July 24, 2009

Korean Wave

What is The Korean Wave (한류)?

The Korean wave, or Hallyu, refers to the increased popularity of S. Korean culture over the Asia and some areas over America or Europe since late 1990s [WikiKorWav]. However, the term Korean wave was not invented by Koreans. Rather, one Chinese journalist started to call this term to describe the growing popularity of Korean culture in China. Since then, the term has used in other nations as well. The Korean wave begun with exporting TV shows such as “Autumn Fairy Tale”, “Winter Sonata”, and “Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace).” Then, it combined soon with other cultural goods such as movies and music (so-called K-Pop). Recently, it also affects the brand image of Korean products like TV and mobile phones.

Why have Korean cultural products become so popular in other Asian countries (China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia)?

Before the Korean wave age, there had been age of Japanese wave that influenced other asian culture, one reason being because their relative economic power on the Asia. With the popularity of Korean products like electronic goods, Asians have become interested in business with Korean companies. Subsequently, their interests have also become related to cultural products due to Korea being culturally rich.

Secondly, cultural proximity should be considered too. Some conservative countries such as China may not feel comfortable to directly adopt hip-hop, westernized movies and TV shows [need to add supporting sentences]. Since Korea has more rapidly adopted western culture especially from US than any other Asian countries except Japan, they have become more selfconscious to try and to localize and filter western culture, They have done so by seasoning western adopted culture with Confucian themes. This has meant that Asian often enjoy “Koreanized hip-hop and TV shows” more because they share Korean’s confucian value. However, it is not true that the Korean wave appealed to every country in same way:

Both shows conveyed an emotional purity that appealed in different ways around the region. In places like Hong Kong, Taiwan and Bangkok, the raw emotion was seen as an expression of South Korea's modernity, while the Japanese nostalgically considered the stories to be similar to the high drama of Japanese TV in decades past. [WSJ]

Finally, there is an internal reason that must be mentioned. Before political liberalization in Korea, most cultural goods had been censored and monitored by governmental agencies. Under those circumstance, TV and movies producers were only allowed to produce TV shows and movies of government flavors that gave the birth of melodrama. Ironically, since the 1990s, the liberalized age, the melodrama has become the main type of exported Korean dramas.

How has Korean cultural policy affected the development of the Korean cultural industry (music, drama, and television)? Hint: An example could be the banning of Japanese imports to Korea

[Not by policy, but Cultural Changes by Democratization][Status Quo of before the active policies][how Korean culture spread to other Asian countries][list Korean cultural policies that encourage production of Korean cultural products][Screen Quota Policy]

It is somewhat true that government driven policy has affected the development of the Korean cultural industry in the early stage of the Korean wave. For instance, Japanese cultural products had been banned for political reason until presidential reign of Daejoong Kim. Korean movies were protected from Hollywood movies by a regulation “Screen Quota.” In the regulation, every theater must screen Korean movies for at least 2/5 of screening days each year [WikiScrQt]. Also, after the 2000s, the former government gave subsidies to many film companies. The general policy about the film market reminds us of the agent-driven industrialization policy in the 60 and 70s in S. Korea.

However, other areas such as K-Pop music and TV shows were born naturally with political liberalization rather than agent-driven policy though recent atmosphere has been differentiated by the government in order to spread more widely and maintain the Korean wave. The former government started to consider industrialization of pop culture as a important business that can increase income coming into the country.

In addition to this, as mentioned above, there is another point of view that the Korean wave is partially a result of democratization of Korea.

Like many South Koreans, Oh Dong Suk, 40, an investor in online games in Beijing, said he believed South Korea's pop culture was a fruit of the country's democratization. "If you watch South Korean movies from the 1970s or 1980s, you could feel that it was a controlled society," Oh said. [IHT]

has Korean cultural policy affected Korean popular culture's popularity both domestically and internationally?

[Since long protection over the film market, Korean film could be grown to occupy up to 2/3 of the entire film market against invasion of Hollywood block-busters until recently][This policy was introduced to some countries like France as one of the good example of how to protect their own film market from attacks of Hollywood movies]

Why does popular culture in East Asia normally spread from non-ethnic Chinese to ethnic Chinese areas?

One possible reason would be they are the biggest consumer of cultural and non-cultural products, but on the other hands, like earlier in the 90s of S. Korea, the China government is strictly monitoring and censoring cultural products. However, historically, China had not been cultural product importers before communist party governed the nation.

In the near future, they would also change the direction on the culture industry, emulating nations which were succeeded at industrializing pop culture. This policy obviously bring many side-effects such as rebelliousness against the government and anti-government movements for freedom. In my perspective, it is because cultural development always carries the diversity of society and freedom of public, which are heart of democracy.

What are the implications of Korean cultural products being widely consumed in other East Asian countries?

Simply saying, the Korean wave has given an opportunity to Korea to modify its role from a cultural importer to a cultural exporter. Moreover, Korea might be able to grow its cultural influence as well as political power over other Asian countries. Those growing influences can gain positive feedback for the economic growth of the nation, forming positive feedback loop to each area among cultural and economic aspects.

Is it likely that Korean popular culture will become widely consumed in Europe or the USA in the near future?

So far, it is hard to consider that Korean culture may catch up with the popularity of Japanese or Chinese culture in western countries. As is well known, Japanese and Chinese culture among Asian culture has been largely adopted and consumed by North American and Europeans. Japanese animation, manga, game and food have widely invaded into their normal life since 1970s. Also, it is incontrovertible that economic and political influence of China to the entire world is rapidly increasing, and most advanced countries are busy with anticipating the political and economical change of China. However, comparing to those cases, the influence of the Korean wave still affects mainly from far East Asia to Middle East Asia. In the US, based on my observation, the majority of american were not aware of any of Korean popular culture and not even interested in it though more and more start recognizing famous Korean movies like “Old boy” and “Memory of Murder”, and electronic companies that produce fancy cellphones and flat TVs. In addition, major news channels and journals treated it as no more than other asian culture.

Contrary to pure cultural influence of Korean wave over the advanced countries, success story in manufacturing electronic goods is known as a heart of another Korean wave in those countries. One may anticipate that influence of electronic goods and cars industry will somehow affect to US and European culture as Japanese goods did in 1970s and 80s.

Give an example of a cultural flow similar to The Korean Wave which can be found in Europe or the USA?

Japanese animation, manga and game are one of good role model that the Korean wave must benchmark. Japanese invasion over North America could be a good role model that the Korean wave should follow in the future, so Korean culture can widely spread.

References

[WikiKorWav]
Wikipedia, Korean wave. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_wave

[IHT]
Norimitsu, Onishi. A rising Korean wave: If Seoul Sells it, China craves it. Beijing, International Herald Tribune. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/02/world/asia/02iht-korea.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Korean%20Wave&st=cse

[WSJ]
Ramstard, Evan. Riding the ‘Korean Wave’. Seoul. The Wall Street Journal.

[WikiScrQt]
Wikipedia, Screen Quota. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_quotas