Chapter 3. Strategies and Efforts of South Korea’s Gastrodiplomacy: Making Hansik Popular
3.3. Fostering Cultural Influence
‘Hansik is an element of South Korean cultural diplomacy. This is considering that in the present, various ways are done to improve relations between nations, as in the emergence of soft power. Therefore, Hansik can also be said to be South Korea's soft power in the form of gastrodiplomacy, improving international relations through food or culinary’ (Zaini). South Korea’s food promotional plan not only promotes food products, increases the number of restaurants abroad, or expands overseas product chains. Making Hansik popular globally is also especially utilized to communicate culinary culture to the international community, and such a purpose is achieved in the following moves.
First, South Korean gastrodiplomacy reaches foreign audiences by presenting appealing culinary cultural traits through national food. In this regard, standardizing the authenticity of Hansik before making it global is a vital move for South Korea to present its national identity. South Korea has eagerly established an exact brand of its products as healthy and universal food: fermented, healthy, and tasty, the three characteristics of South Korea’s culinary culture that have been passed through generations to generations.
Along with globalizing its food, South Korea has been clinging to these characteristics to maintain the authenticity and values of Hansik abroad.
This strategy seems to fit the recent trend of “healthy foodies”. Johanna Mendelson Forman, an American professor who specializes gastrodiplomacy, mentioned that even though kimchi produces a pungent smell, it is becoming popular in the United
States because people, especially millennials, are 'interested in experimenting with healthy food and making food as a craft' (Fifield, 2017). The rise of ‘flexitarianism’, refers to another supporting factor of healthy food trends. Flexitarianism is popular due to the recent trend of ‘ people taking a more environmentally sustainable approach to what they eat by reducing their meat consumption in exchange for alternative protein sources’ (Delaney, 2018). For such trends, Hansik has much to offer to serve the requirements of such a diet.
Second, GHC reaches foreign audiences by developing talents and expanding restaurants abroad through the employment of food diplomats or ambassadors.
Providing educational and consulting programs for restaurants and employees as well as chefs has been major roles of the institutions involved. For instance, South Korea sent a team to perform research and collaborate with local chefs to understand target markets.
In addition, attempts to make fusion dishes using Jang as a base ingredient shows the universality of Korean food in that it is not limited only to Korean palates but also to foreign ones, and it can break cultural boundaries among its diners to understand one another. This is also performed to provide the experience of one’s national food to build intimacy between diners and the food’s culture.
South Korea has also been embracing the popularity of Hallyu and Mukbang to promote Hansik. It seems to be the closest way to reach the general public. For instance, with a channel followed by more than 3 millions subscribers and viewers, the popularity Korean Englishman on YouTube has brought is seen as impactful in promoting Korea’s image around the world. The Corea Image Communication Institute (CICI), an organization under the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade handling the promotion of South Korea’s positive image internationally, awarded Korean Englishman (and other foreigners with different contribution categories) a Korea Image Stepping Stone Bridge Award during the 15th Korea Image Award ceremony (Im, 2019). This is indicative of how South Korea is showing its supportive means as well as opening ways to communicate by encouraging people who enthusiastically contribute to South Korean interests.
Third is the employment of a two-way street type of communication regarding reaching target publics. As has been mentioned previously, gastrodiplomacy is a combination of public diplomacy using food as the medium implemented in a form of cultural diplomacy. Implementing gastrodiplomacy shows the intention of a country to pay attention by listening to ‘local and global public opinion rather than gluttonously engaging in advocacy’ (Rockower, 2011). This is the basic component of public diplomacy, and the actors who do so ‘are more adept at taking advantage of unorthodox openings created by authentic cultural innovations to carry out enhanced public diplomacy’ (Ibid).
South Korea has shown the intention to do so through GHC. They involve the general public in participating in its food promotional programs in order to create interactive engagements between governments and the general public. For instance, the K-Food Supporter Alliance and K-Food Healthy Supporter encourage foreigners to spread the love of Hansik. Through these two types of programs, the government shows an interest in communicating and cooperating with foreign people in t wo-way street diplomacy. The World Food Expo, an annual event organized by the MCST, was also indicative of attracting both the general public and countries’ leaders and representatives in South Korea to share education on Korean food.
3.4. Challenges
The efforts of raising the global popularity of Hansik have been ongoing for 10 years since starting in 2009. The developing strategies follow recent global trends to reach goals that have been set. However, GHC has also experienced some major deterioration amid its implementation. The promotional plans began to fade after Lee Myung-bak finished his presidential term and received some backlash from food specialists such as Hwang Kyo-ik, who called such efforts as embarrassing because he thought the government goals were too demanding and set to be accomplished too short a period (Fifield, 2017).
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Considering the role of gastrodiplomacy in other countries, achievements of gastrodiplomacy are mainly measured based on how it helps a country raise its national brands or positive image abroad. The same applies to Korea; GHC is one of the Presidential Council on National Branding plans. Thus, the activities and programs are directed to accomplish these goals. However, it has received some backlash in this regard.
