The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power

https://blog.hubspot.com/the-hustle/the-40m-bet-that-made-south-korea-a-food-and-cultural-power

by Anon84 • 3 years ago

58 68 3 years ago

blog.hubspot.com

akiselev• 3 years ago

The easiest way to win hearts and minds is through the stomach [1]. I don’t know how effective South Korea’s program has been since LA’s Koreatown had tons of kbbq and other korean restaurants before 2009 but Thailand’s Global Thai [2] program has definitely improved the number and quality of Thai options around California.

My understand is they’ve also helped all the restaurants standardize on recipes and core ingredients around a few manufacturers like AROY-D and Maesri so there’s quite a bit of quality control built into the diplomacy.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culinary_diplomacy

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_cuisine#Culinary_diplom...

mc32• 3 years ago

Quite a few used to also have the Royal Portrait -maybe they still do.

nonethewiser2• 3 years ago

This is only tangential but I remember how sushi used to be a “weird” food to most Americans. Probably as recently as 10 or 15 years ago. And now its everywhere. Its right in the mix with pizza and tacos for standard restaurant niches. I see it in rural grocery stores very far away from any sort of big city.

I think kimchi just doesnt have that kind of broad appeal but who knows. This is not to deny the effectiveness of Korea food diplomacy. Im just noting sushi as a really extreme case.

cirgue• 3 years ago

I live in Atlanta and Korean isn’t quite taco-level ubiquity but it’s darn close. Everyone I know under the age of 40 does an h-mart run somewhat regularly and kbbq is a goto group dinner spot.

pkaye• 3 years ago

Did you know salmon sushi in a recent creation. Pacific salmon tends to have parasites so Japanese didn't eat salmon sushi but Norway had salmon which was safer so they promoted it to the Japanese.

zdragnar2• 3 years ago

Kimchi is actually starting to pop up in surprising places away from city centers (my rural grocery store has some) but it sits around and by the time I got some, it was... not fresh.

Sushi has the benefit of needing to be consumed fresh, except for fake crab which freezes well enough that you can find "sushi" at quite a few out of the way gas stations as well.

Having access to an asian grocery store with fresh bean sprouts, kimchi, freshly made kimbap, good masala blends, all the herbs and so forth is probably the only thing I miss about living in a bigger city.

fomine3• 3 years ago

Kimchi don't have to be "fresh", it's preference.

genmud• 3 years ago

Kimchi is ironically one of the few cabbage based garnishes I actually enjoy. Compared to something like sauerkraut, it has a reasonably pleasant texture, no offputting odor and the combination of spicy + salty works very well.

It would probably be better to compare kimchi with wasabi or sauerkraut though.

umanwizard4• 3 years ago

I can assure you that sushi was not weird to most Americans 10 years ago. Maybe 40 years.

opportune3• 3 years ago

It was not weird to urban yuppies but it has made tremendous inroads in the middle-aged suburban/middle-America demographic.

I come from a mid sized city in a less developed part of the US and sushi is much more available there now than 10 years ago. And yes 10 years ago most people 35+ in that area found it strange

opportune3• 3 years ago

I think Kimchi will get there, many major supermarkets like Safeway are beginning to stock it.

Often their SKUs, IME, are overpriced and low quality, because they market it as a health food and try too hard to cater to that niche, so it’s not spicy or salty enough and lacks fish sauce. You’re still way better off going to an Asian grocery store for it.

But eventually they’ll figure out they can just sell the good stuff… It’s a great snack and Americans are already familiar enough with eg dill pickles and sauerkraut that I think we’ll eventually embrace real Kimchi.

atleastoptimal• 3 years ago

South Korea has only 40 million people yet has a significant worldwide cultural influence, definitely punching above its weight.

I wonder if China were to implement the same tactics South Korea uses for cultural diplomacy, would the worldwide cultural influence of China reach levels 30x greater than South Korea?

umanwizard4• 3 years ago

Heavily censored popular media makes it hard to become a cultural powerhouse.

