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For the next step [of Hallyu], we shouldn’t have that name. Specially, Hal [Han] in Hallyu actually means Korea. So, I think from now on, if you really want to take it to the next level, maybe we shouldn’t have a name like that ... [Before] it was basically about introducing Korea, Korean songs, Korean dramas. And hopefully I think it can be changed into something like, sharing. You know, mutual understanding through cultural sharing. — From the public lecture of JYP, a singer and music producer, at the forum “Hallyu in Asia: A Dialogue” held at Harvard University on February 16, 2007 South Korean popular culture has circulated globally since the late 1990s. Broadly, its global popularity can be observed in two major cultural phenomena: Hallyu (한류, 韓流), which is more evident in the Asian region; and cult fandom of the Korean genre film, which is more evident in the West.2 The literal translation of Hallyu is “Korean Wave” and this term refers to the regional popularity of South Korean cultural products such as cinema, television drama, popular music, and fashion within Asia. The origin of Hallyu can be traced back to the success of the South Korean television drama, What Is Love? (Sarang-i Mwogille 1991).3 When What is Love? was screened in China on CCTV (Chinese Central Television) in June 1997, its audience share was 16.6%, which is the highest record achieved by any foreign drama series to be broadcast in China up to that time (M. J. Lee 2006: 77).4 Besides the early success of South Korean television drama in China, Hallyu also expanded into cinema with the regional success of the blockbuster film Shiri (1999) in Asia. In Japan, for example, Shiri sold over 1.2 million tickets (S. M. Kim 2001: 121).5 Following Shiri’s success, the films My Sassy Girl (Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo 2001) and My Wife Is a Gangster (Jopok Manura 2001) also reached number one at the box office in several Asian countries including Hong Kong and Singapore. In Hong Kong, My Sassy Girl stayed at the box office number one spot for two weeks and its total box office revenue was more than US$1.7 million (Korean Film Council 2004). Hallyu was also evident in popular music: a South Korean female singer, BoA, became a regional superstar in Asia after all her albums and a number of 1 Korean Popular Culture and Transcultural Consumption: Globalized Desires between “Ours and Others”1 2 Korean Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption her singles reached the top of Japan’s Oricon music chart.6 However, it was not until April 2003 when the drama Winter Sonata (Gyeoul Yeonga 2002) was first screened on NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) that Hallyu became the regional popular cultural phenomenon within Asia that it is today.7 The enormous popularity of Winter Sonata in countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China created “the Yonsama syndrome,” which refers to the phenomenal stardom of Winter Sonata’s male lead, Bae Yong-Joon (BYJ). A year later, in 2004, another South Korean drama, Full House (Pulhauseu 2004), was screened in the region, where it also achieved around 50% of the average audience share in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Hong Kong (JYPE 2006; E. J. Lee 2006).8 The success of Full House helped contribute to the regional stardom of Full House’s male lead, Rain, who was later selected by Time magazine as one of “the world’s most influential 100 people” in 2006 (Walsh 2006). Finally, a historical costume drama, Dae-jang-geum (2003–2004) has achieved phenomenal popularity in various regions. Since 2004, the drama has been widely broadcast in more than sixty countries around the world, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Iran, all the Arabic countries (through Dubai satellite television), Australia, the U.S., Canada, Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Hungary, Ghana, and Zimbabwe (J. Y. Kim 2008).9 In addition to the regional phenomenon of Hallyu, the recent Western embrace of the South Korean genre film also exemplifies the global circulation of South Korean popular culture. In 2003, the well-known UK magazine, New Statesman, wrote of South Korean genre films: “It was South Korea that emerged as the new home of excitingly extreme Asian cinema, with bizarre export offerings ranging from the acclaimed serial-killer thriller Memories of Murder, through the ghostly chiller A Tale of Two Sisters, to the revenge...

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