Of course, we understand the position that you have to start working from the bottom to raise the awareness when you go abroad even if you have joined the top star ranks in the local market. It is impossible not to know that there are income limits if you focus only on the Korean market. The illegal album records market in China is in its full swing, but you can attain the “economy of scale” with performances, CF deals, and events. If you think about the absurdly small local album market (compared to the Japanese one) and the irrational local digital sites profit distribution, were I a head of the company, I wouldn’t be able to stop the idols from taking a plane.

However, sometimes I don’t know whether I like a Korean singer or a foreign singer when the good seats from a performance get sold out to the foreign fans as tourism deal packages or when they organize events for the foreign fans only (I’m not asking for a special treatment of Korean fans. I’m just saying I can also pay that money for that seat, so give me a chance to buy it too!). It’s to the point that if there’s a local concert, we laugh bitterly at ourselves in a half-joking half-serious manner, saying “Our singers are coming to Korea for a visit.” However, the fans who live in the capital are okay. Lately, even if the idols have a world tour, they don’t do the nation-wide tour, so I think it wouldn’t be surprising if the fans in the provinces would come to think that their singers were just hologram images.

Aren’t the Korean and overseas concerts the same? Of course, my own feelings would be at fault for this, but when you see the photos that are uploaded real-time; your heart gets torn apart when you notice that they seem to be a lot prettier than in Korea. When the reserved member suddenly goes into a “cute” mode you haven’t seen at home or when someone cries, you clutch at the monitor with “Ah… why I’m not in China… why I’m not in Japan…” What’s the use of all those news articles about tens of thousands of fans gathered at venue, singing along to Korean songs, our idols supposedly “enhancing the national prestige?” I’m not one of those tens of thousands.

Even so, it’s a relief we have been born in Korea… “Local fan’s” pride

Even if my singers take a plane like a bus, if they receive appropriate treatment and reputation locally, rather it’s a good thing. Lately, another point was added to my list of reasons why I say “My loves, don’t cross that sea” with the award ceremonies being held abroad. I couldn’t help but sigh automatically when the stage would turn into a chaos because of poor management, or when I witnessed a spectacle of certain members not even being able to participate because of visa problems. Singers who spent their precious time preparing the show, the fans who purchased costly tickets to attend the ceremony, the fans who worked hard on voting – everyone were hurt. At times like these I can’t help but feel resentment, thinking for what and for whom this K-pop craze exists.

However, the last fortification that allows us to have the victory of mind is the truth that “we have been born in the same country, and we speak the same language.” Even if the variety producers don’t put subtitles, if a funny comment drowns in other members’ voices, with the native speaker’s intuition we can capture “our baby’s” voice like ghosts. It might be childish, but the ability to sympathize immediately and laugh along when someone spits out a peculiar world play that couldn’t be translated automatically (or the English explanation would not salvage that particular feeling) – that’s the Korean fan’s pride. Please understand the feeling of wanting to find consolation at least in that. I’m saying this because if we didn’t do even that, then it would really be it.

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*T/N: The title of the article is a play on the title of a movie that has recently become the most commercially successful Korean documentary. My Love, Don't Cross That River.

Source: SisaIN

Kor-Eng: Egle0702

The image by Han Jihye