When I arrived in Korea in 2007, my first exposure to K-pop was a band called Super Junior which is comprised of 12 (or 13, there is some debate) pretty boys. Watching this video, I was struck by two things. First, how flamboyantly cute the guys were acting, and second the number of Snoopy shirts.
Characters are really popular here. Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, Garfield, Mickey Mouse, ...Everyone in Korea knows who Snoopy is too but I doubt they could tell you anything about him.
First, you see a yellow Snoopy Tee on Sung Min.
Then you might notice that in the dance scene, all the band members are wearing black and white striped Snoopy shirts.
Yet ANOTHER Snoopy shirt.
A Charlie Brown shirt.
Han Kyeong is trying to decide between TWO Snoopy shirts.
Life is tough, isn't it.
I can't picture any of my guy friends from home dolled up like this, but in fact, being pretty or cute is more of an asset for a guy here than being traditionally handsome. Since homosexuality officially "doesn't exist" in Korea and remains unacknowledged by the general public, guys can be as metro sexual as they want without risk of anyone calling them gay.
At first, when I saw how boys here hold each other's hands and touch each other freely I felt uncomfortable because I am used to many guys being homophobic, but now I think it is liberating to have everyone be so secure about their sexuality. Unfortunately this comes at a price. The culture is rigid in it's non-acceptance of gays, although I hope this is slowly changing.
Only mainstream Korean writing is available in English, which means I never had much of an opportunity to read literature representing any minority group or subculture. That is, until I found an interesting blog on myspace where a Korean American translates gay fiction and poetry into English. Reading this has been fascinating and helped me understand just how suffocating Korean culture can be.
As you watch the video, you will see that the band members have no shame about being absolutely cute and pretty, right down to wearing lip gloss so shiny it is nearly blinding. They touch each other a lot too. This is normal with Korean guys and their male friends. They tend to act like a typical image of sixteen year old girls at a sleepover; they pounce on each other, tickle, slap, fight, wrestle, fix each other's hair, hug...
At the end of the video you will see Super Junior standing in a public place holding up "free hug" signs. Free Hugs are quite popular in Korea. People wait in a crowded area with those signs and as you walk past you can hug them. It happened to me just last weekend when I was in Myeong Dong, right outside of Forever 21 (where I bought a ton of cute clothes). Some people were holding up free hug signs and I hugged one of them. It made me feel really warm and bubbly inside. If you have the opportunity to get a free hug, I recommend doing it.
Hugging aside, Koreans love to make hand gestures. Sometimes I think they make more hand gestures than actual facial expressions. For example putting two fingers up to your head like horns means, "angry." Putting one hand on either side of your cheeks means, "I'm being cute." There are gestures for "glitter," "one more time," "sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," "that's very hot..." Everyone, from elementary school to grandmothers, is familiar with these signs.
Here, Shindong is crossing his forearms in front of him. This is a common Korean hand gesture meaning "No." When it's a small no, they sometimes only make an X with their fingers. When it's an emphatic no, they can go as far as to cross their forearms and their legs to let you know that No means NO! The opposite of this, making an O with your hands over your head, means, "yes".
Check out the boys making a heart with their hands. My students rarely say the word love (which they pronounce luhbew) without it being accompanied by making the hand heart.
An even greater love can be expressed by making the head heart by placing your arms over your head like a heart.
The hand heart AND the head heart. There is some serious love in this video, and obviously it's all for ME! ;)
