20 million Chinese follow Lee on Weibo
By Kim Ji-soo
Actor Kim Soo-hyun from “My Love from the Stars,” an SBS drama, is winning the hearts and minds of Chinese so much so that The Washington Post recently wrote about his stardom.
But Kim is not the only Korean actor to be idolized by Chinese.
Lee Min-ho from “The Heirs,” is no less popular than Kim.
On Monday, Lee made headlines for having more than 20 million followers on Weibo as of March 8.
“I now have more than 20 million friends. I will work harder in the future to return this big love that I am receiving,” wrote Lee in both Korean and Chinese.
Weibo, a popular Chinese micro-blogging site, has become a barometer to gauge the popularity of stars and celebrities in China. The local Chinese media has been taking note of the “unusual” fervor of the fans for the actor who shot to initial stardom with the “Boys over Flowers” (2009).
Lee, 26, has climbed to a new level of popularity that continues three months after the drama ended in December. Since then, he has traveled throughout various cities in China, meeting fans and appearing on CCTV’s Spring Gala Festival, and having his Madame Tussaud figure, on loan from Shanghai, to be exhibited in Hong Kong through March 31.
He has also been tapped to be the face for China’s biggest open-market, taobao.com, for which he visited Huangzhou over the weekend where fans greeted him at the airport.
On that same weekend Kim appeared on Jiangsu Satellite TV’s program “Super Brain.”
Several scalped tickets for the program were in circulation, ostensibly, for fans wanting to get a glimpse of a yet another rising Korean heartthrob in China.