Contextual Essay

This project explores the Korean wave, Hallyu through access to South Korean television programs. This is how I gained a greater Understanding of South Korea and South Korean content in Western culture. This is a personal autoethnographic narrative and also a layered account to which South Korea is consumed and experiences and the opinions of academic sources and online threads are utilized to understand the culture (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011). Initially this artifact was going to be based on the television program alone. The original trajectory of the artifact was going to be selecting a program and analyzing it in terms of autoenthrographic experience and reflect on Epiphanes during the show. The program I selected after watching a few different shows from Korean culture was called ‘Hello, My Twenties’. But after watching the show, there were quite a few similarities between programs I would typically watch meaning this didn’t expanded my knowledge as much as I would have liked. I also felt that I didn’t know enough about Korean culture to give my response to the text as my results may not have been factual and the credibility of my work may have been biased (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011).

Upon further research of the show and South Korean programs as a whole, the word “Hallyu”, a word I was not familiar with before this project, kept appearing. Hallyu is a term that describes the sudden surge of popularity of Korean content which began in Asia and later spread to the western world (Hogarth 2013, p. 135). Hallyu is a notion that explores Korean Culture to be comparable to Nollywood or Hollywood (Hogarth 2013, p. 149). This is the surge of popular Korean products and exports such as ‘k-pop’, television programs and movies (Jang & Paik 2012, p. 196). Through gaining an interest in this topic of the rising popularity of Korea in the west, from viewing the television programs, I decided to give my auto ethnographic experience of ‘Hello, My Twenties!’ through an analysis of Hallyu.

Access to this content was the biggest concern and then I remembered that Netflix has an international section. This was an epiphany for me that struck the realisation that South Korean content is more accessible than I thought. This shows that globalization is very prominent, and the growing interconnectedness of the world gave me the opportunity to explore South Korea.

For me personally my first known experience with South Korean Culture was through PSY and his hit single Gangnam style and was also how I explored K-pop and discovered a completely new cultural approach to something I am so familiar with being music. This was also a cultural impact for many people in the West (Bacon 2016). I got this same feeling when watching Hello, My Twenties. Something felt so familiar, yet just a slight cultural alteration to the formula I am familiar with. Then I questioned when did Korean culture and Hallyu become so popular? And also what makes them popular? Hello my twenties portrays traditional elements of Korean culture which I discuss in the video which makes it popular for Asian viewers across the globe, and also curiosity from a Western audience. I did notice though that I can’t just listen as this is in another language, I have to be fully engaged and actively view the content to be able to understand the context to absorb the culture. Another thing about the program which I found interesting was the depiction of roles with male and female characters. This show in particular has a lead cast of five females which portray their identities to be strong and independent. Men on the other hand are depicted as caring and gentle, something the female viewers appeal to due to suffering of a male- dominated society.

The characters are complex and well created. It was also seen that TV dramas have the greatest influence for sustaining their audience due to the engagement with the characters (Huat 2010, p. 15). The emphasis of this narrative autoethnography approach, which mostly studies others, so I was studying the text while also analysing it in terms of others. I also had to analyse patterns and process. For the episodes of the programs I watched, I noticed that they mostly have female leads, the episodes are almost always over an hour long, and they start of friendly and positive and usually have a dark twist. But for ‘Hello, my Twenties!’ the formula of each episode followed the focus of one character, there is normally a predicament they face but it is resolved following the next episode.

So overall I really enjoyed the autoethnographic experience, the show was quite interesting and It gave me a pretty good insight into modern South Korean culture. The show was entertaining, it sparked epiphanies for me to which I realised Hallyu is prominent because of internet access, affordable means of access, content being available on Western Websites such as Netflix and YouTube and overall an interest people have in the culture. We did not have this accessibility many years ago. Analysing the text through the notion of Hallyu was me, understanding the popularity of the show and the context of the accessibility for South Korean pop culture.

There may have been limitations to my autoethnographic experience as I was using the narrative format, but I feel as though I researched enough scholarly resources to get an understanding of Hallyu and the popularity of Korean content to make my findings legitimate. The narrative formant looks at texts in the form of stories (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011) which is why I used a television program as this spans over many episodes showing a deep insight into a Korean Text. With this, it may also seem that I used elements of ‘layered accounts’ format (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011) for the project as I questioned what I was viewing with an abstract analysis. I took a television program and then questioned the phenomena of Hallyu. This was my personal insight, I was detailing beyond what I knew and once understood, giving my own personal and cultural assumptions a point of interaction between the cultures (Denshire, 2013, p. 2). This was a truthful experience to which I didn’t use my personal bias so I believe my results were valid. I was able to dictate this experience through blog posts and tweets to which gave an audience and understanding of my experience.

