Vignette #1CHAPTER 1: Talking about Taiji emotionally: 3 Case Studies & Yun-hûi[ch. 1] Kang-t'ae[ch. 1] Chae-tol[ch. 1] conclusionCHAPTER 2: Talking about Seo Taiji, popular music and gendered meanings[ch. 2] Popular music and gendered meanings[ch. 2] Popular music and gendered meanings cont.[ch. 2] Taiji and gender 1 - 쟈넷의 논문
Seo Taiji 1992-2004: South Korean popular music and masculinity (my master's thesis) © Janet Hilts 2006 - please note: this is not the final version of my thesis.



Vignette #1


A small city in Kyôngsangbuk-do, South Korea, winter 2002

I was wooed with a Seo Taiji cd. At the time, as a young Canadian in her mid twenties still swimming in the euphoric and confused first phase of culture shock, I didn’t notice. One day on the weekend outside of class, I received a Seo Taiji cd from one of my students a little younger than me. He was handsome, athletic and very determined and hardworking when it came to learning English. I liked him. At the time I received the cd, actually a copied cd off his computer, I knew almost nothing about South Korea. This cd taught me more than just how valued Taiji is to many Koreans of my generation. In receiving it, I began to learn about the relations between many Korean young men and women, a gendered world that falsely seemed simple.
When my student gave me the cd, he said that his girlfriend was angry he had made it for me. I remember clearly I though something along the lines of “What a pathetic girlfriend. She must be crazy. It’s just a cd! He’d better break up with this jealous psycho of a girlfriend before he goes insane too!” I kept my mouth shut (thank god) but it took a few months to realize her reaction to my gift was not “crazy” or “pathetic” but actually quite ordinary. As I began to try to make sense of my surroundings, I began to realize that the behaviours of many couples around my age, which to me seemed like middle school-aged antics, were actually serious and meaningful. Though still very confused about how a 25 or 26 year old women could get upset over her boyfriend making some other female a small present, I realized that receiving this cd meant more than I had assumed.


CHAPTER 1: Talking about Taiji emotionally: 3 Case Studies & Yun-hûi


Like many researchers, I began my interviewing process looking for information, in my case information on what young people think about Seo Taiji, his music and about gender issues. What was interesting in many interviews was less the information given, but more the emotion in young people’s talk about Taiji and the emotionality of their engagement with Taiji and his music. In this chapter, I chose to highlight emotion because it became impossible to minimize it over the course of my interviews with young Koreans. Additionally, emotion has tended to be overlooked in studies on Korean youth culture or popular music, as Lee Kee-hyeung points out in his survey of South Korean cultural studies research on youth culture in the 1990s and early 2000s:

Affective play and alliances formed by youth in their everyday cultural life provided key biographical and social resources for alternative forms of identities. What was missing in the dominant form of “interpretive” subculture work was properly articulated analysis of the articulations among youth’s passion for particular favored objects, icons, and texts that formed their personal—potentially political—significance, as well as their different “affective economies” (Lee, 2002: 61).


I have chosen to present three young people’s responses as case studies to examine the personal and cultural (and potentially political) significance of emotional engagements with Taiji and his music and how gender issues factor into these. The people are Yun-hûi (31), Kang-t’ae (27) and Chae-tol (19). In Yun-hûi’s talk, we see the joy and excitement that Seo Taiji brought out in so many of her generation, and how at times, these emotions rub up against her feminist concerns and a different set of emotions. In Kang-t’ae, we see how Taiji, as an example of an alternative man, figures into his emotional struggle over defining himself against hegemonic Korean masculinity. In Chae-tol’s talk, we see an unbridled enthusiasm and joy for Taiji—including Taiji’s recent pro-feminist song—which affects his initial attempts at conceiving himself differently from ‘normative’ Korean masculinity. Influenced by the discursive turn in anthropology, I approach these young people’s communication as parts of dialogical processes that constitute culture—the Taiji phenomenon and gender foregrounded here―rather than as reflections of culture (Farnell and Graham, 1998). I present case studies of three young Koreans and give quite a few pages to each in an effort to remedy the lack of qualitative research on young Koreans and popular culture available in English. Additionally I include long sections of Yun-hûi and Chae-tol’s talk and a lot of context around Kang-t’ae talk. I have done this to allow my reader to get a feeling for what each person is like and to take his or her talk and experience seriously. I also hope that my reader will remember these voices and their characters throughout the remainder of my thesis. I chose to focus on these three’s responses because they sit neatly across the age range of Seo Taiji fans. Their engagement with my research project was excellent, and at times, they gave me access to the emotional influence Taiji and his music has or had on them.



[1] For an approach to emotions, youth culture and popular music in an eastern Asian context, see Eric Ma’s (2002) ethnographic work on emotions and sub cultural politics in punk bands in post 1997 Hong Kong.


The Case Studies
Yun-hûi

Yun-hûi spoke about Taiji with multiple voices―sometimes as a fan and at other times as a young scholar and feminist―and with considerable emotion. Her multiple voices and contradictory reactions to Taiji’s music and Taiji in terms of gender, enrich the Taiji phenomenon and our understanding of it.

Yun-hûi and I met in a small graduate seminar class. She was stylish with an artsy fashion sense, pretty and intellectual. Funny and empathetic, she also presented at times as standoffish and a little stubborn when discussing ideas or issues. Her passions seemed to lie more in the alternative education and youth centre she had worked at in Seoul rather than in her graduate study in Canada. During the term of our seminar class, I felt she was at the same time interested and dismissive of my research topic for the class, masculinity and Korean ballad singers’ voices (a paper on which chapter three of this thesis was built). Because of this and the fact that I respected her a lot, I was apprehensive about interviewing her. I thought I would learn from her a ‘from above’ analysis of the Taiji phenomenon because of her tendency to intellectualize things combined with her response to my interview invitation over email that she was not a huge fan but thought Taiji was an important cultural icon to her whole generation. Because of this, I was surprised at her emotional responses to Taiji and his music and the personal significance he and his music had had for her.
During our sessions, Yun-hûi sometimes talked about Taiji, as well as youth issues, gender and other popular musicians, with exuberance, expressing personal joys and at other times a sense of urgency and passion. Her urgency and passion were most prominent when she emphasized Taiji and other performers’ integrity and socially progressive lyrics. When we discussed gender issues in depth, her voice changed again, and she spoke with intensity, at times humorously, but earnestly.

Yun-hûi’s exuberance and joy over Taiji and his music and her passion for his integrity form much of her talk in the excerpts I have chosen to include here. Excerpt 1 comes from the middle of our first interview session, an evening she and I shared chocolate cake in a café and Yun-hûi talked with few breaks, smiling a lot and laughing at her memories. Her talk swirled between her personal memories of songs and associated memories and the social messages of Taiji’s lyrics and his sincerity. A number of times she went into enthusiastic digressions on other singers and bands—Jaurim, Panic and Yi Sang Ûn—whose artistic integrity and, in her own words, “independent spirit” and progressive lyrics, she felt they shared with Taiji. In excerpt 1, Yun-hûi flew through topics and issues with an enthusiasm and joy in talking that took me by surprise. She framed songs and albums in emotional ways. She began talking about the second album―the album that first drew her into the music of Taiji and Boys―by recalling her break-up with her boyfriend and the excitement that the word “drug” had for her and her peers at the time. Her laughter indicated that their passions for Taiji’s ‘cool’ message at the time was significant emotionally yet hard to explain to me some ten years later. Yun-hûi’s enthusiastic talk in this excerpt also reflects the affective qualities of Seo Taiji and Boys performances’ newness and inventiveness. Yun-hûi’s talk a little later on in the evening (excerpt 2) reveals the affective qualities of Taiji’s integrity, as she explains why she liked and respected him because he quit then and came back with honesty.



Excerpt 1

Yh: Ah, when their second album came out, I was in the last year of high school so I was studying so serious. But, I, bought the tape because my boyfriend was really crazy about that. So I bought that. Soon after I bought that, we (with both hands gestures pushing away)…broke up. [Ah, you broke up.] Yes we broke up. So their second hit, always reminds me of the, the end of our love.
J: Of the break up, right.
Yh: Ya. So I, uh, uh. At that time I listened and listened to their hits, those songs. The first time I bought their album because of my boy-, ex-boyfriend, but, uh, after that, ah, I became…I became obsessed with it by myself and the melody, because, ah their second hit, had, uh, a new attempt, put their own message in their hits, and their message was totally different from, ah, the existing system of popular music. In the second album, there, there was one song, about the psychology of one person, ah, ah, addicted to, addicted to drugs. You know that song?
J: Which one? Ah
Yh: In Korea, the problem of drugs was not serious. But the word “drug”, ah! Just the word made teenagers crazy! (Laughs) Kind of ah, kind of ah, something cool, with, message We needed something serious, ah ah, some message in our life (laughs) so that song really appealed to me.



Excerpt 2

[This excerpt is preceded by Yun-hûi’s discussion of the song “Comeback Home”, the media frenzy around it, and how it caused some runaway kids to return home. She expressed dissatisfaction about this song and the media frenzy.]

Yh: So at that time I thought, if Seo Taiji wa Idûl do anything, it is seen as a good attempt so I didn’t like that at the time and I think, ah, I already became old enough, I changed my impression of them. So the next hit they declared they would stop their performance. I liked that. Because, at least, at first maybe they would come back and restart their performance, that ah, a kind of trick that many singers and actors use, so they didn’t come back, and that’s great. And each of them, went their own way. So, ah, after a couple years, I, I, became to realize their announcement was true, I (laughs) I liked Seo Taiji again (smiling). Because he was so frank, ah he, was enough self-confident. Many celebrities, celebrities don’t do that because they, they couldn’t risk their reputation but he did. He just, ah, got more into his music. So I, thought he knew what is important, and he can know, ah what he wants, and what he has to do. So, I liked him more and thought, ah, ah. A couple more years later, he really did come back, but I didn’t hate that he came back because it also was so natural. Maybe, ah, ah someone left their area, and he, ah, left for a long time, it is so hard to come back because he, he or she they can’t be sure of their success or not, so it was not, it wasn’t an easy decision but he did, and he, ah, came back and introduced his new attempt at performing music. And he just wanted to show his, ah, his own musical work.



