Letters | Why pop culture is no defence against youth unrest, whether in Hong Kong or Korea

South Korea is enjoying unprecedented pop culture success, yet young Koreans have been a driving force behind recent protest movements. Hong Kong’s creative industry should indeed be revived, but for the right reasons

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An anti-government protester is chased by riot police after skirmishes at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on November 12. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:15am, 17 Oct 2020Updated: 6:15am, 17 Oct 2020

I write in response to Mathias Woo’s October 10 article “How a pop culture revival can save Hong Kong’s frustrated youth”. Mr Woo is correct in his assessment of Hong Kong pop culture. Our city’s star has waned since the glory days when the likes of John Woo and Wong Kar-wai were in their pomp. Restoring Hong Kong’s creative industry to its former heights would provide a welcome fillip to the city’s economy and its increasingly battered international standing.

However, I must take issue with his premise. He says the decline in Hong Kong pop culture is “one of the major reasons” for young people’s embrace of politics, and he invokes Japan and South Korea as countries that “have developed long-term strategic policies that actively deploy pop culture” and that have “offered spiritual sustenance to society and its young people”.

The implication is that if Hong Kong’s pop culture scene was thriving, young people would eschew politics and “channel their vigour and thought into creative businesses and innovation”.

To say nothing of art’s long history as a conduit for political expression, Mr Woo’s examples undercut his argument. South Korea is enjoying unprecedented pop culture success as Blackpink, BTS and Bong Joon-ho are practically household names. But at the same time, young people have been a driving force behind two large protest movements in recent years, the 2016 demonstrations against president Park Geun-hye and the 2018 protests against the epidemic of “molka”, or spycam pornography.

Japan has been the poster child for pop culture as soft power for decades. Even so, its young people – far from the docile, screen-addicted stereotype – are taking to the streets with a vigour not seen since the student-led protests of the 1960s. Moreover, if a thriving pop culture scene could keep young people out of politics, how would Mr Woo explain the massive youth involvement in the sustained protests taking place not just in California – home to Hollywood – but across the US?