By Jocelle Koh

The last time I was in Korea was in 2017.

To give a timeline from an Asian pop culture perspective;

This was:

9 years after the Korean government launched their Hallyu initiative in 2008, featuring significant investment into all aspects of Korean culture; including music, film, and television.

5 years after PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’ blew up and gave much of the western world a first taste of what Korean pop culture had to offer.

1 year before BTS became the first Korean act to receive gold certification in the US.

The year in which Korea was ranked the 6th largest global music business by IFPI , a meteoric rise since being ranked 29th globally in 2005, 12 years before.

This year, in the midst of an extreme cold snap I have returned once again, excited to revisit what Seoul has to offer, but also curious to see how Korea’s changes in the pop culture landscape have reflected in the city itself.

17 years after the Korean government launched their Hallyu initiative, we are well and truly into the 5th generation* of K-pop.

*For those who aren’t up to date, 4th gen most likely includes some of your familiar favourites such as NewJeans, IVE, Stray Kids, and aespa), whereas 5th gen K-pop brings trendy newcomers such as ILLIT, KISS OF LIFE & BOYNEXTDOOR.

And while South Korea is now ranked the 7th largest global music business by IFPI, let’s not forget that this represents more than a whopping 15917% increase since the last time I was in Korea in 2017 – from 494.4 mil USD to 79 189 mil USD in 2023.

K-pop and Korean pop culture has well and truly infiltrated the global pop culture sphere. Rather than just a trickle of names with global successes, the list and lore is larger and longer than we can count – BLACKPINK’s Rosé (APT with Bruno Mars), JENNIE (Coachella), and Lisa  (White Lotus) steadily making their mark in the US, the comeback of BTS, and…K-Pop Demon Hunters. Need we say more?

Despite not at all being a K-pop fan myself, it was still so surprising to me how easily I fell into tandem with the city’s cosmopolitan rhythms. While I still can’t speak more than five words in Korean, I recognised my favourite foods and snacks and had no issue ordering. 

I went to the Spotify x NAVER pop up in Seongsu, and while I didn’t know who Felix was (don’t @ me pls), I immediately understood what was up when the words ‘STRAY KIDS’ was uttered.

I snapped pics with G-Dragon’s building sized face on a bank ad to show my cousin who was a huge fan. 

And I am still hunting down a life sized version of Byon Woo Seok if anyone knows where to find one (asking for a friend), all while dutifully updating myself on ILLIT’s latest discography and learning how to use NAVER.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that this is actually WILD. That so much knowledge about Korean culture, or Korean products (the authenticity of K-pop debate can wait another day) has become so widely accessible that places I have never been to feel like a second home.

That sounds and languages which should feel foreign and anxiety-inducing instead are comforting because they sound like the K-dramas we watch. That I am sending pictures back to friends and family not to show them new sights and sounds, but sights and sounds that they already have deep emotional attachments with. That some semblance of Korean culture has slowly but surely become embedded in our own cultures, thousands of kilometres away.

While it is a mammoth task to even begin to calculate how much the Korean government has invested to create this gargantuan machine, here’s an estimate to get your gears going. In 2023 alone, Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism pledged 6.72 Trillion KRW towards promoting K-culture. 

So here’s where my head’s at – in 17 years and trillions of won in investment – from a profit-and-loss perspective, only the Korean government would truly know whether they are profiting from this decades-long investment yet.

But what’s for sure is that we are in a very different place than we were 17 years ago, and where I physically was 8 years ago. And if this is the filter-down effect of all those efforts – someone like me; who for all intents and purposes has always been ambivalent towards Korean culture being able to feel so easily embodied into this city, this brings into focus bigger questions.

About what it truly takes to create cultural phenomenons; and how many cultural phenomenons it takes in order to create a movement (and for that movement to create long-lasting, sustainable change).

And more importantly, what does this mean for Asian pop culture on a global scale?

At the moment, there seems to be close to nothing that could slow this gargantuan momentum down that the K-culture movement has started and intends fully to continue.

The question is; how much of this will trickle down into wider interest in Asian pop culture, and will other neighbouring countries start taking up the mantle when it comes to exporting their culture on a similar scale?

Lots of questions, very few answers. But maybe let’s see what happens when I’m back once again in Korea. Let’s hope it won’t be another 8 years before I come back!

Listen to Jocelle’s Sounds of Korea Playlist!