In our second interview, Yun-hûi was more enthusiastic about Taiji and Boys’ songs and revealed the emotional value they had had for her when she was younger. We met in a small pub and Yun-hûi seemed especially happy and even excited, smiling a lot. I thought she must have had an especially good day, but no, she told me she had had a very frustrating day in the library reading difficult English language materials.

She especially enjoyed listening to songs together and even complemented me on using this interviewing method. Her joy in listening to songs and talking about her memories and opinions were something of a happy surprise for both of us. When we listened to the song “Hwansang sok ûi kûdae” from the first Seo Taiji and Boys album (1992), Yun-hûi punctuated her quickly moving talk with emphasized words, singing, animated movements, plenty of smiling and short phrases such as “It was all so cool” and “Think about this!” expressing her joy and exuberance for Taiji and Boys, even over ten years after she had originally experienced them (see excerpt 3). Her reaction to “Hayôga”, another song she chose to listen to with me, was just as enthusiastic and she drew on her personal emotional experience of the song she had mentioned to me in the previous interview. Yun-hûi preceded her talk in excerpt 4 by rapping along to the first minute and ten seconds of “Hayôga”. She enjoyed this, not showing off, just having a good time remembering the rap exactly, moving her body to the beat as she sat in her chair. Yun-hûi’s enthusiasm and joy in her comments and reactions to songs was interspersed with moments where she took a step back to provide me with information on the Taiji phenomenon and youth culture in the 1990s-- the shift toward a more superficial or light youth culture throughout the 1990s for example. At these moments her talk was calmer but still engaged and as she progressed through an explanation, she often ended up expressing another enthusiastic personal account or memory of Seo Taiji and Boys from when she was younger. Although these two voices differed, Yun-hûi’s voice in our third interview session was often strikingly different from her joyous personal accounts of Taiji and Boys’ music.



Excerpt 3

Yh: This was during high school. I remember the melody was so cool. The way, ah, for Seo Taiji to sing, was so different, he sang with rapping, it was the first attempt in the mainstream. Ya. It was all so cool. All the boys and girls imitated that way! Like this (She mimics a rapper, with hand gestures and smiles afterward and laughs). Ahhh! And their message was so philosophical. […] (She tries to translate a few lines of the lyrics into English as she listens). Very cool rhythm and melody, they mix very philosophical lyrics. So, ah, ah, there is no way Seo Taiji wasn’t cool. They, yes. So. Think about this! Many Korean songs just say, (she starts singing, “I love you” etc in Korean) all singers sing, have songs about love and similar things, but one day, three boys appear and sing, ah totally different kinds of things, and their melody and rhythm lyrics were totally different, and that was not just great but very cool.



Excerpt 4

J: You will probably remember forever right?
Yh: Ya! (Laughs) It’s so surprising! We laugh. She continues to move her body to the beat and she shows lots of energy) It’s a sort of love song, but but different. So, ah, it’s yes. Last time I told, when this album came out, ah I had just broken-up with my boyfriend and, you know every teenager or even older people, think their love is special. But this song is, appropriate for my special love because it is was so special (laughs) special love song. (She laughs a little) … This part (the guitar solo) I’m always touched by it. Yes this melody, it’s a little bit similar to rock, hmm, very ah, ah ah similar, like Western music but, he used t’aep’yŏngso, and it’s an an amazing mixture (smiles).

In our third session when we focused on gender issues generally and specifically on popular music and Taiji, Yun-hûi spoke with intensity for two and a half hours. Earlier comments she had made—that Taiji was genderless and his unisexual characteristics rendered gender issues and Taiji’s music a non-issue, or that gender issues in popular music are essentially superficial and as such not so interesting—had left me mistakenly thinking she would rush through my questions. Yun-hûi’s talk was informed by her feminist concerns, which I had been aware of from her atypical demeanour and fashion sense, her knowledgeable comments in the course we took together and from certain personal stands she took in her daily life, for example refusing to use the term “oppa” when calling older male friends or classmates on the grounds that it renders women childlike. Although she was funny at times and we laughed about things as the evening went along, Yun-hûi’s voice was earnest and serious, lacking the cynicism, sarcasm and flippancy I am used to hearing from post-feminist or even feminist women of her generation from Canada. Furthermore, Yun-hûi’s comments at the end of our session confirmed my sense during the interview that she had been talking with a lot of emotion and had some apprehension experiencing this and showing this to me.

Yun-hûi’s talk in the third interview was firm at times and at others ambivalent or ambiguous. She explained her definition of masculinity and the characteristics she looks for in a boyfriend with certainty (see excerpts 5 and 6). She spoke of gender and music, most importantly rock and rap, with some ambivalence. In some ways, her comments during this session contradicted her reactions to songs we had listened to earlier and to her joy in discussing Taiji as a social icon (see excerpt 7). The most striking contradiction was how she spoke about rap and rock performed by males with a negative sentiment, and yet these two aspects of “Hayôga”—guitar solo, rapping and so on—had provided her with considerable joy in our previous meeting. Her joy while listening to the song seemed to contradict the fact that she spoke critically of the strong beat in rap and rock music as manly and as expressing strength, specifically masculine strength. But her criticism was not entirely so simplistic. Like early feminist punk rockers in England and the Riot Grrrl bands (O’Meara, 2003; Leonard, 1997), Yun-hûi wished that this beat were hers and not simply belonging to guys. As a result, she expressed some hesitation about liking rock or rap performed by males, even Taiji.




Excerpt 5

Yh: I always think about that (masculinity). Masculinity is a question of, ah, power, ah men’s power and desire for power. Based on their own confirmation of self. [oh ok] That’s my definition, so that’s why I think of the concept of masculinity not only as characteristics of some men such as manly voice or muscular body and uh, uh… But also as ah, ah…yes! Even in softness of guys, I think there is masculinity. There are many questions. For example, I read your term paper, and I, I questioned that, whether the male ballad singers’ voice, ah, ah, question of softness, if they are free from masculinity. In my : perspective, I don’t think so. Because … especially in lyrics, there are also the philosophy of love, from guy’s, and ah, some, ah, characteristics, characters of men in situations—love or …and actually because this society is, this society is ahh, patriarchal, so all guys cannot break free from masculinity. Because masculinity has meant men’s, ah, a mandate for being a man. But of course I have want to have some masculinity of my own. So that’s why I think masculinity is the confirmation or desire about power.

Excerpt 6
J: So, this question, what kind of guys do you like?
Yh: Silent!
J: What? Talented?
Yh: Silent.
J: Mute? (Jokingly)
Yh: Ya, mute! […] Silent and … silent and ah, he has, he has something he can concentrate on. Especially I prefer something, artistic work but I don’t want poor artistic, because I would be stuck with supporting that kind of boyfriend. I don’t want that anymore! They have to take care of themselves, and I take care of … myself. And we can, we can, ah, give and take. No one-way street, or one-way street, I don’t want that[…] Especially I can’t stand guys, ah, who are not even my boyfriend, who, ah, talk about, talk about feminism or gender issues, uh, very firm in their perspective. [Oh ya]. Um they had better be silent about that kind of issues and they should try to support the people who, who ah, who really have a problem, that’s women. So silent is, uh … [or listening] Ya. It is a good attitude especially for a guy. J: Ya being a really good listener and a learner is very important for me.
Yh: Otherwise I can’t hear any love from my boyfriend. […] How about your boyfriend? Silent?
J: Oh he’s not silent, but he is a very good, ah. He’s a very good listener and he likes to learn from other people. [Ah! That’s] […] He is very very good at listening and learning from other people so I like, I like that about him and I always tell him that. [Right] When he, sometimes he doesn’t understand why I like him, because he still has, his family is very traditional and [oh] ya so he still thinks that, that I should like somebody who is, really, really gonna make lots of money or (we laugh) you know (we laugh) so! Or somebody who knows a lot, right? Or somebody who, but I like people who like to learn.
Yh: me too!





Excerpt 7
Yh: I don’t want to categorize instrument or styles of songs as manly or masculinity, but ah, that’s true. [Oh!] For example I don’t feel the, ah rap songs. [Rap?] yes rap. I always feel rap is so manly. [Ok]. Think about this, in the case of women, we don’t speak in that kind of style. We talk about more interactively [ah!] but there, there they speak one way, in one direction and the beat is very strong […].
J: Hayŏga. I don’t know about this song. I have confused opinions, or no opinions at all.
(We are listening together over headphones)
Yh: Yes this kind of beat is ah, considered manly.
J: Considered manly by you or by other people?
Yh: By others including me
J: Including you. Even though you don’t like, you feel uncomfortable to categorize
Yh: No! [Oh!] But the difference is ah, even though this ah, was categorized manly in the past, the difference in my uh, generation, don’t want to ah, fall in love with guys who make this kind of beat [oh ok]. We said we want to, uh, make this, uh kind of beat by ourselves. Yes. I wanted and still Yh: want this kind of beat to be mine, not by, not be my boyfriends. […]

(We are listening to the song “Victim” release 2004. Yun-hûi listens carefully without much expression or movement. She doesn’t seem to enjoy it).
J: This is the same as the one before (“Tank”), or a little bit different?
Yh: Little bit different. But I … I found I, uh, I consider rock band music ah, ah, manly. [Ok]. Usually, usually, so I, I’m missing Courtney Love. I miss Courtney Love, because, she is, uh, she leads a rock band. Actually if I, ah, listened, participated in concert uh, of, a female band, I really become crazy, because [Crazy good, or crazy bad?] Good! [Oh ok] but, ah…
J: But only for a female rock group.
Yh: Not only female but prefer female.
J: Ok. So you don’t like this because
Yh: Because it’s violent and it’s too strong. I don’t want men to express, uh, strength. [Ah] I don’t like that. I want them to keep silent and, ah, not expressing strength. [Right]. Because even though they don’t express their strength they are strong enough because this society is based on, ah, patriarchy, so they need to be silent and calm until both genders become equal.

