Special Exhibition

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Special Exhibition on the Korean Wave and Pop Culture The Pop Culture We Loved and Rise of the Korean Wave

Period : July 19th, 2023 - September 3rd, 2023

Venue : National Museum of Korean Contemporary History Exhibition Hall 3rd Floor/p>

Price : Free
Hours: 10:00~18:00 (Wed, Sat: 10:00~21:00)
For Inquiries: +82) 2-3703-9200

Opening the Exhibition

Don’t you just love pop culture—music, movies, TV dramas and so on? The number of people around the world who are enjoying Korean pop culture continues to increase. That is why it has also been called “the Korean Wave” (Hallyu). Korean singers have risen in the billboard charts, and Korean movies and TV shows have won prestigious international awards, and such news fills Korean people with pride.

The Korean Wave has enjoyed popularity worldwide, while Koreans have also accepted, enjoyed, and come to love various cultural forms from around the world. The Korean public has loved Hollywood movies since the nation’s liberation in 1945 to the present day, while fads have erupted periodically for Hong Kong movies and Japanese comic books and cartoons. Thus, ardent fans of popular culture both inside and outside have continued to produce new music, movies, and TV shows, leading ultimately to the rise of the Korean Wave. This is a result of the inclusion and affection cultivated through an openness to various cultures amid various social conditions.

What role will the Korean Wave play within the global cultural space going forward? The Korean Wave has formed amid a diverse popular culture landscape. Thus, we may expect the flowering of an even greater variety of pop-culture products throughout the world.

US in Korean Pop Culture: Much of the pop culture enjoyed by Koreans both past and present has come from the United States. American pop music can be heard as often as K-Pop on TV or radio as well as in the street or business establishments. Concerts by musicians from the Anglo-American cultural sphere have continued to attract large Korean audiences from as far back as the 1960s.
Hollywood movies have continuously loved by Koreans. A survey more than six decades ago revealed that at least eight percent of the young moviegoers preferred American films. In those days, movies like Roman Holiday and Ben Hur were out, and Korea had movie theaters that exclusively showed foreign-made films. In addition, the advent of television dramas changed the way Korean families spent much of their leisure time. In the days before streaming platforms such as Netflix, Korean family members would all gather in their living rooms to watch TV at the hour when their favorite dramas played.

Onstage outfit worn by Hyun Mi This is one of the outfits that Hyun Mi has worn onstage. She was a talented singer who performed at the old 8th Army post in Seoul and took part in overseas song festivals, where she won some prizes. She released many hit songs familiar to Koreans, including “Night Fog,” and appeared on numerous Korean TV broadcasts. She passed away in April 2023, saddening many devoted fans.

Vinyl records played at C'est Si Bon These record albums were played at C'est Si Bon, a legendary music hall in Myeong-dong during the 1960s. Such music halls were popular places for listening to American and European pop songs, which were difficult to purchase at the time. These establishments also featured live acts and various events, leading the youth culture of the times.

Movie World magazine This movie magazine published its inaugural issue in December 1954. Photos of foreign actresses graced the front cover, and the contents covered international movies, gossip from the cinematic world, stories of local and foreign stars, anecdotes behind-the-scenes of movie production, and the latest movie imports to Korea.

Script for the Chief Inspector Chief Inspector was Korea’s first TV crime drama, running on MBC from 1971 through 1989. The police detective series remained the favorite of Korean viewing audiences for eighteen years, winning the competition by other broadcasters in this genre. The stories were presented in the “inverted detective story” seen in the US drama series Columbo, where the show begins with the answer of the criminal who committed and then tells the story of how the perpetrator gets caught.

Hong Kong and Japanese Pop Culture throughout Asia: East Asia’s pop culture market grew steadily from the 1950s on. Hong Kong productions enjoyed great popularity in Greater China, but they leveraged the Western market to cultivate their movie industry. Meanwhile, Japanese pop culture developed on the basis of a solid home market, which saw consumption increase in tandem with the rapidly growing Japanese economy.
Nourished in this way, the products of these two pop cultures spread into neighboring markets in East Asia before going global. From the 1970s, many Koreans also began watching Hong Kong movies and enjoying Japanese comic books, music, cinema, and TV dramas. At the time, Korean pop culture content creators referred heavily on the contents coming out of Hong Kong and Japan.

