I love Super Junior. Super Junior is a fifteen member Korean pop group that I've been listening to for the past two years or so. I first heard about Super Junior from my flamboyant friend Simon, who went to China with the goal of finding, "The cutest boy band imaginable." What he found was Super Junior, whereupon he promptly posted the following music video on his myspace page:
Sitting up late at night watching it for the first time, I had no idea of the future impact it would have on my life.
Super Junior does not play good music. On an purely intellectual level, their music offends my sensibilities. They don't write their own lyrics, and the backround music is a mash of synthesized chords jumbled together in sterile studios for maximum mass-produced enjoyability. The members (all fifteen of them!) do have some talent, but their primary selling point seems to be not their singing, dancing, or showmanship, but rather their clear-eyed smiles and dazzling good looks.* Somehow though, despite my better judgment, that blend of cheesy lyrics, studio-produced computer beeps, and unspeakable attraction (multiplied by 15) won me over, and I found myself feeling insensibly happy.
So how did this all "Change my life" as the title of the blog proclaims? Even as an avid fan, I think the majority of their music is too vapid to have a lasting impact on my life. I suppose that if you calculate hours lost to my sister and I browsing the internet for details of their life ("Carissa, look, Heechul has a cat." "Look, Carissa, I just found a PSA SuJu did on Saving Engery." "Siwon's religion: Christian. It looks like he's OK for us to marry now, Carissa."), there is probably a minute impact on my life. But in the end, Super Junior is what introduced me to Korean popular culture, and made me notice the brochure for the program to teach here. Before Super Junior, all I knew about Korea was the bullet points of the Korean war, and that I really liked the kimchi and bibimbap served at the delicious, albeit greasy diner down the street from me. After Super Junior, I wanted to live in Korea... and now I do.
I told my friend Su-Chong today that I feel like I'm living somebody else's life. The sort of adventure that I'm having here feels like the sort of think I've only ever wanted. Every morning when I wake up, I have this slow groggy transition from the messy world of sleep to the realization, again and again, that I'm actually living in Korea. Little things excited me still, like seeing black squirrels, buying kimbap and waffles from street-side vendors, or bowing my head as a greeting. So much of Korea still has the flavor of the utterly exotic to me.
Even better than the exotic are the things that have now become like home. Just like in America, I have friends that I love, a multinational church where I worship, and school full of students whose futures are being shaped by the things I teach them. In ten years from now, I probably won't still listen to Super Junior. But ten years from now, all the people I've met here will still be indelibly stained onto my soul, giving me pause before I say or do or think.
-Renee Badenoch
PS: For those of you who are interested, here is a Super Junior playlist my sister compiled on youtube. It is a great way to get introduced for the uninitiated (although I would have included "Dancing Out" and "Victory Korea"), and even includes songs by some of the Suju sub-groups. http://www.youtube.com/user/lazygamingcook#p/c/3715C926FA642841/0/R8AZ1NLd-mk
*Super Junior is not as blatantly exploited for their good looks as other Korean boy bands. Big Bang recently released a music video that was nothing Taeyang--a member with a physique that would put Edward Cullen to shame--singing shirtless in an inexplicably raining warehouse. I don't speak enough Hangul to understand the song, but I imagine that the gist of it was, "Did you notice my pectoral muscles? What about these chiseled bricks of abdomens, eh?" I couldn't watch the whole thing, because I felt bad for the guy singing it, like I feel bad for prostitutes.
Dear young girls who read this blog of Renée's,
ReplyDeleteRenée has many wonderful, interesting and meaningful things to say. Ask her about justice or what she thinks is demanded of us as believers. Listen well. However, she has a weakness. She has spoken of it here and I will confirm: Super Junior is not good music. In fact, it's more than bad music - it is a poor life choice. Though she knows it, she is still lured in by their super-produced siren song of generic pumping beats. Beware. It is part of her intention to get you to follow in this way because she has been captured by it. On this occasion, only listen to part of what she is saying.
Super Junior is made to manipulate you and make money. They will cause you to scream and screech. "Screech" here is a word that means, "to drive away and infuriate everyone who is not a girl between the ages of 10 and 25 using a super-sonic pulse". There are many other musicians who are worth admiring. Talk to the cute boy at your school who plays the guitar. Go on. He's a person just like you, not magical so you don't have to be intimidated. In fact, you'll find out that he has flaws and doesn't always act the way you wish he would. Super Junior would rather that you not see the less-attractive or less-interesting side of guys. Sometimes we really enjoy playing video games or focus on a project and ignore you. It's a problem but it happens.
Though the guitar-playing boy is flawed, he's accessible and you'll have the chance to realize that love and infatuation are different. Love is a choice you make over time to care for another person no matter what and this true love really can change people, communities and the world. Infatuation is a thrill like the scent of a flower or good food but it passes just as fast as it came and isn't even substantive enough to hold in your hand. "Substantive" here means "full enough and real enough to matter".
Ask me if you have any questions.
Your friend,
Danny