In some ways Yun-hûi’s divergent voices resemble those discussed by Susan Fast in her book In the houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the power of rock music (2001). Fast comments on the discrepancies between her colleagues’ reactions, most notably feminist scholars, and that of fans to Led Zeppelin and gender issues. Fast points out how her colleagues for the most part could not enjoy or understand how others could enjoy Led Zeppelin, citing the band’s alleged machismo and misogyny. As a result, Fast’s colleagues overlooked the fluidity of gender construction in Led Zeppelin and the role that affect and emotion in their performances and fan reception had in enriching gender constructions. Fast, herself both scholar and a fan, found herself having to justify her fandom but in the end was successful in combining these aspects of herself into her analysis of Led Zeppelin. For Yun-hûi, the discrepancies Fast points out—fan versus feminist scholars’ perspectives—form much of her talk and reactions to Taiji’s music. However, Yun-hûi’s feminist attitude irregularly forms her experience of Taiji and his music, leaving her comments seeming disjointed or at times contradictory.

Some may suggest that this disjointedness and contradiction show that Yun-hûi has not worked out her thoughts fully and that this is a personal and private flaw in her understanding of Taiji and rock or rap music generally. However, this judgment would minimize the value of emotions, often mixed, in experiencing Taiji and his music. This judgment would also minimize the value of examining Yun-hûi’s talk as constituting not only aspects of her self, but of her culture as well.

As anthropologists Brenda Farnell and Laura R. Graham (1998) explain in their survey of discourse centred approaches in anthropology, it is important to consider that people’s communication does not simply tell about reality, but participates in socially constructing it. This type of anthropology, which has influenced my research, considers language as social action (Farnell and Graham, 1998). Theoretically, discourse analysis in anthropology abandons psychological determinism (of Freud for instance) and sociological determinism (of Durkheim, for instance) and instead views persons “…as causally empowered embodied agents with unique powers and capacities for making meaning…” (Farnell and Graham, 1998:414). Anthropologists who do discourse analysis often find it useful to draw upon Bakhtin’s ideas on language (for example Skinner, Valsiner and Holland’s work on Nepali adolescents (2001) or Abelmann’s work on middle-aged, urban South Korean women (2003). Bakhtin’s (1981) emphasis on the dynamic, intertexual and multi-voiced tendencies of language is highly applicable to anthropology because it is conducive to thinking about everyday conversations and communication, and their relationships to society. As a result, much anthropological discourse analysis pays attention to the heterogeneous and dynamic aspects of people’s communication (Farnell and Graham, 1998). For instance what Bakhtin referred to as the dialogic nature of language (1981), his idea that an individual occurrence of language is always in response to another occurrence of language—from the speaker’s past discussion with a friend, from the speaker’s different manners of speaking, or from the media and so on—have proven useful in discourse centred approaches in anthropology (Farnell and Graham, 1998). With Bakhtin’s dialogic view of language, occurrences of an individual’s communication are actively created by the individual, but are also always in dialogue, interacting with other voices and shaping social worlds. For example Skinner, Valsiner and Holland in “Discerning the dialogical self: a theoretical and methological examination of a Nepali adolescent’s narrative” (2001), analyse the multiple voices used by a Nepali teen as he discusses himself, critiques his society, and plans for its change. This teen incorporates multiple voices into his conversation with the researcher: his own voices as a student, as low caste member and as future successful man, and numerous characterizations of different social classes in dialogue with him in the past and present and then reconstructed differently in his future (Skinner et al, 2001). Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) utilize Bahktin’s concepts of dialogic language to illustrate how the teen’s communication simultaneously acts to reshape his identity and works to transform the meanings of social status in his community. Influenced by these approaches to analyzing conversation, I noticed Yun-hûi’s different voices, including their different emotions. I noticed that at times, Yun-hûi spoke and listened to songs as a young scholar and feminist with seriousness, criticalness and intensity, that she talked as a fan with a lighter voice expressing her joyous personal accounts of Taiji, other performers and popular culture, that she listened to songs and reacted to them with bright, happy energy and remarks. Taking a step back from the three interviews we had, I realized her different voices seemed in dispute with one another (in dialogue). Importantly, I do not consider her dispute private and isolated. Instead, as with the women’s communication in anthropologist Nancy Abelmann’s book The Melodrama of Mobility: Women, Talk, and Class in Contemporary South Korea (2003), we must take into account “…that language does not represent a reality out there, but rather that it fashions the world (such that it looks, however, always already made)” (Abelmann, 2003: 13). Yun-hûi’s talk then, especially its contradictory voices, should be taken seriously.

Yun-hûi’s various views and ways of expressing them are rich, not flawed, and reveal how Seo Taiji was so important to her and her generation. At the same time, her communication reveals that as a male performer using rock and rap, Taiji contradicts some of her feminist ideals and wishes. These sides of Yun-hûi’s talk reveal the intricacies of the Taiji phenomenon and the difficulty (perhaps futility) of neatly defining it, in terms of gender for example.

Yun-hûi’s responses caused me to reconsider the purpose of my research project. At the very end of our final interview session, her comments made me think carefully about emotions in experiencing Taiji and the awkwardness of using feminist analysis to understand popular music songs. Quickly after she had finished her final argument, we exchanged the following words:



Yh: … I think I, I think I say something too, ah too ah… educational?
Lectural?
J: Ah, too intellectual, too scholarly?
Yh: No no.
J: What do you mean?
Yh: Educational?
J: Oh you mean trying to teach people?
Yh: Ya! [Oh!] So that’s why I don’t like talking about feminism anymore.
J: You feel like you are lecturing people
Yh: Yes, right. Uncomfortable
J: Yes I know that feeling… that’s ok, I don’t think you’re lecturing me.
Yh: (Laughs a little).

By having her discuss her feminist concerns and popular music, I made her feel uncomfortable in her seriousness and passion and in showing these to me. In a way, by speaking with such passion, she exposed herself to me perhaps more than she had planned to. Perhaps by showing the depth of her concerns, she felt uncomfortable because had returned to lecturing or talking at people about gender, patriarchy and so on ―literally at me but also and more importantly an imagined audience of young South Koreans who in her words “Are just interested in being sexy.” Her seriousness, although meaningful and valid, did not seem to be what informed her most meaningful experiences of Taiji. The value of Taiji and his music seemed to lie more in the joy and excitement she experienced in our earlier sessions than in this last session. Despite this observation, we should acknowledge that all of her talk and responses—some voices oppositional or in struggle and others speaking of her lighter engagement with her culture―combine to reveal her complexity. Furthermore, her excitement and joy and then apprehension, discomfort and seriousness when listening to Taiji’s songs with gender in mind in turn contribute to her culture itself.




[ch. 1] Kang-t'ae


I will begin the case study of Kang-t’ae with some of Anthony Fung and Michael Curtin’s concluding remarks on the Chinese popular music star Faye Wong. Wong is a contemporary of Taiji who is similar to him in terms of her atypical maneuvers in the music industry, high degrees of financial and critical success, and presenting an androgynous image:

In the political economy of music, Faye [Wong] challenges, distorts and transforms the prevailing market logic, and by that twisting, she further commodifies her image and her music while at the same time enhancing her cultural capital. The largely unintended outcome of her insistent efforts to craft an image at odds with institutional and cultural conventions is that Faye's ambitions seem to resonate with fans who are negotiating tensions between their own public personae and the traditional expectations of women in Chinese societies…[The richness of the Faye phenomenon furthermore] engenders multiple appropriations of Faye, which also open possibilities for other movements, such as queer and masculine struggles (Chow, 1998) (Curtin, and Fung, 2002: 286).

Almost word for word, with a few obvious substitutions, these remarks could have been written about Seo Taiji. In Kang-t’ae’s talk about Taiji and in his own personal struggles, I have seen first hand how Taiji’s efforts to craft an alternative image at odds with prevailing Korean music industry standards and conventional ways of being a young Korean male, have resonated with fans in the same way that Faye has. Because Kang-t’ae has been negotiating tensions between how he wants to be a man, including how to show this publicly, and conventional expectations of being a man in South Korean society, Taiji has resonated especially well for him. Again and again, Taiji worked into Kang-t’ae’s talk in highly gendered and emotional ways.

Kang t’ae is my boyfriend and he lived with me in Toronto when I was researching and writing this thesis. Because of this, my methods of collecting his stories and opinions were more varied than for the other informants in my study. Although I also conducted semi-structured and unstructured interviews with him, the most telling instances of his opinions on Taiji and on masculinity came from his talk in daily life. Whenever he brought up Taiji, I would run off, usually within seconds, into another room to make notes. The examples I include in this chapter are from such instances and although they were not recorded and as such are not word-for-word records, I am confident they come very close and capture his sentiment.

As indicated in the vignette preceding this chapter, Kang-t’ae introduced me to Taiji by hesitantly but joyfully offering me a Seo Taiji CD he had copied off his computer. Perhaps this innocent gesture marked the beginning of our friendship. In our apartment in Toronto, Kang-t’ae often listened to Taiji’s music on his computer where the mp3 files most often in his player jumped back and forth from different albums, from the first to the latest. Often Kang-t’ae played his Taiji songs when he was more hyper than usual, loudly singing and yelling along, often putting on norebang-style performances full of rock star antics for me, the audience. Although Taiji’s music provided him with considerable entertainment, joy and energy, Taiji and his music meant a lot more than this to Kang-t’ae. The depth of his affinity for Taiji was largely a private matter. On the outside, his fandom did not seem remarkable. However, in times of high emotion, self-searching and difficulty, he called upon Taiji as a role model, specifically as an alternative way to be.

Over the past year, Taiji’s role as a hero or a guide for Kang-t’ae has become more apparent. This past year, he has also spoken about him in unmistakably gendered terms. The nine months during which I attempted to capture Kang-t’ae’s fandom for my thesis, was an extremely positive time for him. His “Toronto life” was a chance he took to, in his own words, “up-grade myself” and was importantly a time where he re-examined how he wanted to be, and how he could be best. The impetus for this came from experiencing an education system that he liked for the first time, becoming good friends with an intellectual and well-read young Korean man (his hyông), my family’s influence and myself. Another impetus for his search for self came in his decision to marry me, a foreigner. This pushed him further to evaluate himself, his role as a man, and importantly his role and identity as a Korean man. This decision shook things up considerably and required him to carefully consider what he wanted to be like as a man and how he wanted to live and why, so he could confidently begin the arduous task of gaining his family’s acceptance of his choice in wife, lifestyle, beliefs and so on.

