By Christina Cook

When the 2012 hit single “Gangnam Style” became the first video to reach a billion views on YouTube and inspired exuberant parodies all over the world, including a “flash mob” at the University of Pennsylvania one autumn afternoon, it signified much more than a music video gone viral. According to Penn junior Sheryl Li, it was an anthropological anomaly involving K-pop, Korean popular music. 

“The recent exposure of K-pop in America really sparked my curiosity,” says Li. “One-way cultural outflows from ‘core’ countries to ‘periphery’ countries is demonstrated by the popularity of Hollywood movies and American music all around the world, but the globalization path of the ‘Korean Wave’ from ‘periphery’ to ‘core’ is challenging this cultural framework, and that makes it truly something special.” 

Li says East Asian consumers have been experiencing this South Korean cultural renaissance for more than a decade. 

“Korean solo artists and groups have held sold out concerts on multiple continents,” she says. “Hallyu films and dramas have surpassed the popularity of Hollywood films in East Asia in terms of box office sales.” 

Hallyu Li explains, is a term coined by the Chinese media to describe a surge in popularity of South Korean cultural products.

An economics major from Plano, Texas, Li was born in Singapore and has deep family roots in China where both her parents were born. She travelled to Beijing and Seoul last summer to conduct field research on the “Gangnam Phenomenon,” and this summer she extended her research in Tokyo allowing her to compare the cultural impact of Korean Wave in the two countries.

Both phases of the research project were supported by the University Scholars program at Penn’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. In addition to being a University Scholar, Li is a member of the CURF Undergraduate Advisory Board.

As part of her ongoing research, Li reviewed literature on the Korean Wave in Japan and conducted interviews with Japanese contacts via Skype. 

Li says that the Japanese market is the second largest in the music industry after that of the United States, and the Korean entertainment industries have been “trying the break into the Japanese market for many years, much longer than its attempt in China so far.”

“A producer-director I interviewed,” Li says, “told me that the big Korean entertainment companies felt comfortable expanding into Japan because Japan has a mature music industry with enforced piracy laws, a huge concern for China.”

However, Li says only a few Korean groups have had lasting popularity in Japan.

“It seems to be less common these past few years for Korean groups to promote successfully in Japan, although some groups still give it try. Perhaps this is because Japan’s domestic music scene is proving to be a strong competitor of K-pop.”

“China and Japan are in different stages on the ride of the Korean Wave,” says Li. “In China, the interest in Hallyu is growing; in Japan, it is slowing. However, if it turns out that the Japanese domestic music scene is what is mainly putting pressure on K-pop, Japan’s present may not be China’s future because China does not have a competitive local music scene.” 

Li says there are differing factors such as the composition of the target audience in each country.

“Instead of mostly young urban women, there is also a significant number of urban and rural mature women in Japan attracted to Hallyu, mostly because of Korean TV dramas.”

In China finding contacts for the interviews was Li’s biggest challenge.

“Because of the conservative culture and vigilant mentality in Asia, it can be extremely challenging to get strangers to talk to you. In Beijing, when I initially tried to conduct a survey among students after school in a high school, they all avoided me as much as possible because I didn’t seem like a Beijing native and didn’t know any of them personally. I only received a few responses that day and that was only because some students noticed I was holding a Penn folder and they wanted to learn more about the school.”

Fortunately, she found many of the individuals she interviewed through the connections of family, friends and her professors, Jaesok Kim, assistant professor of anthropology in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, and Lewis Harrington, a lecturer in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in the School. 

“When students were referred to me by some type of connection, no matter how distant, I was welcomed warmly, and we were able to have long and productive conversations.”  

Li says the growth of the Korean Wave in China and the “South Korean entertainer Psy’s explosive popularity with Gangnam Style signals a transformation in cultural consumption patterns and a new wave of globalization. 

“His success,” she says, “resulted in a new milestone for the Korean Wave in an era of social media by increasing globalization and highlighting the transnational and transcultural qualities of this phenomenon.”

According to Li, the implications of this cultural phenomenon are broad. 

“The Korean Wave contains immense economic potential for South Korea through the resulting increase in tourism and cultural exports. The impact of the Korean Wave continues to boost South Korea’s GDP at an increasing rate. 

“There is also a diplomatic advantage – a type of soft power – from the boosted image of South Korea abroad. Many studies have shown that the Korean Wave helped adhere a metropolitan, technologically advanced and fashion forward image to Seoul. Knowing this, the Korean government takes a hands-on approach to its creative industry and has put in place many policies to promote the Wave such as special promotions for foreigners, even selecting K-pop idols as cultural ambassadors.”

Li says while there was a surge of research on the impact of the Korean Wave when it first became apparent in the late ’90s through the early 2000s, little additional research has been done since the emergence of the Gangnam Phenomenon. 

“I am definitely not the only one trying to fill the gap in this research area,” she says, “but I hope that my findings can contribute to more insight on this fascinating phenomenon.”