 Is Korean culture getting so popular that now there are no more Korean-only spaces for Korean Americans? Let's talk about it. Yeah, there was a really viral thread on Asian American Reddit titled No More Spaces for Koreans and Korean Americans Anymore. This guy goes on to say, by the way, he's venting. He's aware that he's venting. He says that Korean Americans, they went through so much from the grandparents generation to the parents generation with the riots and everything like that. They're still dealing with a lot of decades of generational trauma. But now in 2023, they're almost considered a privileged Asian because Korean culture has almost reached the heights of Japanese culture, where it's almost like everybody knows it, everybody consumes it, everybody loves it so much. It's so trendy and like cool and chic. So David, he's saying how it went from rooftop Koreans to Koreans. And that switch has been very stark and almost difficult for him to digest, right? And then he goes on to say, now there's white people explaining what my culture is to other white people who look at us like we are some rare exotic creature rather than a human. There are no Korean spaces that are not overrun by non-Koreans and white people. This was not the case a decade ago. Koreans were able to find other Koreans and confide in their hardship, at least other Asian Americans. I know I'm sounding tribal and exclusive and I know I'm definitely living up to that stereotype about Koreans being unwelcoming. But this is absolutely how I feel and this Andrew post went viral. Alright guys, we're going to delve into this, the comments section, our own insight because I kind of feel like I've seen, I know what he's talking about. I've seen this happen. I've seen it myself, obviously having been in some Korean spaces for some time. But please hit that like button, check out other episodes of the hot pot boys. But also what goes really well with hot pot is Smaalasauce. You can go check it out right now, smalasauce.com. We got pre-orders that are finishing up very soon. If you guys want to see more content, check out the Instagram page or the shorts that are going to be on our YouTube channel coming up. Yeah, I mean, actually what's interesting about this post Andrew is I was asking my Korean friends the other day. One was 30, one was 20. I was like, what do you guys think about Korean culture becoming so popular? It's almost reaching like another plateau right now with all the K-pop artists doing songs in primarily English, New Genes, Super Shy, Andrew Junkook, his last two singles have no Korean. And I was like, what do you guys think? Because these Korean artists are charting higher than ever. But the product, I guess in a way is less Korean than ever. And they were kind of lamenting this point, I mean, somewhat with different details. The disc guy is saying like they're almost witnessing the downside of their culture becoming so ubiquitous and so universally loved. At least select parts of it. I mean, I'm sure that there was a certain feeling you got when you walked into a Korean space, a Korean barbecue, a pocha bar, whatever. And like everybody was Korean or at least they if they weren't Korean, they were an insider. You know, versus now if you go to a lot of spots in Korea towns, obviously it's filled with a lot of non-agents. It's not about people's like first time, right? Yeah, it's not about like the race, but it's just saying like they're not. They're either seeing Korean culture on a very shallow level or they don't even know Korean people and they're coming to these spaces. And that's not wrong because obviously we have business owner friends who are Korean and they overall like it because the market is bigger for Korean products. Right. Their economic pie to draw cash flow from is much larger than it ever was. But they also acknowledge they're like, yeah, on a given night, like, you know, maybe like 40% are non-Asian even, you know, of my Korean. In some select spots, Andrew, maybe even 70% of the crowd. Yeah. So, so I think that what this guy is saying, he's just misses those days. He misses the good old days. Those good old days. Yeah. And I think that is a sentiment that everybody's feeling. If you remember the good old days of anything, times have changed whether for the better or worse or better for the macro, but maybe worse in a super micro. So I don't know either way, I kind of see what he's saying because even 10 years ago, there was like, you know, more Korean exclusive nightclubs in LA and New York that would kind of discriminate against you. If you weren't Korean, even if you were like Chinese, you know, now that's not the case. Now it's almost like, yeah, like the Chinese, they always buy like the most bottles. Yeah. That is the way it has changed. Over the last 15 years. I would say, and maybe not for the Korea boo aspect, but Chinese are heavily in K-Town, but I think that's just because they like. Actually, yeah, yeah. We're going to get into that later. I think a lot of Chinese, they party in K-Town, but they don't necessarily, some of them are, but not, they're not necessarily Korea boo's. Right. That's like for the non-Asians. Yeah. Anyway, let's just get into it. Oh man, a few quick thoughts. Every game plan has pros and cons, right? Like if you run a soft power game plan that really appeals to outside tribes, you know, not just your own, because Korea is a small country. They need to export K-pop, for example, J-pop, very large domestic market. They don't export it as much for economic reasons or there's no necessity to eventually it reaches this point where other people, they start to take. I don't want to say ownership of it, but somewhat, right? Because they've consumed so much of it, they start to feel like their K-pop or their Korean. Yeah. Almost like how hip-hop spread black American culture to the point where people thought they were part black. