Moonchild The term moonchild, loosely defined as someone idiosyncratic or out of step with the world, becomes in RM’s hands the embodiment of a person lying awake deep into the night, gripped by anxiety about an uncertain future, a feeling…
My friends, if you’re craving a truly compelling TV drama, I highly recommend Our Unwritten Seoul, which just premiered on Netflix this past weekend. I tend to sample new dramas but rarely follow them through to the end; only the…
A writer once said that each of us carries a crying child in a quiet corner of the heart. What does she mean? Even as we grow into adulthood, we keep an inner child—the figure for the painful memories of…
School started up again last Thursday. From Friday through Sunday we were off on an orientation retreat just outside Seoul. Coming home this afternoon, cotton clouds drifting across a blue sky, traffic moving at an easy pace, I cracked a…
I translated this song in 2019, but I can’t find the analysis I wrote then. I remember calling it one of BTS’s finest love ballads, a song where two people become light for each other, brightening lives once bright but…
Whenever I’m feeling a little down, I watch this video. It never fails to make me smile. It also reminds me of Gapsuni, my old dog; even though she’s long gone, the mere thought of her fills me with happiness.…
Serendipity I especially love how RM playfully links 그냥 (geu-nyang) (simply) with 고양이 (goh-yahng-yi) (cat), since Koreans also affectionately call cats 냥냥이 (nyang-nyang-yi). In that light, Jimin’s “그냥, 그냥 (geu-nyang geu-nyang)” almost sounds like “meow, meow,” adding a tender and…
Blue Side For the bridge, J-Hope writes two four-line stanzas of fixed length with matching rhyme schemes. They look deceptively simple, like a William Carlos Williams poem, but each line is subtly constructed to depict scenarios that he knows can…
Today marks the official opening of the “Min Yoon-gi Therapy Center” at Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital. Over the years, BTS have given not only their music but also immense generosity, extending their hands to countless causes and lives in need.…
