Actor Seo Kang Joon poses with a fan at an autograph signing. Visual China Group/Getty Images
For my total life I’ve obsessively watched South Korean tv dramas, or Okay-dramas.
The time period refers back to the disparate genres of tv dramas produced in South Korea, together with thriller, crime and rom-com. Regardless of style, most Okay-dramas search to elicit a visceral response in viewers – laughter, tears, anger, indignation. The collection often characteristic charming, well-groomed actors who’re in contact with their feelings.
When I used to be in elementary faculty within the U.S., I usually went with my dad and mom to a Korean grocery retailer an hour away from my dwelling to borrow VHS tapes of Okay-dramas. Eventually, streaming providers ended the necessity for VHS leases, and I may watch my favourite Okay-dramas, reminiscent of “The Innocent Man,” on platforms reminiscent of Rakuten Viki and Dramafever.
I turned my ardour for South Korean tv right into a profession by incomes a doctorate in gender research at University of California, Los Angeles, the place I researched the racial, gender and sexual politics surrounding the worldwide reputation of Okay-dramas.
For my dissertation, I interviewed girls from completely different components of the world who had been impressed by Okay-dramas to journey to South Korea to expertise the tradition firsthand. To meet them, I stayed at guesthouses round Seoul close to Okay-drama filming areas and standard vacationer locations.
More broadly, I wished to study what drew them to South Korea. But I quickly realized {that a} vital variety of vacationers had been much less within the sights and sounds – and extra within the males.
The rise of the Okay-drama
Some of the primary Okay-dramas to draw a following outdoors of South Korea had been “Jewel within the Palace,” “Guardian: Lonely and Great God” and “My Love from the Star,” which aired in the beginning of the twenty first century. People around the globe watched them on authorized streaming web sites providing subtitles, in addition to on unlawful, fan-operated streaming websites the place volunteers wrote subtitles.
In latest years, Okay-dramas have gone mainstream. Today, streaming platforms reminiscent of Netflix and Disney+ not solely provide up a bevy of Okay-dramas for his or her subscribers, they’ve additionally produced Okay-dramas of their very own, reminiscent of “Squid Game” and “The King’s Affection.”
The worldwide reputation of Okay-dramas occurred alongside the recognition of different South Korean cultural merchandise, together with Okay-pop, cosmetics and meals. This phenomenon is called “Hallyu,” or the “Korean Wave.”
‘Hallyu tourism’ – with a twist
Galvanized by their curiosity in South Korean standard tradition, increasingly more vacationers are touring to the nation.
South Korean locals name these guests “Hallyu vacationers.” Many of them dine at eating places and avenue meals distributors to allow them to check out the meals that they see in Okay-dramas, go to Okay-drama filming locales or attend a dwell Okay-pop efficiency.
However, a major subset – the group I got here to be most fascinated about – journey to South Korea for love. Drawn to the characters they see on their TVs, they begin to surprise if real-life South Korean males resemble the Okay-drama male characters, each of their appears and behaviors.
They come from all around the globe – North America, Western Europe, Russia – however are inclined to have an identical profile: heterosexual girls of their early to mid- 20s.
In 2017 and 2018, I stayed within the guesthouses and hostels that Hallyu vacationers frequented once they visited South Korea. The vacationers who had been fascinated about Korean males quickly stood out. Unlike the opposite vacationers who would get up early so they might discover town, these vacationers would sleep in or watch Okay-dramas in the course of the day, after which costume up and placed on make-up earlier than hitting the golf equipment and bars at evening. They had one main objective: to satisfy a Korean man.
To a few of these vacationers, the chance up to now these males was a option to fulfill a fantasy. One German vacationer informed me that when she meets a Korean man, she feels as if she’s “residing in [her] personal Korean tv drama.”
Our chats usually occurred over a meal. Occasionally, I might interview them as we walked to and from golf equipment and bars – and even within the golf equipment and bars as the ladies tried to satisfy guys. Some of those girls had been fluent in Korean, whereas others had been in a position to talk by mixing Korean and English. Many of them claimed to have realized Korean by consuming hours of Korean standard tradition.
In pursuit of ‘delicate’ masculinity
“Romantic,” “light,” “good-looking,” “knights in shining armor” are simply among the phrases that the vacationers used to explain their idealized Korean man. It was a stark distinction to the boys again of their dwelling nations, whom they tended to explain as emotionally stunted and hypermasculine.
“I really feel so protected round Korean males,” one Swedish girl informed me. “Men again dwelling are so [sexually] aggressive. They grope me and attempt to have intercourse on a regular basis. I don’t like that.”
A sure sort of man does have a tendency to seem in romantic Okay-dramas. They’re often depicted as well-groomed, romantic and mild – a kind of masculinity that’s generally known as “delicate” masculinity. As Korean research scholar Joanna Elfving-Hwang explains:
“… males in standard dramas and romantic comedies are portrayed as attentive, delicate and able to categorical their emotions if wants be. They are well-groomed and fashionably dressed, accessorised with the newest man-bag, and excessively involved with their appears.”
Some girls say they’re drawn to Korean celebrities like singer and actor Cha Eun-Woo who they are saying exude a ‘delicate masculinity.’
Han Myung-Gu/WireImage through Getty Images
Some of the vacationers did, in actual fact, discover their best companions, marrying and settling in South Korea. Their images and tales circulated amongst among the different vacationers, giving them hope that they, too, would possibly discover and marry a Korean man.
However, these success tales had been the exception, not the norm.
Most of the vacationers I interviewed and stayed in contact with left the nation considerably disenchanted. Some did handle to have a brief fling with a person; however usually, these relationships – exceedingly tough to take care of at an extended distance – fizzled out.
A Spanish girl I interviewed broke up along with her Korean boyfriend shortly after returning to Spain. “You have given me nothing however ache,” she wrote in an Instagram put up.
Other vacationers left South Korea completely dejected: The males they met weren’t something just like the Okay-drama actors they’d seen on TV.
Interestingly, no matter whether or not they left the nation solely partially glad or demoralized, most of the girls I interviewed had been steadfast about their want to at some point fall in love with a Korean man. They believed that they had been merely unfortunate this time round – that there nonetheless existed the potential for assembly the right man throughout a future go to to South Korea.
The energy of media to maneuver
In 2020, after South Korean movie director Bong Joon Ho gained a Golden Globe for his movie “Parasite,” he stated, “Once you overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you’ll be launched to so many extra superb movies.”
To me, these Okay-drama fans-turned-tourists – and their eager for Korean males – signify the facility of media from different cultures to maneuver viewers solely emotionally, but in addition bodily. Scholars have documented how some Japanese folks take journeys to the United Kingdom after watching British interval dramas; different researchers have studied how anime has spurred American tourism to Japan.
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With leisure from different cultures more and more accessible via streaming platforms, I count on this type of media-inspired tourism to change into nonetheless extra widespread. Films and TV collection set in different nations can pique a viewer’s curiosity about distant cultures, new sounds and unique meals.
But as my analysis exhibits, they will additionally gasoline fantasies about love and romance that don’t at all times have a contented ending.
Min Joo Lee doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.
