MANILA, Philippines – Amidst South Korean boy band, BTS’, worldwide popularity, K-Pop, K-Movies, and K-dramas are expected to stay in the country as the US and Europe absorbed some Korean culture, as well.
The foremost singer star to rock the world was Psy, who sang “Gangnam Style,” and earned more than a billion hits on YouTube, the first- ever- in the history of the site, and now, BTS rules over YouTube, as the most streamed group, and on Twitter, as the most tweeted about boy group.
As proof, they have been #1 on Billboard’s top Social 50 list for 164 weeks, beating the record set by Justin Bieber at 163.
Korean TV series are part of Filipino’s daily lives. There are several that were and are enjoyed by viewers, such as, “Coffee Prince,” “Crash Landing on You”, “Lie to Me” “Hotel Del Luna” “Dongyi,” “Signal”, “Queen Seon Deok,” “The Moon that Embraces the Sun”, “Jumong,” “Heirs”, “Full House,” “Rooftop Prince”, “Stairway to Heaven,” “A Korean Odyssey”, “Jewel in the Palace,” and “Gracious Revenge” to name some of them.
“Lie to Me” Korenovela with Yoon Eun-hye and Kang Ji-hwan
South Koreans are now enrolled in schools and universities, and many of them are entrepreneurs, going into the IT, food, and beauty and fashion businesses.
In Balibago, Angeles City, a Korea Town exists where you can find a community of Koreans with their own restaurants, stores and services for its residents. Many are enrolled in special English classes so they could catch up with the primary language of instruction in universities.
Even the Filipino language is now acquiring Korean language, such as, “Weh,” “Oppa,” “Umma,” “Conde,” and a lot more. Filipino fashion is also influenced by Korean fashion.
There were several remakes of Korean TV drama shows or Koreanovelas like “Coffee Prince,” “Stairway to Heaven,”and “Temptation of Wife.” Previously, Mexican telenovelas were in the picture but Koreanovelas now lord it over foreign shows.
The introduction of BTS when they debuted in 2013 had spawned a huge fanbase since then, with the Philippines, being one of the countries where BTS has one of the largest fanbases in Southeast Asia presently.
However, it’s not only the Philippines that is affected by the BTS Fever. The whole world is now into K-dramas, and everyone is trying to learn Korean.
This need may have been noticed by BigHit Entertainment, BTS’ company as they will be offering, tutorials in Korean with BTS taking the lead. It’s entitled “Learn Korean with BTS”. Reportedly, it will utilize BTS’ material to teach the language.
It would no longer be a surprise if in the future, the Korean language would be a worldwide language spoken by – not only ARMYs– but by all citizens of the world.
