The book written by Euny Hong entitled “The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World through Pop Culture” is one that deals with culture clashes and largely gives a description of the South Korean pop content proliferation in to the world limelight with an array of cultures. The author gives us an analysis of the South Korean pop movement that that consisted of famous entertainment celebrities like rapper Psy and film maker Park Chan-Wook. Other South Korean celebrities included culinary expert Hooni Kim and game developers like the Blizzard Entertainment. The pop culture in South Korea is supported by the government to emphasize on the Korean culture so that the industry grows into a global export instrument.
The book starts its narrative by introducing the author’s own place between two cultural setups. As a Korean-American girl way back in the 1980s, she is mistaken for being Chinese. She states that by exploring the various cultural setups socio-economic changes and government enterprises, Hong Kong displayed the coolness of Korea in the past, an occurrence that was accidental in nature. She talks about the “Korean Wave”, which was a form of technological and economic sophistication that involve government involvement is the creation and exportation of Hallyu (Hong, 2014).
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One of the more interesting chapters looks at “Han,” a sociological meme involving oppression against impossible odds and the eternal thirst for vengeance. Hong levies a lot of different factors into the reasons behind what politicians like to call the “Korean Wave,” among them a technology- and economy-based sophistication that birthed a new sense of irony, as well as a deliberate investment by the government in the creation and export of Hallyu which transformed Korean in a unique manner (Kirkus, 2014).
She gives an account of how South Korea, which was one of the world’s poorest countries, rose to become a cultural superpower. She lauds private enterprises is an effective driver of growth more than government intervention which she argues makes people lazy. A few years after china became free from the shackles of Maoism and started on a path of growth and prosperity, the same thing was also happening to South Korea. She describes this growth factor as a way of how poor agriculture-based countries with limited amount of natural resources can be able to completely transform their society and economies. “They only needed to have human capital coupled with government support to actualize their potential” (Hong, 2014).
As the book starts, Hong clearly states that South Korea was not regarded as a cool state. This is because it was a country under an authoritarian regime that led to underdevelopment which could not be compared to a country with similar cultural and developmental symbols that it is associated with today. Its technological industry was a pale shadow of the vibrant one we see today. In fact, only a few people outside Korea had heard of its dramas including kimchi which only evoked negative feelings (Hong, 2014).
The book is a clear introduction of all these negative aspects in the South Korean society completely changed for the better. The main dominating idea on this concept of change was that the South Korean government was determined and fully motivated to develop its culture and industry into a global export instrument. Each chapter in the book handles different aspects of the commercial and cultural of the country’s transformation into a worldwide taste maker. To this day South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, is among the most modern in the world as compared to North Korea, which was more prosperous between the two, whose economy is struggling. In the 1960s, the per capita GDP of South Korea was less than that of North Korea or even less developed countries like Ghana. At this time it was difficult to compare the living stands between Pyongyang and Seoul (Hong, 2014).
However, to date, South Korea has become the 15 th largest economy in the world. The countries internet coverage, speed and efficiency has even surpassed those of great cities in developed countries such as London. This main reason being the great investments the government has put in place to ensure that its citizens have access to the internet. The author gives an account of this rags to riches narrative which she described as rapid that was achieved through sheer hard work, discipline, enforced shopping habits, among other measures. According to Hilton (2014) “government intervention and its determination to avoid a similar scenario that was the result of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, was a major contributing factor to this end.
The other important highlight of the book is the contribution made by the South Korean President Kim Dae-jung who capitalized on the Asian financial crisis. With no money to engage in meaningful investments, the president made a decision to make South Korea a leading exporter of culture also known as Hallyu. This was a strange decision. However, twenty years later the gamble paid off. The country rakes in millions of dollars from its entertainment industry with its soap operas and K-pop attracting millions of viewers and fans all over the world. The country’s video games are famous with the young generation including a thriving film industry that has captured the imagination of many. In addition to that, the most watched video of all time known as Gangnam Style, is also South Korean. This video was produced by Psy, a famous South Korean pop icon.
This makes one wonder how all these developments came to be. It started out with the same mediocre style that revived Samsung from the humble “Samsuck” beginning to becoming a world leader in mobile telephones. The main points of focus being the concentration of attention on key sectors with the help of government intervention measures such as support and investments. The South Korean government had a goal of bringing internet access to a large number of households by wiring the whole country with high speed broadband including connecting every household with a 1GB per second connection. This type of connection is nearly 200 times faster than that used by an average US citizen (Hpar, 2016).
South Korean soaps also made it in the international maps with What is Love All About? leading the way. Hi soap was translated into Cantonese at the expense of the government and became a popular show in Hong Kong, China. Looking at the South Korean pop the other observe that it is a product of hard work and strict discipline. The members of K-pop are trained rigorously to a period of about seven years before they are allowed to stage public shows. Hong also argues that addition to the socio-political factors that led to success, the ambitions of south Korean’s were driven by resentment and fear of North Korean and of Japan who were their greatest oppressors (Hong, 2014).
The export of culture by South Korean could not have been profitable by itself if the people consuming their soap operas were also not inclined to buy an assortment of other South Korean products such as TVs, fridges, computers and cars. This is because most of them wanted to live the Korean dream. The provision of funding, infrastructure and guidance by the Korean government made these industries to grow to what they are today. Hong, argues that this was a creation of protected market that has fully grown without any form of competition from external sources. Its strategy of marketing its culture that were less penetrated by the west maximized its reach (Leong, 2014).
The Korean cultural exports have dominated the Asian markets as well as those in the Middle East and Africa who are now buying more Samsung phones and watching K-dramas on TV. This is an aspect that is mostly not put into consideration even though its impact is tremendous. This is because products like music, video games, movies, dramas and other cultural exports have a large effect on the GDP of South Korea especially after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The South Korean government is currently engaged in initiatives of marketing this economic model to other developing states. Even though this initiative has not had a big impact it is still indicative of the type of future prospects the country has in store (Hong, 2014).
In conclusion, it should be noted that the Korean culture is still more relevant today as it was in the past. Even though the Korean wave has now reached the US market, it is still more profound in other Asian states, the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere in the world. The manner in which the South Korean government has promoted and developed its cultural exports has model it a potential economic model for other states which are less developed and lack resources. However, it is to be noted that the South Korean model is not transferrable on the same degree or scale that it had on the country’s economy. However, this is something that other developing economies need to consider because it has been able to transform South Korea from one of the poorest countries in the world to become among the leading economies today.
References
Hilton, I. (2014, August 25). The Birth of Korean Cool review – the making of a cultural superpower. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/25/birth-of-korean-cool-review-south-korea-cultural-superpower-euny-hong-psy
Hong, E. (2014). The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World through Pop Culture. New York: Simon and Schuster
Hpar. (2016). The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture. Humprey Public Affairs Review . Retrieved from http://humphreyreview.umn.edu/news/birth-korean-cool-how-one-nation-conquering-world-through-pop-culture on 14/2/2019.
Kirkus Reviews. (2014). The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World through Pop Culture. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/euny-hong/the-birth-of-korean-cool/ on 14/2/2019.
Leong, M. (2014, August 2). How Korea became the world's coolest brand. Financial Post . Retrieved from https://business.financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/how-korea-became-the-worlds-coolest-brand on 14/2/2019.
