Who Decides If BTS’s Album ‘Arirang’ is ‘Korean Enough’? | Teen Vogue

A Korean artist does not have to be limited to using their country’s traditional instruments and speaking in their own language to be a Korean artist.

In this op-ed, writer Jiye Kim explores the question some fans are asking—is the BTS album Arirang Korean enough?—and how we think about cultural identity. Last month, a friend of mine asked how I’d celebrated Seollal. There was an underlying assumption that I would have gone about the Lunar New Year in the traditional way: eating tteokguk (rice cake soup), playing the traditional board game yutnori, and dressing in hanbok to do sebae to my elders. I had, in fact, lain listlessly on the couch through a heat wave, contemplating whether to finally finish Stranger Things. Did this make me a bad K

related reading

• RM, the leader of K-pop band BTS: ‘We work so hard in Korea because 70 years ago there was nothing’ | Culture | EL PAÍS Englishenglish.elpais.com
• Crying in H Mart | The New Yorkernewyorker.com
• How to belong - by Arim Lee - Monkey Musharimlee.substack.com
• Growing Up With K-Poppudding.cool
• What K-pop Is Really Sellingyoutube.com
• Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, & 'The Idea Of You' Prove We Live In A Fan Economybustle.com
• K-Pop’s Fallen Hard for Y2K-Era R&Bjoysauce.com
• Mediumdavelu.medium.com
• How Korean ‘K-drama’ TV created a phenomenon bigger than Squid Gamepolygon.com
• Korean Zeitgeist - Exporting soft power through miseryterminaldrift.substack.com
• The Real Reason South Koreans Aren’t Having Babies - The Atlantictheatlantic.com
• Karina and capitalism of parasocial K-pop relationships - The Korea Timeskoreatimes.co.kr