Topic – Korea is tapping into the financial benefits of packaging and selling its own brand of youth culture abroad. What are the benefits and potential drawbacks of this youth movement spreading not only across Asia, but also worldwide?
In 1996 a lot of Korean television dramas have been exported to China and two years after, Korean pop culture spreads in China significantly. Korean culture became so popular that China journalists referred this popular culture as “Korean Wave” or “Hallyu”. This strong wind of Korean Wave reached not only in China but also in Taiwan, HongKong, Thailand, Japan, and all over the Southeastern Asia. This Korean Wave has brought considerable benefits into Korea. We earned a lot of foreign exchange and Korean Wave was a good opportunity to spread Korean culture to the world.
Recently, tourists in Korea has been significantly increased after Korea exported some dramas and movies that was popular in Korea to Southeastern Asian countries. Some of the most famous dramas were “대장금 (Daejangeum)” and “겨울연가 (Winter Sonata)”. 대장금 was extremely successful in China that the audience rate of this drama was over 17% of whole China population. 겨울연가 was also successful in Japan and took the top rank of foreign dramas in Japan. Korea earned huge amount of money from those dramas. Not only in drama, but also popular singers such as 보아(BOA) and 비(Be) tours all over the Asia and had many concerts. More than a million foreign fans came to the concert and gave a huge cheer for Korean singers. Their albums were sold more than a hundred million copies around Asia! These world-popular Korean pop cultures have contributed to Korean economically significantly.
According to the one investigation from a tourism company, it has proven that tourists that come to Korea every year have been increased by more than 20% recently. This is because of those popular movies and dramas. More and more foreigners want to come to Korea to see the places that were in the films. 경복궁 tourism has been noticeably enlarged, where was the main shooting scene of the drama대장금. And a lot of Japanese came to Korea to see the actors and actresses who were in 겨울연가. Increasing tourists not only benefits our foreign exchange but also provides Korea an opportunity to spread Korean culture to them. Many tourists who have biased view of Korea will then change their mind after visiting Korea. Tourism is critical for Korea to spread various Korean cultures.
Korean Wave benefits Korea in diverse ways, especially the amount of financial and cultural profits are so huge that we can practically ignore the little potential drawbacks that could exist. Korea should keep developing good dramas and movies so we can take more benefits from them.