![]() ![]() I had strict parents, so I didn’t get to do much outside of school, but I did go to hagwon - a cram school called Valley Newton where I spent my summer and weekend hours memorizing SAT words. I was in late elementary school when I first delved into Korean pop culture. Anything that we can lay claim to feels like it must be worthwhile, whether it’s high internet speeds, a perfectly phonetic alphabet, or a decadent love of pork and alcohol. ![]() Maybe this is why Koreans celebrate even stupid things that feel particularly Korean - I’ve heard Koreans brag about avoiding SARS because of kimchi. A prickly, defensive sort of pride in a heritage riddled with defeat and occupation, getting demeaned and subjugated, imperialized and erased, even as we guarded a sense of wounded nationalist superiority. No one taught me to do this, or at least I hope they didn’t, but I recognize it now as a natural Korean reflex. ![]() If you were hitting “refresh” in the glow of your phone all night, waiting for “Map of the Soul: 7" to drop, BTS has richly rewarded your patience. Korean dramas started becoming wildly popular, and Korea’s new film industry announced itself with 1999’s action thriller “Shiri,” the country’s first Hollywood-style blockbuster, with a then record-breaking budget of $8.5 million.īTS album review: ‘Map of the Soul: 7' charts a path forward for K-pop It wasn’t just K-pop that came into its own in the ’90s. The Korean Wave may be riding at an all-time high, but it’s been building since the late 1990s, thanks to targeted government investment in the entertainment industry, designed to spread Korean pop culture worldwide. stadiums, performed in Times Square as part of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2020 and whose new album, “Map of the Soul: 7,” is already breaking sales records since it dropped Friday. is BTS, a Korean phenomenon that sells out U.S. made us little weirdos, teenybopping in a different world from the rest of our classmates. ![]() was one of K-pop’s first breakout acts, an early export of what has since become known as the Korean Wave, or hallyu. Kang Ta”), we were witnessing the birth of a genre that has since become a global juggernaut. member was cutest (Kang Ta) and vied for who got to marry him (signing notes passed in class “Mrs. We weren’t aware of this at the time, but while we discussed which H.O.T. Most of us are Korean American, and we met in middle school in the late 1990s, bonding over our shared heritage - or rather our earnest love for the Korean boy band H.O.T. I landed a couple of hours after the Oscars to a flurry of celebratory texts in the group chat I keep with my best friends. When “Parasite” made cinematic history by winning Academy Awards not just for international film, original screenplay and director but for best picture, I was in the air, flying home to Los Angeles. ![]()
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February 2023
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