Korean Wave
The Korean Wave, or hallyu, refers to the rapid global rise in South Korean popular culture since the 1990s. It is led by the spread of K-pop, K-dramas, and films, with key successes including K-Pop groups BTS and Blackpink, the Oscar-winning film Parasite and the Netflix television series Squid Game. The Korean Wave has been recognized as a form of soft power and a significant economic asset for South Korea, generating revenue through cultural exports and tourism.
Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the end of military censorship over the South Korean entertainment industry, the country emerged as a major exporter of popular culture. The growth of satellite media in the late 1990s helped spread K-dramas and Korean cinema across East Asia and parts of Southeast Asia. Chinese journalists coined the term "Korean Wave" in 1999 to describe the growing popularity of South Korean cultural products. During the 2000s, hallyu expanded into Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. By 2008, South Korea's cultural exports surpassed its cultural imports for the first time. The rise of social media and global internet platforms helped the Korean entertainment industry reach overseas audiences and gain support from the South Korean government.
Etymology
The term "hallyu" is a neologism composed of two root words: han, meaning "Korean", and ryu, meaning "flow", "wave", or "trend". On 19 November 1999, Beijing Youth Daily published the first known use of the term "Korean Wave" in an article describing the "zeal of Chinese audiences for Korean TV dramas and pop songs". Other terms used at the time included "Korean tide", "Korean heat", and "Korean wind". In China, the term "Han fever" was also used, comparing the phenomenon to the avian flu pandemic in the country. The term entered common usage following the airing of the romance K-drama Winter Sonata, which was particularly successful in Japan.Hallyu refers to the international diffusion of South Korean culture since the 1990s, following the end of military rule and the liberalization of the popular culture industry. The term primarily refers to the spread of Korean television, pop music, film, and fashion, but can also include animation, video games, technology, literature, cosmetics, and food. While the first generation of hallyu in the late 1990s to early 2000s remained confined to Asia and referred to the popularity of Korean dramas and film on the continent, the second generation, or hallyu 2.0, was driven primarily by the popularity of K-pop distributed on online platforms like YouTube. Both "hallyu" and "Korean Wave" were added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2021.
Background
Under the military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee, South Korean mass media underwent a process of rapid expansion, despite facing increasing control and censorship from the government. As part of Park's development plans, the first commercial radio and television stations opened in the early 1960s and were subject to strict censorship under the Broadcasting Ethics Committee. This brief expansion ended in 1972, when Park enacted the Yushin Constitution which broadly expanded his powers and codified his de facto dictatorial rule. The enactment of the Yushin Constitution coincided with a broad crackdown on the South Korean culture industry against what Park alleged was the influence of "foreign decadent culture". Following Park's death and the 1979 coup d'état of December Twelfth, the military regime of Chun Doo-hwan enacted additional restrictions over the media. In 1980, Chun forced the merger of all 29 private broadcasters into the state-owned Korean Broadcasting System and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, creating a state-led media monopoly.As a part of the decolonization process in South Korea, imports of all Japanese media were banned in 1945. Despite this ban, Japanese media was still widely distributed and pirated in South Korea, with both state broadcasters and individual bootleggers being found guilty of illegal importation. The signing of the Japan–South Korea Joint Declaration of 1998 ended this ban, and it was gradually lifted across four stages between 1998 and 2004. To protect the South Korean culture industry, the South Korean Ministry of Culture received a substantial budget increase, allowing for the creation of hundreds of culture industry departments in universities nationwide. It has justified its financial support for hallyu, which it estimated to be worth US$83.2 billion in 2012, by linking it to South Korea's export-driven economy.
