How does this sound for a leisurely day of cultural immersion? Ablutions completed, apply a moisturising face mask infused with snail secretion against an audio backdrop of girl group Blackpink. For lunch, a bowl of bibimbap and a Bong Joon-ho film. In the evening, binge-watch zombie series All of Us Are Dead over spicy yangnyeom chicken and a bottle of strawberry soju. All this without setting foot inside their country of origin.
Not even the fact that the all-conquering boyband BTS have been called up for military service can dampen the global appetite for all things South Korean. K-pop now regularly tops the US and UK charts. Three years after Squid Game became Netflix’s most-watched show ever, four years after Bong’s Parasite became the first non-English language film to win the best picture Oscar, with K-pop girl group Twice at No 1 on the US album chart, the Korean content juggernaut shows no sign of slowing down.
