KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study examines the changing images and cultural meanings of Chuncheon through its representations in popular culture since the 2010s. Traditionally, Chuncheon was associated with youth, love, and romance, an image repeatedly reproduced in television dramas, popular music, and theater until the 2000s. Since the 2010s, however, this familiar image has undergone significant transformation as popular culture has portrayed the city through more diverse and sometimes conflicting perspectives. This shift is particularly evident in films, where Chuncheon’s romantic image is disrupted by narratives of infidelity or by young residents confronting uncertain futures and distancing themselves from the city’s established identity. Popular music presents a broader spectrum of representations. While some songs depict the darker realities of contemporary Chuncheon, others portray it as a place of attraction, comfort, and emotional refuge. Musicians from Chuncheon, in particular, acknowledge the difficulties facing the city while simultaneously expressing solidarity with its residents and imagining possibilities for renewal. These representations demonstrate that Chuncheon is no longer confined to the conventional imagery of youth and romance. Rather, it has emerged as a dynamic cultural space in which diverse meanings, emotions, and experiences are continuously produced and negotiated. Popular culture captures these changing dimensions of the city through different media and reconnects Chuncheon with the public in new ways. Chuncheon can therefore be understood as an open and evolving cultural text whose meanings remain subject to continuous reinterpretation.

This study examines how Chuncheon’s emotional resources and sense of place have been formed and transformed through Korean popular songs and K-pop, and explores the city’s potential as a glocal platform city. It focuses on Soyanggang Maiden (1970), Train to Chuncheon (1989), and recent K-pop-related cases. Soyanggang Maiden contributed to the formation of Chuncheon’s emotional sense of place by associating the natural imagery of the Soyang River with longing, waiting, and loss. In contrast, Train to Chuncheon reimagined the city through mobility, youth, memory, and nostalgia rather than through direct representations of its landscape. These songs thus accumulated emotional resources associated with Chuncheon in different ways. In the K-pop era, places are increasingly made visible and reinterpreted through music videos, transnational fandom, fan mobility, and digital media. Cases involving BTS and TWICE demonstrate how Chuncheon can acquire new cultural meanings through global popular culture and fan participation. By tracing these transformations, this study shows how Chuncheon’s emotional resources have been continuously reconstructed across changing forms of popular culture. At a time when K-Culture is gaining greater global prominence, this cultural accumulation suggests Chuncheon’s potential to develop into a glocal platform city where local identity interacts with global cultural flows.

This study focuses on ‘Dakgalbi’ ( spicy stir-fried chicken), a representative local dish of Chuncheon, and analyzes the historical transitions it has undergone from the perspective of ‘food culture.’ While Chuncheon Dakgalbi has long been designated as a traditional local food, this paper proposes the use of the term ‘Regional Gastronomy’ instead of the conventional ‘local food’ to more accurately define the complex socio-cultural identity of the dish. Within this expanded context of ‘regional gastronomic culture,’ the cultural value and dynamics of Chuncheon Dakgalbi are thoroughly examined. Furthermore, in connection with the current global popularity of Korean cuisine under the banner of ‘K-Food,’ this study explores how the localization, branding, and historical evolution of Chuncheon Dakgalbi can offer meaningful insights and future outlooks for the sustainable development of K-Food.