First generation
The first generation of the Korean Wave, also called hallyu 1.0, was the initial rise in popularity of Korean popular culture within nearby Asian countries. The first generation began in China during the late 1990s, and consisted primarily of the spread of Korean television programming.Television in the first generation
In 1990, the National Assembly granted a broadcasting license to the regional Seoul Broadcasting System, becoming the first private television station since the forced nationalization of private broadcasters in 1980. In December 1991, the National Assembly passed the Cable Television Act which directed the Ministry of Information to provide permits to twenty prospective cable television program providers. The providers were selected in August 1993, and cable television services began in March, 1995. With the liberalization of the South Korean television market, a greater number of Korean programs started to be exported abroad. These media exports were first exported to China, after the two countries formally established diplomatic relations in 1992. Although Jealousy was the first K-drama broadcast on China Central Television, the 1997 broadcasts of the K-drama First Love and Star in My Heart in China are generally considered the start of the Korean Wave. Compounding the foreign interest in Korean television programs, countries throughout East Asia began opening their television markets to foreign countries in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 1970s, imported television programs made up less than 1 percent of all airtime on CCTV, while by the late 1990s, that number would rise to 20–30 percent. In Vietnam, Korean television made up more than half of all imported programming in 1988.The 1997 Asian financial crisis led broadcasters throughout East Asia to seek cheaper programs as an alternative to the expensive, but popular broadcasts from Japan. In 2000, K-dramas were a quarter of the price of Japanese television programs and a tenth of the price of Hong Kong television programs. K-dramas first entered the Taiwanese market during the early 1990s, but the shift to Korean television programming following the financial crisis and the successful airing of Fireworks and Autumn in My Heart marked the start of the Korean Wave in the country.
The 2003 historical K-drama Jewel in the Palace has been credited for having the greatest impact on the popularity of Korean television programs in Chinese-speaking countries, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and China. In May 2005, the show's final episode became the highest-rated television episode in Hong Kong history at more than 40 percent. In the years following its release, the program was exported to over 80 countries around the world. At the same time, the 2003–2004 airing of the romance K-drama Winter Sonata in Japan marked the entrance of the Korean Wave to Japan. Winter Sonata achieved a cult following in Japan among women in their 30s, particularly around the show's lead actor Bae Young-joon. This would lead Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to exclaim in 2004 that "Bae Yong-joon is more popular than I am in Japan." Following the broadcast, stereotypes of Korea in Japan changed dramatically and tourism from Japan to South Korea would spike, primarily among Japanese women.
In the Indian state of Manipur, Hindi-language movies and television channels were banned in 2000 by insurgents, leading broadcasters to use Korean programming as substitutes. Korean dramas and films were also commonly smuggled into the region in the form of CDs and DVDs.
By the late 2000s, K-dramas became part of the daily programming of local television channels across East Asia and in China, Korean programs made up more than all other foreign programming combined. During the period between 1997 and 2007, television exports from South Korea would increase from $8.3 million to $151 million, mostly to other Asian markets. As the volume of Korean cultural imports rapidly increased, China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television responded with a decision to restrict and limit the number of Korean TV dramas shown to Chinese audiences. In Taiwan, the National Communications Commission asked cable channels to reduce the number of prime time hours allocated to Korean programming. In addition, in response to the popularity of Jewel in the Palace, director Zhang Guoli and actor Jackie Chan both called on domestic audiences to "resist Korean Wave".
Film in the first generation
In 1966, military dictator Park Chung Hee established screen quotas that restricted the number of foreign films shown in cinemas, intended to protect the Korean film industry from Hollywood blockbusters. However, in 1986, the Motion Pictures Exporters Association of America filed a complaint to the United States Senate regarding the restrictions imposed by the South Korean government. Under US pressure and despite fierce opposition from the domestic film industry, in 1988, the Korean government lifted restrictions that required foreign films to be distributed by domestic companies. In 1988, 20th Century Fox became the first American film studio to set up a distribution office in South Korea, followed by Warner Brothers in 1989, Columbia in 1990, and Disney in 1993. By 1994, domestic films reached a record low market share of just 15.4 percent, with commentators predicting the demise of the Korean film industry in the near-future. As well, negotiations for the Uruguay Round Agreements Act concluded in 1994, requiring South Korea to liberalize its communications and culture markets.In response to these crises, the National Assembly instituted the Cultural Industry Bureau within the Ministry of Culture and Sports and passed the Motion Picture Promotion Law in 1995, providing tax incentives for film production. These incentives were successful in attracting a number of chaebols to the film industry, but these ventures were financially unsuccessful, and most disbanded following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In January 1999, the Samsung Entertainment Group announced its dissolution and released its final film Shiri in February of that year. But despite the withdrawal of Samsung from the industry, Shiri set box office records in South Korea and achieved commercial success in Hong Kong and Japan, a rare feat for the time. Shiri had been funded partly through venture capital, and the success of the film led to a 1999 revision of the Motion Picture Promotion Law to allow individuals to finance film productions. This influx of capital would fund hundreds of Korean films and dramatically increase their budgets, with average costs per production rising from 0.9 billion won in 1995 to 42 billion won in 2004. The 2001 film My Sassy Girl achieved box office success in Hong Kong and Japan, and was the subject of multiple foreign remakes.