Korean Wave hits Teenagers.

       

         I am sure everyone has heard a K-POP song. May it be Girls Generations “Gee” ,  2NE1’s “I Don’t Care”  or the more popular Super Junior’s “Sorry Sorry”.  K-POP is now spreading all over the world. Korea is definitely happy about this because  It gives their country fame and it boosts their economy since a lot of tourists wants to see their favorite K-POP Idol Groups.  K-POP  also influenced a lot of people, particularly teenagers. Sadly, K-POP became our life, our dream and our identity.

        “Life without music is wrong”, a popular quote that almost everyone believes. Music has become a part of our lives but for others it is their life. I am not referring to musicians who make music their “life”- that is understood, what I am referring to though is that some K-POP addicts make K-POP/ K-POP artists their lives. I heard from a Korean news broadcast that students in Korea skip school just to follow and stalk their favorite Korean Idol Group. They would spend all their allowances for taxi fairs just to follow that singer’s car. Weird? There is more. At times these students also sleep in the singer’s condominium parking entrance just to wait for the arrival of their king. They even barge in the singer’s unit! K-POP has become the lives of these students. They quite studying just to try and meet up with their idols which they don’t really meet at all! Strange, but true.

        A lot of news articles, particularly in Korea, also shows how students are desperate in going in the K-POP industry. They want to be famous admits the fact that Korean singer are mistreated and are paid low.  In Korea, aspiring singers are trained in a minimum of 1 year, depending on how “good” you are, and a maximum of 7 years just to be a K-POP star. They experience rigorous training and at times lack rest because of dance practices and because of the pressure from their perfectionist trainers. Regardless of this issue, people still want to be K-POP stars. They want fame more that anything! That becoming a K-POP star is a dream come true. A fantasy into a reality.  Statistics even show that Korean parents would prefer their child to be a superstar s rather than to be in a professional career. K-POP has truly become their goal in life.

Some statements from DBSK, a K-POP Idol group who sued their agency, SM Entertainment because of maltreatment and abuse.

“We are exhausted both physically and mentally from the intensive schedules both planned and initiated one-sidedly by our agency for the last 5 years since we debuted.” 

“Except for 1 week in an entire year, we ran schedules that allowed us to get only 3-4 hours of sleep per day.”
“A 13 year contract, in reality, meant a life-long contract. Including the time we would need to complete our military service, this contract would lengthen to over 15 years. This meant that there were still almost 10 years left in our contracts. Realistically, this meant that we would be bound until we retired from the Entertainment Industry."

        Lastly, K-POP has become our identity. The powerful influence of K-POP changed who we are. We love K-POP so much that we want people to know and see that we are K-POP lovers. We align are beliefs to what these artists believe in, we even adopted their weird hair colors and style. We no longer have our own identity. There is no originality! We want everything to be “K-POPped” and we want to be “Koreans”. There is actually nothing wrong with changing your hair color to red  because your K-POP Idol Star’s hair is red or with wearing shorts over pants and adopting the style of these K-POP Idols. The bad part is when we lose who we are and what we are here for because of K-POP.

        K-POP is a unique genre. You never know what they’ll give next. I like K-POP, but then I chose what I listen to. I can say I also want to go to Korea to learn more about their culture and style. Liking K-POP or Korea isn't wrong. Being controlled and losing your identity because of K-POP and Korea is what’s wrong.

-Maxine Chua. A56A