Wearing hanbok is one of the easiest participatory activities related to tradition for both Korean people and non-Korean residents and travelers. Briefly renting colorful clothing for a photograph has become particularly ubiquitous among young foreign tourists to Korea. How should we understand this phenomenon? In this paper, I analyze how hanbok in dramas and on pop music stars is encouraging and building the desire to experience hanbok for these audiences, to the point that taking photographs in hanbok has become an essential part of a trip to Korea for many foreign fans. I argue that people who rent a hanbok to visit a touristic spot are creating citational links with the Korean past/tradition and with media texts, and embodying those links through the practice of wearing the clothing and commemorating the experience in photos. Whereas images of the hanbok in Korean music videos often present a flattened and limited view of Korea, this practice imbues the image of the hanbok with complexity, playfulness, and contextual sensitivity. Ironically, the creative use of hanbok by stars and the desire for hanbok among contemporary cosmopolitan youth have exerted pressure on the clothing, leading to dramatic shifts in its stylistic elements and impacting the aesthetics both of hanbok in media contexts and tourist rental hanbok. To explore this phenomenon, I discuss the attitudes towards hanbok shown in a survey of over 900 K-pop fans, analyze the showcasing of hanbok within K-pop contexts (both in the appearances of stars connected to traditional holidays and in performances where stars wear hanbok), and discuss interview data from hanbok-clad foreign tourists.  

Keywords:

Hanbok, tradition, tourism, appropriation

Three Bibliographical References of Keen Relevance to this Conference:

l Saeji, CedarBough T. "Borrowed National Bodies: Ideological Conditioning and Idol-Logical Practices of K-Pop Cover Dance." Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch 94, no. 1 (2020): 43-68.

l "Building a K-Community: Idol Stars Challenging Foreign Fans to Learn Korean Traditions." Acta Koreana 25, no. 2 (2022): 133-58.

l  "From Hanok to Hanbok: Traditional Iconography in Korean Hip Hop Music Videos." Global Hip Hop Studies 1, no. 2 (2021): 249-72.