Manu Joseph: How Korean pop culture conquered the world—and can anyone really claim credit for it?

This column has consistently maintained that the primary cause of such deaths is mental health that can manifest itself in forms often mistaken as ‘reasons.’

The tragic case of the sisters is unusual but the obsession with Korean pop culture is very common in India and around the world. Usually, it is an obsession with no gravitas. South Korea is supposed to be cool, especially to those who aren’t from there.

How did it become cool? There is a theory that the government in Seoul engineered the coolness, starting from the early 1990s, and that the effort intensified under President Kim Dae-jung after the Asian financial crisis left its economy reeling. There is no doubt that South Korea marketed a form of entertainment as a cultural export so that it can enhance the appeal of other products. Still, the role of Seoul in the triumph could be an exaggeration. I can see bureaucrats taking credit and marketing people flogging the greatest thing they have marketed—that behind every success story is marketing.

Then what explains Korea’s undeniable coolness across the world? There are reasons other than government investment. For instance, the dourness of the West and how alien it is to most of the world. Also, Korean culture was misunderstood by foreigners. Misunderstanding is one of the most underrated transmitters of novelty because when people misunderstand, they assume their own biases as the truths of other people.

I do not believe that various reasons have an equal bearing on a result. Usually, one reason has an outsized effect. That primary reason, in general perception, is the Korean government. But it need not be. I can present some other compelling reasons, leaning on an entertaining book, The Birth of Korean Cool by Euny Hong.

Her portrait of South Korea before it became cool would be hilarious to Indians because Korea even in the early 1990s suffered a lot like India.

It was the opposite of cool. The youth were obsessed with studies. They were spanked by parents and teachers. Some parents brought canes to school and gave them to teachers to beat their wards with. Parents arranged the marriages of their children. Government officials measured the length of skirts and if hemlines were too high above the knees, girls had to go home and change; and long-haired men received forced haircuts.The minds of the young were not free.

Euny Hong says a Beatles could have never happened in Korea because young men were busy studying. Social strata were set and social peace came from the unspoken expectation that everyone would stay in their lanes. Koreans were also trained to develop false pride in their nation, in a way very familiar to us, as they spuriously claimed their ancestors invented a host of things, including the spoon. Koreans also liked to say that they have been invaded by many aggressors but they themselves never invaded another nation.

Something happened in 1992 that she suggests might be the very origin of ‘Hallyu,’ the Korean wave. A Korean civil servant took contraband to Hong Kong in a diplomatic pouch that evaded scrutiny—it was “a Beta-max tape of a Korean television drama called ‘What is Love’."

The civil servant wanted the Korean consulate to get it on Hong Kong TV. It was a big hit. It showed a culture that was alien to Hong Kong, where men returned from work and made dinner. What is Love showed Korean men as “a superpower" and women serving them.

Despite the culture shock, somehow all this was entertaining. The Korean government meanwhile spent millions to improve the production quality of its dramas. Several nations got hooked, including Cuba.

It appears that culturally, most of the world was not Western, but Korean. This is one of the reasons Euny Hong suggests: that the popularity of K-culture, though state-sponsored, might be a more organic phenomenon, something that stirred human nature in ways Korea didn’t expect.

Misconceptions too played a role, she suggests. Especially in the improbable conquest of Japan, Asia’s cool country until then and an old rival. What first brought Korea victory was, oddly, a mistaken notion of women in many parts of the world of the ‘Korean boyfriend.’

In 2002, a Korean show called Winter Sonata captivated several nations, including Iraq. Russia, Egypt and Japan. The brief the writers were given had been, according to Euny Hing, “The storyline had to have amnesia in it, and it had to take place in winter." Apart from that, the writers had full creative freedom. And they created the idea of the Korean male as a soft person with a beautiful face who cried often. Japanese women, especially, were swept off their feet. This kind of success cannot be planned; it comes from an endearing misconception.

Also, a part of South Korea’s coolness came through a comparison with North Korea; which has for long been seen as an evil empire. Euny Hong also points to the irony that the uncool nature of Koreans made them work hard to be cast in Korean cool. Like Indian techies, Koreans made great sacrifices to succeed.

Being cool is such a promising career in Korea that in 2012, for a major televised singing contest called Superstar K, 4% of its population auditioned.

The author is a journalist, novelist, and the creator of the Netflix series, ‘Decoupled’.