Hong Kong needs a cultural wave to match South Korea’s hallyu

The time has come for a Hong Kong Cultural Wave, and we shouldn’t underestimate the positive impact this could have on the city’s global reputation. Cities and nations successfully exporting their own art and culture in a sustained manner tend to develop a form of soft power. That term might carry a negative connotation for some people, but it is not a bad thing if we consider the phenomenon of hallyu, or the Korean Cultural Wave. Soft power – a term popularised by American political scientist Joseph Nye – is an ability to influence others without using coercion. It means building influence through attraction and friendship rather than through fear and enmity, or one could say art, music and food rather than sanctions, bombs and guns. The latter are considered elements of “hard power”. If every country has a right to influence global affairs, then surely soft power would be preferable to hard power. Last month in Macau, we saw a clear example of how hallyu is enabling South Korea to exercise considerable soft power. K-pop boy band Enhypen played three sold-out concerts to a total of more than 32,000 people. Enhypen’s current international tour started in Seoul in mid-2023 before moving on to Japan, the United States, Taiwan, Singapore, Macau and the Philippines. The adoring concertgoers in Macau included fans from mainland cities such as Shanghai and Nanjing. Enhypen’s tour, and the band’s appeal to a wide cross-section of audiences, is an example of soft power in action. It’s even more relevant given that these audiences are on different sides of geopolitical fault lines. If it enhances peace and prosperity through cross-cultural engagement and mutual appreciation, then why not? Anecdotally, I have observed many friends’ children developing a basic grasp of the Korean language, no doubt stemming from the popularity of K-pop and Korean dramas. Hallyu is not just an economic boon to the South Korean economy, bringing more than US$10 billion in exports of cultural content each year; it also meaningfully supports the country’s ability to navigate the precarious geopolitical waters it occupies. In this context, the time for the Hong Kong Wave has surely come. It is needed to support efforts to navigate a bright and prosperous future for the city amid a challenging external environment. In this regard, and staying with the theme of pop music, let’s consider what was learned from Hong Kong’s Mirror phenomenon. After years of social unrest and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mirror’s emergence presented Hongkongers across the political spectrum with a rare opportunity to be proud of something quintessentially home-grown. As a former resident of South Korea, I observed that its cultural export phenomenon is underpinned by a widely held respect among the South Korean people for their own culture. The Mirror phenomenon reminds me of this and points to arts and culture as being potential unifiers for Hongkongers while also representing significant economic potential for the city. Compounding the potential force multiplier effect of people’s deep love for Hong Kong culture – assuming it can be mobilised – are the 80-million-plus residents of the Greater Bay Area who are beginning to see Hong Kong as a cultural curiosity rather than simply a luxury shopping destination. It’s impossible these days to consider Hong Kong as a key global city in Asia without comparisons to Singapore. Although the two have downplayed notions of rivalry, given the growing importance of soft power in the current geopolitical climate and the relevance of culture and creative arts to this, a comparison is useful. Singapore has invested heavily in its big events economy for a reason. There is an argument that it lacks genuinely home-grown, authentic cultural appeal without this. Since 2018, when it was named one of the least-exciting cities in the world by the Time Out City Life Index and the worst rated for culture, Singapore has made progress by investing in events such as Formula One racing and, most recently, performances by top international acts such as Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, the Broadway musical Hamilton and Taylor Swift. How Singapore’s art scene is ‘maturing’ with growth in private shows Hong Kong is naturally different to Singapore. These differences offer competitive advantages when it comes to the appeal of Hong Kong’s culture. The city has a strong home-grown authentic cultural appeal via its rich, cosmopolitan fusion of the traditional, the modern and the gritty, hemmed by spectacular mountain and marine environments. Much of Hong Kong’s population is represented by the unvarnished, uncurated and deeply local neighbourhoods of Kowloon. These enthralling places exhibit ancient traditions amid intense daily commerce and other captivating comings and goings of everyday life. This makes Hong Kong far more like South Korea, a leading exporter of its domestic culture, than Singapore, which largely imports cultural content to help maintain its appeal. The bottom line is that home-grown culture and creative arts present an enormous opportunity for Hong Kong reputationally and economically while also being domestic unifiers. To build a Hong Kong Cultural Wave, artistic entrepreneurialism should be fostered through an ecosystem of private-sector investment, partnerships with the right learning institutions, and a philanthropic sector that thinks beyond elite creative arts with a greater focus on support for emerging grass-roots artistic talent in the city. Damien Green is a Hong Kong based financial services executive and the Founder of a Hong Kong Creative Arts Social Enterprise, StudioKT