Top 10 new trends of Korea you should know!

2016 top 10 trends in Korea! By Yun Suh-young, Choi Kyong-ae 1. Driverless cars, rise of drones Driverless cars are nearing reality. Self-driving vehicles were entered into a cross-country test by Delphi Automotive in the United States last year and carmakers have increased electrical functions on their models. Google is active in developing driverless cars. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month, Kia Motors announced it would introduce entirely autonomous cars by 2030 and Hyundai Motor Group announced it would invest $ 2 billion by 2018 in developing self-driving technology. Drones also took center stage at the CES and the size of the exhibition hall for drones increased 200 percent since last year. Samsung reportedly organized a project team of 15 to develop drone technology. 2. Robots into daily lives Robots are no longer animation characters or movie protagonists. They may still seem far from reality but some industrial and life support robots are already in use in our daily lives. Robots that can cook, clean, and check physical conditions of patients will be available in the coming years. Demand for intelligent robots which can befriend the elderly or the single are also on the rise. At the CES in Las Vegas, over 200 companies related to robot technology participated. Intel introduced a personal butler robot Segway that can navigate through the house. 3. More sharing economy The "sharing economy" is no longer the alien concept that it used to be a few years ago, when Airbnb, a home-sharing service, started marketing aggressively in Korea, and Uber, a ride sharing service, attempted to get into the Korean market. A local version of car sharing service, "So Car," has grown rapidly to garner 1 million registered users and 3,000 cars for the service. This growth, since its launch in 2012, is faster than that of Zipcar, the world's largest car sharing company, which took eight years to acquire 3,000 cars. Last month, a new form of ride sharing service called "Call Bus" was launched. It offers shared rides on a shuttle bus and is currently on its trial run, still fighting against regulations. 4. Self- sufficient citizens More city dwellers are becoming self-sufficient in supplying food for themselves. They farm in their private or shared vegetable gardens in the city, producing what they want to consume. This occurs on their apartment verandas, their buildings' rooftop gardens or front yard gardens at their homes. The government estimated that the number of city farmers has increased by 5.8 times in the three years since 2013. There are even districts within Seoul that grant a "right to farm" to residents at their district office's vegetable gardens. Gangdong-gu in eastern Seoul is promoting a project to foster "one garden per household" that will run through 2020, while Gwangjin-gu is offering an eco-friendly container garden to citizens. 5. The golden age of pets, security services As the number of single-person households is rapidly increasing, the market for companion animals and security services are blossoming. The market involving companion animals is expected to jump to 6 trillion won ($5 billion) by 2020 from 2 trillion won in 2014, according to Statistics Korea. Companies are eager to capitalize on the rising demand for security services for the elderly and single women and the government began to offer "safe home service" to single women who meet certain criteria of living conditions. 6. One-person media The landscape of media is changing due to smarter technology and smaller portable devices. No longer are newspapers the mainstream media for information, as online platforms and social networking services (SNS) are sharing as much of the pie for information as media outlets. With such advances in online technology and platforms, individuals are becoming one-person media outlets by sharing views, ideas and comments via their own SNS or through various other platforms. SNS have emerged as powerful platforms to drive social opinion. According to Ericsson Consumer Lab's report, 37 percent of smart phone users say "sharing information about a corrupt company online has a greater impact than going to the police." 7. Expansion of startups Startups are seeing their heyday. As the "creative economy" became one of the core focuses of the current administration, the environment for starting a business has eased and the government has set up funds to support them. In these past few years, we have witnessed something like a second venture boom following the first which occurred in the early 2000s. The fields of startups are also expanding from IT to culture. The opening of the CEL (Creative Economy Leader) center last month at the former Korea Tourism Organization building in Jung-gu, Seoul, is an example. The center now houses 93 cultural content startups which were selected from 724 competitors. 8. Smaller weddings, efficient spending Actors Won Bin and Lee Na-young's wedding last year at a farm had been a sensation online as their small yet fairytale-like wedding scene was unusual yet beautiful. Gone are the days of typical huge-scale weddings involving lavish banquets and a great number of guests. Weddings have become smaller in both size and number. Couples are slimming down on the unnecessary and are focusing more on the content and meaning of the wedding. The younger generation of brides and grooms are moving away from formality of rituals and are custom-planning it their own way. Some save costs from wedding photo shoots and gifts to spend that money on their honeymoon. 9. Leisurely dads, self-caring men Fathers, who have long been bread-winners for their families, have begun enjoying life. An increasing number of dads are enjoying leisure and sports with friends and family and are beginning to groom, style, take care of their health and engage in hobbies. The camping industry's growth in sales soared to 600 billion won in 2014 from 70 billion won in 2009 and the camping population increased to 3 million, up from 600,000 in 2009, according to data from Camping Outdoor. Men in their 40s or older also began to drink less, make reservations for skin care, and buy sports-utility vehicles and motorcycles. 10. Life-designing parents, architec-kids Parents have always been intrusive in their children's lives in Korea but the future looks bleak for these children to detach from their parents. As single child households are increasing, parents are pouring their income and energy into designing their children's lives for decades to come. Architec-kids, referring to children whose lives are constructed by their parents, come from young parents born in the 1980s and are accustomed to competition and who share information on childrearing through social networking services.

Credithttp://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2016/01/602_195392.html

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