References

Bacon, C 2016 ‘Why Korean Dramas are Popular’, Reel Rundown, 19 April, viewed 4 September 2017 <https://reelrundown.com/movies/Korean-Wave-Why-Are-Korean-Dramas-Popular>

Denshire, S 2013, ‘Autoethnography’, Sociopedia, vol. 62, no. p, pp. 1-12

Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. 2011 ‘Autoethnography: An Overview‘, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12:1, viewed 4 September 2017, <http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095>

Gang, G & Paik, WK 2012, ‘Korean Wave as Tool for Korea’s New Cultural Diplomacy, Advances in applied sociology, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 196-202

Hogarth, HK 2013, ‘the Korean Wave: An Asian Reaction to Western-Dominated Globalization’, Perspectives on Global Development & Technology, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 135-151.

Huat, CB 2010, ‘Korean Pop Culture’, Malaysian Journal of Media Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 15-24.

Reddit 2017, ‘[US] Hello, My Twenties! – A delightfully addicting Korean dramedy about five women in a shared house during college. 97% rating from Google users’ Best Of Netflix, viewed 4 September 2017,   <https://www.reddit.com/r/bestofnetflix/comments/6aspkd/us_hello_my_twenties_a_delightfully_addicting/>

Said, D 2017, South Korea and Me, WordPress, weblog post, 24 August, viewed 26 October 2017, < https://digc330.wordpress.com/2017/08/24/south-korea-and-me/>

Said, D 2017, Hello, My Twenties!/ Age of Youth, WordPress, weblog post, 24 August, viewed 26 October 2017, < https://digc330.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/hello-my-twenties-age-of-youth/>

옥현주 2017, ‘Korean dramas enjoy huge wave of popularity in US’, The Korea Herald, 3 February, viewed 4 September 2017, <http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170203000842>

As Discussed in my previous blogpost autoethnography is described as a phenomena that seeks to systematically analyses personal experience to understand cultural experience (Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. 2011). This is a documented personal experience and interaction that makes us consider political, social and cultural meanings; but then it is how we enact and make sense of it. This subject, being ‘Digital Asia’ enables me to explore autoethnography within this field of study and how I access, make sense and reflect on the content of Asia. Even the way we access the information is important, and through globalization, being the space and time compression, makes our ability to access ‘Asia’ simpler than ever before which can be done through a simple click of the internet. As to directly quote Chris Moore, we’re connected to the internet through serves, computers and technology, but ultimately through;

– “Huge Mother F**king Cables”

Globalisation contains local knowledge from finance, culture, health, terrorism, surveillance, energy, climate, public sphere and links these localities on a global scale. We are getting the intensification of worldwide social relations that Asia has to offer, and we are obtaining this information through various mediums.

Watching all the films throughout the semester, I realised that I had never even seen an Asian Television drama. I thought it would be interesting to watch a season of a television drama. My initial thought was how am I going to access this content? Then I remembered ‘Netflix’ has a whole international section that I had yet to explore as I was too focused on typical Hollywood/ Westernised programs and films. Through globalisation and the growing interconnectedness of the world, I am now able to access this content legally and securely. I have noticed that to access some Asians shows, especially Anime, it is either very expensive or illegal. I saw that there was quite a number of Korean television dramas, especially the ‘Young Adult’ genre which is something I am familiar with from a Western Point of view. In future, I will need to narrow this down to one television show, to give a more focused study. But to get a contextual understanding of South Korean young adult television culture, I wanted to explore more than one show. I watched the first episode of ‘Boys over flowers’, ‘Hello, My Twenties!’ and ‘Miss Panda & Mr. Hedgehog’. From viewing the first episode of these shows, I made come comparisons to the Westernised young adult shows I am used to.

(Sourced from: https://twitter.com/DanaSaidwhat )

I’ll give a rundown of ‘Boys over flowers’. Firstly, this starts off with an amazingly corny intro song which I noticed, all three of the programs did. This is a Cinderella based story with a private school setting. There are the generic high school dramas of the popular kids, in this case being the rich kids and bulling. The sound effects and video editing during this is quite dramatic and almost humorous. There is also a scene where someone is about to commit suicide and a young woman has the ability to sprint over and catch his hanging body in a matter of milliseconds which really amazes me (This is just a drama/ comedy, so no human could make this physically possible?)

