How Korean culture went global

Throughline - NPR

This episode of Throughline explores how South Korea's cultural exports—particularly K-pop, K-dramas, and K-beauty—achieved global dominance

Key takeaways

• South Korea's rise in global pop culture is rooted in a deliberate government-led campaign known as Hallyu, or the Korean Wave.
• The devastation of the Korean War and Japanese colonialism shaped a national mindset focused on excellence and resilience.

Main topics

• Hallyu (Korean Wave) and its global impact
• Historical trauma from the Korean War and Japanese occupation

Notable quotes

"War isn't hell. War is war and hell is hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse." – From MASH, reflecting Korean wartime experience

Conclusion

South Korea's global cultural dominance is not accidental but the result

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:00) This week on the NPR Politics Podcast, the Trump administration is taking credit for a major drop in violent crime, murder, robbery, assault, all down in big cities and small towns. We're going to dig into the numbers and unpack whether this is really as simple as the president claims it is on the NPR Politics Podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (0:23) Welcome back to the latest installment of ThruLine's summer series, Hidden Histories. Stories that will make you rethink how the world works. Today on the show, South Korea's rise to the pinnacle of global pop culture. That's right, we're talking K-pop. Speaker 2 (0:42) BTS made a splash at the World Cup finals a few weeks ago. The bands back together and singing to sell out crowds. Their success is a testament to so much more than talent. Turns out it's thanks to a coordinated government plot hatched decades ago. Keep listening. Speaker 1 (1:07) It was in 2019, like late 2019. So I became a fan around 2015, 2016. During the Speaker 7 (1:16) pandemic. I would say it began in 2013. I think I would say officially Speaker 2 (1:20) in 2016. My Speaker 7 (1:21) roommate actually, he showed me one music video and then he showed me their performances on SNL. And for like weeks after, I just like could not stop watching those videos. Ladies and gentlemen. Please welcome. BTS. Speaker 6 (1:51) The Speaker 7 (1:53) K-pop group song got over 108 million views within the first 24 hours of its release. Speaker 4 (2:01) There's an interesting concept in Korean culture called Wonjo. It means the original. Speaker 5 (2:08) Here, the K-drama world has been the talk of the town, not only in Korea, but also worldwide. The demand Speaker 1 (2:14) for Korean beauty products, or K-beauty, continues to rise. One day, one face mask. Speaker 4 (2:20) Oppan Black Star. this aspiration to be the best at something. Speaker 7 (2:25) What makes Korean-style chicken different from other fried chicken is the sauce. Speaker 4 (2:30) It's so crispy, juicy. It's one of my favorite foods here in South Korea. And that translates into Koreans wanting to be the top of the world. The only Hyundai Tucson LG Ultra Large. Best athletes. The best musicians. Speaker 4 (2:53) and to achieve it at a global level. Speaker 6 (2:56) Every step Speaker 4 (3:11) of the way there were sort of doubters and skeptics. Initially, they're like, well, Korean culture will be popular in Asia, but it will never be popular outside of this region. And then it conquers Europe. It conquers Latin America. Speaker 1 (3:31) And then it finally United States. The country's pop culture exports have taken the world by storm, becoming a major contributor to South Korea's $1.6 trillion economy. Speaker 7 (3:42) Now, Koreans themselves have become almost the kind of export, or even if they're not leaving, they become popular to people in other countries. Speaker 5 (3:49) Korean pop culture has now become a really legitimized cultural force that rivals the U.S. How did they do it? Speaker 3 (4:05) How did they do it? Speaker 2 (4:07) How did Korean culture go global and take not just the world by surprise, but also Koreans themselves? I'm Randa Abdel-Fattah. And Speaker 3 (4:16) I'm Ramteen Arablui. On today's show, how a devastating war, nationwide economic collapse, and a deliberate government campaign gave rise to Hallyu, the Korean wave. Speaker 1 (4:38) Hi, this is Zach from Chesterfield, Michigan, and you are listening to ThruLine on NPR. Love you guys. Keep up the good work. Bye. Speaker 7 (4:51) This message comes from WISE, the smart way to manage your money around the world. With WISE, you can send, spend, and receive money in over 40 currencies at the mid-market rate. Learn more at WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Speaker 1 (5:06) It's hard to refine your taste when everything in your algorithm is vying for your attention. Is that influencer you follow giving you the right advice? What should we actually be paying attention to in our social media feeds? This week on It's Been a Minute, culture critic and host of the new podcast, Feedback, Ira Madison III, takes our hand and shows us the way. Watch the full It's Been a Minute episode on YouTube or listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (5:31) At NPR, there's a little something for everyone. If you need advice for that big life change, try listening to Life Kit. If you want to know more about that new TV show, check out Pop Culture Happy Hour. And if you want to dive deeper into your favorite podcasts and enjoy perks like bonus episodes, archive access, and more, check out NPR+. Find out more and support the shows you love at Speaker 1 (5:52) plus.npr.org. Part 1. At the end of hardship comes happiness. Speaker 4 (6:05) Oh, so basically my family has never stopped talking about the Korean War. Speaker 4 (6:18) My name is Michael Kim. I'm a Korean historian at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. Well, yes, of course, growing up in the United States, I grew up watching MASH. It's basically a show