Post-pandemic, people are bent on traveling including to Korea. Whether they are coming mainly because of the Korean wave, or hallyu, is always heavily scrutinized and debated.
British magazine Monocle in its late 2023 issue ranked South Korea sixth in its “soft power survey,” powered mainly by its cultural exports. It noted how the Korean Netflix drama “Glory” prompted an anti-bullying campaign in Southeast Asia, while demand for Korean-language courses and accessibility to bibimbap is high. Still in the top 10, sixth is a slide down from the previous years, something the policymakers hope to turn around. The burgeoning entertainment industry is ever finding the next source of growth while the members of the super-popular K-pop group BTS, except Jin, are still serving in the military.
For hallyu fans, it’s about more opportunities to be in the land, enjoy their favorite groups, deepen their knowledge of the Korean language and work either short-term or long-term.
“It is nice to be back in Korea overall. There is so much good food, and I can buy casual ‘hanbok’ (traditional Korean attire),” said 추천 Sydney Smith, 24, from the United States. After working a year at a Korean middle school, she is doing an eight-week internship with a Korean conglomerate. She got interested in K-pop early through a friend.
For her, consuming Korean content has always been a pastime, while the pandemic era provided more time for her to study Korean. She said she was already heavily consuming Korean content even before the pandemic. Smith got inducted into K-pop through SHINee and Girls’ Generation, and is now a fan of NewJeans, who sold out tickets at their first concert and fan meeting in Japan, held June 26 and 27 at Tokyo Dome.
