INTRODUCTION

The Korean Wave is now one of the country's major industries including exporting
tourism and popular cultureFrom conquering Japan, South Asia and Southeast Asia
starting in the 1990s, the Korean Wave or Hallyu encroached into other territories across
the globe. "Hallyu," which translates to the “flow of Korea” became so big it is
considered as a major export of South Korea.

I. Overview
The Korean Wave (Hallyu) refers to the global popularity of South Korea’s
cultural economy exporting pop culture, entertainment, music, TV dramas and
movies since 1990s. First driven by the spread of K-dramas and K-
pop across East, South and Southeast Asia during its initial stages, the Korean
Wave evolved from a regional development into a global phenomenon, carried
by the Internet and social media and the proliferation of K-pop music videos
on YouTube. The term Hallyu was first used by the Ministry of Culture and
Tourism in Korea in 1999, when it produced a music CD titled in Chinese
"Hallyu—Song From Korea." The term was adopted by Chinese media to
describe the success of Korean popular culture in China.
Since the turn of the 21st century, South Korea has emerged as a major exporter
of popular culture and tourism, aspects which have become a significant part of
its burgeoning economy. The growing popularity of Korean pop culture in many
parts of the world has prompted the South Korean government to support
its creative industries through subsidies and funding for start-ups, as a form
of soft power and in its aim of becoming one of the world's leading exporters of
culture along with Japanese and British culture, a niche that the United States
has dominated for nearly a century. During this time, Korean society began to
be recognized as developed on par with the Western world. The Korean Wave
has become an influential global phenomenon since the start of the 21st century,
heavily impacting the contemporary cultures, music industry, film industry,
television industry, and behavioural aspects of various people throughout the
world
During former president Barack Obama’s state visit to Korea in March 2012, he
made reference to the Korean Wave, which was made the country’s top priority
by the government.
 1950–1995: Foundations of cultural industry
By 1994, Hollywood's share of the South Korean movie market had reached a
peak of around 80 percent, and the local film industry's share fell to a low of
15.9 percent. The fact that total revenues generated by Hollywood's Jurassic
Park had surpassed the sale of 1.5 million Hyundai automobiles;
At this time, the South Korean Ministry of Culture set up a cultural industry
bureau to develop its media sector, and many investors were encouraged to
expand into film and media. Thus, by the end of 1995 the foundation was laid
for the rise of Korean culture.
 1995–1999: Development of cultural industry
In July 1997, the Asian financial crisis led to heavy losses in the manufacturing
sector, prompting a handful of businesses to turn to the entertainment sector.[33]
According to The New York Times, South Korea began to lift restrictions on
cultural imports from its former colonial ruler Japan in 1998. With an aim of
tackling an impending "onslaught" of Japanese movies, anime, manga, and J-
pop, the South Korean Ministry of Culture made a request for a substantial
budget increase, which allowed the creation of 300 cultural industry
departments in colleges and universities nationwide.[34]
In February 1999, the first local big-budget film, Shiri, was released and
became a major commercial success. It grossed over US$11 million, surpassing
the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic
 1999–present: Korean Wave in asian and over the world
Korean pop music, TV dramas and movies have grown in popularty in Asian
from 1999. From 2010, those have spread over the world. As a result, Korean
culture including fashion, cuisine,... have more and more popular.
In 2012, the Korean Wave was officially mentioned by both US
President Barack Obama at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies on March
26 and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the National Assembly of South
Korea on October 30

II. BODY
I. Some impacts of the Korean wave.
1. Politics

Early last year, the South Korean government blared K-pop – Korean pop music
– across its border with North Korea in what seemed to be a playful, almost
mocking gesture. Amidst a tense, perennial standoff, songs such as “Just Let Us
Love” by Apink and “Bang Bang Bang” by Big Bang blasted into the northern
airspace right after starkly political messages. At first glance, inserting frivolous
pop music in between denunciations of Kim Jong-un seems unprofessional and
misplaced, but when looking behind the lyrics, sweeping political implications
can be unearthed: Jang Jin-sung, a former North Korean propaganda official,
said that the loudspeaker broadcasts were “akin to a peaceful version of the
nuclear bomb.”

