China (Hu, 2013: 227). In a thesis about
the portrayal of homosexual images in Thai TV dramas in China, Jooyin Saejang (2019)
states the reason Thai TV dramas were exempted from China’s tight control: Thai soap
130 A. JIRATTIKORN

operas are not remarkably intellectually challenging and thought-provoking. In a similar

way, Zhao and Keane (2013) contend that fans of Thai drama are placed on the lowest rung
of cultural stratification in China. In the following, I will also discuss the ‘unintellectual’
aspect of Thai dramas, which fans often commented upon, to argue for the unique ways
in which the Chinese audience consumes Thai dramas.
Beginning in the 2010s, China saw the growth of the online audiovisual programming
industry. With the help of communication technology, fansubbers of Thai dramas began
to emerge. Along with the changing practice of Chinese youth who prefer watching
online entertainment to television, more and more fansub groups translated Thai
dramas to distribute on online platforms, as alternative channels to the one strictly con-
trolled by the Chinese state. Today, there are more than 10 fansub groups translating
Thai dramas in response to the demand of the audience to watch Thai dramas online.
Along with this, large commercial websites such as Tencent and Youku began to see
the revenue opportunities of Thai dramas, and started to buy the copyrights of Thai
dramas to broadcast on their websites.
Before discussing the reception of Thai dramas by the Chinese audience, let me briefly
discuss some of the characteristics of Thai television dramas. Thai television dramas,
known in Thai as ‘lakorn’, are shown at prime-time on Thai television channels, which
generally starts at 8.30 pm. A series usually runs for about three months, airing two to
three episodes per week. An episode of a prime-time drama series is two hours long includ-
ing commercials. Prime-time drama series present a melodramatic story line, typically fea-
turing romance between a poor girl and a rich boy. The presence of an evil character,
usually female, whose actions are over-exaggerated, is essential in Thai dramas. Prime-
time drama series before 2015 aired on three main channels: channels 3, 5, and 7.
In 2015, a switch from analogue to digital forms of transmission resulted in the
increased numbers of television operators. Consequently, some of the newcomers into
this business have experimented with new genres of TV dramas in order to find a
niche market. Some opted to ‘remake’ series of trendy dramas from Korea, Japan or
Taiwan. Trendy dramas, created in the late 1980s in Japan, typically portray the
romance of a young couple living in the city. Although trendy dramas, later adopted
by Korea and Taiwan, have gradually developed into many different formulas, the
term ‘trendy dramas’ here refers to dramas which involve stylish design, the romance
of young lovers, and beautiful landscapes and settings (Iwabuchi, 2002). Along with
the remakes of East Asian dramas, other companies turned to producing boys’ love
series, a type of drama that features young males in homosexual relationships. The
past decade has thus seen the development of Thai TV drama content from the melodra-
matic genre, the only genre that dominated the market previously, to teen dramas and
trendy dramas, as well as boys’ love series. The diversity of genres has also diversified
the Chinese audience’s taste, the point I shall turn to in the following.

Distancing and proximity in watching Thai dramas

Among 27 audience members whom I interviewed, their responses to the question why
they like watching Thai dramas and what elements in these dramas attracted them,
include ‘good looking actors and actresses’, ‘beautiful scenery’, and ‘easy to watch’. But
one particular feature recurring in the respondents’ comments was the appeal to the
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 131

‘differences’ portrayed in Thai dramas. Respondents cited the differences in terms of

visual and cultural aspects. This could be exemplified in the statement below:
I watch Thai dramas because Thai actors and actresses are beautiful. I can also see the way of
life of Thai people in the dramas, like the way Thai people eat and cook, traditional housing
style and wedding costumes. The characters always travel to many places. It is nice because I
cannot travel to many places now, but I can travel through watching those dramas (Respon-
dent#7, f, 21-year-old student, Ningbo).

After I watched Thai dramas, I wanted to travel to Thailand. Thai dramas always presented
beautiful scenery where the female and male leads travelled to, like the beach in Phuket. You
can also see street food and the lifestyle of Thai people. This makes me feel that Thailand will
be my next destination (Respondent#12, f, 24 -year-old reporter, Beijing).

Respondent#10 believes that many viewers in China enjoy watching Thai dramas because
these types of stories do not often appear in dramas from South Korea or the US.
They portrayed the unique culture of Thailand. There are no heartbroken romances like in
South Korean dramas, and no explicit sex scenes like in US dramas (Respondent#10, f, 21-
year-old student, Nanjing).

On the discursive level, most of the audience point to the difference in religion in which
Thailand and China believe. They often apply a Buddhist framework to relations with the
past, present and next life.
Because we don’t have religion, seeing characters in Thai dramas believing in the rule of
karma and reincarnation is interesting for us (Respondent#13, f, 23-year-old student,
Beijing).

Thai dramas tend to teach us about Buddhist morality like forgiveness and kindness. Parents
always teach their children to use mercy to solve problems. I like this aspect. It makes Thai
dramas light-hearted (Respondent#12, f, 24 -year-old reporter, Beijing).

