Kind of an interesting trend revealing itself in Korea, which is a pop fascination with the idea of older women hooking up with younger men. This jumped out at me recently with the popularity of the latest boy band called SHINee, who have a little sub-Usher come Rain (비)  ditty called “Older sister you’re so pretty” (”누난너무예뻐”).

Don’t miss  the gold rapper chains and gangsta hankies these guys are flashing…

This group projects an over-the-top,  squeaky clean, pure  image, and last weekend I caught part of a reality-style show featuring the band prodding its most innocent, wide-eyed  member (the guy with the “wicked” T-shirt) to go on a date with an older girl. He’s of course  hesitant and spends a lot of time looking surprised and shy, but eventually agrees. The  rest of the band stays inside a van, giggles and eats ice cream,  watching lil’ doe-eyes on TV monitors. Naturally, being the virginal, pure child that he is, he often scurries back to the van for advice on how to treat an older woman (she looks to be about 18).

The situation  reminded me  of another show I caught a few months ago and didn’t think much one way or another until I saw the SHINee video. Called I am Pet (애완남 키우기 나는 펫), it’s also  done in the  reality-show style, and again features older women and younger men. Again, things are kept pretty tame — the men are lightly subservient to these  older women, and as far as I’ve seen, nothing romantic actually happens. Mostly the older women do exactly what you and I did when our younger friends or siblings  had to become our slave in the name of fun:

Slave: So what should I do first?

Enslaver: Go get me a glass of water…

Things of that nature. The men endure the women. The women usually have jobs, so the men end up spending a lot of time doing chores and activities that housewives do —  mostly watch TV, clean and make food, as far as the show is concerned.

Here’s a full episode:

It officially became a trend in my mind when I saw that Uhm Jung-hwa,  a  thirtysomething pop singer who threw down one of the hottest songs of this past summer called Disco, had a  new boyfriend six years younger than her, a model named Jun Joon-hong.

I’m skeptical of any celebrity relationship period, but the timing of this one struck me. Sure, Uhm and Jun might be in love…or it  might be a publicity move. Trends in Korea work extremely fast — from Saturday to Saturday, when the pop shows are on. At the moment Uhm is probably only second to Lee Hyori in terms of pop diva popularity, a ranking validated when the two recently swapped hot songs during an awards ceremony  two weeks ago. (By the way, for my money here’s the best song out there in K-land right now).

I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Uhm, whose song I really like,  but is a stiff breeze away from her many plastic surgery staples bursting forth and her original body splattering everywhere (check out this progression), was partaking in such a stunt. It would no doubt prolong her shelf life, which in the world of mostly young hottie pop stars, where lolitas are also an ongoing trend, probably doesn’t have much real time left.

There’s something very interesting at work here. Of course this goes on in other cultures. Cougars (I don’t like that word, but it’s better than MILF, which isn’t at all  what we’re talking about here)  are perpetually popular in the states (as is every other thing with sexual undertones), but in Korea, where most men still tend to marry women one or two years younger than them, I think this is fairly new.

I’m reminded of a Korean guy I used to know who was supposedly training to be a pastor, but ended up working in a host bar, which is the male version of the room salon clubs that are popular in Asia. He wasn’t a prostitute, at least he told me he wasn’t, but his job was kind of like being a pet on the “I am Pet” show described above. The most striking thing about his job was the fact that 90% of the customers were female prostitutes working in room salons themselves. It took me a while to get my head around that, but as he explained it, these were women coming to the host bar to get “revenge” on the male clientele that presumably doesn’t treat them all that well.

My guess is that  SHINee, I Am Pet and Uhm  are much more popular with women than with men. Call it a G-rated host bar you can enjoy from the comfort of your couch.