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.
Conclusion: Yes but…
The process of this thesis—from fieldwork and reading through analysis and writing—has had its own sensibility: hazy, uncertain, reluctant, hesitant, indistinct…. Although difficult to deal with, that unfortunate sensibility has illuminated, in the end, a key aspect of the subject matter of my research project. Broadly speaking, my project has explained patterns and conceptions of gender, specifically of masculinities of young Korean men, within the frame of Seo Taiji’s music. It has also been about how young Koreans’ culture of the past 15 or so years has been multidimensional, full of internal differences and not easily reduced to one or another paradigm. Like my experience of creating this thesis, much of contemporary young Korean’s culture is hazy and indistinct, uncertain and reluctant. The process of doing this thesis reflected this messiness, while each thesis chapter—some more than others— reflects both the haziness of my process and that of the culture I was examining.
Ultimately this thesis has itself been about processes—about transformations occurring since the early 1990s of what it means to be a young Korean man. This thesis has outlined how Taiji centrally figures, sometimes ambiguously, in this process. Discussion of his music, performances, and fans’ communications has provided us with a glimpse into the ongoing constructing of young men’s masculinities in contemporary South Korea.
In chapter one, Kang-t’ae and Chae-tol’s affective communication illustrated this process particularly well. In their talk, Taiji’s alternative masculinity centrally factors into their ongoing critical evaluation of taken-for-granted, dominant conceptions and ways of being a Korean man. Their passionate talk about Taiji is part of an ongoing questioning of hegemonic masculinity among young Koreans, and indicates that young male fans use Taiji as a role model during this process. Critiquing a fundamental element of modern Korean society—hegemonic masculinity—these young men put a lot at risk by working-out how to be man while calling into question, to a degree, men’s power in society. As such, chapter one has illustrated how Kang-t’ae and Chae-tol are in the process of resisting a dichotomous and suppressive system of gender with the guidance of Taiji as an alternative young Korean man, sensitive to gender discrimination and so on.
Similarly, in chapter two, most fans’ talk was a process, a working-out in real time of the shifting and increasingly complex gender system of contemporary South Korea. Although fans differed in terms of their investment in or knowledge of how gender plays out in society, most fans spoke in a way that indicated gender is in flux and happening now—under construction as they talk—and undoubtedly difficult to talk plainly about. Where some fans’ talk was hesitant or unsure due to a lack of interest and familiarity with the idea of gender (e.g. Chin-ha), and in others more due to a resistance in talking in a conventional straight-forward way that might reinforce dichotomous gender types (e.g. Yong-t’ae or Kûn-hae), the talk of fans certainly displayed thinking that was far from rote and static.Fans spoke in a way which indicated Taiji and popular music is involved in transforming gender norms—Taiji and his music sometimes exhibits a particular gender, sometimes another, and Taiji with his “minority sensibility” or “independent spirit” presents as a different type of man. As well, almost every fan’s talk about Taiji, gender and popular music was more vague and hesitant and somewhat less, certain and confident.
Fans’ emphases on Taiji’s difference and inconstant gender expression, Kang-t’ae and Chae-tol’s critique of hegemonic masculinity and Yun-hûi’s contradictory and multiple affective engagements with Taiji’s music and gender issues, all seem to point to a liminal stage in young South Korean’s contemporary culture. Recognizing this stage is vital to make sense of gender in this time and place. The first two chapters have revealed a transitional stage in Korean culture and thinking, where conceptions of gender and the masculinity of young Korean men, such as Taiji or Kang-t’ae, is precariously placed between conventional norms and future possibilities. I have found that for the most part, the talk of fans on Taiji, popular music and gender is difficult to reduce to signifying this or that, precisely because they indicate and produce a mixed-up, in-between period in South Korean culture. Emphasizing processes and suggesting a liminal stage in young people’s culture in Korea can also help clarify the final two chapters of this thesis.
