lifeslemonjuice

[lifeslemonjuice]

I am so proud of what K-pop has become.

People’s perception towards it, the standard of artistry and the global factor.

[lifeslemonjuice]

Put on that pop music to feed my old soul.

[lifeslemonjuice]

Vulnerability is an uneasy feeling. Because when you pour out a part of you to be judged by the world, the part that was once there, is left with a hole. It needs to be filled as soon as possible. It is a restless feeling.

[lifeslemonjuice]

Don't give your power away.

Ellie Lee

[lifeslemonjuice]

it’s very strange that every time after a shoot, you feel you were in another world that time is contained inside a box. once you are taken out of it, you must reset.

[lifeslemonjuice]

Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others.

Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval.

Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.

[lifeslemonjuice]

Owe nobody else but yourself.

[lifeslemonjuice]

The best me is when I speak my heart.

It’s a soft heart. A soft voice. Is me.

[lifeslemonjuice]

I exist without my consent.

[lifeslemonjuice]

You don't have to like everyone you meet,

but you owe everyone respect.

[lifeslemonjuice]

A good state of mind is a good life. Guaranteed.

[lifeslemonjuice]

Thoughts are a river

Once the mouth opens,

Given comfort,

it takes a dam to stop it,

Disconnected by your glances

And your reactions

I hush my words in

my chest

repressed

Circling the right words

and pronunciation

oh oh and ah ah

noises that take over

My hands enter to save my stutter

Stringing up letters,

decimate the moment I try to say

how I feel to you.

[lifeslemonjuice]

I have collected a few things along the way that pushes my buttons.

1. Monologues. When characters talk to themselves on screen because it makes me feel like I am watching a play.

2. Repetition & rhythm in writing.

3. Contribution to something bigger, and people who think bigger than life.

4. Patterns and guidance.

5. A direction to go to while accepting your shadows.

6. Collecting pretty and meaningful knick knacks.

[lifeslemonjuice]

2nd of May

Should we write stories for people or for ourselves? I am tasked to write a film for my home country, and it will be judged on originality and public interest. How? Singapore culture is not easy to pin down - it is a lot of things: bland, safe, sponge, an illusion, future orientated, unbothered, smart. Everybody’s “typical Singaporean” is a different person. If I personify Singapore, he will look like a stern man with smile lines, who’s shirt has a pocket for pens, with hair that is sleeked back, goes jogging, trilingual, and tells great dad jokes. 

[lifeslemonjuice]

Notes on Bad Taste

If you saw my Spotify Rewind for 2019, you would probably laugh. April 2019 - it was that Boy With Love SNL performance which marked the start of it all. Spring Day was when I completely surrendered into their magnificence of 방!탄!소!년!단! This year when Map of the Soul: 7 was released, and I experienced what it felt like to be a fan of theirs for the very first time during an album release. At this moment in time, they are the biggest act in the world. Unreal is the word. But well deserved is the word too. That in itself is a contrast, and the many, many paradoxes you will feel when it comes to their story. How did they make it so big?

Towards the second half of 2019, I was trying to write an essay about Kpop title - Notes On Bad Taste. I wanted to pen down how I surprised myself – a girl that didn’t bother to listen to any Kpop to somehow listen to them every day. To this day, the essay has not yet been completed. It was weirdly difficult to write. (It is weirdly difficult for me to write this too.) It definitely makes me wonder – why is it every time I want to write about this topic, it never feels like I am being completely honest? Perhaps it is the fear of touching a topic that is still widely stigmatised. Perhaps it is the surface level of understanding I have toward a weighty topic. Perhaps the hidden side of the perfection is what draws me in. Perhaps that is the part that I am truly interested in investigating. Perhaps I know that I will never get an answer, which is why I keep wanting more.

This phase of my life marks a delayed time of personal discovery. Somehow I have only just felt comfortable enough in my own skin. Somehow 방탄소년단 showed me the possibility that there is yet another side of me that enjoys this form of music, that somehow showed me to be more openminded and non-judgmental. Certainly, I did not know that music had this kind of power until I understood Kpop.

Note that the definition of Kpop is very widely debated and that it cannot be defined in just a single sentence without going into the history of South Korea. I struggle to define this because there is a whole other side to Kpop that I have yet to understand. The side that stands for independent music, rap scene and those epic gut-wrenching ballads that most South Koreans actually listen to. The idol music side of Kpop being tailored for us non-Koreans, almost like an entrance to a new world. Actually, idol music should be in its own entity because it is the perfectly crafted gateway machine designed to get any fool like myself to want to buy a plane ticket to Seoul.

How I see Kpop or (idol music) is that it vibrates in an upper stratospheric layer. It takes from all types of styles- and exploits them. The visuals, and colour, the beats, and the noise. It is too much, like a Takashi Murakami painting. It’s like you already know that it is manufactured to fit into the pop scene, but you want more. It recycles, it copies. It is irresistible, it is annoying, it makes feel waves on the inside, it makes you dance on the outside. I still wonder – why do I keep listening? It is not that great. It makes you want to turn it off. It makes you feel something you can’t put a finger on. And it makes you curious because – what they are singing about?

And then comes the afterthought. The afterthought that comes through understanding what Kpop is really about. It comes from the artists, their journey to debut to success to mega success. It makes us appreciate their hard work because of the difficult structured system of the Korean music industry, the standard of what the idols need to go through - the corruption, the mental health issues that are never addressed, the fact that they are South Korean, taking over the world, the message they send to the youth, the massive community of people that formed a real connection. 

Nothing is fair, there is no such American dream from any South Korean native, and the odds are always against them, and yet they breakthrough. There is a deep sense of undying support and empathy toward these idols from fans because they understand how difficult it is for idols to be idols. It is a beautiful cycle of giving and take. The idols vowing to work hard for their fans for their once impossible dreams to stay alive.

Noted that all these criticisms about Kpop exist because we are primed to feel so negatively toward idol music as shown on western media. Ultimately, the moment you give something meaning is when it becomes important. Somehow, with BTS, everything they put out and does carries a sense of normality that young people really resonate within this point in time. You can say it is because they remind young people to love themselves through the context of their music and lyrics. They nudged a generation to read Jung. 

I don’t see 7 boys who love themselves. I see 7 boys healing themselves through the music they make, the performances they do is their way of feeling liberated and free from all they are going through. Subconsciously I see that they remind young people that through the feeling of gratitude for what they do, they vibrate a kind of selflessness that I don’t feel from people who are famous. They are constantly bombarded by the love that they cannot even feel. So, in the back of their minds, a reminder to be realistic and to keep working hard will always burden them. They carry and understand what it is like to feel, to cry, and to not love themselves. It reminds us to reflect on ourselves and our purpose towards ourselves through all these struggles. That’s the appeal. That is sacrifice, and that is the highest form of love. At least what I think is love. All these things that I have just written are weight of mental health that we all can easily relate to. The more vulnerable they are the more people are able to relate to them. It’s like dancing on a tight rope, juggling what they love, the money they earn, and their agency – a metaphorical scissors that can cut the tightrope any time. And waiting for them at the bottom is their sea of fans, all of them which they cannot touch.

There is no explanation needed for me to explain, or for any Kpop lovers out there to explain to people who don’t get it. They will get it if they get it. Simply because the greatest most valid reason to like Kpop is a kind of happiness that certainly can not be fulfilled by pop music these days.

(li)(li)