How one Korean song changed my life
Back in 2009, when I was 15 years old, I was browsing YouTube for a song called ‘miracle’. I was actually searching for a song made by a Dutch artist, but ended up playing Super Junior’s miracle.
Now, this song was quite a miracle, indeed. All of a sudden thirteen Korean guys were singing in a language that was totally unfamiliar to me. K-pop was an unfamiliar concept to me too. I had never seen a boy band consisting of 13 guys before.
I really liked the song, though. It sounded super happy, the music video was cute, the guys were cute, and Korean just sounded like candy in my ears.
That’s where my K-pop journey started. I started to look for more Super Junior songs. Eventually, I became an ‘’ELF’’ (Everlasting Friend, which is how Super Junior fans refer to each other). I knew all of SuJu (Super Junior)’s songs by heart. I couldn’t speak Korean at all back then. Hangul seemed very hard to me. I didn’t know back then that it was quite easy to learn.
In the beginning, I used lyrics videos to make sense of the lyrics. As I got to know about more K-pop, my interest in the Korean language grew too. While I liked how upbeat and happy K-pop sounded, I was even more eager to be able to speak this language I was constantly listening too. That’s when I started my first attempts at learning the Korean alphabet, which was probably around 2011. I mastered the alphabet, but my vocabulary was very restricted. I only knew how to say ‘’hello’’, ‘’thank you’’, ‘’Korea’’, and ‘’oppa, I love you’’ (which I find very cringe-worthy right now, but I was just another victim of the K-pop virus).
As time passed by, I started to slowly ‘’discover’’ Korea step by step. In 2011, I also discovered Korean dramas. While I was still in high school, I had still plenty of time available to watch K-dramas. And I did. I have to admit, the Korea displayed in those K-dramas is very different from the ‘real’ Korea as I discovered later. But I was just enjoying the process of discovering hallyu. Side note: I still find K-dramas are quite entertaining, but it’s just not on my priorities list anymore. It takes up a lot of time. As a (ex)-student of Korean Studies, I like to use that time for discovering the ‘real’ Korea.
A little fast forward to 2014. In March that year, I visited Korea for the very first time with my mom. Though we were only in Korea for 1 week, that short trip had quite an impact on my life. I had been considering to enroll into Korean Studies at university for years, but this trip confirmed for me that I should just do it. I had some doubts about my personal abilities, but I decided to just go for it and see wherever it would take me. That sounds kind of passive – I actually worked really hard during my bachelor – but it was nevertheless an important moment in my life.
In September 2014, then, I indeed was enrolled in Korean Studies. This is when I started to take my Korean language study very seriously. However, Korean Studies is not just about the Korean language. It is only considered as a ‘tool’ to read academic Korean texts. (Hence, our classes are named ‘Korean for academic purposes’). As time passed by and I got to know Korea’s history, culture and people into detail, the Korea depicted in popular Korean media slowly started to fade. I’ll be honest: I had some misconceptions on Korea and had created a kind of utopian version of Korea in my mind. Lovey-dovey sceneries in cute Korean cafes and pretty walking sites made me want to visit Korea. (Side note two: Korean cafes are indeed really cute – Korea’s ‘cafe culture’ is real: there are so many diverse and themed cafes. I do miss them back home).
However, Korea’s contemporary reality is that it is common to work 12 hours a day. How do you even go to cute lovey-dovey cafes if you don’t have time to? Or when you feel too tired to have a walk at these pretty walking sides?
Yet, despite the fact that reality hit me early, I didn’t lose my motivation in my studies. Rather, I felt a kind of inner curiosity to find out the ‘real’ Korea into detail. The more I started to learn about Korea, the more I wanted to know. And that is still true up to today. There are so more interesting and fascinating aspects of Korea left.
After four years of studying Korean culture, history and society, I do feel like I have a good sense of what Korea is like. History is essential to understand how present Koreans think and behave. I’m still very intrigued by what motivates Koreans to behave the way they do.
Hallyu is spreading quickly nowadays. More and more Korean artists are coming to Europe. During my trip to Warsaw last week, I just happened to pass by a cosmetics store that sells Korean skincare products. This is a very recent phenomenon, and it’s not necessarily bad. It has been stimulating an increase in the number of tourists visiting Korea. And visiting Korea is by far the best way to discover Korea. Ideally, you should just live in Korea. I lived in Seoul for seven months. But the longer you live in Korea, the more you will get to understand the country.
My conclusion: feel free to enjoy the hallyu as much as you want. I’m not a hater – I still listen to K-pop nowadays. A lot of K-pop songs in my playlist just brighten my day, and I’m very glad that I discovered them. Sadly, the K-pop artists that I used to listen to a lot (Super Junior, DBSK, Girls’ Generation, etc.) either disbanded or are kind of inactive. However, they still impact my life today. If it weren’t for Super Junior’s miracle, I would perhaps never had enrolled in Korean Studies, lived overseas or made international friendships – very precious experiences. I might also not be a member of the studygram community. For me, K-pop itself was quite a miracle.