Simon Anholt, the father of nation branding, made a negative assessment of South Korea’s nation branding. First, he stated in The Korea Times that the branding plan to move South Korea from the rank of 33rd to 15th by 2013 in the National Brand Index (NBI) was impossible and an improper way to use the index (Kang, 2009). He mentioned that the great progress that South Korea has been making in developing the country compared to decades ago as well as the rising popularity of Korean Wave (K-Wave) or Hallyucurrently have not proven the country has attained a strong image in the international community (Anholt, 2011). The reason behind this, as he suggested, is because South Korea has not fully offered something useful or meaningful from the country to the international community. Therefore, he further suggests that South Korea should focus more on developing its culture, people, and governance instead (Ibid).
Regarding the improvement of South Korea’s image through Hansik, 'there are threats to the outside world, such as the state of affairs in North Korea' (Park Seung-kyu). This actually has been an on-going issue to the branding plan. The Nation Branding Council of South Korea collaborated with World Research to conduct a survey on how people perceive South Korea among 1000 foreigners outside the country.
In the poll, 48.4 percent answered security tension between South and North Korea was a major stumbling block prompting the country to be placed in a relatively poor standing in national brand, followed by Korea's limited contribution to the international community (44.1 percent) and socio-political instability (41.5 percent) (Kang, 2009).
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However, the challenges do not stop there. Efforts were also hampered because of political and corruption issues after president Park Geun-hye, who continued the promotional initiatives, was arrested for corruption (Lipscomb, 2019). This generated an investigation on Lee Myung-bak and Kim Yoon-ok, who started the GHC. Such an unfortunate event also contributed to a negative impression and criticism from Korean society toward the efforts as well as related organizations (Ibid).
The South Korean government seems aware of the critiques, suggestions, and conditions of the country. Nonetheless, in the case of GHC, the government has continued developing the plans. A response from the deputy director of the MAFRA in the food industry division, Lee Chang-il, acknowledged the critiques and argued that promoting Korean food to become globally popular indeed requires a long-term planning as well as its terminations. Likewise, the ministry is continuing to support the Hansik promotion plans and build a convenient environment for food related organizations to coordinate their activities (Lee, 2017).
Inside KFPI, in 2016, GHC including its goals direction was relaunched as the new chairperson of the KFPI, Yoon Suk-ja, was inaugurated. She is seen to be more skillful in Hansik, as The Korea Times addressed her as ‘the missionary of Korean food’
(Kim, 2019). Apart from being the chairperson of the institute, she also served as the chief of the Institute of Traditional Korean Food. She has also been frequently involved in major events such as the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games and the 2017 and 2018 Inter-Korean Summits. In globalizing Hansik, her plans for the institution were to focus on providing education in relation to Hansik to both private and public sectors. The effort in standardizing Korean cuisine abroad in terms of names, recipes, and ingredients is also seen to be important for maintaining the characteristic of Hansik through generations as well as tackling the problem found among people in differentiating Hansik from other food which has some similar or same type of ingredients. For instance, she found that bulgogi is called Japanese style BBQ because both are basically made of meat and sweet-savory-sauce, and doenjang jjigae was called miso soup because basic ingredients for both dishes are made of soybean paste. This problem
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occurred because many Korean restaurants wanted to associate the names of Korean dish with the popularity of Japanese dishes.
She began to bear fruit for the development of the institute. During her term, she concluded business arrangements for the success of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and served 10 Korean dishes to the athletes at the big event. In addition, the Korean Food Center was established in Seoul to provide a hub of Hansik promotion for locals and foreign travellers who want to know more about Hansik.
South Korean national food culture represents Korea as a nation. Likewise, the perception of the country’s culinary culture affects how people perceive a nation. The primary goal of GHC is to enhance the national brand by enhancing the status of Korean cuisine in the global market. The role of KFPI regarding this matter has been definitive through programs and plans that were mentioned in previous sections. Challenges appear regarding nonstate activities, such as mukbang. It is indeed a helpful communication strategy to promote South Korean culinary products and trends because mukbang is not only popular in Korea but also around the world. However, mukbang seems to be unstable regarding promoting the characteristics of Korean food culture based on what the government holds in high esteem, which are healthy and universal food, ‘because the excellence interpretation of Korean food in Mukbang videos are limited to BJs’ interpretation’ (PR Team of KFPI). Therefore, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has made plans to develop guidelines in order to ‘understand the current mukbang culture’ (Chu, 2018). ‘It is also necessary to think about how to make mukbang effective to promote the positive aspects of Korean food’ (PR Team of KFPI).
All the strategic moves have been attempted to increase the popularity of Hansik globally. However, no exact international standards or guidelines are available for measuring the global popularity of one’s national food (Pham, 2013; Lipscomb, 2019).
Nonetheless, some successful stories in some key areas of interest can be explored to