[INTERVIEW] ‘K-pop has taken hold of European youth culture’

Diplomacy

Published: 08 Dec. 2023, 16:33 Updated: 08 Dec. 2023, 17:51

[INTERVIEW] ‘K-pop has taken hold of European youth culture’

Jerome de Wit, head of the Korean Studies department at Vienna University in Austria, far left front row, with students of the department in a guest lecture on campus on Nov. 14. [UNIVERSITAT WIEN]

VIENNA, Austria — There is more to the K-pop glamour that draws hundreds of students every year to the Korean studies department at Vienna University in Austria, said Jerome de Wit, the head of the department.

“There is value in K-pop and Korean culture especially for teenagers in the country, who are from eastern Europe, northern Europe, western Europe, as well as from the Middle East and other regions, because they are able to find their identity and a stable footing in the culture,” De Wit told the Korea JoongAng Daily recently from the campus located in the center of Vienna.

Austria, a landlocked country in Europe sharing borders with eight countries, has 17.1 percent of its 8.9 million population represented by foreign citizens. Its residents with any migration background in their previous generation stand at 25.4 percent, according to state records.

The fact that many of the K-pop acts are recruiting more non-Korean members has also helped their popularity.

“The positive image also comes from the fact that more group members are from different nationalities and cultures,” he said. “That connects with the ongoing discussions in Europe about our identity and questions about how we can integrate more, beyond the borders.”

Having taken up his doctoral studies on Korea at Leiden University in the Netherlands, which boasts one of the largest Korean studies departments in Europe, and Sungkyunkwan University in Korea, De Wit sees a different future for the boom in Korean studies in Europe, unlike that of other regional studies.

The following are excerpts from the interview, edited for clarity and brevity.

Korean studies students of Vienna University take part in a special lecture on Korean culture with Jeong Yo-rang, and make traditional Korean fans together in May. [UNIVERSITAT WIEN]

Q. As a scholar of Korean studies for nearly two decades, how do you gauge the current student interest in Korea? Where is it coming from?
A. K-pop has really taken hold of the youth culture in European countries. If you are a teenager, you try to search for your own identity, and in Europe, this happens through music. The type of music that you like is [the basis for] the group of friends that you are building. And K-pop has really become one of the genres around which students are gathering, finding interest and seeing themselves as being able to establish their own identity through it.
Also the youth, they’re really looking at the lyrics of these songs. When I ask my students what they like about K-pop, the answer is rarely because a member looks very handsome. It’s almost always about the message that these groups are portraying with their music.

Will it last?
Faculties at the university have seen the same thing with Japanese Studies in the 1980s and with Chinese studies in the 1990s, but they didn’t last. However, I don't think it will happen with Korean studies, because it has really taken root and a hold of the youth culture in the whole of Europe. That is something that Japanese studies and Chinese studies never accomplished in the same manner. If you look at the Faculty of Humanities, and their student numbers, all the numbers are dropping. But Korean Studies is the only one that is growing, with some 500 students at the department this year.

With the growing attention on Korea, do you ever think that this could backfire on the country, when there is a discrepancy between the image Korean music and TV series portray and the actual experiences that the K-pop fans or students have in Korea?
Certainly, that has happened quite a bit among our students. So it's also our task to downplay their expectations before they go to Korea. What the K-pop groups are doing, that's very helpful to the world, but that is not what Korean society is like, they also have their problems just like any other society.

A group of Austrian residents take part in a kimbap-making class organized by the Korean Embassy in Vienna on Oct. 24. [EMBASSY OF KOREA IN AUSTRIA]

How have the students engaged with such social issues in their studies?
Some of my students write their theses on these topics, for instance on suicide in Korea, the image of women in Korea, or the Korean language usage in TV commercials in Korea. Here we also see a shift in the topics studied about Korea, because historically scholars on Korean studies would focus on the Joseon Dynasty or the period of Japanese annexation of Korea, but the young students of today are more drawn to understanding and analyzing what is happening in contemporary Korea.

As Korea grapples with a low birthrate and dwindling labor force, it is increasingly turning to immigration, or even policies to encourage the return of overseas diaspora. Would you say the Korean diasporas across regions were able to maintain a sense of unifying identity?
I think there is starting to be an understanding [in Korea] where eventually Koreans will also have to come face to face with the fact that they have to start accepting diversity in their society. It is a process that European societies have been going through since the 1980s and one that is far from finished. My studies have focused on the Korean-Chinese diaspora. They are different compared to other Korean diaspora in the U.S. or in Japan in that they used to have a diaspora identity, but not any more with the young generation of Korean-Chinese. It has now become a transcultural identity, where a sense of being Korean is still there, but it is really not grounded in the idea of seeing Korea as a homeland. This is partly because of the discrimination that the older generations of Korean-Chinese faced in Korea.

There are quite a few historical links between Austria and Korea, including the fact that the very first lady of the Republic of Korea was an Austrian. Are these explored by any of your students?
Yes, these historical connections are increasingly gaining more attention here especially after the 130th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Austria and Korea last year. Another critical link is the role that the [1950-53] Korean War played in the founding of the Austrian state in 1955. When the Korean Peninsula was occupied by the two powers [U.S. and Soviet Union], the case was the same for Austria. The Korean War really opened the eyes of politicians from both the liberal and conservative spectrum because they saw that division led to such a big war, fueled by the big powers. After the Korean War broke out, the politicians in Austria got together to share a united message and that of neutrality toward the U.S. and the Soviet Union, as they called for their country’s independence. And to this day, Austria is trying to maintain such a position on the issue of Russia and Ukraine as well.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]