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think it's a, it is really interesting that it's reaching that point. And I think that the issue here is that because they're Asian, a lot of people, a lot of like non-Asians are not afraid to maybe sound a little bit, and I don't want to say entitled. What's it? You're saying that they're not handling their appropriation with the same velvet gloves they might handle black hip-hop appropriation. Yeah, essentially, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's a good point. Somebody was saying that the roller coaster ride that Korean culture had in America is insane all the way from the Korean War. And obviously then, I believe that's when North Korea and South Korea split and then, boom, it just went through all these crazy ups and downs. And for it to be regarded as the new Japan in terms of like, soft power, you know, Japan has been popping for like, they had that song, I'm turning Japanese, I'm turning Japanese. And what was that, like the 80s? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? For them to go through that arc is insane. And that's what might be causing that feeling of this guy like having like, the roller coaster of like, how his perception is in the larger culture is so crazy for him. Yeah, I mean, put it this way, 15 years ago, I think most kids in America didn't really know what South Korea was all about. And now 15 years later, they can point at a ton of content, media and food. That's Korean, you know? Yeah. Anyway, let's get into the comments section, guys. Like we said, we are not subject matter experts on this. But yeah, I thought it was an interesting discussion because we noticed it. Somebody said having a trendy culture is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it helps in terms of representation, economics and ego. On the other hand, the culture gets derivatives and exploited. The cost of soft power is making the culture consumable. And K-Culture is all about that. The good and bad consequences of inviting white people in are inseparable. Yeah, I don't want to just blame it on white people, but obviously white people being the dominant group in America. I guess that tends to be the focus. But yeah, I mean, I feel like Chinese culture has been through multiple waves in America of kind of trendiness. You know, back in the 60s, Chinese restaurants were very, very trendy. Right. You talking about Bruce Lee too? 1970s, you know, over in the Bay Area. I forgot her name. Chang, the mother of... P.F. Changs. P.F. Changs, the mother of P.F. Changs. But anyways, it's like when your culture gets popular in this society, there's no way it doesn't get commoditized. And there's no way it doesn't get fetishized on some level. And when it gets commod... Every culture that's popular, whether it's Jamaican culture, black American hip hop culture, Chinese culture, even Indian culture on a certain level has gets commoditized. The yoga and the karma sutras. Hey, you know what I'm saying? It's just bound to happen. And that is, I guess, kind of the process of being part of America. Right. Because you're saying when it's commoditized, it's like if we could visualize culture getting bagged up in a little bags on the shelf. And you're almost like in a candy land. What's that called? Sweet factory. And you're like picking, mixing, matching. You're like, oh, look at the Korean section. It's really booming at the sweet factory. And you're like putting all these into a bag. It's like when a culture is commoditized, you're breaking it into these bite-sized parts. They are sort of authentic, but not really because it's the sweet saccharine version of it. Yeah. I mean, if you wear a chi-pao and you eat a fortune cookie, is that the most pinnacle? Like, do you understand Chinese culture? You know what I mean? Right. You do some kung fu. Yeah. Somebody said all of this makes sense and is valid, except that South Korea did this. They were the ones that pushed Korean soft power. Koreans were the ones to originally fetishize Korean culture. You can't reap the benefits of the rise of Korean soft power if you want to keep non-Koreans out of your space. You can be inclusive or exclusive. Not both. You need to decide. This was from Daisy Estudante, basically an Indian guy. I will tell you this. South Korea, whatever this issue and this rant that this South, this Korean American feels, I don't think South Korea is worrying about it. You're talking about people in South Korea. Yeah. I think the, all of the managers and creators and company heads and CEOs in Korea who are making all these moves happen. For example, the Samsung board of directors. Yeah. I think they're just happy. They're just like, yeah, this is what it is. They're like, yeah, like, you know, you know, Korean culture, they get better and the country come up. You're like, like the more people, like we got a chance to like beat Japan. Like that is what we are concerned about. Yeah. It's partially that this guy is this Korean American, AKA Asian American. And this is one of those kind of weird spaces for an Asian American where you're like, damn, I'm like Asian, but I'm seeing my heritage, my traditional heritage kind of commoditized. How do I feel about that? While Koreans in South Korea are probably like, cause obviously Koreans from South Korea, they're not worrying about small dwindling enclaves in like large American cities. Right. Cause they're like, yeah, like they're just going to move to Powell Park or Fort Lee or a lot. Kenyatta or something, a more Korean ethnoburb, right? Chinatowns have not to the traditional Chinatowns have not been the hub of Chinese culture. I think for like in a way a decade, like, you know what I mean? Where there's the suburbs, flushing the six to six SGV. Those are even more so the hubs. Yeah. I mean, doesn't it kind of go to show you as something becomes more popular? It's not always good for like every single group in the diaspora in every single way. For example, Andrew, I