ASA 2 A03
Blog 7
"Korean American Youth and Transnational Flows of Popular Culture across the Pacific" By Jung-Sun Park
I enjoyed this article because I am intrigued by the concept "globalization", but I do wish that there was more examination on the government and economics side of this transnational cultural flow. Park argued that Korean Americans search for a sense of belonging, and thus they turn to Korean culture exports in the US, in the form of cafes, Korean manhwas (comics), Korean dramas, etc.
That may be true, but I am more drawn to institutional/economic explanations.
There were some mentions of how South Korea was subjected to an "economic restructuring" by the IMF (which is very much dominated by the US). Since then, the South Korean government has emphasized segyewha (globalization) as an economic philosophy. A closer look at Korean cultural products will reveal that there is a strong theme of consumerism culture. For example, Korean dramas are now saturated with the newest Samsung cell phones, the trendiest makeup styles and cafes, and there are even fashion-brand sponsors listed in the credits of each episode. Is that not a point of observation worth investigating? This transnational flow of culture not only provides these youth with a place to belong, but it pushes forth an agenda of consumerism, which, I believe, further plays in favor of US markets.
Nevertheless, as the picture featured above demonstrates, Korean American youths, especially in college, do organize around Korean cultural products to embrace belonging. My question now is how might we explain other ethnic youth and their relative lack of this homeland culture consumption?
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