Paradox of Korean soft power

Korea’s global cultural influence has grown through music, dramas, beauty, fashion, food and language, while its people continue to face challenges involving competition, conformity and expectations of success. The OECD’s 2026 well-being report recognized achievements in education, life expectancy, public safety and material living standards, alongside persistent concerns about young people’s transition to work, mental health, social connectedness and gender equality. The authors describe how growing up Korean in Brazil can make internationally recognized images of Koreanness feel distant from a lived identity. They argue that cultural admiration should leave room for the varied experiences of people in Korea and abroad.

The OECD’s 2026 report on well-being in Korea identified young people’s transition from education to employment, mental health, social connectedness and gender equality as persistent challenges.

The authors say one of them was raised in Brazil and still lives there, and that this upbringing continues to shape how that person experiences and understands Korean identity.

The authors describe a personal experience in which Korea’s growing global visibility sometimes brought a feeling of being less Korean rather than more connected to the country.

The authors say that turning toward a Brazilian identity can offer a more immediately familiar sense of belonging without necessarily rejecting Korean heritage.

Chyung Eun-ju is a tech research associate at Donghyun ASP, and Joel Cho is a practicing lawyer specializing in intellectual property and digital law.

Published Nov 2, 2026 9:00 am KST

The world wants a piece of Korea.

It wants the music, the dramas, the skin care, the fashion, the food — and increasingly, the language itself. A country once associated primarily with its industrial transformation has become a cultural force whose influence extends far beyond its borders.

Yet there is a paradox at the heart of Korea’s global success. The country that captivates the world with its beauty, creativity and aspirational lifestyles is also a society grappling with the pressures of competition, conformity and an increasingly demanding definition of success.

This is not to suggest that Korea’s cultural appeal is an illusion. Its creative achievements are real, and its global influence has been hard-earned. But the image of a country that travels abroad through its cultural exports is necessarily selective. What the world sees is often the finished product, not the social conditions, personal sacrifices or contradictions that exist behind it. Nor does an appreciation of a country’s cultural products necessarily translate into an understanding of the people who create them, or the society in which they live.

The tension becomes clearer when Korea's success is measured not only by what it produces or how it is perceived abroad, but also by how its people experience everyday life. OECD’s 2026 report on well-being in Korea recognized the country's substantial achievements in education, life expectancy, public safety and material living standards. Yet it also identified persistent challenges involving young people's transition from education to employment, mental health, social connectedness and gender equality. So the picture that emerges is neither one of unqualified success nor of widespread failure, but of a society whose remarkable progress has not resolved every question about what it means to live well.

From this perspective, it is evident to us that national success and individual well-being are not interchangeable. A country can become increasingly influential abroad while its people continue to navigate difficult questions about opportunity, belonging and the expectations placed upon them.

For Koreans who have grown up outside Korea, the distance between the country’s global image and the reality of its people can feel particularly personal. We are both Korean by nationality and heritage, but one of us was raised in Brazil and still lives there, an upbringing that has shaped, and continues to shape, how that Koreanness is felt and understood. As Korean culture has become more visible around the world, growing up in Brazil has also meant repeated encounters with expectations of what being Korean is supposed to mean.

The image of Korea that travels internationally is often recognizable and remarkably coherent, but personal identity is rarely so neat. A Koreanness formed in Brazil cannot be separated from the environment that shaped it, the relationships built there or the values embraced along the way. Yet as Koreanness becomes increasingly associated with a particular set of cultural references and expectations, it is hard not to wonder where someone raised this way fits into that picture.

At times, Korea’s growing visibility has brought a feeling of being less Korean rather than becoming more connected to the country. This is not because Koreanness is any less real in an objective sense, but because the version gaining international recognition can feel distant from an identity built over a lifetime somewhere else. In those moments, the pull toward a Brazilian identity grows stronger, not necessarily as a rejection of Korean heritage, but as a way of finding belonging in an identity that feels more immediately familiar and more authentically lived.

This is, of course, one personal experience, not a claim about how every Korean raised abroad feels. But it raises a broader question: When a country becomes globally recognizable through its cultural exports, do the people who belong to it also find themselves measured against the image that has come to represent it?

Perhaps this is one of the limitations of cultural attraction. The image that draws people toward a country can also become the lens through which they expect to understand it. Cultural exports give audiences an entry point, but they cannot encompass every way of living, thinking or identifying within a society. Nor should they be expected to.

The question, then, is not whether Korea deserves its cultural influence. It is whether the country can translate that influence into something deeper than admiration for its products and aesthetics. And perhaps, an equally important question is whether we, as audiences, are willing to look beyond the image that first attracted us.

Korea must be understood as much more than the sum of its most successful exports. Its people are not all represented by the same ideals, and their experiences cannot be reduced to a single image of what it means to be Korean. That includes those who live in Korea, those who live abroad and those whose identities have been shaped by more than one culture.

Ultimately, the measure of cultural influence may not be how perfectly a country is admired, but how much room that admiration leaves for the complexity of the people behind it.

Chyung Eun-ju (ejchyung@snu.ac.kr) is a tech research associate at Donghyun ASP. She earned both her bachelor's in business and master's in marketing from Seoul National University. Joel Cho (joelywcho@gmail.com) is a practicing lawyer specializing in intellectual property and digital law.

