Transnational Korea: A Critical Assessment of the Korean Wave in Asia and the United States (Essay‪)‬

In the international spread of popular culture from Korea since the late 1990s, known popularly as the "Korean Wave," television dramas have won the hearts of fans and paved the way for rising interest in Korean popular music throughout Pacific Asia and in Asian communities around the world. Indeed, Korean popular music has been spreading rapidly; but, as argued in this article, the reasons have relatively little to do with aesthetic and cultural values that could be identified as typically Korean. After providing a theoretical framework for understanding transnational flows and hybridity, this piece looks specifically at the Korean television drama Winter Sonata and the music, public personas, and career trajectories of BoA and Rain (Bi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), ultimately questioning the cultural validity of the concept of the Korean Wave. The Korean Wave: Transnational Flows & Hybridity