In chapter three, I argued that Taiji’s voice in three of his ballad songs provided an appealing and pleasurable alternative masculinity to hegemonic masculinity. Taiji’s singing and rapping in these songs are key examples of the process of gender diversification in 1990s South Korea; very much sounding “not like a man”, these songs pushed the boundaries of masculinity, and reveal an openness of gender practice to which many fans positively respond and find pleasurable. Simultaneously responding to and fashioning openness to gender diversity in the 1990s, Taiji’s voice—yôja kat’ae or aettoen (like a girl or childlike), kammi and yeppû (sweet and cute) and so on— in his ballad hits are in fact striking in their difference from masculine norms. As such, Taiji’s ballad vocals may be beyond the reach of most young Korean males, seeming dangerously fey and weak, and may contribute more to the process of diversifying conceptions of gender among young Koreans rather than of gender practices per say. Taiji’s “not like a man” singing and rapping in his ballad songs are important because they open up possibilities for constructing and thinking about young Korean men differently. In such as way, Taiji’s ballad songs are important in contributing to an unstable, ambiguous sensibility that marks contemporary young Koreans’ culture, highlighting its transitional characteristics.
Thinking about processes and transitions, it seems obvious that Seo Taiji and Boys’ “Hayôga” performances would offer multiple and to some degree, contradictory masculinities: some masculinities with subjectivity, some anxious, some reinforcing patriarchal male fraternity and so on. As suggested in the conclusion to chapter 4, “Hayôga” performances in fact provided excellent examples of “being a man” in Korean youth culture that highlight its unstable position between conservative and hegemonic masculine practices and alternatives. And importantly once again, these performances showed Korean youth culture’s precarious position between conservative parent culture and future possibilities. In short, chapter 4 has outlined how patterns of gender in South Korean youth culture are neither new nor old, progressive nor conservative, but more an amalgamation of all these things, neither here nor there.
“Hayôga” performances sum up key points of this thesis as a whole. Ambiguous and indeterminate concerning masculinity, “Hayôga” performances exhibit what is so exciting about Korean youth culture of the past 15 or so years: that it cannot be easily reduced to one pattern or another and that through it we cannot easily tell what will follow. The liminality offered by “Hayôga” has arguably, inflected the sensibility of much of South Korean youth culture since, as the openness and process-oriented talk of my informants on gender issues and Taiji suggests.
As to the masculinities of young Korean men, Taiji’s songs and performances and fans’ communications have provided a glimpse into an especially dynamic period in gender formation in South Korea. My sketch of these masculinities has highlighted their flux, instability, variety and, importantly, their pervasiveness and their consequence in contemporary South Korea.
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Coda: That's ok. No one will recognize me
I will end by presenting some feedback on my thesis I have received from participants. I will briefly highlight how two participants present, in their own way, issues that are in fact central to contemporary ethnographic debate, namely those concerning the interpreting of culture, producing of knowledge, and its associated value, and the representation of participants and their culture.
At the beginning of February 2006, I put up my revised thesis chapters and introduction on a blog (weblog) I had made for my interviewees http://janetsthesis.blogspot.com. The primary purpose I made this blog was to present my thesis (in a more user friendly and fun to use format than a very long word document) to its participants while I was waiting for additional feedback from my thesis committee and editing, etc. A secondary purpose of the blog was to give participants an opportunity to provide me with feedback if they wanted to, before I wrote the final draft. The site meter I put on my blog shows that over the month, most participants visited the site, some just a few times for short visits, and others visiting around once a week, clicking on numerous pages and staying on some for 25 minutes or so. So far, two participants have found the time and inclination to give me feedback: Chae-tol and Kang-t’ae. Both have given me feedback over msn messenger.
True to his participation in interviews—keen and invested—Chae-tol was very enthusiastic about my thesis on my blog, and was forthcoming about why he believed it has value and is important:
Excerpt #1 Chae-tol
C-t: I visited your site!!
J: Oh ya?
C-t: Ya it is so important for [Taiji] manias. I learned so much from your writing.
J: I learned a lot from you too!
C-t: It is so deep! And long.. I wanna read more. Thank you so much!!!
J: ha ha
C-t: Oh ya thanks. I think that no one has done it like this, so in depth.. about Taiji.
So it is important.
J: No no no. Other people have done it like that before. But not my exact topic… and
I am a waykook saram [oeguk saram, a foreign person]! (-: ^^ [smiling faces]
C-t: ^^ Ya ya that is what I mean ^^
Even though my constant negotiations between an outsider and a ‘something else’ position have influenced my thesis, in the end it was written by a oeguk saram. In other words, although I am never treated as an ‘ordinary’ ‘fully foreign’ western oeguk saram anymore by young Korean adults, including my informants (unless I intentionally hide my (very) partial insider status and “play dumb” about Korea and Korean), ultimately for Korean Taiji fans, my status as a foreigner may be what most shapes my thesis’ value and contribution. Chae-tol was clear that what makes my work most exciting and important to him, and he assumes for other manias as well, is that I, a foreigner, wrote it.