Over the past six months, much of Kang-t’ae’s self-searching centred on what in essence is a critique of hegemonic Korean masculinity. In his communication, Kang-t’ae regularly positioned himself as an outsider or an alternative person, much as he viewed Taiji. As time went on he began to articulate more precisely how he viewed himself in opposition to hegemonic Korean masculinity. This critique was evident when he spoke about the following issues. Kang-t’ae expressed anger and frustration over the military conscription system, speaking about how it forms unthinking, reactionary men. He expressed concerns regarding the traditional role of the first son in “taking care of” the extended family and criticized the injustice of the burden this puts on women married to first sons such as his mother, as well as concern, worry and dissatisfaction over his role in the first son position in the future. Kang-t’ae often strongly criticized, in his words, “authoritative fathers”, i.e. fathers who order other members of their family around and do not seriously converse with or listen to children or wives. He expressed frustration and anger over his father playing this role, and when we watched and discussed the authoritative (or abusive) fathers in the South Korean movies Classic (2001) and Once Upon a Time in High School (2005), he reacted with phrases such as ‘I really hate fathers like that’. Concerning child rearing and imagining being a father, he often spoke about wanting to take my open-minded, accommodating, creative father as a model, and even at times fantasized about being a house-husband for a time, although fully aware of the impossibility of doing this if we were to live in Korea as parents with young children. Excerpts 1 and 2 exhibit aspects of Kang-t’ae’s critique of hegemonic masculinity. In both these excerpts Kang-t’ae’s talk not only positions himself against authoritative men, most often men who act in Korean hegemonic masculine ways, but reveals how he is aware and deeply concerned about how he appears to other Koreans.



Excerpt 1
After an evening class at his university, Kang-t’ae came home and began chatting, by typing, over msn messenger with his “Rich Uncle”, the term we used to refer to his only middle class and university or college educated relative. His uncle was living for the year in the United States and had been chatting with Kang-t’ae a few times earlier to arrange a sight seeing trip up to Canada. Kang-t’ae didn’t know his uncle very well. There was a lot at stake in communicating well with this uncle. First Kang-t’ae thought his uncle would like me, and as a result of Rich Uncle’s high status in the family—being educated, middleclass and so on—this would help me to be accepted by his family. Secondly, Kang-t’ae was very proud of becoming much more educated and intellectually curious while in Canada—he had been enthusiastically reading up on international and domestic issues on a daily basis for example. It was important to him to show Rich Uncle how he had improved himself. Because his Rich Uncle was educated and had traveled to other countries, Kang-t’ae had presumed that Rich Uncle would be more open-minded than his other relatives, but he had been mistaken. During their chatting this particular evening, Kang-t’ae started swearing loudly and started hitting the computer table with his fist. This behaviour was extremely unusual for him. After the chatting, I needed to know why he had been so angry. He said he was upset that his uncle had stereotyped him as ignorant and incompetent. He said he was very angry and hurt that his uncle would say such things and think of him in such a stereotypical way.

Kt: 'My uncle knows this much (shows a cm with his fingers) about me and then stereotypes this much (shows wide distance with outstretched arms) about me.'

(Kang-t’ae continued angrily expressing how his family members think there is only one good way for a man to live, a sentiment he had expressed a number of times before).

Kt: ‘(My relatives think/say) “If someone does this, he is good and will have a successful life.” For example, “a man should be able to drink well/a lot” [I said ‘yes but your father doesn't drink much’] Yes but the other family members... (They say/think) “A man has to be extroverted and talkative to be successful.” I'm not extroverted! More than before, but not really. They should... why can't they know that each person has good points, their own individual way to be, their own characteristics! I am more introverted, I'm sensitive and emotional, this can be good. Why do they not understand that individual characteristics are important? I am more educated then them! They are not educated. Why do they judge me?!'

He was very angry and frustrated and had some tears in his eyes after speaking this last line and quickly left the room I was in. The next day he said he had also been upset about school, which had made him extra upset. But at that time, his anger, frustration and sadness was heartfelt and serious.



Excerpt 2
One evening after our dinner, Kang-t’ae started talking about his cousin (a male cousin a little younger than him with whom he is very close). He seemed frustrated and a little annoyed and disappointed. A few days earlier, he had talked and argued with his cousin late into the night at our apartment over beer and some tequila―like many Korean men, they communicate best while drinking. At this point in the year, the two were not getting along so well, partly because the three of us living together in a one-bedroom apartment was proving too stressful. This evening Kang-t’ae, like he had at other times, criticized his cousin in gendered terms saying he a was “a little macho” (negative connotation)―not listening, not thinking critically, not being flexible, just reacting and getting angry. Kang-t’ae was talking about his cousin when all of a sudden he brought up Seo Taiji:

Kt: ‘Seo Taiji is like me. He appears very weak but in fact he is very strong. I am like that. It makes me angry when people…my relatives [your uncle?] yes and others, say I am weak. But I am not. For example they think that arm wrestling shows strength. But I can run further, longer than many people. Endurance is strength. In fact women are stronger than men. Auschwitz—women lasted longer than men, endurance and more fat. We [men] are just muscle and bone. It annoys me that Sûng-mo (his cousin) doesn’t agree with me about that [that women can be stronger than men]. He doesn’t listen. I am like Taiji. Independent spirit and care about different issues…since I came to Canada. Also we care about the innocence of childhood. I also had a pure mind in childhood, like him. I didn’t know about how awful society is. I wasn’t critical. Now I think society is shit. So much shit.’

[He ended this topic by briefly mentioning how the public libraries in Korea are, in his mind, terrible and his plan to try to get his university in Seoul to open its reading rooms to the public, so that all people—old, poor etc--can have access to reading books].
Kang-t’ae revealed this concern most tellingly in his anger directed at his uncle’s stereotyping of him, an anger combined with frustration at being typecast as a certain type of man because he comes from an essentially poor and uneducated family. Abelmann (2002) paid close attention to the prevalence of this type of talk among the women in her study and how this acted in forming how they conceive of themselves. Abelmann writes "...it is apparent that all of the women in this book are keenly aware of the ways in which they can be seen as one type or another. Most important here is that "one type or another" refers not generally to one type of person, but specifically to one type of gendered person, one type of "woman" (2002: 242). In such as way, the struggles in Kang-t’ae’s talk reveal similar concerns but over another type of gendered person, a type of man. This is especially evident in example 1 where his struggles were expressed as much in his angry upset voice, pacing, and arm waving as in his choice of words. Lines such as ‘[my relatives think] “A man has to be extroverted and talkative to be successful” indicate that he conceives that his relatives think a man, as one specific type of gendered person and not simply one type of person, needs to act a certain way. Kang-t’ae’s emotion in both excerpts attests that this struggle is not merely an intellectual one, but something with which he is deeply engaged and which matters considerably to him.

It is significant that Kang-t’ae brought Taiji into his talk at times, such as in excerpt 2, when he was seriously and emotionally talking out his gender struggle. One way we can consider this as significant is by noticing that Kang-t’ae’s talk in this excerpt, as well as excerpt 1, is a good example of what Bakhtin called dialogic talk (Bakhtin, 1981) and shares striking similarities with the teenaged boy’s talk whom Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) analyse using some of Bakhtin’s ideas on language. Like this Nepali teen in Skinner, Valsiner and Holland’s work, Kang-t’ae’s discussion of himself is highly social, dynamic and multi-voiced, integrating characters that represent aspects of society he would like to change. Both the Nepali teen and Kang-t’ae’s talking clearly reveal different social languages (also referred to sociolects in Bakhtin-influenced work), the language of certain social groups (Skinner et al, 2001). Because social groups are not equal in terms of power or authority, Bakhtin argues that

[t]he voice of one group may be authoritative and hegemonic, supporting other voices, but in any society, there are counter-hegemonic voices that threaten to weaken and subvert more authoritative ones… For Bakhtin, then, language is “heteroglossic,” comprised of a combination of social languages, some of which are engaged in opposition and struggle (Bakhtin, 1981 in Skinner et al, 2001).

Kang-t’ae and the teen in Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) incorporate voices which are authoritative and hegemonic into their talk―the teen incorporates voices of men of upper castes who look down on him, and Kang-t’ae incorporates voices of men who speak for normative South Korean masculinity and look down at many of Kang-t’ae’s traits. Both the teen and Kang-t’ae use reported speech to engage in dialogue, quite clearly, with these authoritative voices and attempt, in their own ways, to speak against them in their efforts to define themselves.

Specifically, in Kang-t’ae’s case in excerpt 2, much of his talk arises out of a recent conversation he had had earlier with his cousin, and here he continues this dialogue but from his own perspective. Although I am his immediate audience in both examples, Kang-t’ae answers his cousin, and his other unnamed male relatives as well, and answers in his own way, insisting that he is strong despite differing from conventional expectations of manliness. Furthermore, Kang-t’ae incorporates Seo Taiji into his answer to the question of strength and manliness. In a way, Kang-t’ae sets things up so that the conflict or dialogue has two sides or two types of voices: himself and Seo Taiji versus his cousin and his unnamed male relatives. Although these two sides shift in other instances of his talk, sometimes his cousin would be on the Seo Taiji side with him, at this point in his talk such as division is present. Just as the women in Abelmann’s (2003) book conceive of themselves in contrast to other types of women and the teen in Skinner, Valsiner and Holland (2001) defines his present and future self in contrast to morally corrupt men of high caste, Kang-t’ae here, as well as in excerpt 2, conceives of himself with Seo Taiji as alternative men in opposition to more conventional types of men. Instead of being alone in dialogue against his cousin and other male relatives’ conceptions of strength, Kang-t’ae speaks of Taiji being like him, and vice versa, sharing an “independent spirit”, appearing weak but in fact being strong, being critical of society and so on. As such, Kang-t’ae has the backing of his hero to help him define himself. In these few sentences, Kang-t’ae positions himself with Taiji and situates both of them into his larger ongoing struggle over defining himself as a man against authoritative notions of masculinity and into his critique of society.






[ch. 1] Chae-tol


Upon meeting Chae-tol for the first time, I knew he was different. I suspected this simply because he was a Taiji fan, actually a mania [1], at the young age of 19. Before meeting him, I had already interviewed Yun-hûi twice and in some way, she had influenced my thinking about Koreans of Chae-tol’s generation. She did not have a very positive view of the generation younger than hers, often typecasting them as superficial and “anti-PC”―uninterested in social issues such as feminist issues, or gender identity issues, or pretty much anything she felt was important. In Chae-tol I found a teen much more similar to Yun-hûi than the picture of Korean youths she presented, and I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I liked Chae-tol very much almost right away, and during our first interview together secretly wished I were ten years younger so we could perhaps become friends.

