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

Jazz Méditerranée

Good job, Mei!

There'll be no desafinado, when your heart belongs to me completely.

That was a cheap move, Mei. You go and write a great post about a great song..... and then you had the nerve to embed the video into the post (raising Moot's expectations to unreasonably high standards.....Moot will get a text link and like it!)..... and the still frame from the video is just so conveniently Jakob Dylan's beautiful, chiseled (but not overly so), symmetrical (he looks exactly the same despite the video being a mirror image) face.

I've decided that since I can't compete on sheer blogging competency, I need something to differentiate myself. I will use my lack of technology to my advantage by not telling you what my next song is. You can read through the post, place your guess in the comments section and then I will put up another post with the lovely video in it. Okay?

This song was introduced to me by a certain crafty ocelot, who picked it up on her travels. It is one of those songs that has always tempted me into thinking about investing a little bit of time into learning some of the language, just so I could sing it better. Take "Desafinado" for example, I always wanted to learn a little Portuguese so that I could sing like this:



Rather than like this (although this version is a lot of fun):



The guy who sung my secret memory song was apparently one of Joao Gilberto's main influences, and it could be argued that he too, was one of the founding fathers of bossanova music. I think this is probably enough hintage for Susie to guess who the singer is and what the song must be. Another bonus hint for Moot, the singer died a couple of years ago aged 90..... and the best anagram of his name is the hilarious "An old ravisher". If you need to have it playing at the same time as you read it, Moot, you can solve the riddle and search for the song on Youtube.....or you might just be able to find it on the living room computer.

But yeah, it's frustrating when you have a song that is so great and so catchy, yet you feel like you are defiling the language when singing it.... but defile it I did. This song was the theme song for my trip to Canada in 2001. I couldn't get it out of my head..... everywhere I went, I'd say not 30 minutes would have gone by without me humming it or singing it in my head. Sitting in the airport talking to an arsehole Canadian immigration officer (only unpleasant Canadian I met, I shit you not), watching Aunty Grace cook a foil-wrapped fish recipe that she learned from Jamie Oliver, playing pool with cousin David (and having him ask if Aunty Grace cooked the same fish dish she always makes), being unimpressed by the Niagra falls, purchasing a stupid set of clay poker chips that I have never used, sitting by some river thinking oh my god I'm 20 what have I done/am I doing with my life.....all of these occurred with my secret song lurking somewhere in the background. The question is.....what song is it?

After I finished my time in Canada, I went to see my friend Paul, who was attending Yale at that time. My theme song for that part of my trip was this song. Man, those Ivy League kids know how to party... But I suppose that is a post for another day.

You happy, mum? Too much trouble to just cut and past the link, huh?

有梦想谁都了不起

Every now and again I go to Youtube, or Youku and listen to some Chinese songs. I'm not really a huge fan of most Chinese music. I've tried, but 99% of the stuff I've listen to just sounds like pop crap..... Okay, I know I like poppy crap, but it has to be a certain type of poppy crap. One song that causes me to become a little emotional and even tear up on occasion is the official theme song from the 2008 Olympic games, "Bejing welcomes you" (北京欢迎你)....I have no real reason to write the Chinese, I just wanted to do so. Anyway, this is a little odd for me because I really fucking hated the song at the time. I mean in the days leading up to, and during the Olympics, this song was played over and over and over and over again. Given that it is a seven minute song with basically the same verse and same chorus repeated over and over again, that's not good. It's one thing to have "Bohemian Rhapsody", or something epic that changes all the time for seven minutes..... but "Beijing welcomes you" is basically a standard three and a half minute pop song that they decided to double in length to give all the celebrities a chance to sing a line. So yeah, I hated the song at the time.... However, it was played so much during this period that the song has become indelibly linked to my memories of the time. It got me thinking about all the songs that I associate with people or events or certain periods in my life. So I decide to make a list of songs that bring back the most powerful and vivid memories. Hopefully, I'll be able to get out a few blog posts on the topic..... but for now, watch the video and be amused by the fact that I think of Mikey when I see Wang Lee Hom..... Dad when I see Jackie Chan.... and Susie when I see Karen Mok..... If only Anthony Wong had gotten in on it, he would definitely be me. Sorry mum, but you are caucasian and I don't think you'd want to be associated with a cheesy song like that anyway. You get a piece of "Scotland the Brave" though. :P