The phenomenon of Korean pop culture spreading throughout the world has also impacted more traditional Thai genres such as lukthung . For example Grammy's Isan lukthung star Phi Sadoet had a big hit in 2009 with ‘Sao Kaoli' (‘Korean girl') about a Thai girl so infatuated by Korean pop culture that she forgets her poor Isan boyfriend. This is a twist on the stock lukthung storyline of country girl seduced by the city. The film clip is a hilarious send-up of every element of the Korean Wave ( hallyu ), in which the dancers wear variations on the hanbok , replete with progressively shorter hemlines. The girl rejects her boyfriend in favour of a K-pop lookalike driving a sports car, begins to wear skimpy Korean style clothing and strides through the dusty Isan village listening to K-pop. She dreams that she is in a Korean serial, similar to 2003's Winter Love Song , but wakes to find she is still in hot, humid Thailand. She turns up her nose at her boyfriend's Isan style pickled vegetable ( phak dong ), preferring to eat gimji , and goes to bed with a cardboard cut-out of a K-pop star. In the end the Korean wannabe breaks her heart and, after throwing out all of her Korean Wave merchandise, she dresses (as apparently a good Thai girl should) in neck to toe Thai traditional dress and sits down to eat phak dong (‘pickled vegetables') with her Isan boyfriend. Although tongue-in-cheek, the message is clear – young Thais should reject Korean cultural imperialism. Musically the song is standard rock Isan but K-pop influence can be heard in the high-tech sounding metallic keyboard lines.
[link to vdo of Sao Kaoli]
The Korean experience demonstrates that it is possible to achieve soft power benefits through the careful manipulation of cultural content. This has implications for both Japan and China in their (friendly?) competition for influence in Southeast Asia. South Korea has created enormous goodwill throughout Asia by sharing the profits of their products with companies from other nations. By concentrating on content production, South Korea has, by and large, (apart from in Thailand) managed to avoid accusations of cultural imperialism. However, with many writers now claiming that the Korean wave is spent , Asia is waiting for the next “big thing”. The rise of China could be the catalyst to push Asian pop onto the world stage.