(Image sourced from: https://www.dramafever.com/news/download-boys-over-flowers-wallpapers-for-your-desktop-iphone-ipad-and-android/ )

Hello, My Twenties!’ is a more adult based drama, which looks in the life of people in their 20’s, including relationships, college and meeting new people. Eun- jae shows what being a shy person in a new situation is like and how she deals with her new housemates. Due to the nature of this program I found it most relatable and for this reason; will be the focus of later blog posts and independent project.

(Image sourced from: https://theafictionado.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/adventures-in-asian-drama-age-of-youthhello-my-twenties/ )

The last show, ‘Miss Panda & Mr. Hedgehog’ is about a baker who hires a new pastry chef, Ko Seunf Ji. The way the name is said In Korean, sounds like the word ‘hedgehog’, which also matches his personality. This is also a drama comedy and a part in this I found interesting is that when Ko was counting, he did it in English.

After watching these three shows I got the gist of what the audience of South Korea likes and it is in fact not that different to shows I like. There’s school dramas, romance, work problems, a new environment which we would watch the protagonist enter and find a sense of rateableness too. This showed me was how universal high school and that we all once just teenagers. All of the shows have a sense of relatability. Viewing this makes me reflect on my personal experience, and growing up in my culture of Suburban Australia

From an autoethnographic perspective, this will be challenging, I have to focus when watching the show and analyse it as it is only subtitled. It is from the contextual understanding of life in Korea which I am unfamiliar with. I will provide detailed content on my emotions feelings and perspective towards the show. So how am I going to tackle my autoethnographic research? I’m considering either a visual essay or blog posts as I feel as though I need to embed videos and provide content that isn’t only written.

Refrences

Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. 2011 ‘Autoethnography: An Overview‘, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12:1, viewed 10th August 2017, http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095

Said, D 2017, ‘Am I an Ethnographer’ WordPress, weblog post, 10 August, viewed 24 August 2017 https://digc330.wordpress.com/2017/08/10/am-i-an-ethnographer/

Autoethnography is a term I have only become familiar through the duration of DIGC330. According to the prescribed reading, ‘Autoethnography: An Overview’, is described as a phenomena that seeks to systematically analyses personal experience to understand cultural experience (Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. 2011). There are reflexive elements to this including how we understand our internal emotions and interpretive meanings produces by personal engagements with the culture. This is a documented personal experience and interaction that makes us consider political, social and cultural meanings; but then it is how we make sense of it. This direct personal engagement is then documented and understood by the way we enact the world and can be presented through articles, videos, blog posts or even tweets. As a reader to an Autoethnography document, this gives insight towards the writers personal experience which is most definitely different from your own, but encompasses elements that they could have found genuine, confronting or disconcerting which would vary from individual to individual. The article discusses this is terms of an “in depth and intimate understanding of peoples experiences with emotionally charged and sensitive topics”  (Ellis, Kiesinger & Tillmann-Healy, 1997, p.121).

On a personal note, I gave my autoethnographic perspective on last week’s Screen and discussion through ‘tweets’ documenting my experience. The viewing was ‘State of Play (2013)’ a documentary about South Korean professional video gamers. E-sports is something I am familiar with, however I had never involved myself with the world of Korean e-sports so I took to twitter to give my subjective understanding from my personal cultural framework.

At first I posted a video of my familiarity with e-sports as it is not something, and how the team introductions are something I find interesting.

Then a quote from the documentary which I can only presume through translation and different cultural force behind words, that this ended up being quite humorous for me, being an Australian, you would most likely never hear something say a quote like this.

There are some critiques for authoethnography as outlined in the text. There are concerns for validity and credibility of the autoethnographer and if their giving their actual experience and using factual evidence. This in turn has an effect on the audience as experiences of the reader’s subjective viewpoint and the world they are exploring do not match up (Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. 2011). So you need to question, is this an authentic response I am reading? But we do need to remember that they are just subjective viewpoints in a world of methodological viewpoints that are not accurate scientific data, but rather personal encounters with the exploration of a different culture. Maybe I was being culturally insensitive with my tweets? E-sports are taken very seriously in Korea and it was something I was making a joke of. Or maybe I just have a different perspective to you due to my different cultural context.

Refrences

Ellis, Carolyn; Kiesinger, Christine E. & Tillmann-Healy, Lisa M. 1997. Interactive interviewing: Talking about emotional experience. In Rosanna Hertz Ed., Reflexivity and voice (pp.119-149). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. 2011 ‘Autoethnography: An Overview‘, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12:1, viewed 10th August 2017, http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095