In Chae-tol’s talk, we see an unbridled but intelligent enthusiasm and joy for Taiji and his music. He was also very enthusiastic and happy talking about the social issues Taiji has tackled over the years, even gender issues. We also see how Taiji has been a guide for Chae-tol since he was very young, and as Chae-tol has gotten older, his passion for Taiji’s alternative or progressive image and ideas has informed how he has conceived of himself.

I met with Chae-tol in person twice, in a coffee shop when he was on March Break (he was attending high school in a town in eastern Ontario). Chae-tol was very passionate and highly articulate about Taiji and his relationship to him as a star and to his music. Chae-tol had given a lot of thought about why he liked Taiji and what aspects of Taiji he should emulate in himself. Chae-tol was not so much interested in being cool, as we might assume a younger fan of a pop superstar might be, as in carefully considering how Taiji might help him find a better way to live and how he could learn from Taiji. (Of course, being a Taiji mania was also a lot of fun). Like Kang-t’ae, Chae-tol’s talk also shows that he conceives of himself as an alternative or different person, much like he viewed Taiji.

Excerpt 1 shows how Chae-tol began his talking about Taiji with me on the first day we met. He jumped right in to tell me his story of being on TV impersonating Seo Taiji when he was in grade one. This story is intriguing because it literally and metaphorically shows how from a very young age, Chae-tol has conceived of himself in relation to Taiji. His enthusiasm and joy recalling this experience bubbled to the surface. Because I knew as soon as I had met him he was very similar to me—reserved and a little shy—I knew this enthusiasm was special, not something he would dish out about something he might soon forget or that did not really matter a lot to him. For this reason, I began to pay close attention to Chae-tol’s joy and enthusiasm in his communication. This continued as he talked and at the end of excerpt 1, we can see how his enthusiasm almost overwhelmed him as he tried to communicate to me everything he felt. In excerpt 2, and mid way through excerpt 1, Chae-tol speaks about how early on he began to conceive of himself as a little different from his peers and that continuing to like Taiji set him apart.

Excerpt #1

Ct: (When I was) seven, Seo Taiji was very popular for entire Korea. Basically in all sections. I, actually, was on TV [Oh!]. (He laughs, smiling) I did a … what’s it called . . . Celebrity, what’s it called [I dunno]. Cover performance?
J: Oh you mean you were on TV acting like Seo Taiji?
Ct: Yes! (He smiles a lot). My mom bought me the same clothing, and taught me how to dance exactly the same way so I was on TV for that. And (laughs) it was really exciting. (Smiling). All of my albums, my father bought me. [Oh!] Ya. And, every time he got a new album, after he went to work, he brought me the album. That cycle, he (Taiji) was hiding and then come, back, hiding and then come back [right]…Ya. So for my second album, all of my cousins and my friends also liked Seo Taiji so, but 3rd album was kind of a changing point, my friends kind of didn’t like the rock parts, and the topics that he dealt with in this album were kind of heavy for grade 2-3 students (laughs, big smile) but I still liked it. And the 4th album was the biggest shock, shock for me. First his appearance had changed, longer hair, with weird sunglasses I didn’t realize it was him when I first saw him on the comeback home show. [Ah]. It was the Come Back Home album it was the first time that I heard (laughs, big smile) gangster music. Yes, it was very so (looks amazed. Shaking his head a bit) … Yes.
J: When were you on television?
Ct: When I was 7. First album. (Big smile, laughing)
J: So your parents liked him.
Ct: Yes. My parents actually totally supported me and even went farther, like Seo Taiji mania, ya. So. …
J: Your parents would have been in their 30s?
Ct: Ya. And. There are too many things to tell you !! (Laughs, big smile).
J: Yes (smile).
Ct: it’s like 13, 14 years of experiences and [I know!][…] Ya that’s ah… (thinking carefully). There are too many aspects, ah, too many stories, to many, ah, ideas, that I have about his music! (Big smile).

Excerpt #2

Ct: There are a few reasons (why I like him so much) but the reasons have been changed. First he was just shocking and interesting. Second was, he was just really popular, with his second album, he was really popular so [with everybody] yes with everybody, so it was more like follow the masses. [Right]. And third album, people started to leave, him. I was more like, more like intrigued. I dunno. I dunno why but, at the age of 10, I was thinking about the problem of the Korean education system (big smile, we laugh together). I dunno, with his music, somehow he taught me, through his music those issues are important. (Smiles). So I started to think about the reunification of North and South Korea, and other problems, ya. And, after that, I also liked, his marketing strategy, not only his music. He is really skilled at, when to come on strong, and, … when to pull back. Maybe also that’s why I want to go into business. [Oh!]
J: So through his songs, even at a young age, you became interested in social issues, from his songs.
Ct: Yes…
J: What kind of marketing do you want to do. Do you want to work in the entertainment field, or not marketing, but business?
Ct: I’m not sure now but I’m more interested in like, media and entertainment, advertising, stuff like that.


Like Kang-t’ae, he communicated that Taiji was central to how be began to conceive of himself as a critical, thinking person, one way that he felt he differed from his peers. When Chae-tol talked about becoming concerned and interested in social and political issues (the Korean education system, Korean unification and other issues) his eyes were shining. Although he did not talk with his hands much and generally sat still, his alert posture, almost constant eye contact and smiling indicated his energy and enthusiasm. In fact, Chae-tol expressed to me that his critique of the Korean education system, which he first began to think about after hearing Taiji’s song “Kyoshil Idea” (“Classroom Idea”) (1994), was so passionate that he successfully convinced his parents to let him come to Canada to attend high school. This example, among others such as striving to be a perfectionist (excerpt 3) or his interest in studying innovative marketing strategy, indicate how Chae-tol conceives of Taiji as a type of guide whom he has tried to emulate in an alternative way. It is important that gender issues, specifically feminist influenced ideas, work into how Taiji has influenced Chae-tol’s conception of himself. Chae-tol’s enthusiasm, joy and intensity coloured even his communication about gender issues. When Chae-tol spoke about the song “Victim” (2004) he resonated considerable energy and excitement (see excerpt 4). In fact, I was a bit taken aback by his articulateness and confidence. This, plus the fact that he brought up the topic all on his own, indicated to me that he had given the song “Victim” and its introduction tract “Nothing” considerable thought and the issue in the song (discrimination against females in Korean society) was something that interested him and that he was knowledgeable about. In addition, during out first meeting, Chae-tol had expressed some dissatisfaction over his father’s gender discrimination against his sister, whom his father would not let come to Canada to attend high school because she was a girl.

Excerpt #3

We are listening to the album Live Wire (2004)

Ct: Number 9 and 12 connect really well. [Number 9 and number 12 connect really well?] Yes. When we play them, they are exactly the same way. He builds them bit by bit. How can I say? When I work, I try to do, I try to, this type of art, or something I’m working on. [Ya]. Even though I’m doing a little homework, I try be perfect on my work. So he makes sure all of his songs are perfect. He’s a perfectionist [Yes]. And I try to follow that characteristic of Seo Taiji, perfectionist. Everything I make I want to make it very good quality. I don’t really have any relationship with other manias. In Canada. I am more solitary, as I also was before (smiles, I laugh a little). But after ah, his website was built, I did many mania activities. Now I am doing ah, ah, developing a Seo Taiji copy band [oh, cover band]. Yes, cover band. So that’s what I’m going to do this summer.

Excerpt 4

We are listening to the Live Wire album (2004) again

Ct: Victim is about more like gender issues. (Laughs points to track 3, “Nothing”) this one is interesting, it’s a bridge [this one like an introduction to “Victim”]. Yes. Interview some people on the street. And it’s about a Korean man. He is a Korean man (the man talking). He says… he says, “what about, ah, women’s rights in Korea, they already have lots of rights.” But on the next track, he Seo Taiji kind of counter argues [ah] the, that they don’t have, enough rights. Right? [Uhuh] (Talking very excited and interested in this, bright eyes, looking right at me). So ah… I don’t know for your essay are you looking at this kind of gender issues, discrimination?
J: For one part [yes] I am. I am looking at this song (I point to Victim) [ya]. But I am also interested in the music, the sound of the music, and issues of gender, not just the lyrics. [Yes]. Like, style and sound, and the sounds of voices. [Yes].
Ct: It is really hard to get what he is saying in it … the lyrics are not, ah straight [yes]. Even for Korean people we have to think about it, interpret.


Chae-tol’s talk shows us that like Kang-t’ae, his prescription to hegemonic ‘normative’ masculinity is destabilized. Chae-tol’s apprehension about normative South Korean masculinity is linked to his passions and joy in emulating Taiji and his excitement to learn from Taiji’s progressive songs, such as “Victim” or “Classroom idea.” Perhaps by emulating Taiji so closely and so passionately, Chae-tol cannot but subscribe to an alternative masculinity. This is because Taiji himself is positioned as an alternative man, partly through his pro-feminist song “Victim” and partly from his asexual and androgynous image and his lack of participation in military conscription and marriage/normative family life upon which South Korean hegemonic masculinity depends. Ultimately, Chae-tol’s excitement, passions and joy for Taiji help him to envision other ways for Korean society and even for himself to be. Being a fan of Seo Taiji has helped Chae-tol to form himself as a Korean who acknowledges and is concerned about gender discrimination.

[1] The term mania is a Korean-English term that refers to a Seo Taiji fan who is a very serious fan, perhaps active in organized fan activities.


[ch. 1] conclusion



These case studies present emotional engagements with Taiji and his music and the role of gender issues within these. Although simply three young Koreans' talking, these narratives are highly significant for how they provide us with “ . . . access into the history-in-the making―how the person constructs one’s own (and society’s) cultural future in the here-and-now setting” (Skinner, Valsiner and Holland, 2001).

