What's something that you learned about South Korea or South Korean culture from listening to and watching kpop?

Inchteresting

How much age matters to their hierarchy. Obviously it’s there in my culture too but in Korea even one year age difference matters in the hierarchy which I felt was very specific to their culture.

Koreans are racists, also very prude.

Luckily, I already knew about Korea as my late father served there and even though it was in war time, he told us some interesting stories about what it was like there. It surprised even him on how much the country has prospered and now one of Asia's super powers. Even I have learnt a lot since by reading and observing Korean culture. I have even talked to some Korean people online and they helped me learn about their people as well.

Not kpop, but K dramas.

From watching kdramas I was under the impression that all Korean CEO's would run around slapping their employees.

I learned about the cultural emphasis on hierarchy. I’m familiar with cultural expectations on how you treat those older than you but it was interesting to see the degree (even just a month or a year) and the nuances there.

I think I learned a lot about Korean food and Korean food culture so I understood things before I went and explored Korean restaurants more here.

Random Korean cultural things like acrostic poems and trot, which are neat things I wouldn’t have been exposed to without Kpop.

The whole aegyo thing.

The wild contradictions:

- it’s both a homophobic culture but has insanely detailed levels of frequent queerbaiting

- it’s prudish about sex and coy in the music about it but shirtless thrusting and crotch grabbing and tiny skirts and hot pants while crawling on the floor are ok

They like eating in front of camera

The constant bowing

Street food

That JJOKBAL AND BOSSAM are the yumiest!

From Kpop you don’t learn that much if you watch k dramas you will learn that hierarchy is so important especially with rich families.

just how technologically advanced they are, like stuff just WORKS

I learned that they are obsessed with white skin, small head and face, big eyes and extremely skinny bodies.

Broadcast: Censoring brand names, girls wearing a towel when they sit down

In general: Plastic surgery is more common and acceptable, but is somehow also a bigger deal than it is in the West (like when people speculate whether this celebrity has plastic surgery it's an even bigger deal)