K-Crazy in Ireland

The How and Where and How Come? of Korean Culture

Space Jaru, Dublin

K-Influence

Do you drive a Hyundai? Let’s check your phone: Samsung, right? Favourite movie of the last decade? Join the millions for whom the answer is Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. Tired after a long day? Switch on the LG TV to watch Squid Game or Pachinko and open that takeaway from Space Jaru.

See what the South Koreans have just done? Hallyu – the Korean cultural wave – has washed over you.

Hallyu is the wave of cultural soft power which South Korea unleashed quietly upon the world in or around 2000, and which accounts for Black Pink and the Nobel laureate Han Kung and the fact that you can still recall all the moves to Psy’s Gangnam-style.

After the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s, South Korea’s president created a Cultural Content Office, with the aim of selling K-music and K-movies to the world. The result has been to change the image of South Korea – a country which, in the 1960s was poorer than Ghana and poorer than North Korea! – partly through culture, partly through mastering the digital economy – Samsung used to be jokingly known as Samsuck, such was the poor quality of its products – and for 25 years now South Korea has prospered.

Yes, the country is currently in an unprecedented and unpredictable political crisis following the President’s erratic declaration of martial law. But the protestors on the streets show that Koreans want the democracy they have treasured since 1987.

Hallyu, in a somewhat more oblique way, has also paved the way for Korean cooking to steadily encroach upon a world that had never heard the word Hansik – traditional Korean food. Once the doors were opened to K-pop and K-whatever, Koreans opened their doors for us to try K-food. With gochujang upmost in their flavour artillery, we Westerners never had a chance.

So, cue up BTS on the stereo, pour yourself some soju, and let’s discover what Korean food is all about and where can we find it in Ireland.