Thousands of people attended a Korean culture, businesses and products event in Toronto this weekend.
The exhibition at Meridian Hall marks the first time K-EXPO has been held in North America. In previous years, it was held in France, Indonesia and Vietnam.
“Korean culture is very good at making things look futuristic and glamorous, so it’s attractive in that way,” said Alvin Montano, who attended the expo.
“It looks so otherworldly,” he said. “That translates to their culture, food and media as well.”
This year’s event was free to enter and included booths for Korean beauty, known as K-beauty, K-pop, gaming and animation. There were also Korean food tastings.
The expo hosted a K-pop concert Sunday evening — which sold out on Ticketmaster — featuring performances by bands Cravity and Fifty Fifty.
K-pop has something for everyone, says Pat Nuevaorlando, who attended the concert on Sunday. She says the music genre encompasses hip-hop and mellow tunes. It’s also an “easy icebreaker” to make friends, Nuevaorlando said.
“It’s very inviting and fun, that’s what makes K-pop so popular, especially in a city like Toronto,” she added.
The Sunday concert hosted 3,000 people and was sold out in just two minutes, organizers told CBC Toronto.
Jamie Deleon, who attended the expo, said she grew up with K-pop after being introduced to the groups Twice and Blackpink.
“You don’t have to understand the language for music to speak to you and I feel like for me, K-pop does that really well,” she said.
Deleon said the songs are often written in ways that are particularly poetic, compared to Western pop music.
For attendee Zachary Comeau, his interest in Korean TV shows drew him to the expo. He said the shows have much better writing and unique concepts compared to North American programs.
“Nothing really advances in North America, to be honest,” he said. “Korea’s got it figured out.”
K-EXPO is jointly organized by various Korean government agencies, according to its website.
These government agencies have successfully promoted Korean media and popular culture through events like K-EXPO, said Michelle Cho, assistant professor of East Asian popular culture at the University of Toronto.
“They understand that events like this that are in-person [and] involve an experiential element can be really important … and trigger an interest in Korean culture and society,” she said.
Sparking an interest in one area, such as K-beauty, could result in a chain reaction where a fan then becomes interested in K-dramas or indulging in Korean food, she said.
Ultimately, Cho said a fan’s interest could lead them to visit Seoul on their next vacation.
“This is all interconnected in a way,” she said.
Stacey Harris, who visited the expo and attended Sunday’s concert, said she has visited Korea three times since she became interested in BTS, a massively popular K-pop group.
She said she learned a lot at the expo, such as the symbolism and meaning behind South Korea’s flag.
Korean culture is “something new [and] exciting, but there’s also some universality to it,” Harris said.
Korean cultural industries have also successfully maintained a certain type of “national brand,” Cho said.
For example, while she said Korean beauty products are not exclusively from Korea, consumers still associate them with Korean culture “as a very contemporary, future oriented and technologically advanced culture and society.”
Cho compared the global spread of Korean culture to how Hollywood exported culture across the world.
“I think South Korea is really learning from that and trying to pursue a similar strategy,” she said.
Cho said she expected a particularly high turnout at this year’s expo in the wake of the smash Netflix hit KPop Demon Hunters — written and co-directed by Toronto’s Maggie Kang — which she said reflected the crossover appeal of Korean culture.
While she said the expo could have been hosted in a variety of cities in North America, Toronto stands out because of how Asian culture and food is a part of daily life.
Cho, who is Korean American, moved to Canada 10 years ago.
When she mentioned her heritage to people at the time, she said most questions she was asked were about North Korea and geopolitics in the region. But now, the main association she says she sees is related to popular culture.
“That change is tremendous,” she said. “You can imagine what things might be like there … and the culture is not totally foreign.”
K-EXPO Canada will go on until Tuesday.
