Korean Wave

A gust - ephemeral, but transformative. The abrupt forays of hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunami bring about topographical and ecological changes. The same holds true for the socio-political domain as well. The tempests we have witnessed in the twentieth century, strikes, uprisings and revolutions, have triggered historical ruptures not just in the nations from which they originated, but also in the overall power dynamics of the world. In the realm of culture, too, such transformative events occur periodically, as illustrated by the upsurge of rock’n’roll, China’s Cultural Revolution, and the American hippie culture.

Today, the ferocious advance of cultural globalisation reorganises our quotidian experiences dramatically. From the wave of cultural globalisation, there emerges a derivative, counter-tide of cultural regionalisation: the so-called Hallyu (Korean Wave) is a case in point. The term Hallyu literally denotes “Korean (Cultural) Wave/Current,” and was first used by the Chinese media in the late 1990s. It refers to a sweeping phenomenon in which Korean cultural/media products are enthusiastically hailed by adjacent countries in East and South East Asia: namely, Japan, China (including Hong Kong), Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia. This unprecedented craze for Korean culture is spreading at an astonishing pace, stretching from content-based products like movies, popular songs, and television dramas to such cultural hardware as food, clothing, accessories, mobile phones, and the likes.

For instance, a famed television drama Winter Sonata (South Korea, 2002) has been broadcast in thirteen different terrestrial and cable stations in Japan alone and viewed by over two-thirds of the nation’s television households. When the male protagonist of Winter Sonata, YongJun Bae, visited Japan in November 2003, nearly 4,000 middle-aged female fans swarmed the Narita International Airport, practically paralyzing it for a few hours. Situations in Taiwan,... [continues]

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