AYBABTME• 3 years ago

That's true. Korea itself only developed its cultural industry abroad when the government relaxed censorship rules.

nusaru• 3 years ago

That’s crazy, my city alone has more than 1/100 the population!

Edit: 10x to 1/10

Edit 2: 1/10 to 1/100

elbigbad• 3 years ago

The largest city in the world is Tokyo which is about 40M people.

firecall• 3 years ago

Are you sure?

Is that a city on Planet Earth?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities

foota• 3 years ago

Your city has 400 million people?

alephnerd• 3 years ago

It has started to happen in ASEAN - Chinese Pop Music has really taken off in Vietnam+Thailand (along with the Chinese diaspora in Malaysia+Indonesia+SG).

Chinese media will probably be increasingly exported over the next 20-30 years, and tbf - PRC right now is roughly at the same comparative level economically+social development wise with Taiwan+SK in the 1980s.

Both those countries soft power exports only really took off in the 90s and 2000s respectively, so it's reasonable to assume a similar media push happens in the late 2020s/early 2030s.

This has already started with Thailand (who's developmental indicators are comparable with SK in the late 1990s/early 2000s) and their media+music exports within ASEAN+SK+JP. For example, for higher education most middle class families in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos prefer sending their kids to study at Thai universities now if they can't afford Australia/SG/JP/SK.

And a similar impact has occurred with Turkiye's (similar developmental indicators to SK in the mid-late 2000s) media and soft power exports within the Balkans+Ukraine+Russia+Levant+Central Asia.

That said, I doubt the age+racial/cultural demographic on HN are the type that consume Asian media, so I'll probably be downvoted by China Hawks for the soft power statements and Wumaos for the 1980s statement.

waboremo• 3 years ago

Part of South Korea's rapid reach stems from how Americanized its modern culture is. I am not just talking about global corporations like mcdonalds. It's everything, even the choice of coffee over tea, a rarity for an asian country. Easy for western nations to embrace.

For China, the same game plan wouldn't work not without heavy alterations. It does however have substantial ability to influence those not already heavily Americanized.

okdood64• 3 years ago

Yea no, C-pop is not has good as K-pop. It’s a nonstarter.

ahzhou• 3 years ago

Media is horribly neutered because of censorship, but cultural exports like food are seeing increasing traction.

givemeethekeys• 3 years ago

Another great example of diplomacy through food would be Thailand. Thai chefs come to America, start Thai restaurants here, promote their incredible food and wonderful hospitality. In-turn, I can't wait to visit Thailand one day, and you can bet I have a favorable view of Thai people if they happen to get into an argument with someone!

nonethewiser2• 3 years ago

There was 1 Thai restaurant in my smallish hometown. I moved very far away to a large metro and went to some Thai restaurant. Turns out the owners of these restaurants new eachother in Thailand.

cj• 3 years ago

Everyone is at most 7 connections away :)

The world is smaller than we assume

ojbyrne• 3 years ago

The article talks a lot about a similar Thai initiative.

GuB-42• 3 years ago

It is mentioned in the article, saying that "Thailand was the first country to launch a formal gastrodiplomacy plan with its 2002 Global Thai campaign."

About Thai food, it is interesting to note that Pad Thai, often considered to be the national dish, was in fact made for that purpose. Originating from the mid 20th century, it is hardly traditional. That doesn't make it less delicious, and while it is one of the most accessible of Thai dishes (i.e. not too spicy), it is not just for tourists, locals eat it too.

As for getting into an argument, I would avoid getting into an argument with people whose national sport is one of the most effective martial arts. But Thai people are usually not the kind of people who get into an argument in the first place.

ed25519FUUU• 3 years ago

I think the government is vastly overestimating their role in creating demand for regional food.

umanwizard4• 3 years ago

Originating from the mid 20th century, it is hardly traditional

Why can’t something 70 years old be traditional? Most “traditional” things aren’t as old as people imagine, anyway.

lvl102• 3 years ago

They’ve been doing this since mid 1990s for entertainment. They first targeted the Japanese market and as the industry grew they went global. This has to be one of the best returns for gov’t-led funding and initiative. They played to the strengths of their labor. Also helped that China’s economy absolutely took off during the same time.

nl• 3 years ago

There is a graphic showing number of restaurants in selected countries and comparing to other cuisines. According to that there were only 2024 Chinese restaurants in 2009.