In Yun-hûi, we see that her joy and excitement in listening to many Taiji songs and reminiscing about her years as a younger fan seems at odds with her passion and seriousness in discussing gender issues. As Yun-hûi challenges and re-formulates gender systems in South Korea she also, differently, simply enjoys Seo Taiji’s music. Yun-hûi’s different voices that convey passionate critique of gendered South Korean society and Taiji’s ambivalent position in this help to illustrate the unstable or irregular relationship between Korean popular music and gender politics in contemporary South Korea.

In Kang-t’ae and Chae-tôl’s communication, Taiji’s role in the reformulation of gender in Korea is much clearer and firmer, perhaps because these fans are male and can use Taiji as a role model more easily, or perhaps because their understanding of gender issues is less sophisticated than Yun-hûi’s is. With Kang-t’ae and Chae-tôl’s talk, they form themselves differently from ‘normative’ ways of being a Korean man and simultaneously re-work gender patterns in such a way that hegemonic Korean masculinity looses some of its tenacity. By talking, both give us access to Korean masculinity in flux, and indicate their passions for Taiji has played no small role in this instability.

In the next chapter, the other participants in my study will join these three in the discussion of Korean popular music, Taiji and gender issues, however their opinions will illustrate more general themes than Yun-hûi, Kang-tae and Chae-tôl’s more detailed narratives have. Certainly, more ethnographic research that investigates the relationships between popular music stars and gender in fan’s detailed narratives is needed for a more complete understanding of popular music’s role in gender change and stability in contemporary South Korea. The next chapter provides a preliminary investigation that examines this role concerning the sound of popular music as well as Taiji.



This chapter focuses on Seo Taiji fans’ talk about gender, the sound of popular music and Seo Taiji. I have looked for patterns that emerged in fans’ talk on these issues. From examining these communications, we can better understand how young(er) South Koreans make sense of their popular culture environment and gender—of being a certain type of man or a certain type of woman. Examining these communications can also help us understand what types of meanings are produced around the music, performance and image of stars, in this case of Taiji, in South Korea.

In this chapter I am less concerned in the fine details of fans’ communication and more in the broader patterns that emerged from how fans made sense of the topics at hand: gender, popular music and Seo Taiji. First, I present analyses of fans’ communication about popular music (its sound) and gender. Second, I present analyses of fans’ communication about Seo Taiji in terms of gender. In the first section, I will discuss the sense-making of fans where music seems expressive of a variety of genders and as well as expressive of only extremes of masculinity and femininity. In the second section, I discuss two common patterns: Seo Taiji is expressive of a number of different types of gender, and, Seo Taiji has no gender and instead expresses his individual personal characteristics.

Now when notions of masculinity and femininity are in flux in South Korea (not always and everywhere but often to a great degree), young South Koreans’ communications are highly valuable snapshots of rapidly transforming culture at work. In the fans’ communications throughout this chapter, we will come across considerable hesitation, ambivalence and even confusion, as well as considerable diversity of opinion: for instance, one fan says Taiji’s plurality of gender expressions is realistic and particularly contemporary, while another says Taiji has no gender at all. Fans’ talk will seam particularly unstable, going this way and that, and rarely certain. Dynamic at times, ambivalent or reluctant at others, the types of communications about gender and about Taiji in this chapter are particularly interesting because they reflect and piece together a highly transitional period in young Korean’s contemporary culture, where little can be spoken plainly about and little is static.

In addition to conceptions of gender, fans’ talk in this chapter provide us with insight into how non-linguistic modes of signification, in this case music, make sense to young(er) Koreans and factor into their conceptions of gender. In this regard, this chapter is a much-needed addition to work on South Korean popular music that focus on lyrics (Howard, 2002, 2003; J. S. Lee, 2004; Maliangkay, 2003; Noh, 2001, 2002; Shin, 1998) and fan reception of dancing, star image and lyrics (Morelli, 1997; Pak, 2003; Willoughby, 2005; Young, 1999).


[ch. 2] Popular music and gendered meanings



In this first section, my analysis focused on fans’ responses to my questions concerning the relationship, or lack of relationship, between the sound of popular music and gender. I also paid attention to their talk at other points in our discussions as well as their overall attitude and style of communication during the whole interview process. Upon doing this, I noticed that most fans’ conceptions of music and masculinities and femininities ranged from ideas that music is quite flexible in how it can express gender, including a variety of genders, to that where music really only can express extremes or stereotypes of masculinity or femininity. I was surprised that only one fan, Chang-to (24), believed that music does not express gender, or that music and gender are unrelated things.[1] Some fans spoke more confidently than others about these issues, and most fans’ communications indicated a mixture of conventional thinking about gender as a binary system (men versus women, masculine versus feminine) and a more contemporary type of thinking where masculinity and femininity are more fluid and unstable. I will begin with those who tended more towards this newer way of thinking, and end with those who tended toward the more conventional way.

I asked fans to discuss their ideas and feelings about music and gender, a difficult topic to be sure, because I respected that they could deal with challenging topics. For the most part fans stepped up to this occasion and a number gave explanations and elucidations that would match those from many a popular music graduate seminar, for instance.

To present fans’ tendency to think about masculinity and femininity as quite fluid and changeable, and where music is successful in expressing this, I will focus on the talk of Yong-t’ae. Other fans who expressed similar conceptions of gender and music were Kang-t’ae and Yun-hûi. Some of Yong-t’ae’s opinions are shown in excerpt 1, where we can also see an example of a rather confident expression of the relationship between music and gender.
Yong-t’ae (32) began his explanation with little hesitation and very systematically. True to his organized, logical, and keen approach to all of our interviews together, he structured his talk around a diagram of gender, which he drew out on a piece of paper. At first glance, it is perhaps not obvious that Yong-t’ae’s talk is particularly contemporary, sensitive to the complexity of gender and of gender change. Yong-t’ae began his talk with a dichotomy (actually marking one on paper, see figure 1), a description of masculine versus feminine vocal style and movement or appearance. He described with assurance the idea of strong husky voices as masculine and thin soft voices as feminine for instance and easily fit rockers and the folk song singer whom he likes into the masculinity box. However, quickly as his talk went on, he spoke about how other female and male singers would fit into various positions between the points masculinity and femininity took on his paper. To illustrate his point visually, he often (at this point in our conversation and again towards its end) pointed to various places between the words masculinity and femininity on his sheet, sometimes scribbling a mark, when talking about genders other than gender extremes.

In short, he expressed that gender in the vocal style and appearance of singers is on a scale, and not necessarily linked specifically to male or female bodies. He expressed that there is a grey area, a mixed gender area in between―chungsông, he chose the English word unisex―which is important to the appeal of newer South Korean singers today. Yong-t’ae feels a singer’s music and image belong somewhere on his chart and each spot on his chart (each gender) is meaningful, not simply expressing a singer’s personal characteristics.

Yong-t’ae also indicated his sense-making of gender in South Korea is quite contemporary, or transitional, and he talked ambivalently about ‘conservative’ versus ‘progressive’ behaviours and attitudes. He gave a somewhat open-ended reaction to the younger male singers who belong close to the word “feminine” on his paper: he dislikes them for seeming un-Korean and too female in appearance, but respects his nephew’s decision to like them. His comment “I’m Korean. Very conservative Korean” for why he does not personally like these ‘feminine’ singers could lead us to believe that he ascribes to ‘conservative’ values, concerning gender for instance. To some degree, this could be true, but aspects of his talk elsewhere, and his laughter following this remark, indicate he is aware of the grey area a ‘conservative’ versus ‘progressive’ binary erases. In talking about his father, for instance, Yong-t’ae described him as conservative but also went to lengths to explain how his father, a farmer now in his seventies, did not entirely have the ‘normal’ masculinity of his generation. He explained how his father behaves at certain times in atypical ways within his family: for example working as hard as his wife to prepare for ancestral worship ceremonial holidays and expecting his sons to do the same. In addition, he expressed dissatisfaction about younger Koreans studying in Canada and spoke about how they believed they were progressive but in fact how they were very conservative. Specifically he expressed dissatisfaction with their ‘conservative’ attitudes concerning gender norms, in comparison to Canadian women whom he was simultaneously surprised by and admired: women who “just enjoy playing sports or, they just do, they just want to do something they just try try, they don’t care about their age or, maybe, other people’s opinions, they, want to be someone or they want to do, I think they just try.”

Given this context then, it remains ambiguous whether Yong-t’ae prefers the rockers Yun Do-hyun and Kang San-e and the folk song singer An Ch’i-hwan because their voices and images are conventionally masculine to him. Although he dislikes male singers who are too stereotypically feminine in their vocal style and appearance, he also expressed reservations toward what he referred to as conservative or traditional (once he described theses as Korean) formations of gender.
Excerpt #1

Yj: I want to divide, masculinity and femininity (writes each word down on his sheet of paper. “Masculinity” toward the top of the page and “femininity” toward the bottom). Especially singers. [Right, sure]. Ah. (Points to masculinity) The voice is very, strong, or very husky? And ah, their actions are more, more tough than, women singers. [Ok] And ah… but women singers, are softer, softer than, in appearance and sound, ya the voice is a little bit thin, not strong. But you know, some Korean women singers has, have a very, strong strong voice. Yes and so, in these cases (pointing near the word masculinity). I said to you, (pointing at word masculinity) Kang San-e, Yun Do-hyun, [uhuh they’d fit there] uhuh and another singer, An Chi-hwan (writing it down), ok, he is also very famous. These singers’ voices, are very strong. They are, maybe, these guys are rockers (points to Yun Do-hyun and Kang San-e written on his paper) but he (points to An Chi-hwan) is a folk song singer. Yes a folk song singer, but his voice is very unique, very special [ok]. He also…worked for a social organization. [Oh ok] when Korea, had ah, anyways he had a time (dealing) with politics. Yes but I dunno femininity but, these days, most ah, most Korean singers, for teenagers, singers including men and female singers their voice is a little bit, softer than, the time before. [Ok] Their, I found this word [We look up the word chungsŏng--neutral gender or androgynous, literally “gender in the middle.” We discuss vocabulary together and look in our dictionaries]. Masculinity plus femininity (points to spaces between the words masculinity and femininity).
J: A better word would be […] androgynous.
Yj: Yes or unisex? Their hair is very long. Very long and ah, sometimes they had cosmetic surgery? [Yes] Yes they are very tall, but actually they are not typical Korean appearance [right uhuh]. A little bit… I don’t like them. I’m Korean. Very conservative Korean (smiles). But my, my nephew, likes their songs, and so of course I respect his choice. Ah. Yes I agree with this one (points to question #6 concerning a relationship between music sound and gender).

