KOREAN WAVE’S HERE TO STAY
The craze for all things Korean doesn’t seem to be abating, writes Zuliantie Dzul
’M sure bibimbap is Hanson’s song!” exclaims Dan Paustian, a contestant on
Season 7 during one of the show’s episodes. It was an utterance I’ve not been able to forget. I nearly choked on my drink.
Paustian had obviously mistaken bibimbap (Korean mixed rice dish) with
the catchy late 1990s’ song made popular by US pop trio, Hanson.
While Paustian and other contestants are clueless about the Korean dishes they had to prepare for the judges, it’s a totally different scene here. According to 11street, Malaysia’s latest one-stop online shopping mall, the interest for everything Korean, from dramas to pop music to cuisine, and food, in particular, continues to surge.
To cater to our taste for Korean cuisine, 11street recently reinforced its partnership with K Market, a subsidiary of KMT Trading, an importer and distributor of Korean
products in Malaysia.
KOREAN WAVE
The demand for Korean food has doubled since last year, according to the research. Malaysians aged 26 to 35 contribute an average of 40 per cent of the total Korean food sale this year. On top of that, the recurring word among these searches on 11street is spicy, which goes to illustrate our love for spicy food.
Among the top five items commonly purchased by Malaysians are pepero, a cookie stick dipped in chocolate, ramyun, also known as instant noodles, kimchi, a fermented Korean side dish made of vegetables, toppoki, a soft rice cake and milkis, a popular carbonated beverage.
But this craze for Korean is not only limited to food and the interest is certainly not a recent phenomenon. The Hallyu wave (the phenomenon of Korean culture rolling over the world) has been crashing on our shores since
Winter Sonata, the popular Korean drama, landed here in 2002. And the culture has been steadily seeping into the hearts of many Malaysians. Following that, a tsunami of Korean pop bands comprising pretty boys and girls with catchy tunes and dance moves made its way. Groups such as EXO, BigBang and