Korean American Youth and Transnational Flows of Popular Culture across the Pacific

Alef Esteban

Section 2

Week 7

Korean American Youth and Transnational Flows of Popular Culture across the Pacific

            The reading this week explained how Asian American youth consumes popular culture from Asian countries and how they appropriate them in their lives. The reading was interesting to me because I was able to relate to what was going on. Even though I am not Korean-American, I still participate in the consumption of overseas popular culture. Park explains that pop culture is another way for the youth to relate to their homeland or even find identity in their community and this was evident with how unemployed people sometimes venture towards popular culture from their own country in hopes to find purpose or even have a sense of belonging.

            Furthermore, the fusion of cultures causes the boundaries between cultures to be blurred. There is no clear definition as to where a specific popular culture item belongs to. Even if Japanese animation is created by Japanese authors and artists, some of their inspiration comes from the West and is seen in the production. This might lower its "originality" (in terms of being "100 percent Japanese), but this can result in an excellent product. By introducing new concepts, popular culture can encompass a variety of cultural aspects and can address issues when it comes to "which country does this belong to."

Question: Can popular culture still retain its cultural significance and value, even if it gets corporatized and marketed (with a pure profit motive)?

Source: http://kendamausa.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/colin-team-pages-web-61.jpg

Anyone can enjoy popular culture regardless of where it originates from (ex. kendama).