In Yong-t’ae’s comments, as in those of Kang-t’ae, Chae-tol and Yun-hûi’s, there is acknowledgement of various forms of masculinity and that certain singers match certain types. However, it remains unclear what his judgments of masculinities are and how his perceptions of masculinity in music affects his choices in favourite singers. From the ways in which Yong-t’ae debated ideas in a dynamic way during our conversations (even when we were basically chatting about ‘simple’ aspects of popular music), his talk about masculinity and popular music indicate his ideas are very much under construction and the process with which he makes sense of gender is ongoing. As such, like Kang-t’ae and Yun-hûi especially, Yong-t’ae’s talk participates in the flux and transformation of gender in contemporary South Korea.


[1] To help non-Korean speakers keep track of the fans in my study, the pseudonyms I chose are organized in the following way: For males, the second half of their name begins with the letter t (or t’). For females, it begins with the letter h. Fans in their 30s have a name beginning with Y; the names of fans in their upper twenties begin with K; the names of fans younger than 26 begin with Ch.


[ch. 2] Popular music and gendered meanings cont.


Other fans tended less to talk about music indicating a range of masculinities, where singers and bands would find themselves placed on various spots between the terms masculinity and femininity on Yong-t’ae’s gender diagram, nor did they talk as confidently about music and gender as did Yong-t’ae and Yun-hûi, both in their early thirties and in some ways more mature. Other fans tended more to talk about music expressing extremes of masculinity and femininity, for example Chin-ha and Kûn-hae who I will discuss later. Other fans who expressed similar conceptions of gender and music were Ki-t’aek and Yu-t’aek. Some of Kûn-hae’s opinions are shown in excerpt 2, and some of Chin-ha’s in excerpt 3. In both we can also see more hesitation and some confusion in talking about popular music and gender, than in the older fans’ talk.

Kûn-hae (26) did not have a lot to say about music and gender. This was partially because we had to meet over msn messenger and from my experience, people tend to say less with this technology. I was a little surprised that Kûn-hae did not have much to say in comparison to many other fans because she was studying in a graduate program in South Korea in which gender studies, or perhaps more accurately, women’s studies, is a major component.
Excerpt #2

Kh: Actually I am not sure that the sound/voice itself can express gender… Hmm…
Except very masculine voice and very feminine voice [ok]. Some men have very soft voice, and they sing soft ballad... [Right] When I hear them, I cannot feel the masculinity, but just that.
J: Only soft ballad singer's voices you cannot feel masculinity?
Kh: Oh no... [Oh]. There can be other singers, but I don't know the example. Right, there is a soft rapper in Korea. [Oh]. But, just that's all. I mean... the voice and sound are soft, but... they don't show any kind of femininity or masculinity, [ok] just personal difference, I think.

Although she did talk about gender without much hesitation earlier on in our conversation, her talk tended to reflect more of an understanding of gender as primarily a dichotomous system consisting of masculinity and femininity as contrasting things, and less as a contemporary type of thinking where masculinity and femininity are more fluid and changeable. Her brief comments on music and gender reveal her tendency toward the former. She explicitly states that only voices, for instance, which are very masculine or very feminine (‘soft’ male ballad singers for example), express something about gender. All other voices and sounds, she implies, do not express a type of gender but instead express only personal characteristics.

The brevity of Kûn-hae’s comments and her qualifiers “Actually I am not sure” and “I think” indicate some hesitation talking about music and gender. Her brief comments and hesitation cannot be explained by a lack of articulation about the sound of Seo Taiji songs. In other sessions, Kûn-hae often spoke in detail about what aspects of the sound of Taiji songs she liked
and why. For instance, she explained in detail how she liked the exact combination of rhythm, rhyme and pronunciation in the rapping in the song “Orenji” (“Orange”) (2000). Considering this, her hesitation seems to come from the unusualness of the topic. But, I also believe it comes from her sense-making of gender, where thinking about diversity and flexibility of gender is somewhat overshadowed by a more normative feminist, dichotomous conceptualization of gender, which dominates the writing of one of the top professors at the graduate program she attends. In short, Kûn-hae also seems mixed-up and hesitant talking about music and gender because her conceptualizations of gender are neither completely conventionally feminist, nor contemporary (post-structural).

Although Chin-ha (20) talked a lot more than Kûn-hae on the topic of music and gender, she was also hesitant and at times a little confused. She spoke about music as expressing only extremes or stereotypes of masculinity or femininity, and her talk reveals a primarily dichotomous conception of gender. Statements such as “I think, men like songs like men, girls like songs like girls” and “they have an exact sex so guys follow girls and girls follow guys, so guys sing a song for girls, yes” indicate a dichotomous understanding of gender and a conflation of gender types. By saying “like girls” or “like guys”, Chin-ha seems to speak about the natural or normalness of gender opposites: girls as a group are a certain type and guys as a group contrast them as another type.

Excerpt #3

J: What do you think about the sound of a song, the style of a song, for example the sound of a singer’s voice [ah!] what do you think of that having to do with gender?
Ch: Voice.
J: Ya voice, or the style of music or the style of the song, do you think they have a relationship to
Ch: Ya cause they have ah, (thinking out-loud) masculine song. Or the, ya they can have a relationship, ah in the spirit, oh anything, oh I’ve never thought about that! [It’s hard] Ya! (Laughs a little). The song. I think, men like songs like men, girls like songs like girls. But, cause I can’t distinguish that this is like guys’ song this is like girls’ song. Ya , still I think that, ya. Cause ah, they have an exact sex so guys follow girls and girls follow guys, so guys sing a song for girls, yes. […]
J: What about (the band) N.E.X.T.?
Ch: Ya, ah. Well his songs and his appearance is totally like masculine, but it is not his purpose I think, he is just born like that (smiles) he is just showing what he is like. Ya. […] They (idols) could be masculine, but they try to be like girls. They, try to be beautiful for fans. Ya. […]
J: Ah and what about N.E.X.T.’s music?
Ch: Music is also masculine. I can find, I can find, even in the love songs I can find masculinity! (Laughs) Ya it’s just for guys. But I like them because, they try, to make songs with very various subjects, for the same reason why I like Seo Taiji. Ya.

Furthermore, she expresses the idea that some genres of music are “for girls” while others are “for guys.” She accounts for the high numbers of new kkotminam (literally flower man) singers (who perform ballads or soft pop music) by understanding they act ‘like girls’ in order to be similar to and thus popular with girls. In the same way, she explains that the music of N.E.X.T. (a heavy metal band led by Shin Hae-ch’ôl) is masculine and is for guys, and what's more her addition of a justification for liking them anyways―“Ya it’s just for guys. But I like them because…”― indicates her belief that certain types of music are specifically for males. Her comments about Shin Hae-ch’ôl in contrast to ‘commercial’ idol singers are also interesting. Her statements that Shin Hae-ch’ôl is masculine naturally― “he is just born like that, he is just showing what he is like” ― indicate, to a degree, Chin-ha takes it for granted that gender essentially expresses the ‘natural’ aspects of a person when this person is acting like their ‘real’ self. In contrast, her comments that idol stars act like ‘girls’ for commercial reasons, indicates she conceives their gendered star and performance persona is ‘unnatural’ and her comments elsewhere indicate she dislikes them for this reason. Despite her dislike for male stars who ‘act’ feminine and her acceptance of Chin Hae-ch’ôl’s ‘natural’ (hyper)masculinity, Chin-ha’s comments elsewhere indicated she did not believe males need to be conventionally masculine―in fact her boyfriend at this time was not―which complicates our view that she solely subscribes dichotomous understanding of gender, but allows for more gender variety and change. However, she certainly indicated a preference for stars who do not purposefully manipulate gender in their image or music. She explained that this was one reason she liked Seo Taiji, in contrast to her peers who preferred idol singers and boy bands who were kkotminam.


[ch. 2] Taiji and gender 1


In this second section, the focus of my analysis was primarily fans’ responses to my questions concerning Seo Taiji and gender [1]. As for the section above, I also paid attention to their talk at other points in our discussions and their overall approach. I observed two common patterns concerning fans’ conceptions of Taiji in regards to gender: Seo Taiji displays an array of gender constructions, and Seo Taiji displays no gender and instead expresses only his individual characteristics.

Among fans who spoke about Taiji displaying gender, there is a clear consensus that Taiji does not display conventional types of masculinity consistently. However, fans who felt Taiji displays an array of gender constructions were vague about this. A number of fans articulated notions that Taiji is somehow ‘progressive’ and as such represents an alternative masculinity to something more conservative, and fans articulated Taiji displays multiple patterns of gender in his image and music.

The notion that Taiji is somehow ‘progressive’ and as such represents a kind of alternative masculinity to more normative and/or hegemonic masculinities formed a large part of Kang-t’ae and Chae-tol’s talk as I discussed in Chapter 1. One female fan, Kûn-hae, expressed a similar sentiment. Also, like Kang-t’ae and Chae-tol, she began talking about this side of Taiji on her own, without my having asked her a question. In excerpt 4, we can see the vagueness with which Taiji is perceived in terms of being progressive.
Excerpt #4

Kh: Another song (I want to listen to) "Victim" in 7th album (we begin listening to the song).
When I first heard this song... I was just glad! And thank Taiji for this song! [Oh!] The message is very clear. He seems to be different from other male rocker/rapper [Uhum] He shows his thoughts on sexual harassment...or sexual discrimination. [Yes] Even female singers seldom make this kind of song. I was just happy [Right] my vague expectation for his 'minority sensitivity' seemed to be realized [ah ha!] so I came to like him more and more and trust him more and more. Yes I think so. When the 7th album appeared I used this music for background music of my homepage. [Ahhh] Because I like this song & I want my friends to hear/try this music so I chose this song for bgm (background music)[Ok] And my friends like this song so I was happy […] So the message is very clear, I think. [Yes] He fight with sexist male on behalf of female and their fans fights [ok].