In past decades, K-pop, along with South Korean dramas, has successfully
seeped into North Korea, mostly through radio broadcasts, CD-filled balloons,
and USB drives. The North Korean hunger for South Korean entertainment has
only continued to grow, despite the country’s unparalleled cultural, political,
and ideological isolationism: it is reported that approximately 70% of North
Koreans consume foreign media in their homes. Through this cultural surge,
North Korea’s hegemonic barriers have become porous; the country became
vulnerable to its southern neighbor’s soft power – a power based on aesthetic
appeal, rather than military strength, which fosters co-optation into, in this case,
South Korea’s agenda of reconciliatory politics. The effects of soft power, best
exemplified through the United States’s global brand dominance with
companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, are unquantifiable, but cannot
be understated in establishing political sway. As a result, South Korea has
masterfully wielded K-pop as a political conduit of soft power, transcending
unbreakable historical-political divisions with its northern neighbor through a
clandestine cultural flow.

K-pop did not become a sweeping global phenomenon through chance—rather,

its current popularity was carefully fostered by the Korean government, which
valued it for its western aesthetic ideals. In the 1990’s, the Korean government
funneled millions into a Ministry of Culture, including a department solely for
K-Pop, and it paid off: a pseudo-cultural imperialism called the Korean Wave,
or Hallyu, arose in countries like Japan, China, and even North Korea. Korean
pop culture assumed an invasive, Asian Carp-like position: in Japan, K-pop
groups like Big Bang and Girls’ Generation dominated the charts, and in China,
one episode of the Korean melodrama “Descendents of the Sun” racked up 2.3
billion Chinese views in two days. Overall, despite fraught socio-political
relationships between East Asian countries, economic-cultural relationships
have continued to prosper, serving as what Kushal Dev calls an “effective
lubricant that keeps the Asian economy going.”

The situation is no different between North and South Korea. Korea’s pan-
Asian soft power serves to steer North Koreans to envy the prosperity of its
southern neighbor, changing long standing political conflict through cultural
means. The power to co-opt North Korea into adopting (or at least becoming
familiar with) South Korean views is critical, as the Kim Jong-un regime has
made no real attempts at political reconciliation. In September, North Korea
carried out its fifth nuclear test, and in response, South Korea announced a plan
to assassinate Kim Jong-un in case of nuclear emergency. In this trench-
warfare-like military standoff, where chances of political reconciliation have
become moot, cultural understanding is critical to easing tension. Park Geun-
hye summed it up in her inauguration address: “In the 21st century, culture is
power.”

Currently, entertainment from South Korea, although punishable by death in

North Korea, is widely available, especially among the elite, helping erode the
North Korean government’s glorification of itself and demonization of South
Korea. A researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification stated that in
recent years, she could not recall a single defector who had not seen or listened
to foreign media before entering South Korea. A defector known only as Min
Jun reflects this North Korean hunger for South Korean media, stating, “in our
generation, young people get together quietly in each others’ homes, put on
South Korean K-pop on a speaker, and have a little dance party.” Another
defector, Kim Heung Kwang, remarked that “even if you can’t eat and have to
skip a meal, you’d rather spend the money to get your hands on this stuff
[foreign media] to watch.” These relatively minor, yet highly telling,
transgressions of North Korea’s ban on South Korean entertainment reveals the
slow but sure erosion of the North Korean government’s cultural isolationism.
Through consistent exposure to “how the other half lives,” the first step to
collective action – awareness of one’s situation relative to others – the seeds of
discontent are slowly germinating within North Koreans.

North Koreans’ collective appetite for entertainment has led to the creation of
illegal entertainment black markets, where smuggled CDs and DVDs sell at the
equivalent of US $3.75. North Korean defectors have also helped push foreign
media into their former country: Lee Kwang-baek devotes time in his North
Korean radio station to K-pop (interspersed with messages about human rights)
and Park Sang-hak claims to have sent two million balloons filled with, among
other things, K-pop, into North Korean airspace. Again, the North Korean
government has publicly executed individuals for consuming and distributing
foreign media, even claiming to have killed 80 individuals across 7 cities in one
day for doing so. Yet, the majority of North Koreans accept this risk and play
Korean dramas and music on their small nototels (laptop-television hybrids).
Even North Korea’s previous dictator, Kim Jong Il, loved South Korean cinema,
kidnapping South Korean film director Shin Sang-Ok and his wife Choe Eun-
Hu in 1978. As a result, the dissemination of Korean pop culture, whether it be
music or television, has created civil stirring and unrest within North Koreans,
who, through K-pop and other media, are increasingly seeing the immense
disparities between the quality of their lives and the lives of their southern
neighbors. It is this deep-seated unrest, especially among the elite, that might
one day induce tangible social change in North Korea.

