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I'm Korean, what do you want me to beat you at? The plan to turn South Korea into a global superpower

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The Nobel Prize in Literature for Han Kang is the latest example of the triumph of a country that designed a wild strategy to make money and gain prestige through culture. "The results were going to come sooner or later"

The latest Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Han Kang.
The latest Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Han Kang.AP

The blame lies with the dinosaurs. Remember that if you have a daughter excited about a ticket to the K-pop mega concert happening next summer on the outskirts of Madrid. If during this Christmas you decide to watch the second season of Squid Game. If you have already searched for the latest book by the recent Nobel Prize in Literature Han Kang. Or if you order kimchi at a trendy restaurant, that fermented cabbage that is salty and spicy, when your mother never managed to get you to finish a plate of chard.

To understand why these things happen, we need to rewind, not 68 million years, when the Tyrannosaurus Rex was a local in the fields of Teruel, but back to 1993, when the world was captivated by dinomania.

That year, Jurassic Park, the movie by Steven Spielberg, generated more revenue than Hyundai with its car exports. This impressive box office success caught the attention of Kim Young-Sam, the president of South Korea, who decided to base the country's strategy on culture and entertainment. Thus, the Hallyu was born, the name given to the Korean cultural wave, a source of admiration and envy for many countries that spend millions on advertising with little return. The plan devised by its politicians - which has been maintained regardless of the ruling party - is even more remarkable considering that in 1997, South Korea suffered a severe recession due to the Asian financial crisis. Resources were scarce, but a significant portion was allocated to support the promotion of its cultural empire. The goal was to feed not only on prestige but also on money.

"Public support was crucial in the initial stages to launch products with sufficient quality to first captivate the domestic audience," explains Álvaro Trigo Maldonado, an academic and specialized translator in Korean culture. "This initial success also laid the groundwork for its expansion to other countries in the region, such as Japan or China."

To captivate these two much larger and more powerful nations than Korea, the focus initially was on mass entertainment products, especially in the music industry. Within a few years, the K-pop industry was producing solo artists and bands that first captivated Koreans, then the rest of Asians, and the most successful ones made their way to the American and European markets. To engage another audience, they turned to soap operas, born from their thriving audiovisual sector, which are consumed fervently in places as diverse as Southeast Asia and Latin America. Their stories are consumed with a devotion similar to the one experienced in Spain in the early 90s with Venezuelan soap operas.

"Thousands of years ago, the Chinese described us as extraordinary archers, which is a way of defining us as diligent, hardworking, and meticulous," says Eunsook Yank, a Korean academic based in Madrid and a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. "Since the Seoul Olympics, Koreans have shown that they form a highly competitive society: everyone has to prove their worth in their activity. The same applies to culture." She adds, "If we add the support of the State on top of that, the results were bound to come sooner or later."

The results came. And quickly. The resounding success of their music - the whole world danced and rode horses with Gangnam Style - and the television K-dramas were joined by increasingly sophisticated and ambitious cultural products. The most well-known are Parasite, a movie that triumphed at the Cannes Film Festival (2019) and the Oscars (2020), and Squid Game (2021), Netflix's most successful launch in history with 111 million viewers in its first month. The latest show of support for this creative wave is the surprising Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to Han Kang last week. This writer surpassed the favorites in the betting houses, who curiously were representatives of the Asian cultures that South Korea competes with, and surpasses in several aspects, in global influence: the Chinese writer Can Xue and the Japanese Haruki Murakami.

Beyond the extraordinary talent of their cultural representatives, this boom entails a lot of work and requires relentless invisible support. "Culture is the great investment of their Government, and literature is no exception," says Trigo Maldonado. "In fact, the existing translations of Han Kang's works into our language were initially subsidized by the Korean government."

Nothing is coincidental. Everything follows a plan.

