Korean Wave: The “Ann-yeong” Story Behind Thai Society

KOREAN WAVE

THE “ANNYEONG“ STORY BEHIND THAI SOCIETY

By Chanyanuch Wiriyayuthama & Nunhathai Bualerd

Pop culture is the important export product that helps South Korea rebrand itself. With the growth of globalization, it has driven South Korea to shape preferences into other countries through their entertainment, TV series, movies, and music. As a consequence, for Thailand, K-wave influence has overflowed in our homeland and successfully set the new norm among Thai teenagers in many social aspects.

The concept of Hallyu (한류), which literally means Korean Wave, was firstly introduced in China and later on spreading into East and Southeast Asia. This can be referred to the phenomenal growth of Korean popular culture, especially in the entertainment industry. Today, with the Hallyu effect from K-drama and K-pop music, it has exploded across the world carried by the internet and social media platforms.

“Before the Korean Wave, Thai people viewed South Korea as a poor and dirty country,” said Kittituch Orisoon, or “Ong Oppa”, the K-expert and content creator in Songsue.co. However, after President Park Chung-hee had issued the Five-Year Economic and Social Development Plans, South Korea proudly made their first debut on the international stage. Therefore, during the 1960s to 1990s, global citizens perceived this small country on the Korean strait as a major electronic devices exporter.

After the political and economic stability, South Korea started to subsidize more on the promotion of its culture and entertainment. In 1994, marked as the beginning of the rise in Korean culture, the

Photo by MBC

Ministry of Culture set up a cultural industry bureau to develop the media and film sector. As a consequence, five years later, Korean mainstream pop culture successfully made its milestone to the international level.

K-dramas: ‘oppa fever’ that breakthrough the land of smile

Korean wave first greeted Thailand in 2000 in the name of the K-series. “Wish Upon the Star” was the first K-series broadcast on Channel 5 and received a lot of positive feedback. Other channels then competitively imported more Koreans dramas to serve their audiences; for instance, “Autumn in My Heart” (2001), “Winter Love Song” (2002), “Full House” (2004), “Dae Jang Geum : A Jewel in the Palace” (2005)”.

Over 20 years, Korean dramas have won Thai audiences’ hearts. Fascinating stories and well performed actors engage audiences to feel relatable to the stories as if they were in the same situations with those characters. On top of that, the special ingredient behind the global success of K-dramas is how they pay attention to every detail of the production.

K-Wave’s appeal and high presence in Thailand undoubtedly left a shadow that covers Thailand in many aspects including food, fashion, education, technology, entertainment, and many more.

K-pop: another phenomenon that has conquered Thai fan’s hearts

‘K-pop’ music has been another significant soft power that dominated the world impactfully. In 2002, Baby V.O.X, introduced by GMM Grammy and JYP Entertainment, was the first K-pop boy band in Thai market. A year later, SM Entertainment exported its boy band, Dong Bang Shin Gi, and made its peak of the K-pop fever back then.

Continuing to the 2000s, K-pop has increasingly explored Thai

Photo by Vogue market with more players in the industry like Rain, Super Junior, Wonder Girls, Girl Generation, or PSY.

Apart from the voice, there are many reasons behind the success of K-pop music that has been growing up with Thai people. “Their good-looking appearance, delicate line dance, and high quality production, which had never appeared in Thai music industry, are also the charms of these boy bands and girl groups,” Ong Oppa supported

“Moreover, Thailand has made a stronger relationship with the K-pop industry since Nichkhun Horvejkul was the first Thai member in the Korean boy band, 2PM.” Later on, several Thai singers, such as Bam-Bam from GOT7, Lisa from Blackpink, and Ten from NCT, followed Nichakhun’s debut in the K-pop industry.

Photo by Myri-Chan “K-series are popular among Thai fans because of their appealing and thought-provoking plots, original soundtrack, and high quality production,” Ong Oppa commented. “Also, Korean series have risen beyond Thai series as they really provide the knowledge about occupations in realistic details, which are rarely seen in Thai series.”

