::A Geek in Korea::

The solar New Year is when everyone in Korea eats some rice dumpling soup and adds a year to their age. It seems at first that there is a logic behind adding a year ignoring when someone is actually born, but when you factor in that Koreans count the time in the womb and then give children a birthday party at 100 days, it works out to be around a year from conception. Koreans play fast and loose with age in ways we foreigners don’t. I have yet to eat my rice cake soup, so that artificial ritual to add a year to my age hasn’t officially happened, but it’s already too late. People are already adding that extra year to my age, and since my birthday is in January, it’s a double whammy. For the next few days I’m two years older in Korean than my Western Age.

It’s not just my Korean age that is getting me down. My friend sent me a set of music tracks he’s been listening to for the past year. He and I used to host a radio show in college.  Of the tracks he’s listened to repeatedly, I had only heard two of the songs. Back in the day I was following music and hearing the new tracks before the radio stations were overplaying other people’s favorites. Back in the day I had time to listen to care about radio. 90% of the time my listening during walks or commuting to work is dominated by podcasts, and I’m annoyed when I have to dip into my music folder to pick something to listen to. It feels unproductive. I still like music and dig my favorite artists, but daily exposure to good music in Korea through media is nonexistent.

I’ve even taken up postions of a grouchy old man in the recent “SHINee vs. Big Bang” feud that has overtaken the school. A few weeks ago it was all about the Wonder Girls. They are now old hat, and I can’t be bothered to keep up with the trends of these students these days. Big Bang is wildly popular with pre-teens that have no taste and base their preferences for pop groups on the most androgynous band members. There is a literal “Big Bang” gang at my school with matching official fan coats that mocks their classmate’s musical tastes. The SHINee fans are small but vocal. They suck equally as bad as Big Bang but are the “alternative”. The students opposition to Big Bang usually arises out of a “Whatever my sister likes, I like the opposite,” mentality. There haven’t been any boy band based fights yet in class, but judging by the children’s musical taste it would probably a Sharks vs. Jets style musical number with tasteful trendy clothing.

Whenever anyone starts arguing why their particular group of dancing and singing boys is better than anyone else’s I just say, “Bah, kids today! Bands in my day had to actually know how to play musical instruments, and they didn’t have to dance around all the time! Why would anyone listen to pop music! You don’t even know what good music is! GET OFF MY LAWN!”

The only class that didn’t excel at making me feel like a decrepit old man this week was a class that reads about the rainforest in a storybook. We were reading about the jaguar, king of the jungle. The text read, “The jaguar is powerful and dangerous.” The students all said, “Dan-ger-oussss,” then shouted out,”That’s a Michael Jackson song!” How a group of ten year old Korean children knew the lyrics to a 1991 song is beyond me. Watching Michael Jackson dance with no band on stage, I guess things really aren’t that different these days.

Pop music has always sucked.