know some Taiwanese Americans as the six to six night market grew and spread around the country. They were like, they stopped serving sink stinky tofu because that was turning off a lot of the demographics. But the Taiwanese were like, but yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what makes that like six to six night market Taiwanese is the tofu. Right. But they had to take it away right for the marketability. Of course, Andrew, there was a bunch of people posting saying like, I'm Korean. I agree. Somebody said, let's be honest guys, it was the Chinese, the Chinese and Thai people. They were the ones who took the spaces. How true is this man? There are a lot of Chinese patrons. There's a lot of Chinese people who like Korean culture, at least eat in Korea town. I think they like the vibes. Like, you know what I mean? Even more like, I do think Chinese taste buds, they'd rather eat choir over gochujang with Shinjeon cumin on it. But like, they, I think Koreans, the way they interpersonally ping and create like fun venues, Chinese, they can't do it. Right. So that's why they consume there and they spend the money. Somebody said, as a nerdy Southeast Asian male, I got it pretty bad. This is my then that ever as everybody has said that Asians have come up as a nerdy Southeast Asian guy. I got nothing. So that's my then. How much is this interesting Andrew that everybody is saying like in this whole macro representation of like K-pop coming up or Asian culture coming up and C.R.A. There are groups or specific sub groups, sub sub groups within groups that got left out. Yeah, no, definitely a lot of groups benefited more than others. I still think it is still better for him in general. I think it's still better for every single Asian a little bit. I just think that the impact might not be as significant and as game changing for sure. Right. You're saying it was a rising tide, but the tide was not because the more people who understand what even an Asian is, even if even if this guy's like, let's just say like Lau or Cambodian, right? One of the lesser known Asian groups. Like, like people are still interested in Asians more period. You know what I mean? Yeah, he might not be Korean or Chinese or whatever. One of the big ones. But I don't mean especially I think as a nerdy Southeast Asian guy from what I've seen in the Southeast Asian world, the nerdy play like the gamer, you know, top level pro gamer vibe doesn't work as well. Even as it would in the East Asian world, to be honest. No one out that world works. This guy said this girl said I'm Chinese and I feel like white people who are into Asian culture. They rank each Asian culture in terms of coolness. Then they pit us against each other and then we buy into their hierarchy of how they rank us. And then somebody said, yep, Chinese are the most hated low key in America right now easily because we don't have anything cool and modern that people would want unlike Japanese or Koreans. And then somebody said, don't forget about us Muslim daisies too. Like Muslim South Asians, Bangladeshis. They were saying that, uh, yep, we get hated too. Yeah. You know what I'd say about Chinese being the most hated. I feel like in the macro, the Chinese is the most feared. But on an individual basis, there's still so many Chinese people embedded in like every city that it's hard to say that they're hated all the time. You know what I mean? Yeah, people are still going to eat traditional Chinese hot pot all the time. That is straight from China. People are still consuming Chinese products all the time. Yeah. But in a coolness sense, I see what they're saying. I know what you're saying in an overall because it's almost like, yeah, it's hard to basically ascribe a movement to what's happening to Chinese people because there's so many 25, 25, 25, 25 splits. It's safe to say Koreans are the coolest right now though. Yeah. In the cool world, like if somebody says, yo, I got a new DJ that's Chinese, people are not going to be as interested here. Oh, I got a new DJ that's Korean. Oh, let me give it a listen at least see what check it out. Um, somebody said, I'm Korean and I feel like all the success that we've been having is actually building up some resentment within other Asians because they have started to call us racist and rude with their anecdotes. Hey, man, I think the races and rude anecdotes have been around for a while. I'm not going to lie. Like, yeah, I mean, I think it's better now. Yeah, the relationships are better now. I would say to be honest, as far as just like relationships with Korean people go, the some of the most love I've ever gotten was from Korean people, but some of the most unwarranted like hateful spite definitely was also from Korean people. I just feel like they're very like up and down. That's my general opinion knowing like a thousand of them. Um, somebody said, I'm so sick of the judgment from within my own community as a Korean. That's my vent basically saying that like as the whole Korean wave has taken place, some Korean Americans, they don't even fit with it. Yeah, that's true. Not all Korean Americans fit into this K-pop, K-drama look. This girl said, I'm Vietnamese. My husband is Japanese and everybody views us so differently when they perceive us through the lens of our culture. For example, our white friends, they always want to ask them about the bullet trains and all these movies that they've seen about Japan, but when I bring up anything about Vietnam, they complete the conversation with the white families completely go silent. And then she said on the flip side, when we went to the Japan festival in our town San Jose, there was only like seven Japanese people who showed about a 300 and then we went to the via cultural festival and that was about 95% via, which gave me peace. So she's saying basically it's just the pros and the cons of it all. Yo, that was a really, really interesting comment. And last but