While cinema-goers around the world gaped in slack-jawed amazement at the computer trickery employed by director Steven Spielberg in Jurassic Park, 1993’s summer blockbuster, a canny group of South Koreans were gripped by a different emotion. That sentiment was shock – more specifically, shock that the money made by this Hollywood fare exceeded the total sales value of 1.5 million Hyundai cars. The fact that the company was the country’s leading motoring marque and a source of national pride only added to their discomfort.
As this realisation reverberated upwards, Kim Young-sam, the country’s then-president, sensed an opportunity and the idea of Korean culture as a highly-lucrative, eminently-exportable commodity began to take root. The South Korean Ministry of Culture was soon mandated to develop the country’s media and entertainment sector and, within a decade, Korean culture was sweeping across Asia and making inroads into Europe and North America. Hong Kong, just 2,000km away, was one of the first places the Korean Wave made landfall.
Embracing what came to be termed as hallyu – the Chinese word for the popularity of all things Korean – the city got its initial taste of Seoul-sourced drama in the late 1990s, courtesy of the soap operas screened on ATV and Christmas in August, the South Korean romance that was the country’s first cinematic success in Hong Kong.
After that, the floodgates were well and truly open, with post-Handover Hong Kong keen to be culturally experimental after 99 years as a British chattel and South Korea intent on using the Fragrant Harbour as a platform for a wider dissemination of its artistic endeavours. Since then, Korean culture has permeated deep into Hong Kong society, manifesting itself in four particular sectors…
K-Entertainment
It’s no coincidence that Psy, the internationally-feted South Korean rapper, chose Hong Kong as one of the stops on his 2012 tour as he looked to capitalise on the global success of Gangnam Style, the first K-pop single to truly transcend every boundary. Nor was he the only Korean performer that prioritised a stop-off in the city that year, with Yoona, a member of the all-girl Girl’s Generation group, mobbed by keen K-pop fans the moment she arrived at Hong Kong airport. Since then, several generations of South Korean musical exports – the likes of SHINee, T-ara, 2AM, Exo, Monsta X and Wanna One – have ensured that Hong Kong’s K-pop connoisseurs remain wholly enamoured. The popularity of South Korean pop has, if anything, been matched by the city’s growing demand for K-drama – a body of operatic works that spans everything from heavy historical dramas to contemporary rom-coms.
K-Beauty
Along with Korean music, TV and movies, Korean cosmetics have also conquered the Hong Kong market over the last 10 years. Inevitably, their emphasis on pristine, youthful looks resonate deeply with the many age-obsessed Hongkongers who see perfect, poreless skin as the ultimate beauty prerequisite. The sheer number of options on offer has also proved part of their charm, with brands such as Etude House targetting teens, while natural-ingredients-only Innisfree serves a more superannuated clientele. According to market research company Nielsen, Korean cosmetic products have ousted their Japanese counterparts as Hong Kong’s beauty treatments of choice, with many local
consumers backing them as long-term favourites. Overall, eight out of 10 Hong Kong millennials are happy to vow allegiance to Korean skincare regimes. With this pattern being repeated across Asia and beyond, it’s no wonder that global sales of Korean cosmetics are tipped to top US$7.2 billion by 2020.
K-Fashion
It’s perhaps no great surprise that the rise and rise of K-pop has had a knock-on effect on the world of fashion, with the Hong Kong-based fans of Korean tunesmiths understandably keen to sport the same styles as their favoured purveyors of South East Asian dance-floor fillers. This has led to the inexorable rise of outlets dedicated to Korean couture across the city, with the small mass-market stores that opened in Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui representing the first wave of K-fashion to hit the Hong Kong market. With its beachhead established at the lower end of the fast-fashion market, it wasn’t long before Korean couture found an equally warm welcome among the city’s more chic outlets and upmarket department stores. Now the sight of previously-obscure Korean clothing brands, such as D by D, YCH and General Idea, jostling for space on the racks of such high-end retailers as Harvey Nichols is no longer a cause for comment. Another K-brand to have committed to major investments in Hong Kong is MLB Korea, a distinctively Korean fashion label that now has outlets in several prime locations across the city, including Central, Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay.
K-Cuisine
What better way to judge the popularity of any culture than by how keenly its cuisine is sought out on foreign shores? While a few Hongkongers may have proved immune to the allure of K-culture in all its sundry incarnations, surely none could resist its culinary aplomb. As apt testimony to this, it’s one of the few overseas cooking regimes to merit its own dedicated Hong Kong thoroughfare – TST’s Kimberley Street (a.k.a. Korean Street). Home to Korean emigres since the 1960s, every night, its huddle of authentic restaurants and dedicated grocery stores metamorphoses into mini-Seoul, complete with an endless selection of spicy stews and countless kimchi dishes.
However, as the locals tuck into their bowls of bibimbap clad head-to-toe in K-clobber, with the distant strains of Seoul-sourced synth-pop soundtracking the night, one can’t help but wonder if they pause to think if Asia’s supposed World City could well do with a similar culture top-up on its own soft-power front.
Text: Suchetana Mukhopadhyay