JeanChen

Since ancient times, the Republic of Korea, often known as South Korea, had always been under significant influences of Chinese, Japanese, and later Western cultures. After its government and economy became solid, Korea threw itself into the grand ambition of generating a transnational culture and today, successfully marked its existence on the globe with the fierce Korean Wave---a flow of South Korean pop culture. The wave initiated as regional development and grew into a global phenomenon, spread via the internet and social media and heavily impacted on contemporary cultures, the entertainment industry, and behavior of young people. In the eye of the Hallyu cyclone, K-pop led the wave to foreign shores and produced worldwide subcultures such as K-pop fandom.