The fascinating aspect of this wild self-promotion policy, which many other countries practice with varying degrees of greed, is the magnitude of the results. According to a report from the Hyundai Institute, the K-pop band BTS generated $3.67 billion for the Korean economy through exports, consumption, and tourism. Their single Dynamite, which reached number 1 in the United States, has created 8,000 jobs in the country. This group of androgynous and smiling youngsters with angelic voices generated almost as much money in 2019 as the entire Spanish music industry. Only in merchandising, they move ¤130 million annually.

These artists, who undergo extremely demanding aesthetic and musical requirements to reach the top and deal with fans of almost messianic devotion, are in a way South Korea's soft power, a term used in international relations to describe a country's ability to influence the actions of other actors through cultural and ideological means. The good thing about Korean soft power is that it can manifest in many ways.

One of the most striking instances was seeing BTS members as distinguished ambassadors of a superpower posing in the Oval Office of the White House with Joe Biden. Not only that, they managed to have the most powerful man in the world make a Korean heart sign with his index and thumb. For Machiavelli and Bismarck, this photo indeed represents power.

This influence is managed and involves private actors as well as public overseers. The Ministry of Culture of South Korea itself has a Hallyu content cooperation division. An entity that deals with the global longing for something Korean. Is the interest that high? To verify, it's best to see what streaming platforms do, rigorously measuring all our consumption habits and desires.

"It's like a gold rush," declared Luke Kang, a Disney+ executive, in a recent interview with Hollywood Reporter. "Everyone wants a piece of Korean content. For 20 years, this phenomenon has occurred in Asia, and the fact that it can now travel worldwide is something new."

This fervent passion is even more impressive when considering that 70 years ago, South Korea was a poor country, torn apart by a war with a territorial division of merciless cruelty. Back then, its GDP per capita was lower than that of Ghana, and more unbelievably, North Korea was wealthier. Today, the parallel 38th line separates a country with the 14th largest GDP in the world from a socialist "paradise" of hunger and terror.

"The country's evolution vividly reflects the positive and negative social phenomena that characterize a modern society. Therefore, I believe that many people around the world find echoes of their own history and the diverse realities they face today in Korean content," says Shin Jaekwang, director of the Korean Cultural Center in Spain, to explain the phenomenon's success.

Korean is not only consumed; it is also studied. The language is spoken in both Koreas, in addition to Korean speakers in China and the United States, totaling 77 million people. According to Duolingo, it is already the seventh most popular language on this language learning app. According to their latest data, Korean courses taught in English increased by 29% in just one year.

"The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of Korea has established and operates a Cultural Content Export Council in collaboration with various government agencies, public institutions, and private sector experts," says Shin Jaekwang. The consulting services for exports and public funding also have another objective: to sell us the rest of the products Made in Korea. From electric cars and appliances to agricultural equipment.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the strategy is cosmetics, which in South Korea is represented by more than 4,500 companies, as it is closely linked to the entire entertainment wave that is sold. "Most brands are associated with an idol, a Korean music or film star," explains Sunny Cho, an expert in Korean beauty (K-Beauty) and co-founder of the Koss firm. "Skin care is something we are taught from a young age, and both women and men invest a lot in these routines. The intense competition leads brands to have high-quality products and invest heavily in R&D."

In a very short period, Korean cosmetics have managed to make their way into the West when a decade ago they were completely unknown. To understand its impact, just take a walk through the Myendong neighborhood in Seoul, where thousands of cosmetic tourism foreigners can be seen in gigantic stores dedicated to this industry, which generates 8 billion euros in exports alone.

"In Spain, we are approaching 25 million euros, more than double what it was three years ago," notes Lilin Yang, co-founder and CEO of MiiN Cosmetics. "Thanks to the use of exceptionally high-quality ingredients and dreamy textures that adapt to each skin type, this type of cosmetics is gaining more followers. Her company already has more than 30 stores spread across Spain, Italy, Germany, and France.

South Korea has become the modern center of the creative world. The risk it faces is being able to meet a demand that does not stop with its resources and that its entertainment industries do not begin to show signs of exhaustion. It is the exhausting pressure of desire.

Meanwhile, Jurassic Park is about to release its seventh installment. As long as it lasts, like South Korea.