Personal Development

Reside from South Korea — Steve Jang on Korea’s Exploding “Smooth Energy,” The Poverty-to-Energy Playbook, Okay-Pop, “Han” Vitality, Should-See Motion pictures, Export Economies, and A lot Extra (#707)

1 December 2023
Bourahima


Illustration through 99designs

“For Koreans, han generally is a drive to do nice issues, to bond collectively, to grasp one another, to empathize. However it could additionally simply be anger and Okay-rage which, channeled accurately, means that you can construct a complete trade and succeed on the worldwide stage to create popular culture phenomenons that win Grammys, and flicks that win Oscars, and lightweight up the world to what’s taking place on this little nation that was once poor, that was damaged after colonization and a battle.”

— Steve Jang

Scroll all the way down to the present notes part to see Steve’s must-see Korean motion pictures and must-do issues in Seoul.

Steve Jang (@stevejang) is the founder and managing associate at Kindred Ventures, an early-stage enterprise capital fund based mostly in San Francisco. He’s additionally a longtime buddy and one of many founder-now-investor era of VCs that arose out of the final expertise cycle. Steve is without doubt one of the prime 100 enterprise capital traders on the planet, in line with Forbes Midas Listing of prime enterprise capital traders, and was ranked #45 in 2023. He’s additionally a Korean-American, a gyopo, who’s deeply invested and concerned in each the technological and cultural worlds within the US and Asia. 

Beforehand, Steve was an early advisor to, and angel investor in, Uber, after which an early-stage investor in Coinbase, Postmates, Poshmark, Tonal, Blue Bottle Espresso, and Humane, the AI machine platform. He helped Uber, Coinbase, and Blue Bottle Espresso, amongst others, to increase into Korea and Japan. As an entrepreneur, Steve co-founded corporations within the client web, cellular, and crypto house.

Within the movie and music world, he’s an government producer, and his most up-to-date movie is Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV, which tells the story of the best Korean artist, and father of digital video artwork, and which premiered on the Sundance Movie Competition in 2023. His subsequent movie is a documentary about Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum.

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#707: Reside from South Korea — Steve Jang on Korea’s Exploding “Smooth Energy,” The Poverty-to-Energy Playbook, Okay-Pop, “Han” Vitality, Should-See Motion pictures, Export Economies, and A lot Extra<br />

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Need to hear one other episode that includes a gyopo? Hearken to my dialog with streetwear artist Bobby Tons of by which we mentioned his double life as a parent-pleasing legislation scholar and clandestine artist, collaboration over competitors, rolling with the tides of fickle vogue, obligatory disconnections, subcultural safety, hermit north stars, and far more.

#671: Bobby Tons of — Constructing an Iconic Streetwear Model, Making $7 Million in 40 Minutes, The Energy of Garfield, Why Korean Leisure is Taking Over the World, Sustaining the Thriller, The Fickleness of Fortune, and Growing “Nunchi”

What was your favourite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know within the feedback.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Kindred Ventures | Twitter | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Steve’s Prime “Should-See” Korean Motion pictures:

Steve’s “Should-Do” Issues in Seoul:

  • Stroll and discover the outdated city areas of Samcheong, Insa, and Hongdae. Meander round these hills and small streets and alleys filled with small retailers, cafes, and tea homes.
  • Headbob or dance with native people at small DJ bars in Hongdae or Itaewon. Favorites are Cakeshop, Hills and Europa, and Gopchang Jeongol.
  • Eat at a Hanwoo beef specialty restaurant. Hanwoo is the Korean model of Wagyu.
  • Try small artwork galleries, craft boutiques, and huge museums together with the Leeum. The artist neighborhood in Korea is a core ingredient of Korean society, in historic, counterculture, and positive artwork spheres.
  • Eat lunch within the meals court docket of a significant division retailer like Hyundai, Galleria, or Shinsegae. Fully totally different high quality than what you’d anticipate within the US.
  • Train on the out of doors park by the Han River. The colder the climate, the higher.
  • Get Tongdak (Korean fried rooster) and beer. When you aren’t consuming subsequent to taxi drivers and ajummas, then it’s not OG.
  • Discover Dongdaemun Market, the most important impartial clothier market on the planet.
  • Exit for cocktails, makkoli (fermented soybean liquor), and karaoke (which is known as “noraebang” in Korean) in Apgujeong, the cool child space of Gangnam.
  • Join a Okay-pop boot camp for 3 months and pay to learn to sing, dance, and gown to be within the subsequent BLACKPINK or BTS.

