South Korean universities have become a popular study-abroad destination for female Chinese students who choose the country with the goal of intensifying their fan activities. Even after arriving in Korea, these fans remain within the Chinese fandom community in Korea (which is separate from the Korean fandom) and continue to engage with their original fan communities in China through virtual networks. This presentation examines the conational fan community as an enclave through which Chinese student-fans navigate the host country while maintaining distance from it. The Chinese K-pop fandom provides these students with a sense of safety and comfort, especially in contrast to the inhospitable environment of Korean campuses and broader society amidst rising Sinophobia in South Korea. Moreover, this space offers a variety of imagined, mediated, and physical forms of attachment, serving as a crucible for these Chinese youths’ personal growth outside the university and shaping their visions for the future.

Jiyeon Kang is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Korean Studies at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on digital media, publics and counterpublics, global higher education, and student mobility within and across East Asia. She is especially interested in how marginalized groups reshape dominant discourses and create livable conditions in an inhospitable environment. She is currently studying emergent norms of intercultural and international coexistence in the undergraduate student interchange among South Korea, China, and the United States.