For many Americans, Asian food used to mean chop suey, chow mein or other Chinese-style dishes. No longer. Today, Americans have restaurants and grocery stores that feature Japanese, Thai, Korean, Indian, Burmese and other Asian cuisines.

The comfort women deal has been largely heralded by numerous experts as an example of successful diplomacy, but its success actually depends on how Park can reconcile disagreements within Korean society and effectively implement the deal.

China had earned a great deal of soft power by hosting the high-level summit. Soft power, or the non-military influence that a country and its culture can have around the globe, has been a matter of focus in certain sections of the Chinese foreign policy establishment. 

The Korean Wave, or the popularity of Korean culture, is the best tool for South Korea in reaching American people and bringing the two countries' closer together, said a United States diplomat recently posted in Seoul. "I think the best thing to use is a soft power approach. The best thing Koreans have going for them in foreign countries is the Korean Wave," Brian Peterson said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency on Friday.

The France-based leg of the yearlong South Korea-France cultural exchange project has drawn the curtains with a colorful flourish, celebratory of the 130th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic ties. As of the end of August, the events of the “Years 2015-2016 of Korea-France Bilateral Exchanges” have hailed about 2.26 million visitors in France, which ran from September 2015.

South Korea and Morocco have agreed to tighten collaboration in cultural sectors that include education, sports and youth exchanges as they seek closer bilateral diplomatic ties, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.

Tehran and Seoul opened their joint technology exchange center in a ceremony [...] President Park, in her meeting with the her Iranian counterpart, emphasized the need to revitalize trade and diversify cooperation to encompass investment and construction of such infrastructure projects...

During 2016, Korea has shown renewed efforts on the economic diplomacy front, particularly so towards Latin America. In that region, free trade agreements (FTAs) are in place with Chile, Peru, and Colombia ― the latter of which came into force July 15. Currently, multilateral negotiations are underway with countries from the Central American Integration System (SICA) since June and bilaterally with Ecuador since August 2015.