Culture of South Korea
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The contemporary culture of South Korea developed from the traditional culture of Korea, but since the 1948 division of Korea, it has developed separately from North Korea's culture.
The industrialization and urbanization of South Korea have brought many changes to the way Korean people live. Changing economics and lifestyles have led to a concentration of population in major cities, especially the capital Seoul, with multi-generational households separating into nuclear family living arrangements.
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[edit] Popular music
Many Korean pop stars and groups are well known in East Asia and Southeast Asia. K-pop often emulates American popular music, and usually features young performers.
The emergence of the group Seo Taiji and Boys in 1992 marked a turning point for Korean popular music, as the group incorporated elements of American popular musical genres of rap, rock, and techno into its music. Dance-oriented acts were dominant in the Korean popular music scene of the 1990s.
Popular artists who diverge from the traditional K-pop sound include BoA,So Nyeo Shi Dae, Lee Jung Hyun, a female techno artist; H.O.T., a five-member pop group, 1TYM a four-member rap troupe; and Wax, a female singer. South Korea is also home to its own form of hip hop artists, including Jinusean, Drunken Tiger, Se7en, Bi/Rain, and Epik High.
In addition, there is also traditional Korean pop music, or trot. Appealing to older Koreans, there are many popular singers, including Tae Jin Ah, Na Hoon-a and Song Dae Kwan, mainly in their 50s and 60s, if not older. However, it has recently experienced a resurgence due to the popularity of Jang Yoon Jeong, a young semi-trot star who had a breakout hit with "Uhmuna".
[edit] Nolaebang
Karaoke is most commonly called "Noraebang" (노래방, literally, "song room") in Korea, but the Japanese-derived Garaoke/Karaoke (가라오케/카라오케) and various Korean alternatives like Norae yeonseupjang (노래연습장), or Norae yeonseupshil (노래연습실) are also sometimes used. Noraebang is even conducted in transport vehicles such as tourist buses. Noraebang is the equivalent to the Karaoke-Box in Japan, whereas singing before an audience of a karaoke bar is called Karaoke (카라오케) in Korea.
[edit] Film and TV
Since the success of the Korean film Shiri in 1999 Korean film has become much more popular, both in South Korea and abroad. Today South Korea is one of the few countries where Hollywood productions do not enjoy a dominant share of the domestic market. This fact, however, is partly due to the existence of screen quotas requiring cinemas to show Korean films at least 73 days a year.
Shiri was a film about a North Korean spy preparing a coup in Seoul. The film was the first in Korean history to sell more than 2 million tickets in Seoul alone. This helped Shiri to surpass box office hits such as The Matrix or Star Wars. The success of Shiri motivated other Korean films with larger budgets.
In 2000 the film JSA (Joint Security Area) was a huge success and even surpassed the benchmark set by Shiri. One year later, the film Friend managed the same. In South Korea the romantic comedy My Sassy Girl outsold The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter which ran at the same time. The director of JSA has gone on to direct many popular films in Korea and abroad especially the cult film of 2003, Oldboy. Kim Ki-Duk is also a well respected filmmaker and is known for using minimal dialogue between characters to create an emotional response from the audience. he is known especially for 3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring. As of 2004 new films continue to break records, and many Korean productions are more popular than Hollywood films. Both Silmido and Taegukgi (The Brotherhood) were watched by over 10 million people, which is a quarter of the Korean population. Silmido is a film based on a true story about a secret special force. The other is a blockbuster movie about the Korean War directed by the director of Shiri. The Host (2006) part monster movie, part social satire broke Korean box office records and has become fairly popular in the United States as well.
This success attracted the attention of Hollywood. Films such as Shiri are now distributed in the USA. In 2001, Miramax even bought the rights to an Americanized remake of the successful Korean action comedy movie, My Wife is a Gangster.
Many Korean films reflect the unique circumstances of the division of Korea. Many of the critically acclaimed films focus on subtle emotions, inviting comparison to French films, but with the recent international successes and growing budgets, the Korean film industry has also been criticized for mimicking Hollywood blockbusters.
[edit] Dramas
Korean television and especially the short form dramatic mini-series colloquially called "dramas" by Koreans have become extremely popular outside of Korea. Dramas were foremost among cultural exports driving the Korean Wave trend in Asia. The trend has driven Korean stars to fame and has done much to boost the image and prestige of Korean popular culture. Korean dramas are popular in China, Taiwan, Japan, South East Asian countries, and even America (especially Asian-American communities).
Dramas showcase a wide range of stories, but the most prominent among the export dramas have been romance ("Autumn Fairy Tale", "Winter Sonata", "All About Eve"), and historical/fantasy dramas ("Dae Jang Geum" or "Jewel in the Palace" and "Goong").
[edit] Korean animation
While The Simpsons is the best known back-room product of Korea, many other popular animation series (Futurama, King of the Hill, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Family Guy from the USA, and also many anime from Japan) have had the basic animation, in-betweening, and coloring done in Korea. This work is usually generic and professional, but not necessarily Korean in tone or manner.
The animation studios have increasingly been given new contract work for Korean series. The most famous has been the animation of Korean folklore by KBS in a 150 part series. This series uses 2-D animation, suggestions for scripts and stories by local crew, and was produced "with the object to create a new "Korean Wave animation" that is distinct from Disneymation".