SHOW NOTES

  • [09:37] Why has Korean tradition been globally ignored till lately?
  • [13:36] In Seoul, the longer term is now.
  • [17:23] Gyopo and the Korean diaspora.
  • [19:15] Trendy relations between South Korea and Japan.
  • [21:07] Christianity and Confucianism in South Korea.
  • [23:17] The depth of Korean (together with gyopo) hagwons.
  • [25:46] Why Steve finds Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko notably shifting.
  • [28:07] Japanese nostalgia.
  • [29:25] Seoul: the Bizarro Tokyo?
  • [39:49] Generations of Korean households traumatized by North/South separation.
  • [44:32] Class wrestle and cultural dichotomy in Korean cinema and literature.
  • [50:22] Activism in a chaebol-dominated panorama.
  • [54:25] How Korean tradition resonates on a common stage.
  • [56:50] How huge cash funds the inventive class wrestle towards huge cash.
  • [59:57] Is the Okay-wave a fad, or is it right here to remain?
  • [1:05:24] Getting a deal with on the untranslatable han.
  • [1:08:13] Jeong and nunchi.
  • [1:14:38] What’s going to it take to treatment South Korea’s disastrously low delivery price?
  • [1:25:05] Why I’ve been so fascinated by the Okay-wave.
  • [1:36:02] How I’ve been studying the Korean language.
  • [1:47:04] Why so many Japanese ladies go to Korea.
  • [1:47:57] The profitable energy of Korea’s export economic system.
  • [1:52:07] Why the primary highway in Gangnam is called after the capital of Iran.
  • [1:54:19] The true cause Steve believes South Korea is so industrious on a number of fronts.
  • [1:58:02] How studying simply 10 sentences in one other language can essentially change your expertise.
  • [2:00:28] Korean meals!
  • [2:09:35] The unforgivable insult of leaving meals uneaten.
  • [2:11:25] Why you owe it to your self to see Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV.
  • [2:17:46] Why you owe it to your self to take heed to “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Korean psych rock band He5.
  • [2:18:15] How gyopo affect on the humanities bypassed residence censorship insurance policies.
  • [2:24:20] Why you owe it to your self to go to Seoul sooner moderately than later.
  • [2:26:30] Parting ideas.

MORE STEVE JANG QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“The North and South Korean governments at sure instances, after they get alongside, they’ll attempt to do some nice olive department strikes to reunite households. And so they had the TV station movie it, and so they arrange an entire space and so they introduced buses down. And it turned out to be not cathartic in any respect, however reopening ache.”
— Steve Jang

“Class wrestle is the theme of so many [Korean] motion pictures, books, TV sequence. It’s the struggling and the wrestle to maneuver out of their situation, and that society and the higher crust of society gained’t enable it. This rigidity is in music, it’s in motion pictures, it’s in literature, it’s in TV reveals, it’s throughout. And also you would possibly say, ‘Oh, no, it’s round each nation.’ Positive it’s. Nevertheless it’s actually robust and constant in Korean motion pictures and literature.”
— Steve Jang

“Han might be essentially the most talked-about collective trait of Koreans. What it basically boils all the way down to is this concept of collective struggling that the Korean folks have by means of historical past, and manifests on this very difficult feeling of we’re struggling and we share that ache with one another, but it surely’s one way or the other not all the time a unfavourable. It could actually generally drive us to precise ourselves in robust methods. It could actually drive us to undergo collectively collectively.”
— Steve Jang

“For Koreans, han generally is a drive to do nice issues, to bond collectively, to grasp one another, to empathize. However it could additionally simply be anger and Okay-rage which, channeled accurately, means that you can construct a complete trade and succeed on the worldwide stage to create popular culture phenomenons that win Grammys, and flicks that win Oscars, and lightweight up the world to what’s taking place on this little nation that was once poor, that was damaged after colonization and a battle.”
— Steve Jang

“There’s this accelerated sense of ‘We should obtain one thing tomorrow as a result of we’re already behind.’ That may be a very Korean mentality.”
— Steve Jang

“Tomorrow just isn’t assured for South Koreans. There’s a well-understood rigidity with North Korea that at any second this might all be over.”
— Steve Jang

“Of all of the cultural exports, Korean meals is a very powerful one.”
— Steve Jang

“You get a thousand factors of credit score from any Korean in the event you attempt to communicate the language. They like it. It’ll clean all tough edges on something that you just’re speaking about with them in the event you no less than strive.”
— Steve Jang

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