The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
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The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
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Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#2The easiest way to win hearts and minds is through the stomach [1]. I don’t know how effective South Korea’s program has been since LA’s Koreatown had tons of kbbq and other korean restaurants before 2009 but Thailand’s Global Thai [2] program has definitely improved the number and quality of Thai options around California.
My understand is they’ve also helped all the restaurants standardize on recipes and core ingredients around a few manufacturers like AROY-D and Maesri so there’s quite a bit of quality control built into the diplomacy.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culinary_diplomacy
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_cuisine#Culinary_diplom...
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#3This is only tangential but I remember how sushi used to be a “weird” food to most Americans. Probably as recently as 10 or 15 years ago. And now its everywhere. Its right in the mix with pizza and tacos for standard restaurant niches. I see it in rural grocery stores very far away from any sort of big city.
I think kimchi just doesnt have that kind of broad appeal but who knows. This is not to deny the effectiveness of Korea food diplomacy. Im just noting sushi as a really extreme case.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#4South Korea has only 40 million people yet has a significant worldwide cultural influence, definitely punching above its weight.
I wonder if China were to implement the same tactics South Korea uses for cultural diplomacy, would the worldwide cultural influence of China reach levels 30x greater than South Korea?
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#5Another great example of diplomacy through food would be Thailand. Thai chefs come to America, start Thai restaurants here, promote their incredible food and wonderful hospitality. In-turn, I can't wait to visit Thailand one day, and you can bet I have a favorable view of Thai people if they happen to get into an argument with someone!
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#6Another great example of diplomacy through food would be Thailand. Thai chefs come to America, start Thai restaurants here, promote their incredible food and wonderful hospitality. In-turn, I can't wait to visit Thailand one day, and you can bet I have a favorable view of Thai people if they happen to get into an argument with someone!
There was 1 Thai restaurant in my smallish hometown. I moved very far away to a large metro and went to some Thai restaurant. Turns out the owners of these restaurants new eachother in Thailand.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#7South Korea has only 40 million people yet has a significant worldwide cultural influence, definitely punching above its weight. I wonder if China were to implement the same tactics South Korea uses for cultural diplomacy, would the worldwide cultural influence of China reach levels 30x greater than South Korea?
Heavily censored popular media makes it hard to become a cultural powerhouse.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#8The easiest way to win hearts and minds is through the stomach [1]. I don’t know how effective South Korea’s program has been since LA’s Koreatown had tons of kbbq and other korean restaurants before 2009 but Thailand’s Global Thai [2] program has definitely improved the number and quality of Thai options around California. My understand is they’ve also helped all the restaurants standardize on recipes and core ingre…
Quite a few used to also have the Royal Portrait -maybe they still do.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#9Another great example of diplomacy through food would be Thailand. Thai chefs come to America, start Thai restaurants here, promote their incredible food and wonderful hospitality. In-turn, I can't wait to visit Thailand one day, and you can bet I have a favorable view of Thai people if they happen to get into an argument with someone!
There was 1 Thai restaurant in my smallish hometown. I moved very far away to a large metro and went to some Thai restaurant. Turns out the owners of these restaurants new eachother in Thailand.
Everyone is at most 7 connections away :)
The world is smaller than we assume
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#10South Korea has only 40 million people yet has a significant worldwide cultural influence, definitely punching above its weight. I wonder if China were to implement the same tactics South Korea uses for cultural diplomacy, would the worldwide cultural influence of China reach levels 30x greater than South Korea?
That’s crazy, my city alone has more than 1/100 the population!
Edit: 10x to 1/10
Edit 2: 1/10 to 1/100