East Asian Pop Culture – Analysing the Korean Wave

Chua Beng Huat is Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. His most recent book is Life Is Not Complete Without Shopping (2003). He is founding co-executive editor of the journal Inter-Asia Cultural Studies.

The Korean Wave is one of the most remarkable popular phenomena to have swept East Asia in the past decade. This collection of essays by the region's leading scholars of the phenomenon examines the Korean Wave from the perspectives of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan as well as Korea itself. Their multi-layered and sophisticated analysis of the wave's production and consumption, and of the criticisms and resistances it has evoked, makes this book essential reading for anyone with an interest in contemporary East Asian popular culture. -- Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Professor of Japanese History, Australian National University