Specifically, Kûn-hae talked about the importance of the song “Victim”, as Chae-tol did, to confirming her notion of Taiji as ‘progressive’. Kûn-hae’s words “my vague expectation for his ‘minority sensitivity’” indicate her self- awareness of her unclear ideas about Taiji and his place as an alternative figure. As for Kang-t’ae and Chae-tol, Kûn-hae talked about Taiji
as if he were different from ‘normal’ Korean men and that this is important to her. In this excerpt, she talked about him as different from other male popular musicians―“The message is very clear. He seems to be different from other male rocker/rapper.” His difference, specifically being outwardly pro-feminist with his song “Victim”, is quite significant to her, which she indicated in phrases such as “I was just glad!” or “so I came to like him more and more and trust him more and more” and her use of the song as her homepage’s background music. Generally, Kûn-hae was uncomfortable talking about Taiji in terms of gender and primarily talked about him reflecting only his personal characteristics, although once she tentatively suggested, “Taiji himself is not masculine” and “of course Taiji’s songs can influence on the gender concept…break the stereotype [of being a ‘real man’]… I think.” In contrast, she spoke assuredly about “Victim” as essentially indicating Taiji as a type of man, an uncommon pro-feminist man different from other male rockers or rappers. “Victim” reveals Taiji is a certain type of man, or put another way, this song enacts an alternative pattern of masculinity, or practice of masculinity (Connell, 2002). Taiji’s “Victim”, in this case enacts a specifically pro-feminist pattern of masculinity. This alternative pattern is something Kûn-hae had hoped Taiji would participate in, and something she happily spoke about her male friends participating in. Given that it is important to Kûn-hae that Taiji and her friends are knowledgeable of and sensitive about discrimination against females in South Korea (and conversely her criticism of men who are not) it may be difficult to understand why Kûn-hae elsewhere primarily talked about Taiji as expressing only personal characteristics and not in terms of men and masculinities. It is possible that Kûn-hae’s reluctance to classify Taiji as some type of ‘man’ enacting some types of masculinities is related to her reluctance to talk in ways that repeat conventional, patriarchal gender configurations. But currently, she has some trouble discussing men’s practices and images in a more complex way, beyond black and white—masculine versus not masculine—terms.

Concerning Taiji’s image and his other songs, especially the sound of his songs, other fans did speak about gender explicitly, and most explained how different aspects of Taiji’s music and/or image enacted different patterns of gender. [2] Some fans began talking using binary terms of “masculine” versus “feminine”, but often in a vague and sometimes confused manner, proceeded to talk in a way that indicated a new way to think about gender, that does not fit into existing scripts of South Korean gender arrangements.

One fan who spoke about Taiji enacting different patterns of gender was Yu-t’aek (31). Yu-t’aek, who was interviewed the third time in Korean by our mutual friend Uk-tong (following my questions) begin talking about the dichotomy ‘masculine’ versus ‘feminine’ but, somewhat aware of the un-realness of speaking this way ended up talking a little about the complexities of gender patterns. Some of their conversation is shown in excerpt 5
Excerpt #5

Yt: Ya Seo Taiji’s voice is like a woman but Seo Taiji’s music has a strong beat and he uses other voices that are very masculine. By doing so he tries to get something very strong and masculine. For the 1st and 2nd album, in the music that he wanted to make he made an effort to make music with strong beats and vocals. If I distinguish masculinity by his voice.
Ut: Honestly it is close to a woman’s.
Yt: Taiji’s voice is like a woman’s but his music is close to masculinity. Does it make sense?
Ut: His inherited characteristics are like a women but that’s it.
Yt: If you ask if Seo Taiji is feminine I would say no.
Ut: When you compare his voice with normal men’s vocals, Seo Taiji maybe is kind of feminine.
Yt: I dunno what is written in the thesis. Does she distinguish masculinity and femininity so I mean the idea before about distinguishing men and women? How can clarifying what masculinity and femininity is reflect society, help us understand society. I don’t get it.
Ut: What you say is becoming more ambiguous!
Yt: Yes
Ut: Comparing is a paradox. To compare, it doesn’t make sense to compare. Society is complicated. The border between masculinity and femininity has become ambiguous so there are lots of parts that are shared. So in some ways, Seo Taiji represents this very well. The voice is not like a normal man’s vocal voice, but the music that he pursues is very masculine.

Yu-t’aek started confidently describing Taiji’s music as ‘masculine’ but his vocal style as “like a woman” but then got stuck or confused over how Taiji’s songs could reflect both ‘masculinity’ and ‘be like a woman’ simultaneously. His comfort in talking in dichotomies in this instance ended up confusing him: “Taiji’s voice is like a woman’s (yôsôngsông-indae) but his music is close to masculinity (namsôngsông). Does it make sense”? [3] Although he does not resolve this issue, and instead questioned the purpose of trying to define masculinity or femininity (part of a general disinterest in talking about music and popular music stars which regulated much of his participation in all interview sessions) his friend made sense of Taiji’s seeming mixed gender. Uk-tong’s suggestion―Taiji’s ‘feminine’ voice combined with ‘masculine’ music expresses contemporary South Korea’s increasing gender complexity, the breaking down of clearly defined ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ practices―is astute but did not interest Yu-t’aek much. They had discussed the issue of gender practice change in detail earlier in this conversation and this interested Yu-t’aek a great deal: Uk-tong “It seems to me that you don’t think that these issues are significant”, Yu-t’aek “No. It is very important in my life because it doesn’t seem that women will stop becoming like men, masculine (yôsôngdûr-i namsôngjôgi twaeganûn’gônûn kkût’naji anûlt’ende), so as we (South Korea) become richer and richer women will become stronger and stronger so it is important to me.” [4] In fact, Yu-t’aek’s interest lay almost exclusively in gender practices in economic aspects of society:

Our country is very late because we were very busy so the economic reason is right. The reason women have become stronger is that society doesn’t just want competent men but if women are competent, society doesn’t care whether they are women or men. We can see this in media like VJ (a tv program) that shows why femininity (yôsôngsông) has become stronger. Femininity has become stronger because now there are a lot of competent (nûngnyôk) women who can live alone or who can have economic ability and marriage no longer means women belong to men. (Yu-t’aek). [5]

His disinterest in cultural expressions of gender rendered discussing Taiji in terms of gender difficult and rather pointless. In short, he does not really feel that cultural expressions of gender patterns have much significantly to do with larger patterns of gender change in contemporary South Korean society. As a result, talking about Taiji in relation to patterns of culture in larger society is not particularly important or interesting to him. This is despite being a devoted Taiji fan who can sing lyrics to any Taiji song with ease and perfection, who obsessively listens to each Taiji album after its release and conjures up philosophical explanations for lyrics and moods of many songs and so on. Despite being personally uninterested in putting into words his impressions of music (e.g. Taiji’s songs) or his opinions of popular musicians, Yu-t’aek’s, and certainly Uk-tong’s, communications illustrate particularly well how many younger Koreans talk about gender in a dynamic way, where conventional notions that gender is stable and taken-for-granted are minimal.

Other fans (primarily Kang-t’ae and as well as Ki-t’aek, Chae-tol and Yun-hûi) were more interested in talking about Taiji in terms of broader patterns of gender and gender change in contemporary South Korea. For instance, Ki-t’aek (age 26) detailed that different aspects of Taiji display different gender constructions: Taiji’s music exhibits extremes of femininity (“Nôege”) and masculinity (“Kyoshil Idea”) but his appearance is androgynous. He suggested that this unusual combination of genders is practical―it helps Taiji have a broad fan base―and realistic:
I like Taiji, because because he seems modern. We [Koreans], now are… mostly not one way or the other way, only masculine or … that’s only in movies I think. Maybe it’s true for my father’s generation but not anymore. So I like Taiji …He is not common but he seems better, more real, than a rocker or idol singer. It’s hard to explain. […] Also… I dunno his personality exactly. If I could know that I could explain more exactly. Anyway I like him. (Ki-t’aek).

His thoughts are similar to Uk-tong’s in that both refer to Taiji’s mixed gender characteristics as suiting the current era, which they see as a time of gender changes and flux. At the same time as he is sure of and drawn to Taiji’s ‘masculinity’, ‘femininity’ and androgyny for being “modern” and “real”, Ki-t’aek, like Yong-t’ae, is unsure because he has not met Taiji personally. He is concerned that he cannot account for his personality in terms of gender. In such as way, Ki-t’aek’s talk about Taiji, like most fans in fact, is firm at times and uncertain at others. It is interesting that Ki-t’aek suggested that although Taiji’s expressions of gender are not common, they are realistic. Although I did not get to know Ki-t’aek well enough to really know how he feels in terms of himself and patterns of masculinity, except that he himself seems unsure, he, like Kang-tae, was drawn to Taiji’s difference. While Yu-t’aek was confused by Taiji’s seeming contradictory genders, Ki-t’aek and Kang-t’ae were pleased that Taiji does not seem straightforward and predictable and instead presents as a man to whom they can relate quite well.

[1] The list of question I used for the last interview session of which this topic was a part are listed in Appendix #1.
[2] Yun-hûi, Yong-t’ae, Yu-t’aek, Kang-t’ae, Ki-t’aek, and to some degree Kûn-hae.
[3] “Kakkaun’gôn yôsôngsông-indae norae-aesô p’ongginûn-gônûn namsôngsôngi kanghadago saenggakhae taedabi andoena.”
[4] “Aniji namsôngsông-ina naega yaegihaettchanha namsôngsông-ina yôsôngsông-ûn nae insaeng-esô ch’ungyohadago yôsôngsông-ûn yôsôngdûr-i namsôngjôgiitwaeganûn’gônûn kkût’naji anhûlt’ende tô môkko salman halsurok tô kanghejilt’ende chungyohan nahant’esôn chungyohan’gôji.”
[5] “Kûrônikka yôsôngsông-i kanghaejinûn kônûn kyôlhonhan yôjadûr-i vj irôn’gô ônlon-esô p’olsu innûnte kûrôn’gô poda kyôlhon-ûl hanûnge kyôlhon-ûl haesô sanûn’gôt-to kûrôhgo kyôlhonûl handa-nûn chach’e-to naega namja-ûi kyôngchegwôn anûro tûrôgasô sanûnge anigo nae nûngnyôk-ûro chasin-ûi ungnok-ûro ch’ungbunhi sal suinnûn yôjadûr-i manhi saeng’gigi ttaemune aswiun’ge mwô ya.”


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