For probably the first 20 years of my life Korea was simply a country that existed on this planet that I couldn’t care about one way or the other. I knew it was a country with which the US had gone to war with before I was born, I knew that it was frequently on the TV at home because my parents were huge fans of M*A*S*H, and that I like 불고기 (Bulgogi), a deliciously marinated beef dish that just made you melt in your chair. Other than that, it was simply a faraway land where people lived that I didn’t have much interest in.
When I was 21, and in my senior year of college at Bucknell University, I was in an International Relations Class called Globalization where we focused on the increasing inter-connectedness of the world. Our Professor, David Rojas, an anthropologist, had us read the first few chapters of a book called “The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture” by Euny Hong. The book had an interesting take on a country that I previously had not focused on much, due to my degree focus being on European relations, and the angle that the book took described Korea as a nation of innovation. I thoroughly enjoyed the first few chapters that I read at that time, but as I had to finish my degrees and write all the papers, I didn’t have time to purchase a complete copy of the book and sit down and read it. This was my true first exposure to the country.
About a year and a half later, I was out of school, working my first job at a law firm, and was getting tired of the American music scene. It was all beginning to sound repetitive, electronic and boring. Out of this boredom, instead of playing my usual playlist completely full of French and English songs, I went on a search within Apple Music for a new playlist and came across a Global Hits playlist, full of all of the top charting songs from around the world. I was ready to expand my musical horizons, and this seemed like a way to do it. I was sitting at my desk at the law firm, working on some spreadsheet, when this slightly electronic, foreign song came one from a group that I had never heard of before. I didn’t immediately unlock my phone to take a look at what it was, instead I decided to let the whole song play out to give it a full honest review before judging it. The entire song was partially in English and then some other language that I had never heard before, but, man, this tune was “fire”. It was so lit that I was full out dancing in my chair, which is something I hadn’t done in a long time. Once the song was nearing its end, I finally reached back and touched my phone so that I could restart the song once it ended, and finally saw the title. It was called Monster by a group called EXO.
At this point in time, I was completely lusting over this song. It was ultra sexy and upbeat, but it had this vibe to it that was completely unfamiliar, yet familiar at the same time. It was pop, but it sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. It had this deep sexy bass to it, with these phenomenal singers, who sounded very well-trained, and excellent harmonies. I let the song play a second time as I immediately pulled up YouTube on my computer to search for the music video. Upon finding the video, and clicking play, I was immediately greeted by these dudes with bomb hair that slightly reminded me of Final Fantasy characters all wearing jumpsuits, and then some dude with a chain hanging off of his lips. I immediately thought to myself “OMFG I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. OMG PRETTY BOYS COVERED IN BLOOD! I THINK I’M IN LOVE!” Insert tongue rolling out of the mouth, and staring at the screen. And then the dancing in the chorus came on, and I actually fell off of my chair onto the floor. This video, this song, is everything that I need in my life and more. I felt the musical void in my heart immediately be filled by this one, sweet song.
After watching that video a few more times, followed by the performance version where I fell off of my chair again in amazement at the coordination and talent of these boys who couldn’t be that much older than me, I opened a Google search page, and immediately pulled up the Wikipedia article on the group. I began to read “Okay, they are a 9 person, South Korean boy group formed in 2012 by some company called SM Entertainment… South Korea… What do I know about South Korea? Gangnam Style? No, it was something I read… THAT BOOK FROM PROFESSOR ROJAS’ CLASS!”
I immediately log into my school account to find the syllabus from that class, and after digging for a few minutes, I find a copy of the syllabus, as well as a PDF of the first few chapters that our professor had let us have. I immediately pull the PDF up and begin reading again, praising the newly created K-Pop gods called EXO that my boss was on vacation that week and that he was to find out the next week that I would be leaving the company for my current one. So quite frankly, I didn’t care if I got caught. This was too fascinating. I read through the first few chapters again, and felt again the rush I got when reading the first few chapters back in college. I thirsted for more of that book and immediately went onto Barnes and Noble and purchased the full book, shipping it to the office. I had to read more.
That night when I went home, I immediately began reading more about EXO, watching more of their music videos, and being thoroughly amazed at the level of skill and talent these young men possessed. I was enamoured with their musicality, their sense of style, and how perfect they all appeared. Quite frankly, they all physically possessed shades of what I found attractive growing up, and briefly abandoned in college. They were of slender build with more angular pointed chins, and absolutely none of them were hairy. My favorite. At this point, all of their faces still looked very similar to each other, but over the next few weeks, as my workload was dying down because I was leaving, I spent time watching them on tons of different TVs shows, familiarizing myself with their faces and personalities, and eventually was able to distinguish who they all were on sight, within half a second. Quite frankly, I was proud. This had been one of the greatest accomplishments I had had since graduation after getting my first big girl job, and I wanted to keep it going.
Within 48 hours of receiving my copy of Birth of Korean Cool in the mail, I had finished the whole thing and began to listen to G-Dragon. He was mentioned in the book, and I wanted to know why. After 24 hours I had listened to my fair share of G-Dragon, as well as Big Bang, and the solidification of Korean Music as being fricking awesome was completed within my heart. All that was left, was to listen to every song out there, and then I would feel complete.
As I still have yet to do that, my K-Pop journey is still continuing strong, and will probably continue on for who knows how long. Since my Korean love infancy, I have grown up to an adolescent stage. I have read a bit about Korean history, read more into modern Korean culture, and have even taught myself quite a bit of the Korean language to the point that I can read it relatively comfortably a year and 3 months later. My Korean language learning journey is not over yet as with learning any language, there is always more to learn. I will tell you more about how I have been teaching myself Korean including what resources I recommend in another series of posts that I will link here once they are completed.
That’s it for now, and thanks for reading K-Nuggets!
사랑합니다!
–Rachel
