All Thammasat University students who are fans of K-Pop may be interested by a book newly acquired by the TU Library. Pop City: Korean Popular Culture and the Selling of Place should also be useful for students of urban theory, development studies, geography, ethnographic studies, media and communication studies, and Korean studies, among other subjects.  It is shelved in the General Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus. It discusses how Korean television dramas and K-pop music promote places in South Korea to tourists and other viewers and listeners. In Korea, mayors and governors work to develop and sell their areas by using branding.

These areas use K-dramas and K-pop idols in advertisements to attract tourists. Korean producers used the international popularity of K-Pop to convince local governments to pay for TV series to be produced. In return, they would receive publicity and fame for the sites used for filming. The term Hallyu, meaning flow of Korea, is used to describe the increasing worldwide popularity of South Korean culture over the past two decades. Pop City argues that this results in spectacular images showing off different places in Korea, instead of focusing on more realistic cultural highlights.

The author of Pop City is Assistant Professor Youjeong Oh, who teaches in the Department of Asian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA. Assistant Professor Oh earned a Ph.D. in geography at the University of California, Berkeley, California, USA. She also received a master’s degree in urban planning (MUP) from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her bachelor of science degree in urban studies was from Seoul National University, Korea.

Exporting popular culture

As K-Pop fans know, South Korea has declared its intention to be the most influential exporter of popular culture. Just as the United States sells Apple iPhones, Coca-Cola, and Hollywood movies by convincing potential consumers that these products are desirable, K-Pop is also sold around the world. In 2014, it was estimated that Hallyu had added USD 11.6 billion (3,629,408,000,000.00 Thai baht) to the Korean economy.

Hallyu in Thailand

Thais are well aware of phenomena such as KCON 2018 Thailand, a global platform to celebrate K-Pop, which visited the Kingdom for the first time last September. This was also the first visit to the ASEAN region for KCON, which was held at the IMPACT Arena, Exhibition and Convention Center, Muang Thong Thani, Popular 3 Rd, Ban Mai, Nonthaburi. A list of K-Pop stars scheduled to perform was gradually released to the media, building consumer interest. They included Got7, Wanna One, Monsta X, Pentagon, (G)I-dle, Golden Child, Stray Kids, Sunmi, the Boyz, the East Light, Chung Ha and formis_9. The Nation invited its readers to Go Korea crazy at KCon, and reported in October 2018 that KCon 2018 drew more than 40,000 people over two days in Bangkok:

Wanna One leads a parade of top hallyu talent bowling over 40,000 fans in Bangkok. It was “all hail to hallyu” in Bangkok again last weekend when no fewer than 40,000 devoted fans of the Korean Wave massed at Impact Arena and the adjoining exhibition centre for KCon 2018, perhaps the biggest South Korean spectacle seen in Thailand to date. There was K-fashion, K-beauty, K-food, K-dance, K-drama and of course unrelenting K-pop, with some of the biggest names in the genre performing. With the pop tunes scheduled for the evenings, the huge turnout – mainly Thai preteen girls but also plenty of visitors from elsewhere in Asia – spent the daylight hours checking out the non-musical action on two stages. The Star Square offered events such as “Oppa loves Thai”, “Thai Influencer” and a “K-Pop Cover Dance Workshop”, but also, at something known as “Exclusive Fan Engagement”, a chance to practise screaming at members of Golden Child and Nature. The KCon Stage had Nature holding forth about beauty topics. Kim Chungha (Chungha) and Monsta X did sessions with Tofupop Radio and Cho Yumyong of YMC Entertainment and Lee Jooseob of MNH Entertainment presented the success of Chungha and Wanna One. MNH put Chungha on the TV reality show “Produce 101”, in which girl groups battle for survival, and she finished fourth, then joined other trainees in the “project girl group” IOI, which released the mini-album “Chrysalis”.  She’s found far greater fame as a solo artist and has released three mini-albums that spawned the hits “Why Don’t You Know” and “Roller Coaster”. Wanna One – the first K-pop group to sell a million copies of a debut album – emerged from the same reality show, as an 11-member boy band, and have scored success with the tracks “Energetic”, “Burn It Up”, “Beautiful” and this year’s “Boomerang”, backed by a world tour.  Its members currently also pitch cosmetics, clothing, mobile games and food and beverages.

Some concertgoers were mainly interested in visiting K-pop booths to have their pictures taken with life-size cutout popstars. Others pointed out that KCON 2018 Thailand coincided with the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Thailand and South Korea. As if reflecting some degree of cultural exchange, some of the groups have international singers. Nichkhun Buck Horvejkul is a Thai performer in the South Korean boy band 2PM. Nature, another group, includes Chinese and Japanese members.

Consumer reaction?

The selling of Hallyu has been so energetic that some academic researchers have noted an unintended response from the ASEAN region. Professor Mary J. Ainslie of the University of Nottingham Ningbo Campus; Professor Sarah Domingo Lipura of the Ateneo de Manila University; and Professor Joanne B. Y. Lim of Monash University Malaysia coauthored an article in 2017 to explore potential backlash:

Korean cultural products (known as Hallyu) are now the dominant incarnation of East Asian culture throughout Southeast Asia and have introduced consumers to Korean industry, cosmetics, and culture. Recent work has concentrated heavily upon this region and the new dynamics Southeast Asian countries can offer to the study of inter-Asian cultural links, particularly during the political amalgamation of the ASEAN economic community. Yet in the more developed Southeast Asian nations of Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines, there is some evidence of a rejection of and animosity towards Hallyu products from consumers who are beginning to question and disapprove of the high number of Korean products in their countries. Through interviews with over 70 consumers dissatisfied with Hallyu across these three nations, this project identifies three main areas under which this potential for a Hallyu “backlash” occurs: perceptions of colonial-esque attitudes and cultural imperialism from Korea; the movement of Hallyu from an innovative new “high culture” to a static and out-of-date “low culture”; and the increasing availability of new and different international products that threaten to usurp Hallyu. Such evidence represents a potential change in East and Southeast Asian relations, as well as the long term difficulties inherent in using Hallyu as a vehicle to maintain Korean influence.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)