Respondents also point to differences in terms of social class portrayed in those dramas:
Thai dramas often portray noble family. The male lead comes from a noble family and the
female lead is a commoner. It is quite interesting to see those things because this kind of
class structure has disappeared from our society already (Respondent#6, f, 22-year-old
student, Ningbo).

One respondent mixed Thai Buddhism with the aspect of noble class, and lamented the
lost past of China.
The most impressive aspect about Thailand I see in the dramas relates to Buddhism. I am
impressed to see the two noble aunts sitting at a table and the nephews sitting on the floor to
pay respect to them. We lost this kind of manner long before. We should call back such a
thing like this (Respondent#20, f, 26 -year-old foreign company worker, Guangzhou).

Remarkably, about one third of the respondents state the reason they watch Thai dramas
in juxtaposition to Korean dramas. Some said after watching Korean dramas for a few
years, they were tired of romantic love stories among young couples, which Korean
dramas tend to portray. In contrast, Thai TV dramas were filled with different plots
and new stories. In their view, Thai dramas presented a variety of stories such as those
of farmers, flight attendants, beauty pageants, flower growers, and so on; these are
132 A. JIRATTIKORN

new to them. Respondents also feel that ‘Korean stories’ and ‘a Korean look’ are too fam-
iliar to them.
Respondent#18: Korea is too close to China. Thailand is faraway, which makes it more inter-
esting (f, 24-year-old master student, Guangzhou).

Respondent#16: I was bored with Taiwanese and Korean dramas and was looking for some-
thing different. That’s when I found Thai dramas. Thai dramas have stories that differ from
what we Chinese have. I can see the belief in Buddhism in Thai dramas. They often talk
about the past life and the next life. The characters believe in the rule of karma and the
deeds they did in the past life. I think those elements make Thai dramas interesting (f,
24-year-old master student, Guangzhou).

Respondent#1: Korean series came to China before Thai series and we all are familiar with
their look already. Later when we were introduced to Thai actors and actresses, we were
thrilled with their new looks (f, 35-year-old English teacher, Hangzhou).

Considering respondents’ reasons for watching Thai dramas, we may assume that the
appeal to Thai dramas comes from the differences between Thailand and China.
Those differences are defined as physical appearances, costume, scenery and food. It
also includes religious beliefs and social class, which China seems to have lost. We
may also agree with Chua (2008) and Iwabuchi (2002) that cultural proximity is not
always the reason for attracting an audience. While the familiar can be ‘tiresome’, for-
eignness can be ‘exotic’, ‘different’ and less ‘boring’ and hence becomes a desired
feature in foreign programs. Here foreignness is foregrounded by many respondents
as part of the reason and pleasure for watching Thai dramas. While these foreign
elements seem to fit with the notion of ‘cultural odor’ referring to a product which
has various kinds of cultural association with the country of its invention (Iwabuchi,
2002), such images are inevitably stereotyped. As a matter of fact, the Chinese audience’s
gaze upon Thailand is enticed by feelings of nostalgia and exoticism. It is through their
exotic gaze that Thailand becomes a desired object of tourist imagination, and it is
through their nostalgic gaze that Thailand is appropriated as ‘borrowed nostalgia’. Iwa-
buchi defined borrowed nostalgia as ‘a frozen temporal lag between two cultures, when
‘our’ past and memory are found in ‘their’ present’ (Iwabuchi, 2002, p. 174). Young
Chinese audience members come to enjoy a sense of nostalgia for things they have
never actually experienced, through consuming Thai dramas.
On the other hand, audience attitudes towards Thai dramas in relation to Korean
dramas exemplify the problematic perception of cultural proximity, which does not
always lead to positive reception towards transnational texts. Several of the respondents
stated the reason they turned to Thai dramas was because Korean dramas are full of
romance between young couples, and after a few stories they were bored. For some,
the cultural proximity makes those series too familiar and hence boring. Others said
that they do not watch Korean dramas anymore, not only because they are too familiar,
but because the aspect of ‘proximate’ makes them feel a sense of ‘cultural theft’. Several of
them gave examples of many stories that Korean series produce and are believed to be
stolen from China.1
On another stance, a few of the respondents point to the conflicts between Korea and
China, which started in 2016 over the THAAD missile-defense system, which paved the
way for Thai dramas to become popular. In addition, Korean dramas were blocked on
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 133

Chinese online streaming sites during the THAAD conflicts. This may have led audiences
to turn to dramas from other economies, such as Thailand.
I think the reason now a lot of Chinese people turned to Thai dramas was because the inter-
national relations between China and Korea were no good anymore. In the past, we saw
many Korean actors perform in China. Now we see many Thai actors performing in
Chinese dramas. Some Chinese audience members also share this sentiment with the gov-
ernment (Respondent#12, f, 24 -year-old reporter, Beijing).

However, the reasons the audience gave for why they turned to Thai dramas in relation to
Korean dramas should not be understood from the aspect of proximity and foreignness
alone. As I attempt to show in the following, the audience is geographically located within
cultural spaces in which they are embedded. Therefore, we need to investigate reception
analysis in relation to the dynamics of international relations in the region.

