Hallyu: Through the Korean wave of culture

Course: Culture of Anglospeaking World

South Korean entertainment industry has been taking every corner of the world.
Since the K-pop groups to K-dramas, young people are getting more interested on
Koreans’. The globalization of this industry has caused people being curious about
how Korean people live and how things work on that piece of earth.

Korean culture is attaching, modern and in constant change, now a days. Clifford
Geertz (1973) says that culture is not something that can be casually attributed but a
context; culture he says, is not separable from social structure, economics, politics
and every feature of human activities. So, to see what is behind the Hallyu (Korean
culture wave), we need to go to the origin of the phenomenon that introduce Korea to
the world, the K-pop.

Hallyu it is defined by Martin Roll (2020) as a “collective term used to refer to the
phenomenal growth of Korean culture and popular culture encompassing everything
from music, movies, drama to online games and Korean cuisine just to name a few”.
This is a Chinese term that literally means “Korean Wave”. Beside Japan and China,
Korean is one of the most influential country on Asian economy, where companies
like Samsung, Hyundai, LG, Kia Motors and POSCO have its origins there. But the
expansion of their entertainment industry over the world give to Korea a new place
on the world, where their social influences has tamed many young people on the
globe.
 K-pop has its beginnings on Seoul City over than 20 years ago. Seoul, the capital
of South Korea, is a modern city with stunning buildings and advanced technology
that mark the trends not only in the country but a have big influences over the
continent and beyond. Seoul, it is the home of some biggest companies such a
Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Kia and so on. Gary S. Becker (1976) says that economy has
to “combine assumptions of maximizing behavior, stable preferences, and market
equilibrium, used relentlessly and unflinchingly”. And that is how Koreans have
based their economy. They approach to make the life easier by using to technologies,
and this can be saw on even on simple things, such as music.

At first sight, people can say how different is Korean music is from the rest. Back
to 1885 is where the roots of what is known as Korean popular music, “when a
missionary named Henry Appenzeller began to teach American and British folk songs
to schoolchildren, replacing the original lyrics with Korean ones” (Jeremy Mersereau,
2017). Something really curious about folklore is that can be “old wine in new
bottles” as Botkin said. Background data is necessary to know about folklore, but this
can transcend its original culture and adapt to other ones, however, social context,
and even geographic features are still need them (Dan Ben Amos, 1971). And this is
what happened with some Korean folk songs, named “changga”. But, movng a little
bit closer to actual date, Korean music went throught The Kim Sisters (the very first
Korean pop stars, 1959), Seo Taiji & Boys (the first K-pop group, 1992), H.O.T (the
first K-pop group to get million sellers, 1996), BoA (The very first female-single
artist, 2000), TVXQ! and SHINee (the most famous group on the 00’s and who gave
form to actual K-pop, 2003-2008) to the very famous and biggest artist of this decade
like EXO, BTS, BlackPink, Stray Kids, Got7, Monsta X, NCT, SuperM, and PSY.
 Probably people might listen, dance, sing, or just talk about the song “Gangnam
Style” by PSY. This song is a very sticky one, with an easy lyric and playfull dance.
But we can extract to very significant cultural elements from this song. The first one,
it is the K-pop itself, which this can be resume as an easy-to-hard choreography,
semi-influenced English lyrics mixed up with Korean, attracting visual content, and
elaborated productions.

Secondly, the language itself. Korean, really named “Hangul”, was created on
1443 during the Chosun dynasty by the King Sejong the Great and his group of royal
scholars; and it is said that it is one of the most scientific and systematic writing
systems in the world (Andrew Sangpil Byon, 2007). This language has something
particular, and it is the honorifics, and these are used to represent the social status and
to show respect, the most common that are used by K-pop fans are “oppa” (Older
brother), “unnie” (older sister), “noona” (older sister) and “dongsaeng” (younger
sibling). Just Japanese have a similar honorific system, but there is not any Asian
language which use this kind of system. Now, going back to the song you can listen
the very famous “oppa Gangnam style”.

The third aspect is regarding with social class and geography. Gangnam is a
district beside the Han river (a river that cross whole Seoul city) and it “is an
economic hub for some of the most powerful companies globally, including Google,
IBM, and Toyota” (Harrison Jacobs and Myelle Lansat, 2018). But not only that, this
is the most expensive neighborhood in the city. Harrison Jacobs and Myelle Lansat
(2018) also mention that living in the neighborhoods of Cheongdam-dong and
Apgujeong-dong, it “is a status symbol that many Koreans aspire to”. Living in an
expensive place is something that most of the people want, but social classes is really
important on Korean. It is not only where live now, but where you are from (Bruce
Cummings, 1997). Entertainment industry has opened a new era of acceptance on
Korea society, where religion, nationality and social class is left behind; however,
there is still being some traces of differences between social classes and status in
some places over South Korea.

The Korean cultural wave over the world has bring many changes for their society.
A new era of acceptance, a new vision for companies, and a new definition for daily
life. 2020 have been a year for adaption, and South Korean leading the world of
entertainment has joined technologies to give a new approach to entertainment.
Companies like iBigHit, SM Entertainment, Samsung have been influencing
important aspects of not only Koreans, but people’s life over the world, sharing how
Koreans life is structure and the social context where those famous K-artist live. The
growth of Hallyu is something that have been influence by social medias and other
countries, but Koreans keep maintaining their traditions and their origins pretty clear.
References

Michael Schudson. How Culture Works. University of California, San Diego

Andrew Sangpil Byon (2009). Basic Korean: Grammar. New York

Dan Ben-Amos (1971). Toward a definition of Folklore in Context. University of

Pennsylvania.

William Downer (2005). Language and Society. Cambridge University.

Gary Becker (1976). The Economic Approch to Human Behavior. Chicago.

Bruce Cummings (1997). Korea’s place in the sun: A modern history. New York

Jeremy Mersereau (2017). A brief history of K-Pop. Online article on ontheaside

(https://ontheaside.com/music/a-brief-history-of-k-pop/ )