not least, Andrew, this Korean guy said to this Korean poster, the original OP and said, what you're describing is essentially Han, the feeling of sorrow and resentment that you cannot entirely put your finger on. And I guess this is the feeling of Han is a very Korean sort of morose thing driven by I guess centuries of ups and downs, but mostly downs. Yeah, apparently, you know, my overall takeaway is my message to people like him who kind of resent the Korean wave, not that I think he would turn the hands of time backwards, right? You say he wouldn't hit the reversal, but you would still take it because it's a net positive, of course, but it's just not the most comfortable. It's like, it's like when something good happens to you, but it's not like entirely good, but it's overall good. You'll take it, you know, it's like, yeah, it's like, if you got promoted at work, you make more money, you got promoted, you got a higher position, but then you got way more responsibilities and you got to work more hours. It's like you take it though. How much of it is just individual positioning though? Let's say, for example, there's a family of Korean people or a group of Korean friends and everybody won a million dollars in the lottery and you won 50,000. Technically, you're still up 50,000 from zero, which is a significant sum, but everybody else won a million when there would be some humanistic feeling of like, dang, they got that and I got this. You know, like, dude, honestly, and I'm not saying is I don't know who this OP is, but like, what if he is on the more like introverted, like lonely Korean guy side and then he's seeing all these more social, like cool Korean guys benefiting like five times as much from this wave, bringing all these people to the Korean spots and having fun and he's feeling a little left out of it because he can't benefit from it as much. I guess my recommendation is try to benefit from it more because any Korean person who's selling a Korean product or is considered a cool Korean, I'll be honest, they have to be considered a cool Korean and there's usually two types of cool Koreans, right? There's the one that looks like kind of like more phobie, phobie, kpop, kdrama and then the more like broed out one. Yeah, but whatever it is, if you're trying to sell something that's from your culture right now, now is a great time. But again, he may not have anything in the works like that. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. I guess I can feel his pain. You know, I see what he's saying. I think I've seen it happen in the past 10 years. Every observation he had is 100% logical and probably there's some statistics. If we could get this. Yeah, and then also throw on the fact that we're Asian so people are not afraid to explain our culture to us. You know what I mean? Right, they're a little bit more liberal with the commodification. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I spent two weeks in Seoul and then and then like, yeah, I'm Korean. I get it, you know, but then also they don't see you as a Korean American as representing Korea because maybe in a way you don't technically, right? That's like somebody. That's like, oh, what if I mean, there's white people out there who know Chinese way better than me who have probably studied Chinese culture more than me to like the history. So it's like, what if they're explaining something to me? Am I supposed to take that with a fence? Depends on how they're saying it. Yeah, I mean, last but not least, Andrew, let's just bring it back to Chinese. What do you think about the comments? Because this was a long thread. We didn't even get to everything where they were like, yeah, guys, I could see the pros and cons of that soft power approach because everybody wants in now like the Japanese, but it's better than everybody just thinking you're too updated and uncool or the geopolitical enemy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like we said, guys, I'm not saying everybody got to consider like everybody else's situation, you know, sort of like the Vietnamese and the Japanese couple that was like in the comment section. It's all, man, everybody born into a tribe. The tribe made certain decisions or maybe their indecision was still a decision and that's how the cultural game plan for that diasporic wave took place. Yeah, I feel like it's people needing that people need to lean hard into a lane to be distinctive. So what I mean by that is like if you're, for example, a Chinese person who can appear to be part of the like part of Chinese, the Chinese government and you act like it. A lot of people are going to view you as part of the Chinese government. So then you're going to suffer from that imagery. But like you get the box. Yeah, but I don't think people confuse me for being part of the Chinese government, right? Because I'm so Americanized and I maybe act different or look different or whatever dress different, right? Same with being Korean. Like if you're on the edge, you're going to feel really uncomfortable. But you are if you were on the extreme end of looking like a K-pop guy or being some cool Korean person, sending having a opening up a business that can benefit from it, then then you're going to like it. Yeah, I mean, long story short. I think that's a good way to ending it in terms of just a functional strategic move is like, I noticed that as video games became more popular, everybody like is looking at life like video game archetypes. And like you said, when you shoot a gap a little bit harder and it's more discernible to your average normie person, they can fit you in that archetype. And hopefully it's a positive one that vibes with the context. So anyway, guys, let us know what you think in the comment section below viral thread from Reddit. A lot of interesting discussions, valid points on all sides, debate in the comments section. Keep it civil until next time with the Hop Hop Boys. We out. Peace.