Emotional realism and ironic pleasure

Besides the visual and cultural differences, one of the unique characteristics of Thai
dramas a few Chinese audience members cite is the melodramatic nature of Thai
dramas, which brings both positive and negative judgments from the audience. The
melodramatic aspect audience members often define includes the intense conflicts, the
high and low emotions, and the binary between the good and bad side. Particularly,
the unique feature of Thai dramas is the presence of the evil female character.
In every Thai drama series, there would be good people and bad people. In the end, bad guys
will lose or be punished. In Chinese dramas or Korean dramas, there are usually not many
bad characters. Especially in the idol dramas, I have not seen any bad characters, but in Thai
dramas, bad characters are a must (Respondent#7, f, 21-year-old student, Ningbo).

When I see the evil characters, I feel like wanting to have them die. It feels like watching a
real story. Korean dramas have no intense conflicts like Thai dramas. They also have no evil
female characters which make the stories in Thai dramas intense (Respondent#17, m, 20-
year-old student, Guangzhou).

One respondent who is a fan of Sawan Biang, a series about revenge and tragic love invol-
ving a great deal of rape and torture, expressed her feelings towards emotional exchanges
between the male and female leads in the series as follow:
I keep watching this series 20 times already. Sometimes, I only watch the scene where ‘Kane’
and ‘Ann’ have dramatic scenes together. The emotional expression between the couple is
real to me (Respondent#16, f, 24-year-old master student, Guangzhou).

Like any melodramatic TV program, stories of Thai prime-time dramas often revolve
around the intrigues and struggles of romance and family life. Popular plot twists
involve incidents such as accidents, rapes, crime, or bankruptcy. Jealousy is always
present in the evil female characters. The female lead must overcome difficult circum-
stances in order to reach a happy ending, which includes true love, or the heroine’s rightful
place in society. As Brooks (1976) argues, melodrama secures its sentimental appeal in the
clear juxtaposition of victory and defeat, good and evil. Melodrama is typically the drama of
morality. What differs in Thai melodrama is the fixing of good and bad qualities in the
female characters, which on the one hand can be read as reflecting Buddhist ideology.
134 A. JIRATTIKORN

On the other, Thai melodrama profiles the model of the perfect woman for the nation. The
female protagonist must be a virgin, morally good woman who is oppressed or wronged by
an immoral woman. Eventually, she will endure and overcome the wrongdoings by her
own virtue. While the Chinese audience in this study may not buy into this didactic con-
notation in Thai dramas, the above comments illustrate that they derive pleasure from
what Ang (1985) calls ‘emotional realism’. Emotional realism is connoted through the
feeling that emotion portrayed in the series can be perceived as real. Even if at the level
of content the treatment is unrealistic, what is recognized as real is the feeling.
Here I need to clearly state that only about one fifth of respondents admit that they like
the emotional highs and lows of Thai dramas and derive pleasure from emotional
realism, while the rest adopt a critical reading of the very same characteristic of Thai
dramas. Ang (1985) claims that reading melodramatic imagination demands a cultural
competency most often shared by women. I found that this is true of my older respon-
dents, who say that they perceive emotional expression in Thai dramas as real. However,
even within the group of audience members who like Thai melodrama for its intense
conflicts and emotional highs and lows, they at the same time criticize Thai dramas
for the very same reasons.
When I asked my respondents about their impression of Thai dramas, the phase ‘no
brain is needed to watch Thai dramas’ came up very often. Such a comment refers to pre-
dictable stories and illogical elements in Thai dramas, and this element is often con-
trasted with Korean TV dramas.
Respondent#13: We always say this among our friends: ‘Don’t use your brain. Just watch it,
don’t think too much.’ If you use your brain, you will not get it. Basically, what keeps me watch-
ing Thai dramas is the good looking actors and actresses. (f, 23-year-old student, Beijing).

Respondent#20: The depth of character is what makes Korean dramas more realistic than
Thai dramas. Plots in Thai dramas are not logical. Usually the bad characters are bad for
no reason. They are always presented one-dimensionally. In Korean dramas, you can see
the depth of the characters. You will not hate or blame anyone because you understand
that in reality, it is like this (f, 26 -year-old foreign company worker, Guangzhou).

The acting of ‘evil’ female characters is often disdained by most of the respondents.
The evil female characters are very noisy. My friends always ask me if I am not exhausted
when watching Thai dramas (Respondent#12, f, 24 -year-old reporter, Beijing).

In Thai dramas, bad characters are so over-exaggerated. She always makes the same type of
angry-jealous face. To be bad, you can perform it in many deep emotional ways. In Korean
dramas, bad characters’ acting is really good. You can believe in it (Respondent#1, f, 35-
year-old English teacher, Hangzhou).

Considering such comments the audience members have towards Thai dramas, we
may assume that the realistic aspect seems to be an important part in making judgements
towards drama series. Gao (2016) points to dimensions of audience – perceived realism
as including a variety of reference such as settings, emotions, behaviors, and events.
Respondents in this research point to the ‘unrealistic’ aspects in Thai dramas; not only
in emotions and behaviors of the characters, but also the plots.
Thai dramas tend to have very strange plots. Like in Ugly Duckling, the female lead is the
daughter of a rich family. She had plastic surgery without knowing that she is allergic to
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 135

chemicals. It was a mistake. Then she went to the school for treatment and met with the
handsome boy, how could this be such a coincidence? In Angel Magic, she is a human
but her mother turns her into a bird, very strange. In Korean dramas, recently they tend
to have supernatural stories, like stories about mermaids, but they make it believable
(Respondent#15, f, 19-year old student, Beijing).

