When South Korea and Japan co-hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup, they shared an interest in football and a close geography, but also a disputed history.

Tony Barrell explores the unique culture, identity and modern lifestyle of these ancient societies.

Listen to programme one:
Korea - Hyundai and Hangul
(30 minutes)

Koreans have struggled to define themselves between China and Japan, both of which invaded their peninsula. The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, owing nothing to either empire, is a cultural triumph.

Nothing symbolises South Korean ingenuity and determination more than the huge Hyundai shipyard which grew from nothing to help Korea overtake Japan as the world's number one ship builder. The yard is one stop on Tony Barrell's journey as he explores a land where Confucian philosophy and the Christian religion peacefully co-exist.

Listen to programme two:
Korea - A Nation Divided
(30 minutes)

Barbed wire and minefields still cut Korea in two from coast to coast. North Korea and South Korea have evolved quite separately, in the last fifty years, guarded by nearly two million armed men.

Talking to soldiers, diplomats and ordinary people in South Korea, Barrell explores the psychic gulf, and the sense of loss, in a divided nation.

Listen to programme three:
Korea - Shamans and Cellphones
(30 minutes)

Korea is a world-beater in telecommunications. The South Korean company Samsung Electronics recently reported record profits from its sales of ultra-slim, all-colour-screen mobile phones and ingenious thin film transistor liquid crystal displays.

Traditional drumming in Korea

But Korea is also a country where millions believe they can get messages from the spirit world, called up and transmitted by shamans who dance and drum in religious ecstasy.



Listen to programme four:
Japan: Blessed by the Gods
(30 minutes)

We move to Japan and Tony Barrell explores how Japanese people use traditions, some of which are ancient and others which are newly invented.

He visits a rude pagan fertility festival, an old Buddhist temple in Kyoto, a controversial Shinto shrine in Tokyo, takes a ritual bath and meditates on cherry blossom.


Listen to programme five:
Japan: Dealing with Foreigners
(30 minutes)

'Japaneseness' - the unique cultural qualities of this island people - is a subject of perennial interest to the Japanese who redefine themselves against outsiders.

The programme starts and ends in the southern port city of Nagasaki, where the Portuguese first landed in the middle of the 16th century, and where the Americans dropped the second atomic bomb in August 1945.

Listen to programme six:
Japan - The Ruins of the Future
(30 minutes)

Tony Barrell visits the industrial heartland at Osaka, where Expo '70 once proclaimed the megacity of the future.

Young people in Japan are moving away from tradition by dyeing their hair

Much of that dream has rusted and failed, and women of all ages and walks of life share their doubts about the Japanese social model, which is based on a male-dominated culture of overwork and company loyalty.

Also hear what young people feel about the future.


At The Edge of Asia, a co-production with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was first broadcast in April and May 2002 on BBC World Service.