LAUSR

During the past decade and a half, South Korean television shows, pop music, video games, and films have achieved a surprising degree of success in a variety of regions across the globe. Gaining enthusiastic audiences from the Philippines to France, from Thailand to Israel, and from Indonesia to Peru, the phenomenon known as “Hallyu,” or the “Korean Wave,” has enabled the culture industry in South Korea to attain a level of worldwide popularity typically reserved for Hollywood films or British pop music. The first television series to break through into foreign markets was the romantic melodrama Winter Sonata, which, when…