Over the past decade, a huge wave of Korean culture has swept the world.
Even if you don't know the name of Hallyu, you should have noticed it by now. You might have seen the thriller Parasite , which won the 2020 Oscar for Best Picture ; or the popular phenomenon Squid Game, which remains the most-watched show in Netflix history.
You may have heard of the K-pop group BTS (105 million album sales) that met US President Biden at the White House in May , or in Bloomberg's "2020 World Pop Singer Power" Chart-topping "Blackpink"
K-pop band is notoriously hardworking. Cool doesn't mean indifference or effortless superiority in Korea: BTS is known for rehearsing 15 hours a day.
"In Korean culture, no one respects a person who doesn't care about anything. The ones who are considered cool are those who have high energy, those who work hard to achieve their goals."
intense focus, Stakhanov His unabashed work ethic and unapologetic ambition are the driving forces behind Hallyu. But the craze has also been fueled by the South Korean government. The Korean government is determined to achieve cultural success to match economic prosperity.
By the 1990s, South Korea had gone from one of the poorest countries in the world, war-torn and dependent on subsistence rice cultivation, to a visionary democracy and economic powerhouse, it is now the tenth largest country in the world large economy.
Based on Hallyu's "Jurassic Park Theory," the South Korean government kicked off a cultural wave in 1993 after observing that Steven Spielberg 's dinosaur blockbuster made more money than modern movies. So it started investing heavily in movies, music and drama
In 2012, Hallyu went viral with Psy 's "Gangnam Style," the first YouTube video to surpass 1 billion views. The government has set up a special group to support Hallyu, and recently established a department in the Ministry of Culture responsible for the overseas promotion of Korean culture.
In recent years, Korean broadcaster such as MBC has struck deals with all major streaming platforms in the US. "We used to be very popular in Vietnam, Singapore, mainly Southeast Asia," said Jean Hur, MBC's propagandist. "Now we are all over the world" Rosalie King, "globalization makes We are exposed to a wider range of cultures. But the social environment in which Generation Z and millennials live is also highlighted by diversity. They are more inclined to accept other cultures.”
