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[email protected] The Birth of Cool K orean popstar Psy’s “Gangnam Style” ranks as the most watched YouTube video ever, with over 2.2 billion views as of last month. Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” in second place, trails by over a billion views. Legend credits Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” with having given rise to the Korean cultural wave, referred to as hallyu , that’s sweeping the planet. A South Korean government report in 1994 stressed that the film’s box-office gross the previous year equaled the sales of 1.5 million Hyundai cars, then considered the pride of the country’s manufacturing sector, in a year when Hyundai’s annual production hadn’t yet reached a million vehicles. As one of the few countries where government intervention in industry is considered to have led to desirable economic outcomes—starkly contrasting to the assessment of its neighbor to the north—this, along with the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and resultant devaluation of the Korean won rendering imported American films a lot more expensive, fostered the rise of home-grown entertainment. In 1994, the Ministry of Culture set up a dedicated cultural promotion bureau. It also encouraged the country’s chaebols —large business conglomerates that are mostly family-owned—to expand from manufacturing into film and media, and that, ultimately, was what lit the fuse on the hallyu explosion. For the chaebols are another uniquely South Korean aberration, where family-owned enterprises have risen to not just compete on a global stage, but become leaders in their respective fields. Think Samsung, which pre- hallyu was derided in the US as “Samsuck.” And hallyu was undeniably a turning point. Last year, Korean-American writer Euny Hong published her treatise on the rise of South Korea’s pop culture: “The Birth of Korean Cool.” The book charts the country’s remarkable ascent from the mid-‘60s, when its per capita GDP was less than that of Ghana and, notably, the socialist paradise beyond the 38th parallel (historically the more prosperous half of the peninsula), to its current ranking as the 15th-largest economy in the world. A review of the book in The Observer sums up the central conclusion nicely: “If the people of the emerging economies are captivated by Korean soap opera or K-pop, they will be more inclined to buy Korean fridges, computers, televisions and cars. They, too, want to live a dream. Korea’s genius was to make that dream Korean.” That dream is also driving tourism. It’s perhaps fitting that the now-ubiquitous term hallyu was coined in 1999 by Beijing-based journalists commenting on China’s growing appetite for South Korean cultural exports. They referred to the phenomenon as hán liú ( 韓流 ), which literally means “flow of Korea.” Last year, South Korea hosted 14 million tourists, of which 6.1 million were mainland Chinese. South Korea now stands behind only Hong Kong and Macau as the leading destination for China’s outbound travelers. For the developers of South Korea’s coming wave of foreigners-only casino resorts, it’s Chinese tourists that matter most. Those developers mostly hail from overseas—ending the industry’s domination by local entities—and their ranks have been swelling. Last month, Genting Singapore and its JV partner Landing International Development held a ceremonial groundbreaking for their Resorts World Jeju project on the country’s popular holiday island. Two other destination-scale resorts are under development in a special economic zone on Yeongjong island, the site of Incheon International Airport serving the capital, Seoul. One is a joint venture between Paradise Group, the leader of the country’s foreigners-only casino market, and Japanese pachinko giant Sega Sammy slated to open in 2017 at an initial cost of US$750 million. The other is a joint venture similarly priced and led by US casino operator Caesars Entertainment, which struck a $95 million deal late last year to acquire land for a resort scheduled to break ground in the zone this year ahead of a planned opening in 2018. Others are jostling for position. In late January, Bloomberry Resorts, owner of Manila’s Solaire Resort & Casino, agreed to purchase 12.2 hectares of land on Yeongjong. Then, in February, Hong Kong-based retail and property conglomerate Chow Tai Fook Enterprises announced its intention to invest $2.6 billion in the zone. Meanwhile, the government plans to revise investment limits—that specify 51% foreign ownership—to allow major Korean corporations, including Samsung and Hyundai, to also participate in the resort industry. No doubt, Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s trendily coiffed premier-cum-deity, is taking note. Macau’s Stanley Ho opened the North’s first casino at a hotel in the capital, Pyongyang, back in 1998. But it didn’t do much for tourism. An estimated 10,000 mainland Chinese visit the hermit kingdom every year, less than 0.2% of the number who descended on the South in 2014.