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As Asia embraces Thailand’s ‘T-wave’, is the tide turning against K-pop?
- Some fans of K-pop are turning to Thai music and dramas, lured by creative plot lines, ‘less repetitive’ songs, and the ‘more well-rounded’ talent
- But even as the ‘T-wave’ spreads, some note that Thailand’s pop-culture industry still has a long way to go to upstage its Korean forebear
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At a shopping centre in Bangkok’s old town, every few days an unlikely clientele of young Chinese tourists voraciously pick through the rows of pale blue or white Thai school uniforms for sale.
The link between Chinese visitors and an obscure Southeast Asian school uniform – disliked by many Thai pupils who have to wear boy scout shorts or knee-length skirts – is a 2010 romcom, A Little Thing Called Love, which was picked up by Chinese streaming giant Bilibili.
Also helping the viral craze is Chinese singer Ju Jingyi, who posed in the US$8-US$10 uniform made famous in the film earlier this year and posted the photos to her Weibo page.
Since then the “Sri Pan School Uniform Shop” and its peers have welcomed a handful of Chinese tourists who make the pilgrimage across Bangkok to buy the clothes, have their names embroidered in Thai on the shirt pocket, and then pose for a photo – which is now part of many Chinese influencer’s Thai bucket-list.
In one Facebook post entitled “China boys and China girls”, six young Chinese visitors pose in school uniform, the boys with the knots of their ties low and the three women in complete uniform, including the 300 baht (US$8.50) school shoes and white socks combo common to many public schools.
Thai media has picked up on the trend as a reflection of Thailand’s growing ‘T-Wave’ of music, idols, film and TV series – some new, many recycled – churned out by the country’s relentless content creators and shared across Asia through a flurry of new platforms.
Kimberly Lim is a reporter for the Asia Desk, covering social issues, politics and economy in Singapore and the region. She graduated from Nanyang Technological University, where she majored in Public Policy and Global Affairs, with a second major in English Literature. She previously wrote for TODAY and The New Paper.
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