Dear Editor,
I am writing to draw your readers’ attention to K-pop.
I believe that most readers have heard of My Love from the Star. Are the main actor, Kim Soo Hyun, and the actress, Jun Ji Hyun, so charming? Opinions differ.
A friend of mine is a diehard fan of Kim. Last week, she called in sick to school in order to meet her idol at the airport. She is so obsessed about chasing stars that she forgoes academic results.
Why have teenagers always been suckers for the superstars? The reasons are simple. Teenagers are too superficial. Research shows that most of them only focus on the appearance of the artists. Appearance should never be the main reason why we love somebody. And interestingly, many of the Korean celebrities have an artificial face. It is a pity that many young adults just neglect the importance of inner beauty.
No doubt, some Korean songs are well composed in terms of melody and lyrics. Some ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ Korean songs are indeed quite appealing. Yet K-pop brings about negative effects to teenagers for reasons that follow.
K-pop is eroding our local culture. Everyone watches KBS dramas instead of TVB, let alone ATV nowadays. The number of viewers of TVB has been decreasing tremendously since K-pop gets into its stride. The influence of Cantopop has faded out and Hong Kong’s culture has become less appealing. It is important that we do everything to protect our local culture and thus our cultural identity, which is important for Hongkongers’ sense of belonging.
Apart from cultural invasion, some Korean songs inculcate wrong messages into youngsters’ minds about sex and violence. Being immature and impulsive in nature, teenagers lack the ability to interpret the lyrics. Some of the Korean songs are sexually aggressive. We can always see hot, sexy girls, dressed in bikini, hot pants or mini-skirts, seducing male with their charming figures. Others promulgate violence. Many of the music videos feature scenes involving guns and explosions. The immorality instilled in the teenagers deserves our attention.
K-pop not only has an impact on the moral values of adolescents, but also their consumption patterns. Research shows that some of the K-pop fanatics spend over 2000 HKD per year on Korean-related products. This is a huge amount of teenagers as they are still relying on their parents and lack the ability to make money themselves. They spend money on things they are interested in rather than what is useful to them. They should have saved the money for future use, like studies, instead.
To revive Cantopop, the government should allocate more resources to the local culture industry. In 2013/14, the Government allocates $3.3 billion on culture and the arts, excluding capital works expenditure. This accounts for less than 1% of the total government spending. More students should be subsidized to study in The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts or take up music-related courses. If better quality Cantonese songs and plays come up, more and more Hongkongers will be aware of and appealed to Cantopop and hopefully the K-pop wave would fade out eventually.
The government should also take positive measures to promote street performance, which is a part of Hong Kong art culture. In fact, opportunities for art performers to show their skills and talents have greatly diminished since the government adopted a policy to shorten the pedestrian zone hours in Mong Kok recently.
Unless the government does something soon, K-pop will certainly dominate Hong Kong’s pop culture. Is this what we really want to see?
Yours faithfully,
Justin Chan
Hung Hom