Recently, Thai dramas have stories about school life. They are not realistic. The character of
a teacher is acted not serious like a real teacher. I expected to see something close to what
school in Thailand is like, but they focus on romance in school rather than showing student
life (Respondent#7, f, 21-year-old student, Ningbo).

It should be noted that among the 27 audience members whom I interviewed, one third
state they do not watch Korean dramas anymore after they began to watch Thai dramas,
while the rest alternated between Thai and Korean dramas and others. The latter watch
Thai dramas when they feel there are no interesting Korean series during that period.
During the time of the interviews between 2017-2018, most of them claimed that there
were no interesting Korean dramas. As for Chinese dramas, many of them expressed feel-
ings of disdain for their own local programming. The above comment points to the belief
among audience members that although Korean dramas are sometimes boring, they
remain intellectually superior to Thai dramas.
The above comments again point to a similar reception in Ang’s study of Dallas, when
the Dutch audience associated ‘realistic’ with good and ‘unrealistic’ with bad. Scholars
working on ‘bad television’ claim that audience members make such comments in
order to create ‘symbolic boundaries’ between bad and good television. Even though
these viewers consume cultural objects they consider to be ‘low,’ they are not contami-
nated by them (McCoy & Scarborough, 2014). Within these ‘symbolic boundaries’
much of the Chinese audience has created, Thai dramas are classified as ‘inferior’
based on their aesthetics and unrealistic nature. Their view on Korean dramas reflect a
viewing experience which they identify as ‘human’ and displaying ‘believable’ character-
ization. Respondents use different phrases to convey what was essentially the same basic
idea about dramas not possessing ‘plausibility’.
But if Thai dramas are classified as ‘inferior’ and ‘unintellectual,’ what keeps the
audience watching Thai dramas? We may then assume that most of the audience
who adopt a viewing position of Thai dramas as bad television is what Ang calls
‘ironic pleasure’. Ironic pleasure is in fact a form of cultural capital that empowers
those who possess it to construct a sense of superiority to the show they watch.
Thai dramas are subjected to an ironic, mocking commentary in which it ‘is trans-
formed from a seriously intended melodrama to the reverse: a comedy to be
laughed at’ (Ang, 1985, p. 98). Just as those watching Dallas, who find pleasure
from watching a bad show, yet are able to good humouredly play with their viewing
of the show, viewers of Thai dramas can enjoy watching what they think of as not
so ‘intellectual,’ but they can poke fun at it. But as the next section will show, the audi-
ence do not simply enjoy Thai TV dramas for their emotional realism and ironic plea-
sure, they do bring their own socio-cultural context, and sometimes nationalism, into
their reading of Thai dramas. Moreover, viewing foreign dramas today is an active
choice as there are multiple entertainment options. Therefore, ironic pleasure alone
may not be enough to explain the pleasure the audience derives from watching Thai
dramas.
136 A. JIRATTIKORN

Asian Modernity: Where is Thailand in a Space of Asian Modernity?

Considering the way respondents comment upon the plausibility of Thai TV dramas,
we may assume that the Chinese audience does not perceive Thailand as a ‘space of
modernity’, as in the case of East Asian pop culture flows into Southeast Asia.
Unlike what Siriyuvasak and Shin (2007) suggest, that the consumption of K-pop by
Thai youth is based on foreign-envy, a consumption desire for cultural products
from a higher international hierarchy, Chinese audiences surely do not look at Thailand
as a model of Asian modernity. The comments above indeed echo the perception cir-
culated among Chinese netizens about a ‘chain of disdain’. A chain of disdain or chain
of contempt refers to a chain in descending order of taste among those who consume
cultural products. In the case of TV drama, the audiences of British dramas look down
on audiences of American dramas, while the audiences of American dramas look down
on audiences of Japanese dramas. Then, the audiences of Japanese dramas look down
on audiences of Korean dramas. Following at the end of the chain are people who are
fans of Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and Chinese domestic productions. Thai dramas are at
bottom and are looked down upon by audiences most out of all the above dramas
(Chen, 2017, p. 144). The comments below illustrate how my respondents project
upon their disdain chain of TV dramas:
I watch US dramas more than others. As for Thai productions, I only watch Thai films. The
reason I don’t watch Thai dramas is because they are all about romance, nothing in there
that you can use your brain in watching. Those dramas have stupid and implausible plots
like Princess Hours –how could the Prince fall in love with a commoner? (Respondent#8,
f, 32-year-old lawyer, Hangzhou)

I watch Thai dramas only for entertainment. If I want to get something out of a drama, I will
watch a UK series. Korean dramas aren’t that good. If I want something to think with, I’d
rather watch Japanese dramas (Respondent#6, f, 22-year-old student, Ningbo).