But as much as the K-pop phenomenon has to do with Korea’s relationship to

North Korea, there is another important actor at play: China, North Korea’s
dominant economic and political partner. Most of the flow of K-pop CDs into
North Korea actually comes from China, as the North Korea-China border is
much more relaxed than that of North and South Korea, and the vast majority of
North Korean defectors escape through China. China has one of the biggest
markets for Korean pop culture as well, investing 275 million dollars in it in
2015 alone. However, China has recently launched a political pushback against
Korea’s soft power in response to the US-Korea joint announcement of the
THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) program and harsher US
penalties on countries that do business with North Korea. For example, a
Chinese company was fined for trying to promote a K-pop performance without
government approval; the Chinese government began delaying visa processing
for Korean stars without explanation; a Korean TV show displayed in China
was canceled out of the blue. The message is clear: China considers Korea’s
cultural influence a threat to its own global power plays, and how better to
mitigate that threat than to leverage its own influence over North Korea to
jointly push back against South Korean culture? Without support from China,
South Korea’s prospects of influencing North Korean politics become heavily
diminished; however, the prospects of Chinese support on Korean reconciliation
remain grim.

The current relationship between North and South Korea is that of post-
Sunshine policy politics, in which former semblances of political agreements
have been replaced with terse militaristic standoffs. Amidst threats of nuclear
war, K-pop brings with it a shared sense of humanity between North and South
Korean citizens. For North Koreans, K-pop undercuts the grossly dehumanizing
propaganda the government drills into its citizens minds, like how South
Koreans grow devilish horns on their heads and arbitrarily beat up civilians on
the streets. For South Koreans, who are becoming increasingly opposed to
reunification (only 20% support immediate reunification), the northward
embrace of K-pop may bring with it a lessened alienation felt by its young
population from North Korea’s young population, and a feeling that
reunification is indeed worth its estimated $500 billion to 1 trillion price tag.
Thus, with its grasp on soft power, South Korea may find surprising benefits to
its utilization of K-pop as means of cultural communication; if North Koreans’
envy of the of the glitzy South Korean lifestyle seen in songs such as Psy’s
“Gangnam Style” transform into more tangible desires for social change, the
Koreas may be one step closer to the nebulous idea of reunification.

2. Korean Wave Boots Economic Growth

a. Key export industry

Korean Wave or hallyu refers to the growing popularity of Korean
entertainment, culture, dramas and music in other countries, particularly in East
and Southeast Asia. The Korean government took full advantage of such culture
phenomenon and utilize its media industries to expand exports of Korean
dramas and pop music, which has reached many parts of the world in recent
years from Southeast Asia to Latin America, helping boost sales of Korean
products abroad. This expansion has greatly contributed to South Korea’s
economy.

Started with the export of dramas to China and More and more people in China
are willing to pay the copyright, since then Korea started to export its cultural
products to elsewhere in Asia. More recently the Korean wave started to expand
into the Middle East, Europe, South America, Africa and North America. Also,
Korean cultural exports have been huge in Japan. Hallyu has led to a boost of
tourism to Korea.

Eg: The Korean Wave started in China sometime around 1997 when the drama
What is Love All About provoked great reactions among Chinese audience after
its broadcast. Because of high popularity, Chinese video websites give a long
price for popular Korean dramas.

Eg: The recent “Descendants of the Sun” television series, aired in 2016, has
also enjoyed immense success across Asia, with 1.1 billion views during the 2
months it aired and bring to the Korean economy more than 261 million
USD(about VND 5.8 trillion)

The report, titled “Analysis and Implications of the Economic Ripple Effects of
the Korean Wave,” by Hyundai Research Institute senior researcher Baek Da-
mi and senior fellow Ju Won. According to the report, a 1% increase in cultural
exports from the Korean Wave was associated with a 0.038% rise in consumer
goods exports for the same year, and a 0.019% increase in the number of
tourists visiting South Korea. It was also correlated with a 0.08-0.09% rise in
foreign direct investment in services.

