Bonus episode: The Village Barber episodes 2 - 4

Lynn (0:10)

This is Unnis on Oppas, a fan podcast where we talk about Korean dramas, and the actresses and actors who are in Korean dramas, most especially the leading men of Kdramas, also known as our Kdrama boyfriends, also known as Oppas.

Suzy (0:23)

And we are your metaphorical big sisters, aka Unnis. I am Suzy.

Lynn (0:30)

And I am Lin. And at the beginning of our episodes, we like to pause for a moment to reflect on something or someone that has allowed us to be here today. So, Suzy, in this episode, to whom would you like to say, jama kismida?

Suzy (0:45)

You know, truth be told, I have a lot to be thankful for at this moment. So I will pick one of the biggest ones, which is, uh, K-pop.

So I did not plan this, but it happens that there were several concerts around my birthday.

Lynn (1:07)

Yeah.

Suzy (1:08)

And so I have had such a, like, joyful time with, like, different groups of friends going to basically four different concerts in a month. And that is a lot for anybody, right? That's so much. And it took so much planning and like a few of them, I had to go to New Jersey and like New York for. And, um, there's just a lot of logistical things. And of course it costs some money. And, um, but in the end, it really like gave me such a, like, great birthday month, as it were, um, where, you know, I, a lot of it is like friendship time as well, but, you know, these really wonderful artists who like do such a good job in their, you know, in their performance really made things so great. So, um, I don't know if I talked about it before, but I did go see Ive with our friend Naa from KDrama Bingo.

And then I went to see BTS Weiss. Wow. Don't judge me.

But they are, you know, they were never sort of my main group. I enjoy them a lot, but the timing when I started to get into BTS or started really wanting to get to know them was towards when they were preparing to go to military service. So honestly, I was more familiar with their solo projects, really. And like through that, I really enjoyed like, each member had a very, you know, has a very clear musical direction, I guess is what it is. Because like, you know, BTS music is BTS music, right? Like, it's like, K-pop with like some hip hop in there. And it's just, you know, it's their own thing. But like, each individual member has like a different musical expression. Even between the members that are sort of like hip hop oriented, they have like very, very, very different styles. And, you know, the vocalists have very, very different musical styles as well. And I have really, really enjoyed all their individual outputs and really, like, sort of respect them as artists, you know. But as a group, I don't know them, you know, because I haven't seen them as a group or really, known their music as a group too much.

Lynn (3:54)

Yeah.

Suzy (3:54)

Maybe like just like the very, very famous ones, you know. So it was really great to see them in concert because then I'm now like, look at them. They are very good at their job.

Lynn (4:07)

Yeah.

Suzy (4:07)

They seem to be very locked in, in both those performances in different cities, where they just as performers, they're very focused and they're also having fun, and they're very good with like audience interaction. I feel like that's difficult in a stadium setting, right? Like it's so big.

Lynn (4:33)

Yeah.

Suzy (4:33)

The stage is big, the audience is big, like to feel connected to the artist that is performing is very hard, I feel like. That's why I don't love going to these sort of big venues anymore, because I'm just watching it on TV basically, right? Because you really rely on that screen so much. Yeah.

I find that also interesting in modern, I don't know if other Western artists do this, but in K-pop concerts, I've seen this more and more where they have like a cameraman that is following them on stage.

On the screen, you see a different image than just them on a standard camera. So there's an actual scene that is happening, that is on purpose being filmed and projected. So I thought that was such an interesting thing, and I don't know if I love that or not, because from a performance point of view to me, I'm like, that's weird that there's just a camera man running around on stage. And if you're somebody who is really watching the stage, isn't that disruptive to your view? Like it's just, it's not, because this is not like a broadcast TV thing, right? Like if it's something that's being filmed, which some of it I'm sure is being filmed, but if you're just trying to like create a picture, you know, on the screen, is this like the best way to do that? I don't know. I don't know. But I just, I find that phenomenon interesting. But anyway, I enjoyed both their concerts and I have like much more sort of liking to them as a group now. And I just thought they were just really fantastic.