BTS. Parasite. Squid Game.
Over the past decade, Korean popular culture has achieved global impact — through music, film, and TV. Behind these global successes lies a broader, visually rich cultural landscape that encompasses historical dramas, urban food culture, feminist literature, and a vividly coloured world of comics (manhwa).

A decisive turning point for the visibility of Korean culture on the global stage came with the 1988 Seoul Olympics. The Olympics were more than a sporting event; the event reshaped the capital with new infrastructure, modern stadiums, and cultural facilities, all designed to present South Korea as a progressive nation. At the same time, traditions that might be considered controversial abroad, such as dishes made with dog meat, were temporarily suspended. The cheerful-looking tiger mascot Hodori became a symbol of national identity, reaching out to the world as a traditional emblem of strength, courage, and national pride in Korean folklore and art. For many Koreans, especially the younger generation, the event represented an encounter with the world.

Today, Korean popular culture has developed into a dynamic field of expression that reflects the complexity of modern Korean society, and with stories that often don't hesitate to challenge nationalist narratives.

Recurring themes emerge across the media: History and national identity are central in historical drama series (sageuk) and historically inspired films, which often reinterpret Korea's dynastic past with emotional intensity, stylish, glamorous, and heavily romanticized scenes — but also, as in the case of Kingdom, with sharp social commentary. Taken together, the historical narratives have also helped make Seoul's cultural heritage sites popular tourist destinations.

Class differences and social inequality are also explored in global successes like Squid Game and Parasite, which depict the barriers between rich and poor. Street life and everyday spaces, such as pojangmacha (tent restaurants), recur as settings for both emotional release and social observation — places where private and public flow together. As, for example, in the national success Reply 1988, which unfolds a story of the recent past in a working- and lower-middle-class neighbourhood in Seoul.

Gender and relationships are also recurring themes across media and genres. Idealized romance remains a cornerstone of drama series and entertainment programmes, and is valued globally for its soft, family-oriented yet playful portrayals of couples, as in Crash Landing on You. At the same time, contemporary literature and independent film offer more critical perspectives on relationships, social pressure, and gender roles. A feminist current runs through today's Korean literature in translation, with authors such as Han Kang, known for The Vegetarian, and Cho Nam-joo, whose Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 became a cultural landmark work confronting patriarchy, inequality, and the emotional consequences of societal expectations.

At the same time, K-pop has developed into a cultural phenomenon with global appeal. By seamlessly blending the Korean language, fashion, and choreography with international music genres, K-pop creates a tightly curated visual universe centred on talents and idols. Long before the international K-pop boom, artists like Kim Gun-mo and Seo Taiji were already transforming Korea's sonic and cultural landscape — blending Western styles with local sensibilities to speak to a new urban generation.

Visual storytelling has also played a central role in Korean culture. The emergence of webtoons (online comics) in the early 2000s introduced new ways of combining personal reflection with social observation — often with a down-to-earth, true-to-life realism. This ethnographic quality is brought into the present project by the South Korean comics creator Jeon Nak-joo, whose work bridges popular aesthetics and lived reality.

The project also includes two Danish illustrators: Thit Bitsch, an independent artist here with a distinct visual style centred on diary-style storytelling, and Rasmus Meisler, a documentary illustrator with experience in visual reportage for newspapers and magazines. Together, the three illustrators offer different perspectives on Korean popular culture — where ethnographic attention, artistic interpretation, and documentary observation merge.

The essay below, with illustrations by Jeon Nak-joo, is a personal greeting to 1993. The year I myself first came to South Korea.