An increase in Korean food, cosmetics, and music sales resulted as a result of the Indian government’s decision to lock down the country last year.
C.S. Mani, an Indian 67, is not the type of person one would anticipate to get fascinated by South Korean television shows, yet that’s exactly what happened. But as he watched Crash Landing on You’s ending in his Mumbai flat, he couldn’t help but cry.
Have you ever cried at the conclusion of the movie? What’s the next episode? ‘I sobbed rivers,’ he said Al Jazeera, recalling the love tale between an heiress from South Korea and an army commander from North Korea.
In other words, Mani isn’t crazy. There he is, swept up in the whirlwind of hallyu, South Korea’s pop-culture frenzy. South Korea’s cultural and pop culture exports have taken India by storm since the nation fell into one of the world’s harshest coronavirus lockdowns last year, and are considered a Trojan horse for its rising soft power.
Covid-19 paralyzed and isolated many Indians, who turned to internet entertainment and fell in love with K-dramas to pass the time. There are more than 500 South Korean films accessible on Netflix, including Descendants of the Sun, Boys Over Flowers and Reply 1988.
As the relationship developed, so did many people’s interest in everything Korean, from Korean cuisine to Korean fashion to Korean soju to Korean beauty goods to Korean language and culture to Korean beauty products themselves.
Numerous of these items were increasingly popular among Indian consumers and Indian firms increased their investments in acquiring and selling them.
Nongshim, a South Korean noodle company, sold $1 million worth of noodles in 2020. Euromonitor International reports that Indians have consumed 178 percent more Korean quick noodles, or ramyun, in 2021 than they did in 2020.
As a result, the number of people interested in taking Korean language lessons increased.
