The Koran Wave is described as ‘a surge in the international visibility of Korean culture’ which began in East Asia, and continuing to expand in United States and Europe…It is a phenomenon that is manufactured by the South Korean state.
In my opinion, the Korean Wave has spurred a lot of attention as it has given the world a taste of Korean culture – in terms of its TV, film and music industries. The success and popularity of the Korean pop culture is due to the revival of its own culture when Sopyonje (the film) was produced in 1993. Because this film was expected to draw limited interest, it ended up breaking box office records and became the first Koran film to draw over a million viewers in Seoul alone. Not only was the film successful, but government’s initiatives and the involvement of Multinationals Enterprises was behind this move to create a cultural industry in Korea. The Korean media industry did not stand a chance had not the Korean Wave came about since it mainly imported Hollywood films – resulting in a loss of national identity in Korea. However, it is no longer the case that one way flow of Western media context exists due to the increasing contraflow in international media (Thussu, 2000).
In one of the readings, Lin and Tong have noted that K-Pop contents are so popular are due to the hybridization of tradtionality and modernity in most of its films and dramas. While most of them embrace traditional (Asian) values, it also packages with attractive modern and trendy aesthetics. Concurring themes in these dramas or films are evolved around friendship, love, family and moral values are interpreted as ‘Confucianist values’ but they also possess ‘modern qualities’ that people can relate to in reality. I personally think Korean films and dramas address the moral values in the Asian culture and is capable to send certain message to all age groups.
One might ask, why does it have to be K-pop that attract a lot of attention worldwide? All other Asian countries have the same values anyway, so what makes K-pop so popular and widely accepted? I think contents produced by other Asian countries have their own style in portraying these values and themes, but what makes K-pop so popular is the history of Korea prior to this liberalization. Korea was repressed by the main powers in history, even by its neighboring country Japan so for Korea to step out to promote its own culture is highly commendable. It is also a sign to show the world that Korea will no longer live under other major powers but make a stand to show what it has to offer.
So the success of Korean wave can be seen from the statistics. Korean television programming exports have increased so dramatically that in 2003, they earned $37.5 million compared with $12.7 million in 1999 (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2004). Furthermore, Korea is now the seventh largest film market n the world, with total number of theatre audience nationwide in 2003 standing at around 119 million, up from 47 million in 1992. Even though Korea has the slogan ‘Learning from Hollywood’, I believe it is only in terms of its production techniques that they are learning from them since the themes of Hollywood films and Korean films are so different – both in terms of its culture and language.
