When an economic crisis hits, there are a lot of repercussions, from skyrocketing unemployment to plummeting markets. It’s sometimes hard to remember that these events can influence individuals and their experiences — that’s what Binghamton University students learned in Lecture Hall 10 on Friday.

As part of the Harpur College Dean’s Speaker Series, Joseph Jonghyun Jeon, an English professor from Pomona College, presented “Transnational Encounters.” He described South Korea’s geopolitical and macroeconomic transition in the wake of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis in the context of Jeong Jae-eun’s film “Take Care of My Cat,” which follows a group of five women after the crisis.

The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis was the slowing down of several Asian countries’ economies in which many currencies were devalued and markets failed, leading to decreasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) values and increasing unemployment. The crisis had a lasting social and economic effect on South Korea, which is evident throughout “Take Care of My Cat.” The film profiles women, who are in their early 20s and from the South Korean city of Incheon, as they experience economic hardships as a result of the crisis.

Robert Ku, a professor of Asian American studies and one of the series’ organizers, said that the recent popularity of Korean culture inspired organizers to invite a speaker to discuss a South Korean film.

“We thought that contemporary Korean culture is something that a lot of young students have been increasingly consuming, especially K-pop and Korean dramas and films have an audience that is transnational,” Ku said. “A big part of the speaker series is the transnational aspect of Korean contemporary culture so we thought a talk about film would be a good addition to that program.”

Jeon said he chose this film to analyze because it shows how the crisis affected individuals. He said that the infrastructure of the city made it seem wealthy, but the wealth was not distributed evenly.

”On one hand the abundance of the flowing capital responsible for the massive infrastructure in Incheon was a prominent backdrop of the film, but on the other hand there is an absence of wealth among residents of the neighborhood, especially their friends and neighbors,” Jeon said. “She seems surrounded by wealth, but no one seems wealthy.”

Jeon discussed the central theme of cell phones and text messaging in the film as a symbol of how quickly South Koreans adopted to new-age digital technology and globalization. However, he mentioned that they were only introduced to these technologies as consumers and were not given the opportunity to acquire jobs in their production.

“In some ways the film is very interested in what the phone technology allows, but one of the things that’s somehow hidden is the fact that the new technology, although available as consumer products, is not available as labor,” Jeon said. “They can’t get jobs in those areas. In fact, they can’t really get jobs anywhere.”

Youn Soo Kim, a first year Ph.D. student, said the topic of transnationalism is especially pertinent and it is interested in how it is tied to the media.

“It was interesting how the film and media can be connected very closely with the economic or social situation for Korea in this case and many other countries,” Kim said. “The film can represent a specific time period in history with the digital adaption.”