“When I see an adult on a bicycle I do not despair for the future of the human race.” -H.G. Wells
I’m sorry, I cheated on a previous blog post. I recommended a bike ride along the Han River in Seoul as a fabulous Spring activity if you are living in Korea, yet my feet hadn’t connected with pedals in almost a year. In an attempt to redeem myself, I along with two friends, ventured into Seoul this past Sunday and were successful in renting bikes and having a grand and glorious day. We saw kites, kid cars, bball players, swan boats, speed walkers, unicyclers, tandem bikers, gardeners, and dancing toddlers to name a few. Everyone was out on the river this weekend and you should have been too.
I know there are many places along the river to rent bikes, but I recommend starting your day at the Ttukseom Resort Seoul Subway Station (Line 7). It is conveniently located right on the water and you can spot the rental shop as soon as you walk out of the station. I paid 3,000 won for the first hour (less than $3.00) and I left my ID with the rental shop. When I returned more than three hours later I paid a bit more for the extra time and collected my ID. The process was easy and foreigner friendly.
Biking along the Han River was one of the best things I have done this Spring. Please enjoy my pictures and video included below and if you’ve rented bikes at a different location I would love to hear about your experience.
Any worries I had about ‘losing touch’ during my year abroad in Southeast Asia were quickly shattered one July night while I lay in a hostel bunk-bed in Taiwan. I opened my iPad to find an adorable yet slightly chubby Korean man decked out in hip glasses, a funky suit and an irresistible smirk busy bombarding every one of my bookmarked websites. That moment and many more in the following days and months reassured me that my move to Korea would not hinder my mission to stay relevantly informed about all things social. I could in fact keep in touch with friends, family and my growing passion (slight obsession) with social media creation and strategy. Gangnam Stylegave me a slight home-court advantage. While most Americans were busy Googling: ‘What the heck is a Gangnam?’, ‘Where did K-Pop come from?’ and ‘Who is Psy and is that his real name?’ I had time to catch up on my backlogged and favorited Tweets from Mashable, Gawker, Social Media Examiner and more.
At first my fellow teacher friends in Seoul eagerly posted the horse-dance video, just for kicks, to all available social wall space. Then, when the YouTube view count refused to plateau, I casually mentioned the video in Skype conversation with a friend who was enjoying the summer in New England. She giggled at the elevator dance scene and commented, “Wow Devan, Korea looks like a fun time.” A week later a second reply was digitally served, “So, you know that video you showed me? It’s here. It’s everywhere. It’s blowing up.” And although I scoffed at my real-life and Twitter friends who continued to miserably misspell ‘Gangnam’ in posts and had never been out clubbing in the song’s swanky section of Seoul, I was proud of Psy and the small yet fiercely determined, extremely successful, technologically advanced and warmhearted country that I chose to call home in 2012.
As I prepare to return home to NH in the next few months and further my career in social media strategy and communications, many details are uncertain. Job searching is a job in itself, but throw in 7,000 miles and a 14 hour time difference between you and your target professional setting and it becomes almost as challenging as mastering the horse-dance while fumbling through a few Korean lyrics about “a girl with that kind of twist”.
I know some may question why I up and left a marketing job in Boston to move to Korea to teach ESL and eat kimchi at every meal. I don’t think I will be able to answer this question fully for another few years, but I can say I am happier now than I was a year ago and I spent 2012 in close proximity to one of the year’s biggest social media stories. My time in Korea will always and forever be smack dab in the middle of ‘The Year of Gangnam Style’. Or maybe I have that mixed up: Psy’s year of fame just happened to occur during ‘Devan’s Korea Quest.’ Please, just for now, let me believe the latter to be true.
I almost missed my date with PSY, but I have a long subway ride and my love of Twitter to thank for getting me up front and personal with the man who brought Gangnam Style (722,762,395 views as of 11/15) to the world.
Five days on an island will leave you feeling disconnected. Although armed with a smart phone and tablet, I spent a long and blissfully detached getaway on Jeju this fall. I snapped a few pictures with my phone and did read a bit using my tablet, but for the most part I managed to stay away from the black hole that is the internet.
We arrived back in Seoul on a Wednesday evening with the Jeju travel group and from there I still had to venture further north to my city of Uijeongbu. I sat squished next to my vacation companions on the subway with little left to say to each other after five days of bonding. I took this time to catch up on my Twitter obsession and scrolled aimlessly through a few days worth of updates. All of a sudden I was bombarded with a blast of tweets about a free show Psy was promising his Seoul fans if he made it to #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. I had to piece together the news, but I gathered that there would be a free concert in Seoul that following night and that Psy might be shirtless at some point during the event. Less than 24 hours later I was on the same subway heading back into the city to finally meet the man who had recently, in the eyes of my family and friends, made my move to Korea an impressive one.
My friends and I decided to play it safe and we made our way into Seoul around 4pm for a 10pm concert start time. As we climbed the stairs to the Seoul City Hall subway exit we realized that the early arrival game-plan was not exclusively ours. The Seoul municipal government closed off streets around the exit and security and safety officials were already directing fans of all ages as they clamored to find the right sitting spot to wait out the early evening. We managed to find a small patch of grass to claim for the next few hours and the atmosphere continued to intensify as time ticked by.
