Diva, Diva!

My most satisfying musical memories are ones where the songs are from the same time period as the memory. "Beijing welcomes you" is a good example of this, it's so 2008 China. Even better is when the music reflects your generation or your friends. It's been a long time since I was current, I mean liking the music that people my age are supposed to like, at the time it comes out. With all the crap out there today, I always forget that.....while it is shit, it does represent a generation of kids. Does the generation that's just moved out of adolescence always look down on the music of the current young folk? I'm 29, so I guess I haven't just moved out of adolescence and I am rambling so anway......

Here are my two songs for this post. They are by a Korean pop group called Diva and they were introduced to me by my friend SC. I haven't seen him in person for 11 years, I haven't talked to him for about 3. His Facebook now lists his location as New York, New York. After finishing high school, he moved back to Korea to work and complete his military service requirements. A few years back he moved to the US to study fashion design in Washington, DC. I think he must have come out while at college, because he put up a video on Facebook of him singing in the "Washington Gay Mans' Choir" and his fashion sense (from his pictures) can only be described as "flaming". I'd never really thought about the possibility that he might be gay...... He was always just too gay to be gay, if you know what I mean. I always thought his gayness was like a coping mechanism. I think that Korean guys generally have two options growing up, to either be the aggressive macho, arseholes and compete in that male-dominated society, or to be a more passive, effeminate dude and not compete or be a threat to the alpha males. I had a lot of problems with Korean guys at my high school, I nearly got beaten up several times by these rich, arsehole Korean guys.....who probably had the crap beaten out of them by other Korean guys at other stages in their lives. I think that's just the way it is.

Here is a story that I think relates. I met one of the nicest Korean guys ever while studying at Bohai. He served his compulsory military service time in the marine corp, the toughest soldiers in the Korean army. He said that the first month in the corp consists of getting beaten up every single day, like 5-6 more senior soldiers get to kick the crap out of you and you can't fight back. I asked if he beat up the new recruits when he was one of the senior guys and he just shrugged his shoulders and said "Yes, what else can you do? It's the rules.". He is a genuinely nice person and I was a little taken aback that he could just beat up defenseless kids.....but I guess he had his role and part to play.

I don't want to turn this into a commentary on Korean society, because despite having met quite a few Koreans, I don't think I should really generalize too much. I just think it was pretty tough for SC growing up. He is an arty, creative, very talented musically, nice, funny guy. I'm not sure whether he knew he was gay then, but I'm sure he felt different and a little bit alienated from his culture, which is highly homophobic. I remember him being pretty unhappy about the way the other Korean guys went about things, how they had this macho pecking order and all the fights and confrontations they got into with each other. SC managed to remove himself from all that by being the funny jokester, the effeminate gay acting, non-threatening guy. So yeah, even though there were plenty of signs that SC was gay, I was actually a little surprised his current gayness..... I mean he might not be gay, but he is a fashion designer and he dresses and talks (well, comments on Facebook) like a diva..... Hehehehehe..... I remember him commenting a lot on how good-looking I was, noticing that I have green eyes (well not really, they do turn greenish sometimes though), kissing me on the mouth while drunk at a party and dancing and singing along to music like this:



I would have joined in too, if I could sing in Korean or had seen the videos to learn the dance moves. I'd never seen the videos for these songs until I found them on Youtube while looking them for this post. I remember SC having blue contacts like the girls in the video, and yelling out "Diva, diva" and doing the pose from 0.59. I remember him singing with another effeminate Korean guy Jun, who also had a great voice (a high tenor that I wish I had). Jun's mother apparently was a famous pop singer in Korea and he once sung Whitney Houston's "Greatest love of all" in school assembly. But yeah, their singing was really awesome...

I can't remember the first time I heard this group's music, but I remember really liking it straight away. I asked SC if he could buy me a copy of their CD when he went back to Korea for the holidays. He did and I think I still have it lying around in my room somewhere. But yeah, these two songs, and that whole album remind me of my 6th form year (which was probably my best at high school), of hanging out at Korean parties and drinking shoju and midori, of my friend SC and of being 17 and liking dumb pop music that was designed to appeal to kids my age. :D