Overall I watch Korean dramas more than Thai. I watch a few Thai dramas that have good
stories. When watching Korean dramas, I will watch just one episode per night. But for Thai
dramas, I will watch the whole series at once because they are very easy to watch, you can
just fast forward. Most of the time, I am frustrated because it is very slow (Respondent#22, f,
20-year-old student, Guangzhou).

As fans of Thai dramas are placed on the lowest rung of cultural stratification in China,
most of them, when asked if they consider themselves fans of Thai dramas, claim that
they have a variety of tastes. They watch UK/US series along with Korean and Thai.
Others claim that they choose to watch only the ‘good’ Thai dramas, hence, they
create another layer of boundaries within the same set of national dramas. When
asked to give examples of what constitutes good dramas, some respondents’ answers
follow:
For me, when I watch trendy dramas like Full House or Kiss Me, I really enjoy them.
Although these are remakes of Korean and Japanese dramas, Thai versions are even
better than the original ones. The style is not like Thai dramas. The plot development is
fast. The chemistry between the two lead characters is good. The stories are real (Respon-
dent#24, f, 30-year-old office worker, Guangzhou).

I like Thai teen dramas because the actors and actresses are good looking and the stories are
relatable (Respondent#15, f, 19-year old student, Beijing).
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 137

Many Chinese audience members mention trendy dramas in juxtaposition to the melo-
dramatic genre, which audience members often refer to as suitable for their ‘mother’s
generation’. Most of the Chinese audience members with whom I had conversations
were those who began watching Thai dramas in the Internet era. They often commented
upon the melodramatic genre as unrealistic, over-exaggerated, suitable for their mother’s
generation.
Our mother’s generation likes melodramatic stories. I watched Thai dramas with my mother
10 years ago. Those genres are the same old thing, nothing new to me. They always have
many women fighting over one man, a lot of cat – fighting. We are the millennials, we’d
like to watch something closer to our generation (Respondent#3, m, 27-year old event orga-
nizer, Hangzhou).

In fact, the perceived differences of Thai dramas do not always imply a sense of dis-
tance in reading the text. My respondents show that they selectively choose what they can
identify with and what they feel distant to. Chua discusses the process of identifying and
distancing which could take place simultaneously. Audiences usually are alternating
between identification and distancing when the on-screen characters are ‘like me/us’
or ‘unlike me/us’. When identification/distancing takes place is entirely contingent on
who is watching and what is being watched (2008: 79-80). Young audiences of Thai
TV dramas, although some of them watch melodramatic stories, do not identify with
the ‘structure of feeling’ in those dramas. Instead, they identify with the themes and char-
acters in trendy dramas because these dramas offer a ‘realistic’ representation of young
people’s everyday urban experience. They depict young people’s yearning for love,
friendship, work and dreams, most of which the young audience defines as relatable.
While the appeal to Thai trendy dramas among many of my respondents may come
from several factors, i.e. the star-like charisma, the relatable urban lifestyle, the intimately
familiar of urban living, it is equally important to note that trendy dramas fulfill young
women’s passion for ideal love. Thai prime-time dramas, which usually were adapted
from romance novels, inevitably share the law of karma and Buddhist social values, an
ideology long-existing in Thai society. East Asian trendy or idol dramas, on the other
hand, by targeting a young female audience, tend to posit female desire and subjectivity
at the center of their narratives. By adopting plots and styles from East Asian trendy
dramas, Thai trendy dramas offer new narratives from female viewpoints and values,
something unprecedented in Thai dramas. This in turn attracts young female audience
members growing up in a post-socialist, marketizing China, whose problems, desires
and hope are different from those of their mothers’ generation. As opposed to Ang’s
‘tragic structure of feeling’, when their mothers’ generation identify with emotions and
recognition of human suffering in Thai melodrama, young audience members identify
with images representing ‘modern’ woman in pursuit of their own choice and career
in those remakes or original Thai trendy dramas.
Another genre of Thai dramas which increasingly attracts more Chinese fans is boys’
love series. Boys’ love (BL) has typically been identified with Japanese manga, whose
stories portray two young men as the focus of a love interest. Japanese BL manga
became popular in Thailand around the beginning of the 2000s. Following the popularity
of Japanese BL manga, Thai BL literature in the form of short stories or novels has been
written and shared online. Recently, television companies began to pick up this trend by
138 A. JIRATTIKORN

