Published in 2014
288 pages
Euny Hong is a Korean-American journalist and author. She was a Senior Columnist for the U.S. edition of the Financial Times, in which capacity she originated and wrote a weekly television column and other articles on culture. She was awarded a Fulbright Beginning Professional Journalism Award. Euny Hong’s works have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, and elsewhere.
Hong was born in New Jersey, the United States. At age 12, she moved to Seoul, Korea with her family, and was educated in both the Korean public school system and an international school (Seoul Foreign School). After high school, she returned to the US to attend Yale University, from which she graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy. Hong spent 6 years in Paris, France, five of which were as a journalist for France 24, an international news network. Euny Hong has also lived in Frankfurt and Berlin, Germany. She is fluent in English, Korean, French and German. Hong is a Jew by religion.
What is this book about?
By now, everyone in the world knows the song “Gangnam Style” and Psy, an instantly recognizable star. But the song’s international popularity is no passing fad. “Gangnam Style” is only one tool in South Korea’s extraordinarily elaborate and effective strategy to become a major world superpower by first becoming the world’s number one pop culture exporter.
As a child, Euny Hong moved from America to the Gangnam neighbourhood in Seoul. She was a witness to the most accelerated part of South Korea’s economic development, during which time it leapfrogged from third-world military dictatorship to first-world liberal democracy on the cutting edge of global technology.
Euny Hong recounts how South Korea vaulted itself into the twenty-first century, becoming a global leader in business, technology, education, and pop culture. Featuring lively, in-depth reporting and numerous interviews with Koreans working in all areas of government and society, The Birth of Korean Cool reveals how a really uncool country became cool, and how a nation that once banned miniskirts, long hair on men, and rock ‘n’ roll could come to mass produce boy bands, soap operas, and the world’s most important smart phone.
