K-pop vs HK-pop: Hongkonger's Cultural Identity

Since the turn of the century, Korean Popular Culture has been arguably the most impactful imported culture in Hong Kong not only in terms of its speed of dominance, but more importantly in depth and width of penetration — influencing Hong Kong’s pop culture, consumer culture, food culture, and beauty culture.  By analysing the influence of Korean Popular Culture on post-colonial Hong Kong, this project was expected to help Hong Kong audiences to develop a better understanding of the uniqueness of Hong Kong popular culture, and to reflect on the cultural identity of this post-colonial society.

The Principal Investigator of the project ‘K-pop vs HK-pop: Hongkonger's Cultural Identity’ was invited by a secondary school, namely Stewards Pooi Kei College (Shatin), to deliver the lecture on 24 April 2017.  400 people attended the public lecture, including students from S1 to S3, teachers of different disciplines, and the school principal.  In order to tailor the lecture to match the level of these students, the instructor simplified the theoretical discussions, and incorporated a number of multi-media sources to provide visual evidence for this group of relatively young audience members.  The purpose of this interactive public lecture was for Hong Kong audiences to reflect on the emerging Hallyu (韓流) phenomena in Hong Kong.  By sharing the instructor's latest research findings and observations, the lecture was expected to help spectators to understand the intricate association between identity and popular culture, and to critically analyse the emerging identity issues in Hong Kong.  In the end, the participants were given a chance to respond by contributing to the research project, ‘The influence of THADD Incident on the popularity of Hallyu in Hong Kong,’ and share their views via a semi-qualitative survey.

According to the responses collected at the end, this lecture evidently helped students to have a better understanding of the Hallyu trend in Hong Kong.  And more importantly, a number of students indicated that the lecture helped them to see the value of Hong Kong popular culture. 

Dr Kang Jong Hyuk David delivers his lecture at Stewards Pooi Kei College.

Principal Mr Peter Yuen presents a souvenir to Dr Kang.