producing BL television series, usually adapted from BL web novels. Thai BL stories are
quite simple: slices of everyday life in school, two cute boys are enemies from the begin-
ning, but later realize that they share a bond. Over the past decade, Thailand has outnum-
bered other Asian countries in producing BL series. Enthusiastic fans in many different
linguistic communities such as Vietnamese, Chinese, and English work to provide sub-
titles of BL content and thus help popularize Thai BL throughout Asia. As BL is con-
sidered illegal in China for it poses a challenge to heterosexual norms, BL series from
Thailand have become the main channel for young audiences starved for content
which has been banned at home.2
Literature about yaoi or boys’ love genre argues for multiple ways by which fans
engage with BL text. Some argue that women read BL to fulfill heterosexual desire
(McLelland, 2005). In comparison to the strong hero and inferior heroine of a traditional
romance, the relationship between two men in BL text embodies a sense of independence
and equality, which is echoed in women’s desire for a new gender order. Boys’ love
content is thus appropriated to reinforce female fans’ aspiration for idealized, equitable
heterosexual relationships (Zhang, 2017). Others look at BL as simply the fans’ way of
appropriating male bodies for their own pleasure (McLelland, 2001; Mizoguchi, 2008).
The interpretation of the audience towards Thai BL text is indeed far more complex
and beyond the scope of this paper. Here I only wish to point out that my respondents
express a sense of envy in the freedom of expression Thailand enjoys, as well as a sense of
how advanced Thailand is when it comes to LGBT issues.
Respondent #25: Your country is very free, totally different than China. In China, the LGBT
issue is forbidden. I envy Thailand for this (m, 32-year-old teacher, Guangzhou).

Respondent #14: You can have BL series on TV, I am so envious. Thailand is very open-
minded. Here when I watch Thai BL, I cannot tell my parents or my boyfriend that I
watch this kind of story. They cannot accept it (f, 20-year-old student, Beijing).

Respondent #22: Thailand is very free when it comes to LGBT. I have seen reality shows like
Take Guys Out Thailand; I could not believe that it could air on television. In China, there is
no way to have these shows related to LGBT. (f, 19-year-old student, Guangzhou).

Despite the fact that the BL genre does not necessarily portray real homosexual
relationships, and being fascinated with BL does not necessarily mean that female fans
identify as homosexuals, the fact that homosexuality is regarded as immoral and taboo
in China undeniably makes the Chinese audience feel a sense of transgression through
reading BL texts. The accessibility of Thai BL texts hence comes to serve as a liberal
sphere in which fans can express their desire either for aesthetic idealized love, or
sexual freedom they feel a lack of in China. It is through reading BL texts that the
Chinese audience has come to identify Thailand as far more liberal and ‘advanced’
than them.
In the talk about Thai television dramas in China, Chan (2016) argues, by seeing
images of Thailand’s cities, the beautiful people, and the scenery, the Chinese audiences
start to see Thailand as part of modern urban Asia, and not backwards as previously
thought. Still the question remains: can the two genres of Thai dramas, one the adoption
of other Asian modernity in the form of Thai remakes of East Asian dramas, the other
representing the openness about LGBT issues, make the audience feel that Thailand
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 139

shares the same sense of Asian modernity? Just as Jung (2011) contends that Korean
dramas have changed the Japanese female audience’s perceptions of a past colonial
Korea to a coeval and modern Korea, do Chinese audiences come to perceive Thailand
as coeval and modern through watching Thai dramas?
While the comments above may point to the fact that respondents come to perceive
Thailand as sharing the space of modernity through their consumption of Thai trendy
dramas or BL series, it might be too simplistic to claim that Thailand can only be seen
as part of the same modernity when it comes to the urban trendy dramas and BL
genre. The fragmentary reading of audiences should be acknowledged, as audiences
can easily shift their positions from identifying with one genre to another or from one
national TV drama to another, while reserving their ability to make fun of or feeling
superior to those cultural products they consume. Just as Chua (2008) argues, text is
not consumed exclusively as a coherent whole, but different textual components may
be treated differently by the same audience.
But as Chinese viewers can derive pleasure in Thai dramas from their very fragmen-
tary readings, be it exotic gaze, nostalgic feelings, ironic pleasure or identifying with Thai
trendy dramas or BL from the sense of envy or ‘coeval’, Thai dramas should not be con-
sidered an isolated cultural text. The reading of Thai dramas needs to be understood in a
larger context within the relationship between China and Thailand, and the dynamics of
relationship in the region. In this last analysis for why Chinese audiences watch Thai
dramas despite its place on the lowest rung of transnational cultural products, I would
argue that even though Thai dramas are perceived as non-intellectual, they are at the
same time non-threatening. By ‘threatening’, I refer to cultural products originating
from culturally proximate countries that might be perceived as more threatening, as in
the case of imported Japanese cultural products in China. Chen (2017) argues that due
to the legacy of Japanese imperialism, anti-Japanese sentiments impact the dissemination
of Japanese culture in China. As for Korea, Chinese fans are unable to detach themselves
from feelings of superiority as the cultural center of East Asia. But after decades of quiet,
Korea was reintroduced into China as a modern, sovereign nation-state whose cultural
industry has worldwide influence. This image challenged China’s claim as the origin
of East Asian culture (Chen, 2017, p. 144). The above cases suggest that while Japan
and Korea are considered culturally proximate countries to China, they can be perceived
as threatening. As Thailand is conceived as foreign, non-proximate, yet non-threatening,
coupled with positive images about Thailand circulated by the tourism industry, Thai
dramas come to occupy a position of modern yet traditional Asia. Against this cultural
hierarchy and political background, the increasing popularity of Thai dramas in recent
years may signal that consumption of any popular culture is contingent on cultural
and political relationships between the sending and receiving countries. Furthermore,
as Chua and Iwabuchi (2008:, p. 10) suggest, reception experiences today have become
more inter-textual and intercultural, with an increasing tendency to select, compare
and appropriate cultural products from various countries. It remains to be seen if Thai-
land can climb up the cultural hierarchical ladder to become the next Wave in China. My
contention is that it will neither become mainstream nor a completely short-lived fad. As
the evidence has shown, it has gradually grown to become part of subculture among
many young Chinese audience who today live with diverse images from various parts
of the world.
140 A. JIRATTIKORN

