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Hallyu: Korean Pop Culture Sweeps Across Asia Hallyu: Korean Pop Culture Sweeps Across Asia

Young Professional Forum
   

In less than a decade, South Korea has gone from being just another consumer of Hollywood entertainment to a media powerhouse in its own right, exporting music, TV dramas and action films to enthused audiences across Asia.

To understand the phenomenon-termed Hallyu (The Korean Wave)-one has to go back to the 1980s says Frances Gateward, assistant professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During the 1980s, South Korea relaxed its film-censorship laws allowing a new generation of young actors, directors and writers to draw heavily on current events and themes of urban alienation, making for more dynamic narratives. In the 1990s, increased investment improved in the industry's production values. Today, a host of Korean directors and producers who came of age during the 1980s are creating big-budget, outside-the-box entertainment. They're young: 70% of films in Korea are directed by people just out of film school, and major Korean directors are, on average, a dozen years younger than their American counterparts. According to Gateward, this gives Korean films a different sensibility than Hollywood releases-and an edge with Asian audiences.

Ji-Hong Lee, public-relations manager at the Korean Cultural Service in New York, and John Woo, a producer who's worked with AZN Television, spoke about bringing Hallyu to the United States through Korean cinema, cuisine and television drama.

Dispelling the idea that Hallyu is just another pop-culture fad, Michael D. Shin, professor of Modern Korean Literature and History at Cornell, illustrated a complex phenomenon that reveals a great deal about contemporary Asian society. Shin noted that Hallyu is overwhelmingly driven by Korean TV dramas: the export earnings of TV dramas far surpass those of Korean music and film. Shin proceeded to break these dramas down into their elements, highlighting what resonates with both Korean and non-Korean audiences.

One factor is the characters: they're frequently leaving behind dull, monotonous employment and finding their dream jobs. This suggests that amidst the economic boom of the last two decades, many in Asia are still searching for satisfying work. A second factor is the setting. Historical dramas are a staple of Korean TV, and many are set in the early sixteenth century-a period unique in Korean history for its relaxation of traditional patriarchal norms, according to Shin. Audiences across Asia may be responding to less-rigid gender relationships as they watch the shows, suggesting that Hallyu is as much a product of social change across Asia as it is a product of Korean studios.

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

 

Hallyu: Korean Pop Culture Sweeps Across Asia Hallyu: Korean Pop Culture Sweeps Across Asia

Young Professional Forum
   

In less than a decade, South Korea has gone from being just another consumer of Hollywood entertainment to a media powerhouse in its own right, exporting music, TV dramas and action films to enthused audiences across Asia.

To understand the phenomenon-termed Hallyu (The Korean Wave)-one has to go back to the 1980s says Frances Gateward, assistant professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During the 1980s, South Korea relaxed its film-censorship laws allowing a new generation of young actors, directors and writers to draw heavily on current events and themes of urban alienation, making for more dynamic narratives. In the 1990s, increased investment improved in the industry's production values. Today, a host of Korean directors and producers who came of age during the 1980s are creating big-budget, outside-the-box entertainment. They're young: 70% of films in Korea are directed by people just out of film school, and major Korean directors are, on average, a dozen years younger than their American counterparts. According to Gateward, this gives Korean films a different sensibility than Hollywood releases-and an edge with Asian audiences.

Ji-Hong Lee, public-relations manager at the Korean Cultural Service in New York, and John Woo, a producer who's worked with AZN Television, spoke about bringing Hallyu to the United States through Korean cinema, cuisine and television drama.

Dispelling the idea that Hallyu is just another pop-culture fad, Michael D. Shin, professor of Modern Korean Literature and History at Cornell, illustrated a complex phenomenon that reveals a great deal about contemporary Asian society. Shin noted that Hallyu is overwhelmingly driven by Korean TV dramas: the export earnings of TV dramas far surpass those of Korean music and film. Shin proceeded to break these dramas down into their elements, highlighting what resonates with both Korean and non-Korean audiences.

One factor is the characters: they're frequently leaving behind dull, monotonous employment and finding their dream jobs. This suggests that amidst the economic boom of the last two decades, many in Asia are still searching for satisfying work. A second factor is the setting. Historical dramas are a staple of Korean TV, and many are set in the early sixteenth century-a period unique in Korean history for its relaxation of traditional patriarchal norms, according to Shin. Audiences across Asia may be responding to less-rigid gender relationships as they watch the shows, suggesting that Hallyu is as much a product of social change across Asia as it is a product of Korean studios.

