South Korea has long been known for its manufacturing prowess, but the Netflix hit Squid Game is taking the country’s cultural clout to another level that augurs well for a new driver of economic growth.
While Korean pop acts and TV dramas have been scoring hits overseas for years, only a handful — boy band BTS, for example — have managed to win many fans outside of Asia. Squid Game, set to become the most-watched show worldwide on Netflix, is changing all that.
Building on the success of last year’s Oscar-winning film Parasite, the new Netflix show about indebted people fighting in a deadly survival game has caught the global mood and is projecting Korea’s growing soft power. It could also help make the country’s cultural exports into much bigger economic contributors.
Photo: Reuters
Netflix says its business last year added US$1.9 billion to Korea’s economy, but overall the entertainment industry is starting to pull more weight.
ENTERTAINMENT EXPORTS
The size of Korea’s content industry is small relative to the vast manufacturing sector, but has been growing steadily. Content exports totaled US$10.8 billion last year, roughly one tenth of chips — Korea’s main cash cow — but already earning more than some other key export items such as household appliances and cosmetics.
Photo: Reuters
The value of Korea’s entertainment exports, which include publishing, games, music, movies and TV shows, rose 6.3 percent last year even as overall shipments of goods fell 5.4 percent due to the pandemic.
Even consumer products related to the so-called Korean wave, such as cosmetics, clothes and food items, rose 5.5 percent last year, according to a report by the Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange.
ATTRACTING TOURISTS
The popularity of Korean soap operas and idol stars led to a surge in Chinese visitors in the years before COVID struck, but that over-reliance has become a vulnerability for the tourism industry.
When relations between the two nations sourced in 2017 over the deployment of the THAAD US missile defense system in Korea, a Chinese ban on tourists to the country sent overall arrivals plunging. That shaved 0.4 percentage points off GDP growth that year.
Among total inbound tourists, 13 percent are estimated to have visited Korea in 2019 specifically for the purpose of experiencing pop culture and attending fan events, with their spending totaling US$2.7 billion that year, according to KOFICE.
Korea’s key challenge is to broaden its visitor base beyond Asia, and the growing appeal of its pop culture aids that mission.
CREATING JOBS
While still small in size, entertainment is one of Korea’s fastest-growing sectors along with technology. The number of workers in creative and artistic services grew 27 percent between 2009 and 2019, while that in manufacturing, a traditional engine for economic growth, increased 20 percent in the same period, according to data from the website of Statistics Korea.
In a report last month, Netflix said it helped create 16,000 full-time jobs in Korea from 2016 to last year across entertainment and related industries. The firm estimates it contributed US$4.7 billion to the economy in the period.
The small platform at Duoliang Train Station in Taitung County’s Taimali Township (太麻里) served villagers from 1992 to 2006, but was eventually shut down due to lack of use. Just 10 years later, the abandoned train station had become widely known as the most beautiful station in Taiwan, and visitors were so frequent that the village had to start restricting traffic. Nowadays, Duoliang Village (多良) is known as a bit of a tourist trap, with a mandatory, albeit modest, admission fee of NT$10 giving access to a crowded lane of vendors with a mediocre view of the ocean and the trains
For many people, Bilingual Nation 2030 begins and ends in the classroom. Since the policy was launched in 2018, the debate has centered on students, teachers and the pressure placed on schools. Yet the policy was never solely about English education. The government’s official plan also calls for bilingualization in Taiwan’s government services, laws and regulations, and living environment. The goal is to make Taiwan more inclusive and accessible to international enterprises and talent and better prepared for global economic and trade conditions. After eight years, that grand vision is due for a pulse check. RULES THAT CAN BE READ For Harper Chen (陳虹宇), an adviser
Traditionally, indigenous people in Taiwan’s mountains practice swidden cultivation, or “slash and burn” agriculture, a practice common in human history. According to a 2016 research article in the International Journal of Environmental Sustainability, among the Atayal people, this began with a search for suitable forested slopeland. The trees are burnt for fertilizer and the land cleared of stones. The stones and wood are then piled up to make fences, while both dead and standing trees are retained on the plot. The fences are used to grow climbing crops like squash and beans. The plot itself supports farming for three years.
President William Lai (賴清德) on Nov. 25 last year announced in a Washington Post op-ed that “my government will introduce a historic US$40 billion supplementary defense budget, an investment that underscores our commitment to defending Taiwan’s democracy.” Lai promised “significant new arms acquisitions from the United States” and to “invest in cutting-edge technologies and expand Taiwan’s defense industrial base,” to “bolster deterrence by inserting greater costs and uncertainties into Beijing’s decision-making on the use of force.” Announcing it in the Washington Post was a strategic gamble, both geopolitically and domestically, with Taiwan’s international credibility at stake. But Lai’s message was exactly
RSS