Conclusion
The paper has investigated how Thai TV dramas have been received by young Chinese
audiences living with a multiplicity of entertainment options. Among several appealing
features that Chinese audience often cite, cultural differences or ‘foreignness’ seems to be
a large part of their viewing pleasure. Here foreignness is seen in various visual elements,
especially those signify ‘tradition’ (Chua, 2008), such as food, costume, Thai way of greet-
ing and some elements of Buddhist belief.
Besides the perceived differences, my empirical data suggest two other significant ways in
which Chinese audience engage with Thai dramas. While some viewers engage with
emotional highs and lows in Thai dramas with a sense of emotional realism, as they perceive
those emotional expressions as real, others make fun of and mock Thai dramas for the very
same elements they perceive as not ‘plausible’. This ironic reception is in large part related to
the fact that Thai TV dramas are located at the lowest rung of cultural stratification in China.
It is through the symbolic boundaries the audience create that they can then enjoy watching
the not-so ‘intellectual’, while at the same time be able to feel superior to them. A third possi-
bility, however, is that the two other genres of Thai dramas, trendy dramas and BL series,
illustrate a type of viewer engagement different from the above reception. This highlights
the various modes in which Chinese viewers receive and interpret Thai TV dramas.
To conclude then, what is it that Thai television dramas offer to many young Chinese
audience members, despite those dramas being perceived as unintellectual and aestheti-
cally unrealistic? This paper argues against the problematic perception of a cultural
proximity concept, which often assumes audience’s positive reception towards transna-
tional texts. Cultural proximity in many cases makes those cultural products boring or
less interesting. More importantly, cultural proximity can be perceived as more threaten-
ing, particularly is the case here where China claims to be the center of East Asian culture.
In the midst of cultural nationalism toward other East Asian countries, Thai television
dramas offer an alternative cultural product, whose cultural diversity is presented in a
way that enhances the cultural experience of young Chinese audiences.
It remains to be seen how long the foreignness that excites the Chinese audience will last,
and whether or not Thailand can climb up this cultural hierarchical order to be at the same
level as others in the sphere of Asian modernity. My sense is that as long as Thailand’s state
of capitalist development is not the same as that of East Asian countries, images of Thailand
seen through Thai dramas will remain exotic, and be perceived as nostalgic foreign ‘Other’.
But modernity is never monolithic. Perhaps when Thailand adopts Asian modernity by
presenting women pursuing their own choice and career in the remake of East Asian
dramas or proves to be modern in their thinking about gender equality in the BL genre,
then Thailand can be seen as coeval or even more ‘advanced’ than China.

Notes
1. A few respondents who felt that Chinese heritage was being “stolen” in Korean dramas often
pointed to Korean series about traditional herbal medicine. They did not name Jewel of the
Palace, a Korean series about a young female cook who became the king’s first female phys-
ician, or any other dramas directly, but they pointed out that traditional medicine originated
in China. They feel uncomfortable and discontent when seeing the Koreans distorted history
by claiming that Korea is the origin of this traditional knowledge.
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 141

2. In 2017, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SARFT)
released a new regulation banning any display of “abnormal sexual behaviors” — including
homosexuality — in online video and audio content. Following the new regulation, SARFT
ordered the removal of foreign movies and TV shows from two popular websites, Bilibili and
Acfun. As most Thai BL series were translated and uploaded on Bilibili, they were taken out
from the website since 2017. At present, Chinese audience access to Thai BL from illegal
websites or mobile application that can bypass the censorship (see Jirattikorn, 2018).

Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank Brenda Chan, Maya Kovskaya, and Frank Smith for their valuable
comments on earlier drafts of the paper.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This research was funded by Thailand Science Research and Innovation [RDG6010006].

Notes on contributor
Amporn Jirattikorn is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai Uni-
versity. Her research interests are in the areas of media flows and mobility of people across national
boundaries. Her recent work deals with transnational consumption of Thai TV dramas in Asian
countries.

References
Ang, I. (1985). Watching dallas: Soap opera and the melodramatic imagination. New York:
Methuen.
Ang, I. (2007). Television fictions around the world: Melodrama and irony in global perspective.
Critical Studies in Television, 2(2), 18–30.
Brooks, P. (1976). The melodramatic imagination: Balzac, henry james, melodrama, and the mode
of excess. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Chan, B. (2016, March 18). The circulation of Thai television dramas in China. Paper presented at
the Siam Society Under Royal Patronage lecture, Bangkok Thailand.
Chen, L. (2017). Chinese fans of Japanese and Korean pop culture: Nationalistic narratives and
international fandom. London: Routledge.
Chua, B. H. (2008). Structure of identification and distancing in watching East Asian television
drama. In B. H. Chua, & K. Iwobuchi (Eds.), East Asian pop culture: Analyzing the Korean
wave (pp. 73–90). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Chua, B. H., & Iwabuchi, K. (2008). Introduction: East Asian TV dramas: Identifications, senti-
ments and effects. In B. H. Chua, & K. Iwobuchi (Eds.), East Asian pop culture: Analyzing
the Korean wave (pp. 1–12). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Gao, Y. (2016). Fiction as reality: Chinese youths watching American television. Poetics, 54, 1–13.
Hoskins, C., & Mirus, R. (1988). Reasons for the U.S. Dominance of the international trade in tele-
vision programs. Media, Culture, and Society, 10, 499–515.
142 A. JIRATTIKORN

