South Korea is reaping the dividend of the demographic transition right now. They are where Japan was in the 1980s. They played their cards very well and were able to build up both hard and soft power during the growth years.
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
#22Another 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!
It is mentioned in the article, saying that "Thailand was the first country to launch a formal gastrodiplomacy plan with its 2002 Global Thai campaign."
About Thai food, it is interesting to note that Pad Thai, often considered to be the national dish, was in fact made for that purpose. Originating from the mid 20th century, it is hardly traditional. That doesn't make it less delicious, and while it is one of the most accessible of Thai dishes (i.e. not too spicy), it is not just for tourists, locals eat it too.
As for getting into an argument, I would avoid getting into an argument with people whose national sport is one of the most effective martial arts. But Thai people are usually not the kind of people who get into an argument in the first place.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
What about those uncontacted tribes!?
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#24Lol. What does this have to do with Hubspot CRM?
Sales & branding strategy feels pretty related to Hubspot or at least people who might be interested in Hubspot.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#25South Korea is reaping the dividend of the demographic transition right now. They are where Japan was in the 1980s. They played their cards very well and were able to build up both hard and soft power during the growth years.
Crashing population, massive child suicide rate, terrible dictator families running the nation and an outright cult controlling even more…
I really don’t think we should hold SK up for anything other than what aggressive capitalism does to a society. Kills it off.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
> Everyone is at most 7 connections away
That is not strictly true, but the world is certainly smaller than we tend to think.
However, detractors argue that Milgram's experiment did not demonstrate such a link, and the "six degrees" claim has been decried as an "academic urban myth".’
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#27This 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…
Did you know salmon sushi in a recent creation. Pacific salmon tends to have parasites so Japanese didn't eat salmon sushi but Norway had salmon which was safer so they promoted it to the Japanese.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#28South Korea is reaping the dividend of the demographic transition right now. They are where Japan was in the 1980s. They played their cards very well and were able to build up both hard and soft power during the growth years.
Hopefully they don’t experience Japans “Lost Decades”, where since ~1991, economically the national has stagnated.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#29For k-pop, Japan has notoriously been very tight with licensing restrictions on music. That allowed Korea to leap ahead.
Re: The $40M bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power
#30South 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?
Part of South Korea's rapid reach stems from how Americanized its modern culture is. I am not just talking about global corporations like mcdonalds. It's everything, even the choice of coffee over tea, a rarity for an asian country. Easy for western nations to embrace.
For China, the same game plan wouldn't work not without heavy alterations. It does however have substantial ability to influence those not already heavily Americanized.