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

 

Program Information



About the Speakers

 

In recent years Korean-made pop culture has surged across Asia. From Tokyo to Macau, the Korean Wave (Hallyu)-a crush of Korean movies, TV dramas, music and fashion-has turned all eyes to Seoul, the new regional capital of cool.  

Government and business in Korea are capitalizing on the cultural success, drawing up a new "Han brand" strategy and promoting South Korea as an entertainment hub. But even as the receipts keep adding up and droves of tourists flock to visit the sets of their favorite Korean television dramas, questions about the phenomenon are being raised. What forces generated the Korean Wave? What does it tell the world about Korea? What can it tell Koreans about themselves? And how much longer will the world fix its attention on Korean culture?

Four speakers from the entertainment industry, government and academia will answer these questions, and discuss what's become one of the decade's most important Asian cultural trends.

ykan_skacf_snewyork_seoul_skcs_s

This event is co-sponsored by the Young Korean American Network (yKAN), Korean American Community Foundation (KACF), New York-Seoul, and the Korean Cultural Service (KCS).

 

Speakers


Hallyu: Korean Pop Culture Sweeps Across Asia

Young Professional Forum

with

Frances Gateward
Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Ji-Hong Lee
Public Relations Manager 
Korean Cultural Service of New York 

John Woo
Executive Director 
Woo Art 

Michael D. Shin
Professor of Modern Korean Literature and History 
Cornell University

List of Speakers:
 
mshinMichael D. Shin
Professor of Modern Korean Literature and History
Cornell University

 

Michael D. Shin teaches modern Korean literature and history in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. He is the co-editor of Landlords, Peasants, and Intellectuals in Modern Korea (Cornell East Asia Series, 2005) and the translation editor of the forthcoming A New Interpretation of Neo-Confucianism in Korean History by Yi Tae-Jin (Cornell East Asia Series). His research focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of the colonial period (1910-1945), and he is currently completing a manuscript based on his research into the controversial journalist and novelist Yi Kwangsu. 

 jwoo
John Woo
Executive Director
Woo Art

John Woo co-founded, in 1981, Woo Art International, the New York based creative services, digital media design and entertainment production fi rm. In 1998 he designed the multimedia rotunda exhibit for the Museum of Jewish Heritage at New York’s Battery Park City. He created, with writer Jessica Hagedorn, the animated series The Pink Palace for the Oxygen Media Network. In 1995 he produced Shu Lea Cheang’s Fresh Kill, and more recently produced Cheang’s documentary Garlic=Rich-Air. His recent executive producer credits include Slow Jam King, a feature fi lm written and directed by Steven Mallorca, and Cinema AZN, an entertainment news program for AZN Television, which he co-created with Roger Garcia. Since January 2000 Woo has headed the executive committee of Asian CineVision, the New York based non-profit media arts organization that presents the annual Asian American International Film Festival.  

jhlee

Ji-Hong Lee
Public Relations Manager
Korean Cultural Service of New York

Ji-Hong Lee is Public Relations Manager for the Korean Cultural Service New York, an organization representing South Korea’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Fluent in both English and Korean, Lee joined the Korean Cultural Service New York soon after graduating from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations. At the Korean Cultural Service New York, he is in charge of public and media relations and has worked to introduce Hallyu to New York. Lee has studied and worked extensively throughout Europe and Asia.  

 


fgateward

Frances Gateward
Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Frances Gateward teaches film and popular culture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has presented her research on Korean fi lm in Hong Kong, Chicago, and at the University of Iowa. Her publications on Asian film include “Breaking the Silence: An Interview with Dai Sil Kim Gibson” (Quarterly Review of Film and Video), “Youth in Crisis: National and Cultural Identity in New Korean Cinema” (Multiple Modernities: Cinema and Popular Media in Transcultral East Asia), “Bubblegum and Heavy Metal” (Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice: Cinemas of Girlhood ), and “Wong Fei Hung in da House: Kung Fu Cinema and Hip Hop Culture” (forthcoming in Chinese Connections: Critical Perspectives on Film, Identity and Diaspora). She is also the editor of Zhang Yimou: Interviews (Mississippi University Press), Seoul Searching: Culture and Identity in Korean Cinema (currently in production) and A Critical Filmography of World Cinema—Korea (in progress).

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