Cultural hybridization

The topic of cultural hybridization is coming up and I think relevant both to the readings and also to what is going on in the Kpop industry.

How does this relate to K-pop? There are clear examples of people advancing into other Asian markets, and you saw it first in Winter Sonata and "Yonsama". More recently, you can see cultural hybridization in K-pop music. Not only through K-pop advancing into markets, but also the bringing of people into the K-pop market. Take, for example, the more recent advancement of several K-pop groups into the Japanese market: in the past you had TVXQ, Super Junior, SS501 and nowadays, SNSD, KARA, 4minute, Big Bang, soon to be 2ne1, T-ara, Beast, 2pm, ect. following the trend particularly of the advancement of Korean dramas to other markets. With these market advancements, more and more idol stars are learning Japanese. Why? To promote their songs, go on variety shows, ect. They need the language factor to communicate with not only fans, but also other people in the business. Some of these idol stars have been learning Japanese from an early age, for example Taeyang from Big Bang or Sooyoung from SNSD. 

Additionally, as previously mentioned, there is an influx of Asians entering the entertainment industry (we will talk about ____ Americans at another post). Look at Amber and Victoria from f(x), Fei and Jia from miss A, Lim from Wonder Girls, Hankyung and now Zhou Mi from Super Junior, Alexander from U-Kiss (though he is half-Korean & most of the members are Korean have a whole slew of language abilities), ect. 

What does this all mean? How "K" aka Korean is K-pop? And even further, how important is the learning of other languages is necessary for idols? Super Junior has a subgroup called Super Junior M, focusing on China and intentionally having Chinese members. JYP was going to branch into China with an all-Chinese girl group. Interestingly, there are (as to my knowledge) no current Japanese people in the K-pop industry. I could easily be wrong. But then again, Japan has a well-established J-Pop industry, though some argue that it is fading in popularity. 

Regardless, do you think the members of idol groups should focus their energy on learning other languages? Note how the languages focused on are Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese... all languages of the "East Asian tigers". How much does economics have to play in which languages are focuses? You could argue that Nichkhun goes into the Thai market and Dara into the Philippines, but how much of that was intentional marketing to advance into those countries? Or just coincidence? While K-pop idols are intentionally learning certain languages and not others. How does this maybe play into the global hierarchy? And again, is it necessary? Do other singers learn languages of other countries when they want to advance into the market? Maybe it isn't intentional advancement. For example, do you think Taylor Swift will learn Korean before coming to perform in Korea? Or did Lady Gaga or Beyonce before they came? Again, is this global hierarchy? Is it in part because of the "cultural closeness" factor? What exactly does this "cultural closeness" factor mean, if the idols are learning languages intentionally? If they did not learn the languages and tried to advance, how do you think that would pan out?

I just thought this topic and concept was interesting because idol stars learn languages specifically for advancing and there is typically at least one person learning Japanese and another focusing on (or already knowing) English. Japan was considered (back in history) the first East Asian country to modernize and be "associated with the West". Does this play a role, or is it all just marketing?