South Korea’s Cultural Revolution

Grunge, hipster, goth, biker. There are some cultural movements so profound they have their own name. In the past decade, a vast wave of South Korean pop culture has swept the world and crashed onto the shores of our tiny little island. It is a wave so powerful that it too has its own name: Hallyu.

If you haven't been living under a rock for the last ten years, you’ll have noticed the Hallyu, or Korean Wave by now. Last year, Hallyu and 25 other Korean words, including banchan (a vegetable side dish) and mukbang (a live-streamed video featuring a person eating large portions of food and talking to the audience) were added to the Oxford English Dictionary. In September, the London Victoria and Albert museum devoted four rooms to showcasing Hallyu. The nine-month-long exhibition features a wide range of modern Korean cultural ephemera, from the world’s first commercially successful MP3 player to K-pop-branded Covid masks.

Even if you don't know its name, chances are you’ve inadvertently experienced this Korean tsunami. Its influence is everywhere. You might have seen Parasite, which won the best picture at the 2020 Oscars; or maybe, during lockdown, you decided to wile away the days with Squid Game, the most-watched show in Netflix history. Your ears might have been assaulted by K-pop bands such as BTS and Blackpink—so adored by teenagers that they’ve been compared to the Beatles. Meanwhile, in large open areas, teenagers can be spotted frantically rehearsing the latest K-pop dance. Like it or loathe it, its cultural impact is hard to ignore. As the writer Euny Hong notes, Hallyu has become “the world’s biggest, fastest cultural paradigm shift in modern history.”

So, what happened? How has South Korea been able to transform itself from one of the world’s poorest countries, torn apart by years of war, into the tenth-largest economy in the world? How did this economic and cultural revolution known as the “miracle on the Han” occur within the space of one generation? 

Unless you’re arguing with a creationist, dinosaurs are not normally cited as a justification for anything. But for some, these prehistoric creatures have been credited with starting Hallyu. More specifically, Steven Spielberg. The Jurassic Park theory for Hallyu began in 1993 when it was revealed that the export revenue of the blockbuster film matched South Korea’s foreign sales of Hyundai vehicles for that year. Seeing as Hyundai is a deep source of national pride in Korea, the government began to invest a substantial amount of capital in the entertainment industry with the intention of profiting off the nation’s cultural exports. Last year, this initiative proved its worth: total exports of Hallyu generated $12 billion. 

Still, it took twenty years for Hallyu to go mainstream. In 2012, a man called Psy released Gangnam Style. The song features a camp k-pop dance, and while it might be the Tik Tok generation's equivalent to agadoo, it became the most-watched YouTube video of the time and the first to reach one billion views. Little did he know it at the time, but the 34-year-old from Seoul, with his Butlins-esque routine, was the earthquake that started the Korean tsunami.

Dedication, a strong work ethic, and an uncompromising sense of ambition are all factors that have helped create Hallyu. The country has no natural resources to speak of, except for its people, so they spend vast amounts of time and money developing themselves. As a people, Koreans are incredibly meticulous. They believe if you can't do something perfectly, it is simply not worth doing. Members of BTS have been known to practice for 15 hours a day. This drive for perfection starts early. Young children often study after school until 10pm. 

There is, however, a much darker side to Hallyu and South Korea in general. With such an emphasis placed on fame and success, its logical antithesis is failure. South Korea is the country with the highest suicide rate in the developed world. Every day, close to 40 South Koreans commit suicide. The country also has more alcoholics than any other country. Night after night, men sit alone, drinking away their sorrows in a Sul Jip (Korean for bar).

South Korea’s journey to cultural significance must be seen within the context of colonisation and conquest. Throughout its history, Korea has been invaded and ruled over by its more powerful neighbours, China and Japan, a position which earned it the name the “shrimp between two whales.” Imperial Japan annexed Korea in 1910, ruling it as a colony until 1945. The civil war that followed between 1950 and 1953 claimed the lives of an estimated 5 million Koreans—roughly 20 per cent of the population.

Since the early 1900s, Korean culture has been shaped by the historical-cultural concept of han. Roughly translated as hatred, resentment, or grief, it is an emotion described as unique to the people of Korea. Therefore, a psychological interpretation of Hallyu can be read as a projection of hostility towards their former colonisers to the east and their brutal, overbearing enemies in the north.

This may go some way to explaining why they have excelled in horror. The era of Spanish horror and the “new French extremity” is over, and there’s been a cultural shift towards the east. As I’ve written here before, this is a genre now dominated by South Korea. Oldboy is a 2003 film directed by Park Chan-wook. Billed as a revenge thriller, it’s based on a man seeking vengeance after being falsely imprisoned for the murder of his wife. The themes of death, suicide, and forbidden love, accompanied by a sorrowful soundtrack, symbolise the deep ancestral sadness of han. The concept is evident in the films The Host, I Saw The Devil, and A Tale of Two Sisters. Unlike Japanese ghost stories, Korean spirits are morose and ruthless, rooted in traditional South Korean folklore.

Due to their geography, Koreans view the world in a unique way. They play with convention. Although films like Return of the Living Dead introduced the concept of running zombies, Yeon Sang-Ho’s 2016 Train to Busan popularised the idea. 

They also, conversely, have a lot in common with Western nations. In the words of Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail, South Korea favours inclusive institutions—free markets, democratic elections, and free speech. For these reasons, when it comes to the production of culture, South Korea has what economists call a comparative advantage.

I don’t know how long the Korean Wave will last, but like a pebble hitting water, its effects will ripple throughout culture for a long time. 

Noel began life at university under the guidance of Professor Stuart Hall—spending four years reading sociology and political science. He is a regular contributor to City Journal and has written extensively for The Critic. In addition, he has written for Quillette, Spiked, and Areo magazine, and regularly writes for Reaction magazine. He lives with his girlfriend and his rather annoying cat.