The Korean Invasion: From Gangnam Style to Samsung

Ask anybody to name three countries in Asia, and almost certainly, China and Japan will come up. In fact, when I asked my friends,  Up until recently, odds are very slim that Korea would come up, and, if it weren't for North Korea gaining so much time in the media for the acts of its dictator, people would not even know that Korea usually refers to South Korea. However, recently Korea has been invading the United States, not by means of military force (we leave the threat of military force for North Korea), but through its culture, as seen through music (as in Gangnam Style, now the most watched video in the history of Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0), products (such as Samsung mega-corporation and their Galaxy S3, which has now surpassed iPhone sales worldwide), and more.

Culture infiltration is, of course, not a negative thing, especially from such a conservative country as South Korea. But how does it start? I hypothesize that it starts with immigration, for without immigration, music and products has little reason to cross the borders (and oceans) and come to America. Especially for a country whose primary language is not English, there would have to be some attractive force in America to bring the cultural elements of South Korea here so that Americans can become exposed to it. Eventually, as is the case with Gangnam Style, the cultural element reached a critical point where eventually, instead of Korean-Americans sharing the song with Americans, more Americans were sharing the song with Americans. At this point, the song spread like wildfire.

Samsung (www.samsung.co.kr/) is a different story, however, because in most cases consumers are not even aware that they are buying a Korean product. However, in Korea Samsung is a massive corporation, called a conglomerate, that owns their own sports team (the Lions), as well as a host of other subsidiaries. But the reason their products got to America were, I hypothesize, driven by the same reason. They came to America through economic trade, but that trade would have only happened had there been Korean people living in America.

Culture from Korea has not only manifested itself in America through song and products. Hollywood has remade several movies that were originally produced in Korea (such as the Lakehouse, a remake of Il Mare, and My Sassy Girl, a remake of the Korean movie by the same name). BB Cream (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/the-experts-at-garnier/bb-cream_b_1214401.html), while originally formulated in Germany, was embraced in solitude in Korea until recently becoming popular in North America. Needless to say, the small country south of China has a global reach much further than ever before, and this will likely continue to grow as its culture becomes more intermingled with ours.