[edit] Literature
- See also: Korean literature, Korean poetry, List of Korean language poets.
Modern literature is often linked with the development of hangul, which helped spread literacy from the dominant classes to the common people, including women. Hangul, however, only reached a dominant position in Korean literature in the second half of the 19th century, resulting in a major growth in Korean literature. Sinsoseol, for instance, are novels written in hangul.
In modern poetry, there were attempts at introducing imagist and modern poetry methods particularly in translations of early American moderns such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot in the early 20th century. In the early Republic period, patriotic works were very successful.
Lyric poetry dominated from the 1970s onwards. Poetry is quite popular in contemporary South Korea, both in terms of number of works published and lay writing.
[edit] Games
In recent years games, both online games, especially Starcraft, and the traditional board game baduk, have become a significant part of Korean culture.
[edit] Technology
[edit] Cellular phones
An estimated 90% of South Koreans own mobile phones and use them not only for calling and messaging but also for watching live TV, viewing websites and keeping track of their online gaming status. Korean corporations Samsung and LG are the second and fourth largest cell phone companies in the world, and Koreans are usually among the first to experience innovative features. New phones are expensive in Korea, but this doesn't stop Korean consumers changing their phones on average every 11 months. [2]
Many Korean phones feature TV broadcasting through Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB), which now carries seven TV channels. Over one million DMB phones have been sold and providers like KTF and SK Telecom have provided coverage throughout many parts of major cities.
Nokia, the world's largest cellphone company, has dropped selling its phones in Korea because of its decreasing sales. Motorola holds a 4% shares of cellphone sales in Korea.
[edit] Academics
South Korea's academic environment is extremely competitive. Korean society regards getting into a prestigious university as a prerequisite to success. Most of a student's career is focused on admission to such universities, although this attitude has shifted in recent years. Nearly all of the nation's top schools (both high schools and universities) are located in Seoul, inviting criticism that rural areas face structural disadvantages. Rural students undergo hours of daily commute if admitted to a Seoul school.
Secondary school systems are single-sex or co-ed, and some are specialized by academic field. While public schools typically specialize in a particular technical skill (eg engineering), many private schools specialize in the arts. The three most prestigious universities are the SKY schools: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. Admission to these schools, as well as to Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in Daejeon, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Hanyang University, Sungkyunkwan University, and Ewha Womans University, is extremely competitive. In more specialized fields, Kyunghee University and Hongik University are renowned for their oriental medicine and art schools, respectively.
Most parents send their children to private academies, hagwons (학원), as early on as kindergarten. These institutes teach a variety of subjects, ranging from the study of Chinese characters to music, art and English. The hagwon industry has become well-known for charging high tuition fees and for fraud and abuses against many foreign teachers. A typical high school student attends 2 or 3 different types of these academies.
South Korean colleges are often treated as a release from academic pressure, so students do not study as hard, and spend more time socializing and building personal relationships.
[edit] Journalism
South Korea has 10 main newspapers and 3 main broadcasters. Top three daily newspapers are Chosun Ilbo, Joongang Ilbo, Donga Ilbo. The Hankyoreh is also dominant as an independent and unbiased newspaper. KBS (Korea Broadcasting System), MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Company), SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System) are main terrestrial TV channels. Also, there is EBS, Education Broadcasting System for promoting the education of student and also adults.
There are many online newspapers in Korea. Among them, OhmyNews is a Korean website established in 2000 by a dedicated group of reporters who believed that ordinary people throughout the Republic of Korea could report in by phone or by email and have their many views on stories edited by volunteer and professional editors. The idea of a "citizen reporter" is the invention of CEO Oh Yeon Ho.
OhmyNews has over 35 dedicated staff reporters, but more than 30,000 citizen reporters post their stories on a regular basis. They are paid according to the popularity of the story. The impact of every citizen having the chance to use new technology (cell-phone cameras, the internet) to report has dramatically changed the perception of journalists in Korea.[citation needed]
[edit] Foreign influences
South Korea has been highly influenced in recent years by foreign countries; initially the primary influence was from the United States. Many people enjoyed watching American films and cartoons. Until 1998, importation of all Japanese movies, music and comics had been technically illegal due to government restrictions. Beginning in 1998, the South Korean government began easing restrictions on the importation of Japanese entertainment. Today only a few Japanese entertainment products are banned.
The influence of foreign countries has changed peoples' eating habits as well; many people now enjoy Western and other Asian foods in addition to traditional Korean food. Pizza is one of the favorite foreign foods among South Koreans, though it tends to differ from the pizza served in the west, often featuring corn, sweet potato, mayonnaise, bulgogi and various other ingredients. Many Western hamburger, chicken, coffee, and ice cream chains are also very popular in Korea.
South Korean dress is also being more heavily influenced by foreign styles; young people in Korea dress much as their Western counterparts do.
Recently, the Korean language has had a huge influx of English words, sometimes expressed as Konglish. Examples of Konglish:
- Eye shopping refers to 'window shopping'.
- Service usually means 'complimentary', such as a gift with purchase or warranty service.
- Hand phone refers to 'mobile phone'.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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