However, another point evident in Chae-tol’s feedback is he is interested in learning from what I wrote, something that came up a lot while I was doing my thesis. For instance participants would often ask me questions such as “So what conclusions have you made?” or “So what do you think about Taiji and gender issues?”. Participants did not ask these questions to see if “didn’t get it” (and so I could be corrected) but because they were curious. Chae-tol and others’ curiosity and desire to learn from me—I was the one studying the topic all the time after all—in some ways seems backwards: weren’t I supposed to learn from them, and weren’t they supposed to be concerned with how I represent them? Are not post-colonial ‘natives’ “…answering back… [don’t they] reject our representations of them, and refuse to sit still any longer before the ethnographer’s camera” (Kuper, 1999:208 in Halstead, 2001:319)? In terms of these questions of representation, doing this thesis was sometimes puzzling especially when participants seemed so easygoing about me “getting things right”. But in fact, I should not have been puzzled. Only recently, I have realized my participants, including Kang-t’ae in the excerpts at the end of the coda and Chae-tol, seem to take for granted much that contemporary anthropology and related disciplines have been debating. For instance, they take for granted in their own un-academic way, ideas outlined by Collins:
The realization that knowledge is produced in a historical and social context by individuals has come to dominate, and the discussion about process and product has become political, personal, and experiential. Further, increasingly, the researcher, as producer and writer, is seen as creating meaning and interpretations out of ongoing experience (Collins, 1990 in Sherif, 2001:457).
Chae-tol and Kang-t’ae took it for granted that my thesis was simply that, my thesis: my interpretation of my experience of doing the interviews, chatting with participants over msn, reading articles, books etc, watching the movies and videos and listening to the songs. The simple fact that I came up with ideas and interpretations is what also excites Chae-tol because he and other Taiji manias now have something new and different to read about their hero and their culture. Whether I got this or that ‘right’ is not a question that fits his contemporary sensibility.
Kang-t’ae, throughout my thesis process, also exhibited a similar contemporary sensibility where questions of ‘getting it right’ just did not seem that important. In fact, Kang-t’ae had difficulty understanding why I wanted to put his opinions of what I had written about him into my thesis conclusion. “Why?” he asked plainly, “[you] don’t need to do that.” Even though he once again expressed some concern that he might appear to others in an unflattering light, he did not really want me to add or change anything about my essay about him (he wants to read my words in the end, not his).
Although I have outwardly peppered this thesis with personal elements and hope my readers can read my subject position in this thesis, like many doing ethnography, I still feel uneasy providing the final words, summing everything up as it were. As such, in conclusion, I would like you to read Kang-t’ae and my brief conversation over his feedback and, importantly, let him speak for himself:
Excerpt #1 Kang-t’ae
K-t: Honey. I have to go
J: Which page did you open? Ok
K-t: get my day started
J: Yes
K-t: ch 2
J: Oh ya. Chapter two
K-t: I like your essay about me
J: Chapter 2 has a very wise quote from Uk-tong! Oh really? I though maybe I got it
wrong
K-t: but I am seen sort of negative. Kiki [ha ha]
J: and you would say, no no no, i am not like that! Negative? I don't see it like that
K-t: negative person
J: Oh you mean. I made it seem like you are negative, but you are not negative?
K-t: Ya. that's ok. Anyway very interesting to see. and I agree with your idea
J: Oh I can comment that when you were speaking, those were negative times/moments.
But you are not always like that
K-t: Ya
J: ok
K-t: That's ok
J: yes
K-t: no one will recognize me, but a few people
Excerpt #2 Kang-t’ae
J: I can mention about you sounding a bit too negative in my thesis. I can put that in my
conclusion
K-t: Oh really? Why
J: cause you mentioned that point
K-t: don’t need to do that
J: but also that you liked the story/essay
K-t: yes
J: why did you like it?
K-t: I like the story about me described by someone else.
J: oh. You like it because it seems very true or?
K-t: yes. I agree