Our international class 4B: students from Russia, Japan, Taiwan, France and China.
With my Japanese roommate, Aya.
With my Korean friend.
With my friends from China and Russia.
Now, this song was quite a miracle, indeed. All of a sudden thirteen Korean guys were singing in a language that was totally unfamiliar to me. K-pop was an unfamiliar concept to me too. I had never seen a boy band consisting of 13 guys before.
I really liked the song, though. It sounded super happy, the music video was cute, the guys were cute, and Korean just sounded like candy in my ears.
That’s where my K-pop journey started. I started to look for more Super Junior songs. Eventually, I became an ‘’ELF’’ (Everlasting Friend, which is how Super Junior fans refer to each other). I knew all of SuJu (Super Junior)’s songs by heart. I couldn’t speak Korean at all back then. Hangul seemed very hard to me. I didn’t know back then that it was quite easy to learn.
In the beginning, I used lyrics videos to make sense of the lyrics. As I got to know about more K-pop, my interest in the Korean language grew too. While I liked how upbeat and happy K-pop sounded, I was even more eager to be able to speak this language I was constantly listening too. That’s when I started my first attempts at learning the Korean alphabet, which was probably around 2011. I mastered the alphabet, but my vocabulary was very restricted. I only knew how to say ‘’hello’’, ‘’thank you’’, ‘’Korea’’, and ‘’oppa, I love you’’ (which I find very cringe-worthy right now, but I was just another victim of the K-pop virus).
As time passed by, I started to slowly ‘’discover’’ Korea step by step. In 2011, I also discovered Korean dramas. While I was still in high school, I had still plenty of time available to watch K-dramas. And I did. I have to admit, the Korea displayed in those K-dramas is very different from the ‘real’ Korea as I discovered later. But I was just enjoying the process of discovering hallyu. Side note: I still find K-dramas are quite entertaining, but it’s just not on my priorities list anymore. It takes up a lot of time. As a (ex)-student of Korean Studies, I like to use that time for discovering the ‘real’ Korea.
A little fast forward to 2014. In March that year, I visited Korea for the very first time with my mom. Though we were only in Korea for 1 week, that short trip had quite an impact on my life. I had been considering to enroll into Korean Studies at university for years, but this trip confirmed for me that I should just do it. I had some doubts about my personal abilities, but I decided to just go for it and see wherever it would take me. That sounds kind of passive – I actually worked really hard during my bachelor – but it was nevertheless an important moment in my life.
In September 2014, then, I indeed was enrolled in Korean Studies. This is when I started to take my Korean language study very seriously. However, Korean Studies is not just about the Korean language. It is only considered as a ‘tool’ to read academic Korean texts. (Hence, our classes are named ‘Korean for academic purposes’). As time passed by and I got to know Korea’s history, culture and people into detail, the Korea depicted in popular Korean media slowly started to fade. I’ll be honest: I had some misconceptions on Korea and had created a kind of utopian version of Korea in my mind. Lovey-dovey sceneries in cute Korean cafes and pretty walking sites made me want to visit Korea. (Side note two: Korean cafes are indeed really cute – Korea’s ‘cafe culture’ is real: there are so many diverse and themed cafes. I do miss them back home).
However, Korea’s contemporary reality is that it is common to work 12 hours a day. How do you even go to cute lovey-dovey cafes if you don’t have time to? Or when you feel too tired to have a walk at these pretty walking sides?
Yet, despite the fact that reality hit me early, I didn’t lose my motivation in my studies. Rather, I felt a kind of inner curiosity to find out the ‘real’ Korea into detail. The more I started to learn about Korea, the more I wanted to know. And that is still true up to today. There are so more interesting and fascinating aspects of Korea left.
After four years of studying Korean culture, history and society, I do feel like I have a good sense of what Korea is like. History is essential to understand how present Koreans think and behave. I’m still very intrigued by what motivates Koreans to behave the way they do.
Hallyu is spreading quickly nowadays. More and more Korean artists are coming to Europe. During my trip to Warsaw last week, I just happened to pass by a cosmetics store that sells Korean skincare products. This is a very recent phenomenon, and it’s not necessarily bad. It has been stimulating an increase in the number of tourists visiting Korea. And visiting Korea is by far the best way to discover Korea. Ideally, you should just live in Korea. I lived in Seoul for seven months. But the longer you live in Korea, the more you will get to understand the country.
My conclusion: feel free to enjoy the hallyu as much as you want. I’m not a hater – I still listen to K-pop nowadays. A lot of K-pop songs in my playlist just brighten my day, and I’m very glad that I discovered them. Sadly, the K-pop artists that I used to listen to a lot (Super Junior, DBSK, Girls’ Generation, etc.) either disbanded or are kind of inactive. However, they still impact my life today. If it weren’t for Super Junior’s miracle, I would perhaps never had enrolled in Korean Studies, lived overseas or made international friendships – very precious experiences. I might also not be a member of the studygram community. For me, K-pop itself was quite a miracle.
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