The Birth of Korean Cool
How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture
Download image
ISBN10: 1250045118
ISBN13: 9781250045119
Trade Paperback
288 Pages
$19.00
CA$25.00
By now, everyone in the world knows the song "Gangnam Style" and Psy, an instantly recognizable star. But the song's international popularity is no passing fad. "Gangnam Style" is only one tool in South Korea's extraordinarily elaborate and effective strategy to become a major world superpower by first becoming the world's number one pop culture exporter.
As a child, Euny Hong moved from America to the Gangnam neighbourhood in Seoul. She was a witness to the most accelerated part of South Korea's economic development, during which time it leapfrogged from third-world military dictatorship to first-world liberal democracy on the cutting edge of global technology.
Euny Hong recounts how South Korea vaulted itself into the twenty-first century, becoming a global leader in business, technology, education, and pop culture. Featuring lively, in-depth reporting and numerous interviews with Koreans working in all areas of government and society, The Birth of Korean Cool reveals how a really uncool country became cool, and how a nation that once banned miniskirts, long hair on men, and rock ‘n' roll could come to mass produce boy bands, soap operas, and the world's most important smart phone.
Reviews
Praise for The Birth of Korean Cool
"An insightful book . . . [Hong's] brief chapter on Korea's han against Japan is both the best and most concise explanation I've read of the two countries' complicated and ancient feud."—Bloomberg Businessweek
"This is a terrifically readable book . . . Journalist Euny Hong draws on interviews with major players in the Korean culture industry as well as her own formative years as a reverse emigrant (her immigrant father, an economist, was recruited from the U.S. back to Korea in the 1980s) to show that the international spread of Korean popular culture is the fruit of a well-orchestrated and ongoing campaign involving Korean government policy planners and bureaucrats . . . and a key cohort of visionary producers and artists . . . The Birth of Korean Cool is one of the best books on Korean culture."—Bruce Fulton, Acta Koreana
"Full of insight and shocking facts, The Birth Of Korean Cool is a hilarious, gutsy, eye-opening account of Korean drive and success. I couldn't put it down. Euny Hong is a force of nature."—Amy Chua, Yale Law Professor and author of The Triple Package and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
"If you're not fascinated by Korea yet, you damn well should be. The most innovative country on earth deserves a hilarious and poignant account on the order of Euny Hong's The Birth of Korean Cool. Her phat beats got Gangnam Style and then some."—Gary Shteyngart
"Hong is a funny and uber-snarky observer and is as clever as clever can be . . . [As] laugh-out-loud funny and as spicy and memorable as the best homemade kimchi."—Library Journal
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
1
BEFORE COOL
When my family moved to Korea, in 1985, it was still a developing country. The only mitigating factor was that we would be living not just in Gangnam but in the Apgujeong neighborhood—the most...
About the author
Euny Hong