that depicts the life of a mobile army hospital. Speaker 6 (6:41) I will take him second. What else you got? This POW over here, he was in the back of the truck when it was hit. Speaker 6 (6:49) Out of his chest is gone. Does he even have a pulse? Speaker 4 (6:52) And so you're constantly getting a flood of soldiers that are wounded in the front line, being flown in by helicopters. And then the whole drama revolves around the lives of these nurses and officers, doctors, as they're treating these patients. But they don't know why they're there fighting this war, treating these people. Ever get the feeling there's a war Speaker 6 (7:13) going on? There's always a war going on. Speaker 4 (7:15) War is the world's favorite spectator sport. Give Speaker 6 (7:17) me some more skin sutures. Everybody knows war is hell. Remember, you heard it here last. Speaker 4 (7:22) War isn't hell. War is war and hell is hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. How do you figure that out? And so they portray a kind of version of Korea, war-torn, devastated land and intense poverty everywhere. And of course, Americans being there trying to save these people. Speaker 6 (7:39) Overhead, B-29s wing toward the red marshalling yards at Pyongyang to drop 100 tons of demolition bombs. The UN's answer is these day-in, day-out raids. The biggest of the war. Speaker 1 (7:56) At around 12 o'clock, there was bombing in the city. Since then, I haven't seen my brother. He went one way, and I went another. Speaker 4 (8:12) There's almost no one killed on my father's side because he lived so far south. But on my mother's side, half the family was basically decimated. Speaker 4 (8:22) And so the entire side of her family, like over a dozen people were killed in just one bombing blast from American bomber. And then, of course, all their friends all went through very similar experiences. So, yeah, for that generation, my parents' generation, the Korean War is still living in their minds. Speaker 2 (8:44) In the U.S., the Korean War is also known as the Forgotten War. But for the Korean Peninsula, the three-year-long war was devastating. The U.S. dropped more bombs on North Korea than it dropped in the entire Pacific theater during World War II. Speaker 4 (9:00) Almost all of North Korea was flattened. Speaker 3 (9:05) And in the stories that Michael's parents told him and are still telling him, Michael also learned their attitudes towards Americans. Speaker 4 (9:13) I don't think that on my mother's side, anyone ever thought that the Americans did it on purpose. So for that generation, because of the context of the Korean War, even if there was all this violence in your family from the American side, they would still understand it because it was necessary to fight off the North Koreans. Speaker 2 (9:33) The Korean War was one of the first Cold War clashes between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It was an ideological battle. Communism versus democracy. North versus South. A battle that would never formally end, with two global superpowers backing opposite sides at the Korean people's expense. Speaker 3 (9:53) Michael grew up understanding that Korean experience through America. But as an adult, he moved to South Korea to live. Speaker 4 (10:01) Growing up, as an Asian American in the United States, you don't really necessarily understand your Korean part or your Asian part. And so I think that's one of the reasons why I decided to research Korean history and then later return to Korea, where then I start to encounter my Korean side. Speaker 3 (10:19) And in his studies, Michael came to understand that the ambivalent relationship between the U.S. and South Korea didn't actually begin with the war. In fact, long before American boots touched Korean soil, American culture had already arrived. Why Speaker 1 (10:37) haven't you come before? I Speaker 3 (10:39) couldn't. I was afraid to. Speaker 1 (10:41) But you could have written. It's been almost a year since you escaped. But I Speaker 3 (10:45) haven't escaped. It came with the Japanese occupation. Speaker 2 (10:58) From 1910 to 1945, the Japanese Empire ruled the Korean Peninsula. The occupation was brutal. There were executions, forced labor, and near total repression of Korean culture. Koreans were forced to adopt and integrate Japanese culture into their lives. Speaker 4 (11:27) So if you're among the wealthiest and most educated Koreans, then life under colonialism, you would have an opportunity to attend Japanese universities and learn Japanese and become very much kind of Japanized in many ways. Speaker 4 (11:50) But then the typical Korean, they would still be living in their villages and hardly untouched, completely untouched by what happens with the rest of Korea, in that they're still living in poverty and farmers losing their jobs. So there was quite a lot of economic disruption. But the Japanese continued to industrialize the peninsula. Because it was a colony, the Japanese actually invested considerably in the latest technologies, like the radio, the railroads. The infrastructure was laid down in a way that, of course, benefited the colonizers, but it could also be appropriated in ways that maybe nobody expected. Speaker 2 (12:29) Like opening the door to American pop culture. Speaker 4 (12:33) Well, you can just Speaker 6 (12:34) quote me as saying that Eddie Singer was a good boy. Both Japan Speaker 4 (12:46) and Korea was also one of the largest markets of export for Hollywood. So in 1920s and 30s, it was not unusual for a Korean who had the means to watch a Hollywood film. And so if you read the magazines, they would be like a third of it would just be talking about Hollywood stars and the latest movies and trends. And so Korea very early gets exposed to the global media scape. Speaker 3 (13:13) And when American soldiers replaced the Japanese as occupiers, they brought their own soft power in directly. Speaker 6 (13:23) I'm