韩国的全球文化影响力通过音乐、戏剧、美容、时尚、美食和语言不断增强，但韩国人民仍然面临着竞争、从众心理和对成功的过度期待等挑战。经合组织2026年福祉报告肯定了韩国在教育、预期寿命、公共安全和物质生活水平方面取得的成就，同时也指出年轻人向职场过渡、心理健康、社会联系和性别平等等问题仍然令人担忧。作者描述了在巴西长大的韩国人如何感受到国际公认的韩国形象与自身真实经历之间的距离。他们认为，对韩国文化的推崇应该尊重韩国国内外人们的多元经历。

经合组织 2026 年关于韩国福祉的报告指出，年轻人从教育到就业的过渡、心理健康、社会联系和性别平等是持续存在的挑战。

作者表示，其中一人在巴西长大，现在仍然生活在那里，这种成长经历继续塑造着这个人对韩国身份的体验和理解。

作者描述了自己的亲身经历，韩国日益增长的国际知名度有时反而让人感到自己与韩国的联系越来越少，而不是越来越紧密。

作者认为，转向巴西身份认同可以提供一种更直接、更熟悉的归属感，而不必否定韩国传统。

Chyung Eun-ju 是 Donghyun ASP 的技术研究员，Joel Cho 是一位专门从事知识产权和数字法律的执业律师。

发布于2026年11月2日上午9:00（韩国标准时间）

世界各国都想从韩国分一杯羹。

它渴望音乐、戏剧、护肤品、时尚、美食——而且越来越渴望语言本身。这个曾经主要以工业转型著称的国家，如今已成为一股文化力量，其影响力远远超出国界。

然而，韩国在全球取得成功的核心却存在一个悖论。这个以其美景、创造力和令人向往的生活方式吸引世界的国家，同时也是一个正努力应对竞争、从众心理以及日益苛刻的成功定义所带来的压力的社会。

这并非暗示韩国的文化魅力只是一种幻觉。其创造成就真实存在，其全球影响力也是来之不易。但一个国家通过文化输出走向国际的形象必然是片面的。世人看到的往往是最终的成品，而非其背后的社会状况、个人牺牲或矛盾之处。欣赏一个国家的文化产品也并不一定意味着理解创造这些产品的人民，或者他们所生活的社会。

如果衡量韩国的成功不仅看其经济产出或国际形象，还要看其人民的日常生活体验，那么这种矛盾就更加显而易见了。经合组织2026年发布的韩国福祉报告肯定了韩国在教育、预期寿命、公共安全和物质生活水平方面取得的显著成就。然而，报告也指出，韩国在青年从教育过渡到就业、心理健康、社会联系和性别平等等方面仍然面临诸多挑战。因此，最终呈现的并非完全的成功或普遍的失败，而是一个社会虽然取得了显著进步，但并未解决所有关于美好生活意义的问题。

从这个角度来看，国家成功与个人福祉显然不可互换。一个国家可以在国际上日益增强影响力，而其人民却仍在努力应对关于机遇、归属感以及外界期望等诸多难题。

对于在韩国以外地区长大的韩国人来说，韩国的国际形象与其人民的真实生活之间的差距会让他们感到格外切身。我们俩都是韩国人，拥有韩国国籍和血统，但其中一人在巴西长大，现在仍然生活在那里。这种成长经历塑造了，并且仍在塑造着，我们对韩国身份的感受和理解。随着韩国文化在世界范围内日益普及，在巴西长大也意味着要不断面对人们对“韩国人”身份的各种期待。

国际上流传的韩国形象往往具有辨识度，且惊人地一致，但个人身份却很少如此清晰明了。在巴西形成的韩国性与塑造它的环境、在那里建立的人际关系以及一路走来所秉持的价值观密不可分。然而，随着韩国性与特定的文化参照和期望日益紧密地联系在一起，人们不禁会思考，在这种环境下成长起来的人，究竟该如何融入这幅图景。

有时，韩国日益增长的国际影响力带来的不是与韩国的联系更加紧密，反而让人感到与韩国的联系反而减弱了。这并非因为韩国性在客观意义上变得不真实，而是因为获得国际认可的韩国身份认同，与在其他地方生活多年所建立的身份认同之间，会产生一种疏离感。在这种时刻，对巴西身份认同的渴望会更加强烈，这并非是对韩国传统的否定，而是为了在一种更熟悉、更贴近生活、更真实的身份认同中找到归属感。

当然，这只是我个人的经历，并不代表所有在海外长大的韩国人的感受。但这引出了一个更广泛的问题：当一个国家通过文化输出获得全球认可时，属于这个国家的人们是否也会发现自己被拿来与这个代表国家的形象进行比较？

或许这就是文化吸引力的局限性之一。吸引人们关注一个国家的形象，也可能成为他们理解这个国家的视角。文化输出为受众提供了一个切入点，但它们无法涵盖一个社会中所有的生活方式、思维方式和身份认同。我们也不应该期望它们做到这一点。

因此，问题不在于韩国是否配得上其文化影响力，而在于这个国家能否将这种影响力转化为比对其产品和美学的欣赏更为深刻的东西。或许，同样重要的问题是，作为观众，我们是否愿意超越最初吸引我们的表象，去探寻其更深层次的意义。

我们不能仅仅用其最成功的出口产品来概括韩国，而应该全面地理解韩国。韩国人民并非都秉持着相同的理想，他们的经历也无法被简化为单一的“韩国人”形象。这包括生活在韩国的人、生活在海外的人，以及那些身份认同受到多种文化影响的人。

归根结底，衡量一个国家文化影响力的标准可能不是它受到多么完美的赞美，而是这种赞美给其背后人民的复杂性留下了多大的空间。

Chyung Eun-ju (ejchyung@snu.ac.kr) 是 Donghyun ASP 的技术研究员。她拥有首尔国立大学的工商管理学士学位和市场营销硕士学位。Joel Cho (joelywcho@gmail.com) 是一位执业律师，专长于知识产权和数字法。