Oh, Iceberg, I love and hate you for bringing me back to the old school days.
It's almost alien to imagine back then, how much less contrived things were, how much fresher and more friendly things seemed then, especially as it involved foreigners and Koreans sharing play spaces and partying together. Nowadays, foreigners and Koreans letting their hair down together – or even getting a little wild – is grounds for scandal. 휴. But back in the day...
It's also impossible to imagine a club with people dancing and singing and you being able to walk around freely with a video camera, especially in a situation involving foreigners and Koreans partying together.
This little piece of video also reminded me of just how popular and universally fun Korean music and pop was – watching an American white and black dude doing Pak Jin Young on teh dance floor, as well as hearing Tisha from Uptown reminded me of why I was led to Chapter 7 of my dissertation, in which I said that "Korean transnational identity stands as the vanguard for a cooler, hipper identity, especially for non-Korean Asian American groups" or something to that effect and was even going to present it as an academic paper well before the phrase "Korean wave" had even been coined.
Vietnamese and Chinese-Americans in the Bay Area had already started "crashing" Korean bars and night clubs, which actually started some ethnic tensions because the Korean Americans wanted to keep those places Korean. To everyone's surprise, the "Korean way" was the way to "be" Asian as an Asian American.
This also inspired me to do one of my very first formal photo essays, which I completed in 2001. It had to do with "Korean Spaces" as they were increasingly defined in the then-growing Oakland Koreatown, and how these spaces, which were self-consciously defined nodes of Korean contemporary pop culture and pop culture nostalgia, were increasingly popular places for non-Koreans to go, especially non-Korean Asian Americans with a sense of transnational Asian identity, Chinese and Southeast Asians especially.
That was the argument at least, which few of my Asian American colleagues in the deparmtent were buying at the time. Now, look at the state of Korea's influence on the music, movies, television, and other aspects of both Asian and Asian American pop culture and national identity.
Thanks for bringing me back to a more fun time, as well as for reminding me of that initial link that brought my love for Korean culture and my academic interests together.
It's getting to be about time to get back to that dissertation.
