To her mother in South Korea, SuJin Kim is a failure: She’s over 30, single and not working for a big Korean corporation. But to her millions of followers in Latin America, she has become a relatable friend and a teacher of all things Korean. In Mexico, where she lives, they know her, in fact, as “Chinguamiga,” her online nickname, a mash-up of the words for friend in Korean and Spanish. Her success has been propelled not just by her ingenuity and charisma, but also by a wave of South Korean popular culture that has swept the world, driven in part by a government effort to position the country as a cultural giant and to exert a soft power. In her homeland, Ms. Kim, 32, struggled with the grind of a hypercompetitive society where success is defined narrowly and young women face diminishing labor prospects, grueling work schedules, sexism and restrictive beauty standards.

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Persons: SuJin Kim, “, Kim Locations: South Korea, Latin America, Mexico