Beyond BTS and Squid Game: Leveraging Korean Pop Culture for Deeper Conversations

By Paul Youngbin Kim, Ph.D.

M

ore than once, my preteen daughter has said to me, “I am so thankful to God that I was born as a Korean American.” When I ask about her reasons, she readily names things like Korean entertainment (K-pop, K-drama) and food.

In these moments, I can’t help but reflect on my own contrasting experiences of growing up as a Korean in the Philippines and attending a majority White school for missionary kids. Privately, I too enjoyed Korean entertainment and food, but I also internalized a clear message that those things needed to be compartmentalized in my life; that my Korean culture should be separated and kept to my small network of Korean friends. And the few memorable times that my Korean culture inadvertently became publicly visible (e.g., that time my mother packed gimbap 김밥 for my school lunch) and the resulting response from my schoolmates only reinforced the hurtful lie that my culture was inferior to that of my White peers. 

So, the fact that my daughter’s circle of close school friends, including non-Korean ones, embrace BTS as their favorite band; that several Squid Game outfits were spotted in our American neighborhood during Halloween; and that my daughter proudly takes kimchi gimbap 김치김밥 for lunch – these collectively serve as a healing force in my life that counters some of the contrasting experiences I had growing up. 

At the same time, all this heightened attention on Korean pop culture, including from my own college students who at times seem to know more about K-pop than I do, triggers a sense of uneasiness, a feeling of dissonance. On one hand, I love that Korean culture is no longer at the fringes and instead showing up in mainstream American media, often making their way into my classroom discussions and written assignments. On the other hand, I am also keenly aware of the fact that these elements, while true products of my motherland, only represent a fraction of what makes Korea, Korea. 

As an educator teaching students at a Christian liberal arts institution, I have asked this question to myself many times: How can I see my students’ recent infatuation with K-entertainment as an opportunity for deeper learning? More broadly, how might Christian communities respond to this obsession with K-entertainment? 

I have found it helpful to engage K-pop appreciatively but also critically. That is, to see it through a celebratory lens of recognizing the artistry and genius of God’s creation; to view the more diverse representation of God’s people in the media as a good thing. This part is easy for many of us. 

At the same time, it is also helpful to see K-entertainment as an opportunity for further engagement of various social, historical, and spiritual themes. This critical perspective is more difficult to employ than the unchallenged appreciation of Korean pop culture. Below, I provide a few concrete examples of how I try to frame Korean pop culture as a way to guide conversations with my students. I invite you to share any other ideas or experiences that you might have had utilizing K-pop in your educational, ministry, or even parenting spheres.

First, Korean pop culture can open doors for deeper learning about historical and contemporary issues affecting Korea, and for that matter, the rest of the world. For example, a common theme that is often integrated into Korean entertainment (e.g., K-dramas) is the complicated relationship between North and South Koreas. For an American student to watch K-dramas set against the backdrop of the North and South Korea relations (e.g., Crash Landing on You) and to be inspired to learn more about the history of the two Koreas is an important educational experience. Moreover, engaging in contemporary societal implications of the North-South relations, such as the tragic separation of families (and the efforts to reunite them), integration of North Korean refugees in South Korea to the South Korean context as a key societal need, and Christian ministries (e.g., Nehemiah Global Initiative) that have stepped up to address this need. These conversations, in turn, might lead to learning about cultural constructs such as han 한 (loosely translated to collective trauma; see here for further discussion on han) to describe the past and present trauma on the two Koreas and implications for collective and individual mental health. 

Second, K-entertainment can provide materials for Christian communities to engage in lament. There is the deeply disturbing dystopian series Squid Game, which I did not want to watch but felt the need to see given how many of my students were talking about it (Sidenote: Even after watching it, I don’t know if I necessarily recommend it). If one is able to see past the manifest content of the troubling violence on the screen, the series clearly calls out the societal violence that we must boldly name and repent of, whether it is radical individualism that blinds us to systemic inequality, exploitation of foreigners for economic gains, and marginalization of women. Or there is BTS, whose songs not only include lines about romance so typical of this genre, but also include powerful messages regarding critical societal issues, such as the stigma of mental health – an issue that is also very pertinent in the Korean American and Christian setting. And then there are those K-entertainment stars represented on TV and other media platforms; it is troubling to see the blatant internalization of a beauty standard that elevates white features over Asian ones, even if achieved through plastic surgery. While my family and I hum along to K-pop, we can simultaneously rue the ways that Korean pop culture continues to perpetuate what Resmaa Menakem describes as “White body supremacy” in its glorification of White physical characteristics, which contradicts the truth that we as Koreans are “wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). 

Next time your student, child, neighbor, or congregant brings up K-pop, I pray that you might find those moments draw deeper connections to topics such as faith, culture, social justice, and mental health.    

Photo by Sung Jin Cho on Unsplash

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Paul Youngbin Kim, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean for DEI in the School of Psychology, Family, and Community at Seattle Pacific University. As a counseling psychologist, Paul has written extensively about Asian and Asian American experiences and how religion might intersect with these experiences, such as attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, racial microaggressions, and model minority stereotype. He recently wrote a piece on anti-Asian racism that was published in The Seattle Times.

You can find his faculty profile here: https://spu.edu/academics/school-of-psychology-family-community/faculty-and-staff/paul-youngbin-kim-profile