{"id":18705,"date":"2021-03-17T16:40:47","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T08:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=18705"},"modified":"2021-05-27T12:16:26","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T04:16:26","slug":"rolling-with-k-wave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2021\/03\/rolling-with-k-wave\/","title":{"rendered":"Rolling with K-wave"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While COVID-19 put brakes on travel, cross-border sales and concerts, in Hong Kong, fans and business operators do not see the local K-pop craze stemmed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Lesley Lam<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ikea Lam Tsz-kwan used to fly to different places to see her idols once every three to four months. Now, she cannot do so due to government restrictions around the world and flights cancellation during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lam is a fansite owner who posts photos of Korean pop idols she has taken at events and concerts since January 2019. She has nearly 6,000 followers on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel really bored now. I miss those days when I could follow my idols to different places. It was fulfilling. I feel like I have nothing to do and have to stay at home every day now,\u201d Lam says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing that fans like Lam are eager to see\ntheir idols but cannot see them in person, K-pop entertainment companies have\norganised online concerts and events to soothe their urge and engage fans in\nother countries since the start of 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of taking photos herself, Lam now shares retouched screen captures of online events and concerts on her fansite account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Offline concerts of Lam\u2019s idols. (Photo courtesy of Ikea Lam Tsz-kwan)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel really bored now. I miss those days when I could follow my idols to different places. It was fulfilling. I feel like I have nothing to do and have to stay at home every day now\u201d <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Adapting with <\/strong>Passion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another K-pop fan Hong Tsz-tung is also adapting to the new online mode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hong went to Kwun Tong Promenade with her friends to watch an online concert together in May 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA huge part of the grass lawn there was closed to the\npublic to prevent social gatherings, but we still managed to find a spot to sit\ndown and watch the concert,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 20-year-old girl says that in Hong Kong, K-pop fans usually meet up to buy and sell fan-made goods, such as trading cards and dolls at a flyover on the second floor of Langham Place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Fan-made K-pop goods. (Photo courtesy of Gloria Hong Tsz-tung)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

She adds that before the pandemic, security guards only\nasked fans to scatter if they were blocking pedestrians\u2019 way. Now, the guards\nask fans to disperse whenever they are gathering due to social distancing\npolicies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFans are not really affected by this though, I once saw a photo on Instagram in which BTS (a k-pop boy group) fans clustered together at the flyover to get fan-made supporting items,\u201d Hong says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manageable\nDifficulties<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the stark increase in coronavirus infections in July 2020, Hong stopped going to the shopping mall in Mongkok. She chose to mail self-made items to other fans instead but was faced with problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were incidents of mailing goods to the wrong people\nand missing mails,\u201d Hong says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem of logistics is shared by K-pop merchandise shop\nowner Kary Wong Ka-man and her husband. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The couple buys goods of different idol groups such as\nalbums, lightsticks and keyrings, from official websites of those idol groups\nand K-pop stores in Korea. They cannot predict what merchandises will arrive\nand when they will arrive even after placing the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can only wait for shipping warehouses in South Korea to\nmail the merchandises. And the warehouses only do so when the goods reach a\ncertain weight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reliance on Korean purchasing agents and suppliers also\ncauses logistics problem. \u201cSince we are not in\nKorea ourselves (to check the quantity of the goods), sometimes goods that are\nsupposed to be shipped aren\u2019t shipped,\u201d Wong says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She adds that agents sometimes fail to buy\ntimely merchandises. \u201cFor example, Seventeen (a K-pop boy group) has debuted\nfor years and the agents once bought us goods consisting of the group\u2019s debut\nphotos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