Hu, K. (2013). Chinese subtitle groups and neoliberal work ethic. In N. Otmazgin & E. Ben-Ari
(Eds.), Popular culture co-productions and collaborations in East and Southeast Asia (pp.
207–232). Singapore: NUS Press.
Iwabuchi, K. (2002). Recentering globalization: Popular culture and Japanese transnationalism.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Jirattikorn, A. (2016). Lakorn Thai kap phuchom ASEAN: Wattanatham suksa khong sua kham
phromdan in ASEAN (Thai soap operas and ASEAN audiences: Cultural studies of transnational
media in ASEAN). Chiang Mai: ASEAN Studies Center. (in Thai).
Jirattikorn, A. (2018). Thai popular culture: A new player in Asia media circulation and Chinese
censorship. Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University Newsletter, 76, 7–9.
Jung, E. Y. (2009). Transnational korea: A critical assessment of the Korean Wave in Asia and the
United States. Southeast Review of Asian Studies, 31, 69–80.
Jung, S. (2011). Korean masculinities and transcultural consumption: Yonsama, rain, oldboy, K-Pop
idols. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Kim, J. (2007). Why does hallyu matter? The significance of the Korean wave in South Korea.
Critical Studies in Television, 2(2), 47–105.
Kim, S. (2009). Interpreting transnational cultural practices: Social discourse on a Korean drama in
Japan, Hong Kong, and China. Cultural Studies, 23(5-6), 736–755.
Li, L. (2018). Young Chinese increasingly drawn to Thai pop culture and traditions. Global Times.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1089128.shtml
Liebes, T., & Katz, E. (1990). The export of meaning: Cross-cultural readings of dallas. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Liebes, T. (1988). Cultural differences in the retelling of television fiction. Critical Studies in Mass
Communication, 5(4), 277–292.
McCoy, C. A., & Scarborough, R. C. (2014). Watching “bad” television: Ironic consumption, camp,
and guilty pleasures. Poetics, 47, 41–59.
McLelland, M. (2005). The world of yaoi: The internet, censorship and the global ‘boys’ love’
fandom. The Australian Feminist Law Journal, 23, 61–77.
Mizoguchi, A. (2008). Reading and living yaoi: Male-male fantasy narratives as women’s sexual
subculture in Japan (Ph.D. Dissertation). University of Rochester, New York.
O’Regan. (1992). Too popular by far: On hollywood’s international popularity. Continuum, 5(2),
302–351.
Phongpatcharathornthep, D. (2012). A study of Chinese audience’s consumption taste towards Thai
television dramas and Thai films. Chiang Mai: Thai Universities for Healthy Public Policy,
Chiang Mai University. (in Thai).
Richstad, J. (1998). Asian values and transitional television: The battle in the sky for markets and
cultures. In P. A. Goonasekera & P. S. N. Lee (Eds.), TV without borders: Asia speaks out (pp.
287–306). Singapore: Asian Media Information and Communication Centre.
Saejang, J. (2019). The subtitling and dubbing into Chinese of male homosexual and ladyboys’ role in
Thai soap operas (Ph.D. Dissertation), University College London.
Siriyuvasak, U., & Shin, H. (2007). Asianizing K-pop: Production, consumption and identification
patterns among Thai youth. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 8(1), 109–136.
Straubhaar, J. D. (2003). Choosing national TV: Cultural capital, language, and cultural proximity
in Brazil. In M. G. Elasmar (Ed.), The impact of international television: A paradigm shift (pp.
77–110). London: LEA.
Tai, Y. (2013). Development or dependency? The emerging Chinese cultural linguistic TV market
and idol TV drama in Taiwan and China (Ph.D. Dissertation), Southern Illinois University
Carbondale.
Tan, J. (2018). ‘Thai wave’ in showbiz poised for big splash in China. Nikkei Asia. https://asia.
nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Thai-wave-showbiz-faces-golden-opportunity-to-court-
Chinese-market
Thussu, D. K. (2007). Mapping global media flows and contra-flow. In D. K. Thussu (Ed.), Media
on the move: Global flows and contra-flows (pp. 10–29). London: Routledge.
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 143

Zhang, C. Y. (2017). When feminist falls in love with queer: Dan Mei culture as a transnational
apparatus of love. Feminist Formations, 29(2), 121–146.
Zhao, E. J., & Keane, M. (2013). Between formal and informal: The shakeout in China’s online
video industry. Media, Culture & Society, 35(6), 724–741.