Another dramatic effect from the Korean Wave was seen in the rise of cultural
exports to China and Southeast Asia in the past six to seven years. China
accounted for 27.6% of exports in 2012, up 9.1 percentage points from the
18.5% recorded in 2006. Southeast Asia saw a 10.6 percentage point increase
from 8.7% in 2006 to 19.3% in 2012. Among exports not including games,
music in particular rose from around US$20 million in 2008 to US$230 million
in 2012, a more than tenfold increase.

Especially, the economic strength of a nation is directly proportional to the

ability of the nation to propagate its culture. With the help of movies and TV
series, Korean culture has spread throughout the United States and the rest of
the world. IFPI data shows that South Korea with more than 51 million people
is the 8th largest market in the world in terms of revenue from music, higher
than countries like China or India. Today, South Korea is the world’s 12th
largest economy.Meanwhile, KFICE's report said music sales from the non-
Korean market contributed more than 1 trillion won to the country's GDP in
2016, indicating that Hallyu led in overall exports, the main pillar of the Korean
economy.

b. Tourism in Korea has also had a major boost.

The effects of the Korean Wave have also included a dramatic rise in the
number of tourist visits to South Korea from other Asian countries. Some 9.8
million tourists from elsewhere in Asia visited South Korea in 2013, accounting
for 80.9% of the 12 million foreign visits, up 10 percentage points from 70.7%
in 2003. The amount brought in by tourists from Asia has risen steadily since
2008. Money spent by them rose nearly three times from US$3.3 billion 2007 to
roughly US$9.7 billion in 2012. Tourism also left positive effect on
employment since the industry created 24,520 jobs. Moreover, In 2015, Korea
earned USD 15.2 billion from tourism, attracting a total of 13.2 million tourists.
With the international tourist numbers hitting 1.1 billion in 2014 and
international tourist growth forecasted at an annualized rate of 3.3% to hit
around 1.8 billion by 2030, the Korean government is planning to increase its
tourism revenues to USD 10 billion a year.

Korean wave seems to have entered a golden age. Such culture phenomenon
not only benefits to tourism and exports of related products, but also help
improve Korea’s national image. Korean governments are spending a lot of
money in developing such business. In 2013, the South Korean government
budget related to Korean Wave increased by 27.3%, equivalent to $68.7 million.
Thanks to Korean Wave, improved national image leads to increasing exports,
and therefore leads to the growth of manufacturing industry.Hallyu definitely
has positive influences on the economy of South Korea.

C. Having a great impact on consumer culture.

Korean stars have made a big impact on the consumer culture, including food,
fashion, make-up trends and even plastic surgery. Overseas fans travel to Korea
to buy those products. And the cosmetics industry enjoyed the biggest growth,
increase by 57%, as tourist from other countries vising Korea boosted sales.

A variety of products such as cosmetic surgery, beauty, Korean cuisine are

promoted and known for Hallyu. Not only bringing in profits, the Korean
cultural music wave, also known as Hallyu, promoted its brands like Samsung,
Tonymoly or Bibigo outside Korea. Not only that, foreign brands also quickly
signed contracts with famous artists to take advantage of product promotion. In
addition to Samsung, G Dragon also acts as a brand representative for Chanel
while Amazon, AT&T and McDonald’s both sign contracts to sponsor Kpop
concerts in the US.

As Hallyu moves towards the future, it will have a greater role in South Korea’s
economy

3. The positive sides of Korean wave.

Hallyu first spread to China and Japan, later to Southeast Asia and several
countries worldwide where it continues to have a strong impact. In 2000, a 50-
year ban on the exchange of popular culture between Korea and Japan was
partly lifted, which improved the surge of Korean popular culture among the
Japanese. South Korea’s broadcast authorities have been sending delegates to
promote their TV programs and cultural content in several countries.

Hallyu has been a blessing for Korea, its businesses, culture and country image.
Since early 1999, Hallyu has become one of the biggest cultural phenomena
across Asia.