At first I was impressed with the patient and orderly Koreans who sat quietly waiting for the right time to stand and enjoy the show, but then things got hectic. The section we were sitting in got closed off because too many people were trying to walk through the seated audience members. My friend who had gone in search of food was told she couldn’t rejoin us. Older Koreans who had been waiting for hours grew tired and had to be carried out of the crowd. I even witnessed one older gentleman faint in the middle of arguing with a security guard. One moment I was on the phone telling my detained friend to duck under the security tape and make a run for it and the next moment the Korean crowd simultaneously decided to stand up and rush the stage. Picnics were trampled as little children were scooped up. My other friend grabbed my arm as we were pushed forward and my constrained friend used the instant of confusion to dart into the moving crowd. A few minutes later we found ourselves smack dab in front of Psy’s stage. My lost friend found us and we all stood in silence admiring our close proximity to greatness.
It was only after the fact that I learned of the crowd’s staggering statistics. More than 80,000 people came out to see Psy perform for two hours. Psy was very humble on stage and there was more than one moment where he seemed to stop and just stare at the crowd in disbelief. He laughed and told us, “I did not get here because I was worthy of it. I’m here because of all of you. I’m just a fat man with two kids.” The Seoul concert was an elaborate thank you to Psy’s Korean fans, who supported him before the horse dance was a phenomenon. I admit, I did not know many of Psy’s other songs, although all were dance-worthy, but I was most curious to watch Psy perform, and boy did he. The crowd loved him and he took many opportunities to thank them for their continued support. He ran back and forth along a long stage that extended into the audience, only stopped dancing at one point to chug an entire bottle of soju, graced us with two versions of Gangnam Style and went shirtless at the end of the show, as promised. I went from watching the video (with no volume) on my iPad back in July, to being a few inches from the front row security guards with my surprised waegook face plastered all over the big screens. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, that happened. I love life.
So, before Gangnam Style‘s PSY becomes even more of a household name outside of Korea, perhaps with help from Justin Bieber (hold on, I will get to that), I feel the need to blog about this song, well really, the video. I first viewed the viral video while I was laying in the top bunk of a hostel room in Taiwan during my recent vacation. It was late, but I couldn’t sleep and I was quietly enjoying the hostel’s free WiFi and using my iPad to scroll through my Twitter and Facebook feeds. I had been disconnected from all forms of social media for a few days (I recommend trying it) and I was itching to catch up on all that I had missed. All of a sudden I was bombarded with posts about the Gangnam Style video, so I clicked on a link and was sent to YouTube. Being on the top bunk with my luggage below, I had to manage without my headphones and I watched the video in silence. The silent video was spectacular, and you can’t say that about most music videos. I was unaware of how big PSY’s comeback hit was at that moment, but I found myself entertained and impressed by the singer’s outlandish dance moves and the bizarre places he chose to display his skills. The next morning I experienced the real thing. I set up my iPad for a public viewing and my travel companions circled around to watch Gangnam Style, this time at full volume. Then we watched it again. And then a few more times after that.
Park Jae Sang, called PSY in Korea, is known for his entertaining and original dance moves and quirky sense of humor. Being from New England, I am proud to share that he is a Berklee College of Music graduate. Gangnam Style, from PSY’s 6th album, was released on July 15, along with the video. The song instantly became a K-Pop sensation, but what was interesting was that the video saw 2 million hits in just 5 days. The song itself is, from what I gather, about the swanky and affluent Gangnam district in Seoul, particularly the women in this area. The idea is that the women are proper and appropriate during the day, but they also know how to enjoy a good party come nightfall. Some translated lyrics (below) help in the understanding of PSY’s words:
A girl who is warm and humanle during the day
A classy girl who know how to enjoy the freedom of a cup of coffee
A girl whose heart gets hotter when night comes
A girl with that kind of twist
Throughout the video PSY dances his way through Gangnam. He parties in a bus, shimmies on the subway, gallops with his now famous “horse-riding dance” through a stable, distracts women practicing yoga, entertains onlookers in a pool and has a dance-off in a deserted parking garage, just to name a few. Among others, ABC and CNN have shown interest in the viral video and the well-known media blog Gawker.com wrote on July 30: Did This Underground Hip Hop Artist from South Korea Just Release the Best Music Video of the Year? Twitter blew up with tweets about the video and the artist’s work received praise from fellow musicians. T-Pain (@TPAIN) tweeted: “Words cannot even describe how amazing this video is.” and Josh Groban (@joshgroban) told his followers: “It’s a Gangnam Style world, we’re just living in it. Amazing video.”
Just yesterday, as I bonded over a popsicle and pop music with a student at my school, the topic of PSY came up, as it should. “He will sing with Justin Bieber!” the girl proudly announced. I almost fell off my swivel chair. She was so excited, so I went along with the story and waited to Google the claim’s validity at a later time. I understood Gangnam Style‘s popularity in Korea and the video’s few days of world-wide fame, but I was surprised to learn that PSY will in fact meet with Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, while he is visiting the US in the near future. Perhaps a PSY/Justin Bieber collaboration is in the future, or maybe Bieber is just a huge fan and is looking to learn more about Gangnam Style from the source itself. All I know is that Braun and Bieber were responsible for signing Carly Rae Jepsen, and we all know (whether we like it or not) how that went down. Skype Me Maybe, I’m in Gangnam.
mykoreaquest 