K-pop goods and delivery boxes in which goods were shipped. (Photo courtesy of Kary Wong Ka-man)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Revenue of the couple\u2019s business dropped by around\n50 per cent in the first half of 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur shop is located in a shopping mall which was sometimes closed, and the shopper flow was low. Also, we were not familiar with the new changes caused by the pandemic at first,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wong thinks the people have become more used to\nchanges brought by the pandemic since the second half of 2020. They have become\nmore willing to go out and consume. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur revenue now is more or less the same as it\nwas before,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Industry Strives to Survive<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Event organizing companies in Hong Kong that\nwork with Korean entertainment companies are still badly affected by the\npandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicole Leung Nga-wai, an event organiser with ten\nyears of experience, says companies relying heavily on hosting K-pop shows are\nhit hard by the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor example the companies I used to work for mainly work on\nprojects involving Korean artists and more than 80 per cent of the shows hosted\nare for K-pop stars. They rarely host shows for Chinese-speaking artists, only\nonce or twice a year,\u201d Leung says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leung says these companies are surviving by helping brand\nproducts companies to find K-pop stars as spokespersons, operating e-commerce\nof Korean goods, or promoting K-pop artists in Hong Kong depending on their\nspecialties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She adds that only a few Hong Kong organisers will buy\nexclusive rights of screening online concerts from Korean entertainment\ncompanies. In Hong Kong, it is also rare to have exclusive online video chat\nfan-sign events, in which usually 50 fans interact with their idols one-on-one\ndirectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we have online events now, organisers lose the edge of\nhaving Chinese fans joining events hosted by Hong Kong organisers. They will\njoin the Mainland ones instead,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese fans account for a huge part of the audiences in\nHong Kong K-pop events. \u201cThe ratio of Mainland Chinese audience in Hong Kong\nK-pop concerts can be up to 50 per cent or even more for some Korean artists\u2019\nshows,\u201d Leung says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leung notes that the Korean Restriction Order in China was\nthe reason why Chinese fans came to Hong Kong to meet their idols before the\npandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The order was China\u2019s response to Korea\u2019s deployment of the\nTerminal High Altitude Area Defense in 2016. Many Korean entertainment events\nhave been banned in the Mainland since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c2017 was the year in which a record number of K-pop concerts were held in Hong Kong because these shows could not be hosted in China. Investors in China decided to host shows in Hong Kong instead,\u201d Leung says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leung points out that the trend of hosting shows in Hong Kong continued until the Anti-Extradition Bill Law Movement in 2019 and dropped to zero after the pandemic broke out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nFuture of K-pop in Hong Kong<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Chung Lok-wai, assistant lecturer of the global\nstudies programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says Hong Kong is no\nlonger the most favoured market in the eyes of Korean entertainment companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKorean entertainment\ncompanies are shifting their focus to Southeast Asian markets like Vietnam,\nIndonesia, Thailand, as well as European countries and the U.S.,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKorean entertainment companies are shifting their focus to Southeast Asian markets like Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, as well as European countries and the U.S.\u201d <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Chung believes the reason behind such change is that\nthe Hong Kong market is small and already stable, so\ncompanies choose to direct promotional efforts to other markets instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut since fans here have high purchasing power,\nit is most likely that Korean entertainment companies would still arrange\nevents and concerts in Hong Kong,\u201d Chung says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leung, who is also a fan of \u2018Hallyu\u2019, or the wave of Korean pop culture, believes Koreans still value the Hong Kong market. She thinks they have a special emotional affiliation to Hong Kong, probably stemmed from the city\u2019s golden age of entertainment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe popularity of K-pop in Hong Kong is greatly related to its popularity worldwide. If it still thrives globally, I don\u2019t think the Hong Kong market will respond differently,\u201d the fan-turned event organiser says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by Kassandra Lai
Sub-edited by Sarah Ryou<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While COVID-19 put brakes on travel, cross-border sales and concerts, in Hong Kong, fans and business operators do not see the local K-pop craze stemmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":18726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1774,836],"tags":[1573,459,205,1688],"class_list":["post-18705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-158","category-lifestyle","tag-covid19","tag-fans","tag-hong-kong","tag-k-pop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18705"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18740,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18705\/revisions\/18740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}