Improved Korean country image: Korean popular culture has had a significant
impact on the global fashion industry as an increasing number of Korean
celebrities are included in the social fiber of fashion. New York has had its
appearances of K-Pop girl groups like Girls’ Generation, Hyuna from 4Minute
and CL from 2NE1. The singer G-Dragon dresses in an influential way that gets
international notice as Korean celebrities are known for mixing styles and
genres in clothing. Korean popular culture products including TV series such as
My Love From The Star, music from PSY, boy bands like EXO and girl bands
like Girl’s Day, are putting Korea on the global scene.
Till very recently, South Korea evoked the images of the Korean War, the
North-South Korean conflict, the burgeoning chaebols, many of which suffered
hugely during the Asian financial crisis and the Seoul Olympics. All in all,
nothing very positive and glamorous. Brand Korea was pretty elusive to
everyone outside of Korea.

All of that has started to change with the explosion of Hallyu. Hallyu has
provided Korea with an excellent opportunity to showcase its diverse culture,
people, its unique entertainment products, exotic locales and its own pan-Asian
superstars to the rest of the world and thereby create a very strong brand Korea.
With the maddening popularity of Korean movies and soap operas, the focus
seems to have shifted towards Korean values, society, emotions and the
beautiful locations projected in these movies. This in turn has given Korea a
good chance to create new perceptions and images of itself across the world.

All these factors have had the unstinting support from the Korean government,
all the artists, businessmen as well as the Korean population. This collaborative
effort has propelled Hallyu into a sustained cultural phenomenon rather than
just a mere fad.

4. The negative sides of Korean wave.

Although there are many positive sides, yet we can also find negative sides.
First, it makes the teenagers wasteful. They must be wanted to buy any stuff of
their favorite idol or watching the concert of their idol badly. Sometimes they
insist their parents to give some money to them, so they can go to a concert or
buying some stuff that related to their idol. Usually they will buy the album of
their album, and it has a very expensive price. They also can spend their time to
watch their idol in hours. Second, K-pop contributes to some severe health
problems in young fans. Indeed, those who spend too much time on watching
music videos, searching information about K-pop idols usually suffer asthenia
as a result of lacking sleep, staying up late and skipping meals. Some addict to
K-pop so much that they lock themselves in all day, stick to computer screen or
TV screen instead of going out with friends, doing extracurricular activities,
playing sports, which are good for their physical and mental health.
Consequently, they may be in a debilitating condition or even have eye diseases,
memory loss sooner or later! Third, the teenagers can forget about their
country’s culture. Some of teenagers in Indonesia who like Korean sometimes
prefer to watch Korean show than watching Indonesian show.It can lose their
proud of their country. Linked to our own country, Vietnam. It cannot be denied
that K-pop have improved the music taste of Vietnamese young people with
various types from sweet ballad melodies to excited dance songs, however, our
own music identity are in danger. The sweep of K-pop is almost like a “culture
invasion” when the domestic music industry nowadays is influenced too much
by Korean music characteristics. Songwriters, musicians and singers are
learning Korean styles, copying their ideas or even rhythm, to create a hybrid
product with no uniqueness. In addition, traditional arts are in danger due to the
ignorance of young people. These days, despite the policy of Government and
Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism to preserve cultural values of national
heritages like cheo, tuong, hat xam, cai luong, etc., few of the young care and
listen to these kind of music, since they prefer other more fashionable and lively
types. Finally, the illusion about Korea as a dream land created brain-drain
problem. The modern and active society demonstrated in Korean dramas are
making many Vietnamese dream of living there. It urged them to study Korean
language to seek for a high-paid job in Korea, thus they would try to go abroad
and stay in their dream world. Vietnam is facing many serious problems since
local labor forces are attempting to work outside the country. This required
more initiatives from the policy makers to preserve talented manpower and
attract returnees
 CONCLUSION

The Korean Wave has become an influential global. It’s heavily impacted the
contemporary cultures, music, film, television industry, fashion, food and
behavioural aspects of various people throughout the world. In other words,
Hallyu has been had strong political, economic and cutural influences on many
countries in the world, especially in Asia. Korea has become one of the world's
leading exporters of culture along with Japan and Britain. And it will, definitely,
develop more and more.
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