A Better Tomorrow movie poster This poster is for A Better Tomorrow, directed by John Woo. The movie was praised legendary among the Hong Kong film noir genre and opened at Seoul’s Hwa Yang Theater in 1987. The film was not very successful at the theater box office at the beginning, but became immensely popular among Koreans after it was released on videotape.

Hong Kong movies on videotapes Hong Kong movies took the world by storm from the 1970s through the 1990s, and Korea was no exception. The biggest hits in Korea include action movies starring Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan, film noir productions like A Better Tomorrow with Chow Yun-fat and Leslie Cheung, and Hong Kong New Wave films directed by Wang Kar-wai. Notably, the emergence of the home video market in Korea from the end of the 1980s caused Hong Kong movie viewership to skyrocket. Hong Kong movies also had a major influence on the revival of Korean-made films at the end of the 1990s.

Initial issues of comic magazines These comic magazines were the first officially introduced to the Korean market after the government legalized the import of Japanese comic book publications. Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk, and Card Captor Sakura were among the most popular titles.

X-Japan cassette tape copy These are audiotape copies of music by the Japanese rock group X-Japan. This group along with Namie Amuro had the most avid fans among the J-Pop acts in Korea, and X-Japan had a strong influence on Korean rock music. Official copies of the group’s most popular hits such as “Endless Rain” and “Tears” were hard to purchase in Korea until the government lifted its ban on Japanese cultural products. Therefore, Koreans most often listened to pirate editions and copied recordings.

From Korean Pop Culture to the Korean Wave: The Korean Wave refers to a phenomenon in which Korean popular culture has received popularity outside the country. How did Korean popular culture evolve into something as striking as a “Wave”? A number of experts on this topic have put forth differing explanations. Was it due to government policy and support? Was it because Korean popular culture was so outstanding on its own? If not, perhaps it because of the strong influence that was obtained from overseas. Or could it be that Korean popular culture was easily received by people in Greater China and Japan, who share East Asian culture? Could it be due to the rise in new media platforms such as YouTube and Netflix? If not, was it due to sheer good luck? Visitors are encouraged to contemplate these questions while viewing the exhibition and to try and imagine what the Korean Wave will look like going forward.

Korean Wave (韓流) Ⅱ: Song from Korea Korean TV dramas and popular music were gaining popularity in Mainland China and Taiwan, prompting the Ministry of Culture (now the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) to produce and distribute the album Korean Wave (韓流): Songs from Korea internationally as a means of promoting the Korean pop music business. This was one of the first time that the term “Korean Wave” was used.

H.O.T. album sold in China This album by H.O.T. was sold in the Chinese market. While active, the boy band was acclaimed as Korea’s most popular group and was also a smash hit in the Greater Chinese market. This package includes a CD with the band’s twelve best hits as well as a video CD of H.O.T.’s live performances.

The Era of the Korean Wave Stars These Japanese magazines cover Korean movie stars and K-Pop idols. The male actors Bae Yong-joon, Lee Byung-hun, Kwon Sang-woo and Jang Dong-gun as well as boy bands EXO, Seventeen and BTS enjoyed the greatest popularity in Japan.

Billboard magazine cover story on PSY PSY (Park Jae-sang) prompted change in how pop song rankings are calculated. PSY’s song “Gangnam Style” could only rise to second place on the Billboard Hot 100 because the conventional way of determining the rankings was based on popularity over the radio, rather than the number of hits on YouTube. This story in Billboard magazine called for change in this practice.

BTS “Army Bomb 2” “Cheering Light Sticks” represent a key method for fans to express their love at K-Pop concerts. The fans use these props in colors symbolizing their favorite singers or groups to show their personal support. The light sticks continue to evolve as various creative ideas are grafted onto them. Recent sticks for pop idols employ internet of things technology to produce extravagant cheering performances. The Korean practice of cheering for top idols has also garnered global attention.

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