We must learn to dance the Korean way

Melbourne Herald Sun, Friday December 7, 2012 

Gangnam Style has now officially passed its billion-download mark, to become the most popular online video ever.

Now heads are being raised and notice being taken in high places. It's not about a jaunty tune and a dorky dance. It's about - "What's happening in South Korea and what should we know about it?" A country of 50 million people is making its mark on the world, and we in this country of 20 million need to understand how this has happened.

As well as the roly-poly popster Psy (right), South Korea has developed a flood of valuable pop treasures. Most we do not see much of here, because they are very Asian-flavoured, but if you are making smash hits in the multi-billion markets of China, Japan and South-East Asia, Australia is not missed.

But in the nightclubs of Shanghai, Tokyo or Singapore super groups like Wonder Girls, Girls Generation and Super Junior are instant scream generators. They also happen to be "manufactured" groups, like The Monkees or One Direction. Made to measure for a voracious popular market.

Indeed, manufacturing is Korea's strength. Look at the success of LG televisions, Samsung phones, and Kia and Hyundai cars. And the ones you never hear much about - SK Hynix just happens to be the world's second biggest memory chip maker. Besides cars, Hyundai is the world's largest ship building company, with the world's biggest shipyard. POSCO is the world's fourth-biggest steel maker.

They have nothing compared to the space and resources of Australia, in fact they are one-77th our size. Yet their economy is half as big again as ours.

Having nothing is perhaps the key to Korea's success. They are trapped in a vice by their huge neighbours - China to the west, Russia to the north and east, Japan at their feet, and their lunatic brother making bombs in the attic.

By necessity they had to be clever and they had to sell their products. Now 53 per cent of what they make is exported - far more than China at 31 per cent or - even with all the raw material resources shipped out last year - Australia at 21.

Ever since the end of the Korean war in 1953, the focus has been outside, both in manufacturing and culture. They have a name for it - "Hallyu", the "Korean Wave".

Politically it means millions devoted to pushing the national brand. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has a budget of more than $3 billion, with a sizable portion devoted to hallyu.

The Koreans jumped into the smartphone field, produced a better phone than their competitors, and now the Samsung Galaxy range sell twice as many world-wide as the Apple iPhones. Just watch the tablet market. Once again, it is dominated by Apple, the iPad. But already Samsung is galloping into the straight and we will see it pulling ahead over the next couple of years.

However, we all have our burdens to bear and in this case it's the mad brother in the attic. North Korea continues its Stalinist fantasies with a vast standing army and every conceivable weapon up to nuclear.

For the past 20 years we have been expecting it to do an East Germany and collapse under the weight of its own pretension. But somehow despite starvation, isolation, and condemnation - it continues goose-stepping along.

The cracks are showing, though. More and more of their citizens are being jailed for watching South Korean movies and TV serials like the hugely popular Winter Sonata. No doubt the jails will soon be filled to bursting by youngsters doing the Gangnam Style.

ray@ebeatty.com