Hallyu research should be conducted beyond Korean perspective: scholars

Moderator Woo Mi-seong, left, a professor at Yonsei University, speaks while speakers listen during the 2022 KF Global Korean Studies Forum at the Westin Josun Seoul hotel, Thursday. The speakers are, from left, professor Hong Seok-kyeong at Seoul National University, professor Parc Jimmyn at University of Malaya, professor Choi Jin-hee at King's College London, and professor Jin Dal-yong at Simon Fraser University. Screen captured from YouTube

Scholar discuss hallyu phenomenon and research

By Lee Gyu-lee

Awareness of "hallyu," or the Korean wave ― a term coined in the late 1990s to describe Korea's cultural exports ― has been expanding around the world with the growing popularity of Korean content, such as director Bong Joon-ho's Oscar-winning film "Parasite" and Netflix's smash hit series "Squid Game."

Scholars say that the approach to studying hallyu's impact should go beyond the Korean perspective in order to expand the global phenomenon from a cultural subject into further sustainable studies in Korea itself.

"Some believe that in the early days, hallyu was only popular among East Asian nations and thought that it can only sweep across countries that are like-minded and have cultural similarities," Parc Jimmyn, a professor at the University of Malaya in Malaysia, said during a session titled "Hallyu Phenomenon and Research" at the 2022 KF Global Korean Studies Forum, organized by the Korea Foundation, Thursday.

"But now hallyu is sweeping across the world and that theory is not valid. So we need a comparative study and we need to be aware of implications for other regions," Parc added.

The professor explained that for Korean studies to become sustainable, people in the field should think about what different countries want and like about hallyu and implement reasons that make hallyu important to overseas scholars and audiences.

"For instance, economy and business scholars that are particularly not Korean scholars received support in looking at hallyu and that's how hallyu research came to develop so much," he said. "So, for Korea, how to define and utilize Korean studies should be pondered. And also, we need to think about how and what each different country can gain from hallyu."

A scene of K-pop group BTS' concert held in Las Vegas this April / Courtesy of HYBE

Professor Hong Seok-kyeong at Seoul National University also pointed out a lack of high-quality resources available to non-Korean-speaking scholars.

"There were high-quality knowledge and papers on pop culture, but they were all in Korean, so they were only read by Korean scholars. As for the foreign scholars they cannot read these papers and it led to a knowledge gap on Korean pop culture," she said.

Noting that Korean pop culture developed based on interactions with the audience, she said Korean pop culture itself is a valuable research subject for a deeper understanding of modern-day Korea.

"Korean pop culture is formed in the close interaction with industry and the public. So the most intimate desires of hopes, frustrations, anxiety, fears, and joy permeate into genres. So, I believe that Korean pop culture should not be seen as a means (to attract research scholars), but in itself is a key area of research," Hong said.

"Hallyu is a product of the political-economic cultural, artistic sensibility, and imagination of Korean society. And they can see that pop culture, like dramas, includes all of these sensibilities and is a method for understanding contemporary Korea which makes it an attractive research topic."

Jin Dal-yong, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada, noted that scholars and hallyu industry figures should pursue making Korean culture relevant to global audiences while keeping its uniqueness.

"I think that unique Korean characteristics must be fully reflected in the content. (But, at the same time,) we need to deepen the trans-nationalization of hallyu," he said. "We should go beyond just stressing the Korean uniqueness of the content and create more universal, inclusive, and diverse content by working with specialists from other countries and cultures."

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