K-wave: the door of Korean kitchen to the world

Before Korean entertainment became popular, only a few Thais knew what Korean food was. Nevertheless, “Dae Jang Geum” (Jewel in the Palace), a hit Korean drama that drew fans across Thailand, has greatly influenced Thai consumer’s food preferences as it portrayed plenty of knowledge and secrets of Korean cooking.

“With the flourishing period of K-pop and K-series, our restaurants have had more customers since then. Apparently, Korean food is the easiest way to reach the authenticity of Korean culture at a cheap price,” said Kim Han-Na, the owner of “Kongju” restaurant or the first traditional Korean Barbecue restaurant in Pathumwan Princess Hotel in Bangkok.

Today, hundreds to thousands of Korean restaurants can be easily seen in Thailand, from affordable to high prices. They are so popular that the Korea Town, located at Sukhumvit plaza, was established to gather a variety of authentic Korean food; for example, jjajangmyeon or noodles in black bean sauce, fried chickens, dak galbi or spicy chicken stir fry, and kimchi stew. Furthermore, there is also a Korean supermarket in Korea town for those who want to buy Korean food and products.

Photo by Amberkorf Photo by Vicky Ng

Korean fashion: the next soft power

Dated back to the 2000s, Thai boy bands like GolfMike, K-Otic, and B.O.Y imitated the Korean idols’ long layered hairstyles. Although the trend has already changed, it can still be reflected that K-Pop idols have instantly overwhelmed Thai men hairstyles for the last 2 decades.

Thai teenagers are increasingly following K-fashion from what they have watched in K-dramas. While walking on the street, you can see women dressing in schoolgirl looks, ripped jeans, casual blazers, and dresses over blouses, and men wearing oversized pullovers, biker jackets, and sneakers.

Korean makeup trends have also been captivating a lot of attention in the beauty world. The trends have vastly impacted female teenagers in Thailand to have glass skin, velvet lips, soft blush, dewy eyes, under-eye bling, and whisper eyelashes that are beautifully and naturally adorned on their faces.

“Sawasdee, 한국어 (hangugeo: Korean language)”

Hallyu has been sweeping across Thailand leading to an unprecedented rise in the number of people learning Thai students learning Korean. Today, more than 40 Thai universities have added Korean Language in their curriculum, and 30,000 high school students are currently studying this language. With these reasons, the South Korean and Thai Ministry of Education have included PAT Korean, PAT 7.7, in the university entrance examination since 2018.

“Since many Thai teenagers desire to understand Korean series without reading subtitles and dream of working as interpreters in Korean concerts to be close to their favorite artists, it shows us the reasons why Korean language is in high demand,” Ong Oppa added. Another outstanding artist that drives the Thai music entertainment is Ally or Achiraya Nitibhon from 411 Entertainment. After intensive training in singing and dancing in Korea for a whole year, she launched her first song “How To Love”. With Korean look-alike pop song style, strong line dance, and featuring the famous Korean rapper like GRAY, her song hit several Thai pop music record charts in 2020.

After the success of Ally’s debut, 411 Entertainment also teamed up with Workpoint Entertainment to introduce the new Thai girl group called “4EVE”. Like Korean girl groups, 20 final trainees were trained for weekly performances on stage and aired on television. Moreover, audiences could engage by voting for their favorite artists as their votes would be counted as a part of performing scores for each trainee.

T-pop: the Thai edition of K-pop

Due to strong passion in Korean music among Thai people, Thai songs are inspired to adjust some lyrics, line dance, and production to be in Korean style. As a result, more artists, who applied the K-pop styles to build up their characters, have recently made their debut and created a big transformation in Thai music industry.

The first example is SBFive, a T-pop boy band from Starhunter Studio Entertainment. Because of the technology and potential in creating EDM songs, SBFive collaborated with Korean record label last year to make a new pop and EDM single called “Candy Crush”. The song became viral and successfully re-awakened in the T-pop industry.

Photo by T-pop Wiki