I find this very hard to believe. TripAdvisor lists 500+ in Sydney alone!

barbegal• 3 years ago

2024 Korean restaurants in China in 2009

stbl219z8y• 3 years ago

Lol. What does this have to do with Hubspot CRM?

creakingstairs• 3 years ago

Sales & branding strategy feels pretty related to Hubspot or at least people who might be interested in Hubspot.

jackcosgrove• 3 years ago

South Korea is reaping the dividend of the demographic transition right now. They are where Japan was in the 1980s. They played their cards very well and were able to build up both hard and soft power during the growth years.

tsunamifury3• 3 years ago

Crashing population, massive child suicide rate, terrible dictator families running the nation and an outright cult controlling even more…

I really don’t think we should hold SK up for anything other than what aggressive capitalism does to a society. Kills it off.

thegaulofthem2• 3 years ago

If only we had an aggressively socialist nation with a comparable demographic to compare to. Shame there isn’t an East Korea we could compare with and against.

neximo64• 3 years ago

There are plenty of people in other countries who would easily pick South Korea as a better place to live, but never admit it verbally for the reasons you're saying.

gtop3• 3 years ago

My familiarity with SK is minimal, but I am interested by part of your comment and would like to study more. What is the name of the cult you are referring to?

thegrim33• 3 years ago

Fairly ironic making a comment about cults when you're coming here to proselytize the political/social ideology your echo chamber (cult) has convinced you is the truth.

clove2• 3 years ago

Crashing population

Why do so many, such as yourself - apparently - believe that population growth is superior to population shrinkage? Are you pushing an immigration agenda or is there some other reason? And when should a population stop growing? Are overpopulation, the crowding of cities, and environmental destruction that result from population growth less worse problems than problems stemming from population shrinkage? And what are the problems resulting from population shrinkage, according to you?

Massive child suicide rate

All of East Asia is ignorant of mental health issues, in general. It's not a SK-specific problem.

Terrible dictator families

The people of SK know this is a problem. Of all modern nations, the SK youth has the strongest negative perception of its country's politicians. Perhaps give it some time and the youth of the nation will do away with this problem.

Even with its problems, SK is one of the best countries in the world. The people are a genetic mix of Ghengis Khan's warriors and the above-triple-digit Yayoi people. They are aggressive, intelligent, and surprisingly welcoming to outsiders.

alberth• 3 years ago

Hopefully they don’t experience Japans “Lost Decades”, where since ~1991, economically the national has stagnated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades

Mistletoe• 3 years ago

Hopefully America isn't about to experience the exact same thing. The similarities abound as our population grays and reproduction is at all time lows.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...

US net migration is declining drastically also.

https://econofact.org/the-decline-in-u-s-net-migration

Jiro• 3 years ago

For k-pop, Japan has notoriously been very tight with licensing restrictions on music. That allowed Korea to leap ahead.

throw0101b• 3 years ago

Not sure if this is country-specific or label-specific, but a lot of Baby Metal reaction videos seem to get flagged, which is kind of silly given that these of things help spread awareness of the group / band.

justinclift2• 3 years ago

Not just music, Japan have been extremely tight with at least anime and visual novels as well.

For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36016653

ipsum2• 3 years ago

Webtoons (a Korean company) is probably more popular than manga now for this reason.

jasmer• 3 years ago

I think Thai food is just really appropriate for the Western palette, it's way better than the ultra-westernized 'not real Chinese' food of the 1970s, and my experience with Korean is that it's a lot of vinegared/pickled stuff - robust and super healthy but just not as easily engaged as Thai.

robg• 3 years ago

Surprised that they don’t mention Kalbi as a dish Americans love. It’s just grilled ribs with a sweet sauce and available at Trader Joe’s.

f0ld• 3 years ago

It’s over for us Koreans when westerners realize that Kimchi is better consumed as bar nibbles.

The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power

Related Stories