Today, South Korean technology, products and culture can be found in every corner of the globe -- a dramatic change from centuries past, when Koreans tended to shun the outside world. Edward M. Graham, senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics; Ted Hughes, assistant professor of Korean Literature at Columbia University; Michael Huh, vice president for marketing and strategic development at ImaginAsian TV; and Emanuel Yi Pastreich, editor-in-chief of Dynamic Korea gathered at a young professionals forum to discuss how this transformation occurred and what it augurs for the future.

Pastereich was the first to speak. The outward orientation that South Korea has taken to in recent decades isn’t just novel, it’s something fundamentally new for the country. During the hundreds of years of Chosun rule, Korea was a static agricultural society where stability and tradition were prized. Today, Pastereich said, innovation and exploration are prized. “If you look to where [trends in music, movies and styles] come from...it’s drifting to Seoul.”

Korea’s explosion onto the world scene has been propelled by its booming, export-oriented economy. According to Edward Graham, however, the South Korean economy’s impressive performance may be hiding unpleasant surprises. Following the 1997 IMF crisis, Korean regulators were quick to assure global investors that they had scrubbed out all the unsound business practices that had lead to the crash. Indeed they had, but only in the financial sector. Structural problems in the corporate sector remain unaddressed, and recent revelations that the Korean government directed banks to bail out chipmaker Hynix indicate that the old business habits haven’t been completely banished.

Turning from business to culture, Ted Hughes told the audience that far from being the “hermit kingdom” it was often portrayed as, Korea has historically been a place where outside cultures mingled. Indeed, the very pillars of Korean culture are imported: Buddhism, from India, and Confucianism, from China. And while Koreans today embrace their own language and traditions, they’re influenced by art, literature and entertainment from around the globe.

Closing the panel presentations, Michael Huh spoke about how his network is trying to bring Korean pop culture, already a hit in Asia, to the U.S. market. Huh said that ImaginAsian has found that Korean TV dramas are particularly popular, even drawing large audiences of non-Asian Americans. Korean culture will eventually make its way into the American mainstream, perhaps sooner rather than later: Huh noted that Korean singer Rain had recently sold out the theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, and less than half of the audience was Korean American.

When Alexander Vorontsov, head of the section for Korean Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, hears a question about North Korea’s economic reforms, it’s usually a variation of this: Why hasn’t the DPRK moved more quickly to imitate the Chinese and Vietnamese liberalization models?

This question leaves the impression that the DPRK is doing little in the way of reform. Nothing could be farther from the truth, however, Vorontsov said. Last year North Korea reported a rice harvest of 4.4 million tons, compared to just 3 million tons five years ago. The government has embraced the local farmers’ markets that sprung up during the height of the food crisis in the mid-1990s, even opening them up to foreign visitors. Free enterprise zones at Kaesong and Mount Kumgang are flourishing, and Kim Jong-il has taken an active interest in Russia’s free market reform process. Compared to the rapid liberalization that China and Vietnam have undergone, this may not appear to be much. Compared to the DPRK’s economic order of just a few years ago, it’s a world of difference.

To the extent that North Korea has approached market reforms differently than its Asian neighbors, it’s because local conditions necessitate it. When China’s economic reforms began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, they began in the rural, agricultural areas where most of the population lived and then moved into the cities. As North Korea’s population is predominantly urban, Vorontsov pointed out, the Chinese model can’t simply be copied. In addition both China and Vietnam were secure from external threats when they began their reforms. North Korea, still facing off against U.S. troops in South Korea, is not.

North Korea’s progress towards more open markets, and perhaps a more open society, will continue at a measured pace, Vorontsov added. North Korean officials have always stressed that the process will be gradual. The government has already started to reevaluate its course in light of widening income disparities, which it fears might undermine its power. Most countries in the region, however, realize that the process will continue and are working to take advantage of it.