K-pop songs and the years that I lost to time
Memories flooded every living cell in my body when I randomly clicked on this one k-pop song from my teenage years. Almost every time I’m brave enough to revisit those familiar yet distant sounds, I am drenched in emotions, complex yet simple, unable to escape an unexpected storm of memories.
The 13/14-year-old me used to use k-pop as my only escape from reality. I bombarded walls in my room with posters of those boy/girl bands, leaving no room for anything other than these highly-produced beauties. Writing fanfiction about k-pop stars was my only escape from the unstable hormones during my puberty.
I imagined love to be so pure and desirable in those fan fiction. The chubby kid who used to get bullied for her not-so-perfect body imagined a world filled with beautiful people who spent every second loving each other with every muscle in their bodies. I thought of every one of those stars as the perfect being, claimed by magazines as “hard-working, humble, and kind”. I devoted every second of my free time to searching and reading about their news or watching their reality shows, while piles of homework collecting dust on my desk. I changed my social media status vowing to marry this one star and fought ferociously with my parents about the time I “wasted” on k-pop.
Does a little nostalgia never hurt anybody? I certainly hope not. They have grown old. The youngest member is approaching their thirties. They are still gorgeous and generous, keeping the promise to never disappoint. Today I saw one member posted that they are coming back. The man I promised to marry is still tall and beautiful, singing beautifully after coming back from his military service, dark brown eyes that used to seem youthful now replaced with age-appropriate wisdom.
But the nostalgia is no longer about them.
The nostalgia remains for the people I’ve lost to the battle of life. For the simple life right before the booming of technology. For the memory cherished by a little girl who used to love so bravely and purely.
The nostalgia is for the pretty girl with white glasses who clenched my collar while exclaiming about one member’s irresistible hotness. For the fiction-writing 4 am when my finger reddened from all night of writing. For The messages still swarming from the online blog abandoned years ago claiming my fanfic had psychic abilities. For the puberty-filled hallway full of girls like me who argued about who was the best-looking Big Bang. For the used-to-thrive newspaper stands that are disappearing but used to profit off 10-yuan k-pop magazines. For the terrible text plan that was destroyed by my unstoppable texting with my best friends simply outlining who we like in a boy/girl band.
The nostalgia is for the brief break we took between after-school physics classes to sing along to their music videos. It’s for the only tangible problem being not able to see these stars in person during a childhood so well-protected from the world’s cruelty and betrayal. It’s for the confession text I sent to the boys I had a crush on, imaging a love story as beautiful as one being told in my fanfiction. It’s for believing the existence of the perfect human, kind, generous, sweet, hard-working… the words can pile up. It’s for my loving grandma who used to stand confusingly behind me while I spent hours on her computer showing her those men of my dreams. It’s for the girls who shared my passion on the online forum, resonating with my fan fiction so much that they commented and shared their everyday struggles. It’s for those R-rated short stories (to which I really shouldn’t be exposed) on the online forum that told me what sex is in place of proper Sex Ed in China.
A couple of years ago the sex scandal broke out. Two men I thought were impeccable were participants of the scandal. Their actions cannot be justified by no amount of “PR” or “They hang with the wrong crowd”. The perfect snow globe dropped to the floor, and shattered glass slashed open my remaining desire to revisit my teenage dream.
Kim Jong-hyun fell victim to mental health and gave up his young and beautiful life. I still remember those conversations about him I shared with my friend who fervently admired him. Turns out these produced stars suffer from various degrees of abuse and the pressure from being perfect lays heavy. After being on top of the world, they were rarely on anybody’s mind until their departure was announced.
Sulli left her life behind in her apartment. Before her passing, online attack towards that star was ruthless. Then followed the passing of one of my friends. The background wallpaper of my friend’s WeChat remains that of Sulli’s smiling face.
I miss these k-pop songs.
I miss my misguided naïveté about how love works. After years of stumbling through the dating mine field and numerous failed relationships, I realized love is a rarity, never a guarantee.
I miss my friends who scatter around the globe and heaven, but used to sit right next to me in that crowded cafeteria discussing these k-pop bands and promising each other “we will always be together ok”.
I miss those ten-yuan magazines that supported small business owners but now contributing to huge news network. With the newspaper stands changing rapidly to simply a beverage stand, I wonder how difficult it is for those owners to survive.
I miss how I thought the world is so simple and glamorous. Well-protected greenhouse-grown plant like me has been beaten to crumbs by the cruel wind of the real world ever since.
Mostly I miss me, the 14-year-old chubby me who was bullied often but still held up hope, who believed in love, who trusted the world to be cruelty-free and forgiving.
Can we ever turn back time? I’m willing to give up a lot.
But do we even want to turn back time? Those naive and innocent past version of us can barely survive a second in our world nowadays anyway.
