K-pop made Korean culture sexy. Can the Philippines do it, too?

I look around and K-pop is amazingly everywhere: media, food, fashion, and now in the UN assembly. Korean culture is ablaze, even brighter in this pandemic, while the Philippine cultural industries are struggling to fan their own dimming embers.

How did K-culture do it? This Korean wave did not happen spontaneously. After the Asian Financial crisis of 1997, then president Kim Dae-Jung identified strategies that would solve Korea’s image problem and create new industries on top of traditional manufacturing. He invested in two economic drivers: information technology and culture.

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Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the pandemic bared the systemic deficits of our cultural industries. Creative workers are forced to play the stereotype of angry, hungry artists suddenly in need of ayuda.

The cultural agencies are making the most of what they’re given, but the measly budgets are a glaring indication that many people view culture and art as independent from economic (read: important) concerns. Culture is largely seen as monolithic and sacred, only meant to be revered inside a glass case in a museum, something no one should dare commodify. This aversion to capitalist ideas comes naturally to a people with a long history of inequality and injustice. But business, itself, is not inherently evil.

See more at: https://philstarlife.com/geeky/942459-k-pop-korean-culture-philippines