To be honest, it felt a little weird to "graduate" after only studying Korean for a month, in spite of how intense that month of study was. On my last full day in Korea, they held a graduation ceremony for all the classes - we watched slideshows, videos, some dances, and then the certificate ceremony:
Oh, Graduation Ceremony, you mean nothing to me...
Well, it didn't mean absolutely nothing, but it felt weird to be doing it again, in so short a study period, after so many years.
내 한국어 수업! 사랑해요, 여러본!
My Korean class! I love you, everyone!
L-R: Giulia, Cody, Michelle, Chackie, Claudia, Simon, me, Melinda, Jezamine
There was a graduation dinner right afterwards, but I didn't go. I had a concert to go to, stat! Before I left the States, I bought a ticket to see one of my favorite groups, B1A4, in concert for my last night in Korea (which happened to be the first night of their concert series...lucky!), and it just so happened that Giulia and Claudia, Kpop super-fans that they are, had gotten tickets for the same night! I still don't know how I even got a ticket, since they sold out so fast, and then was lucky enough to have friends from my class to go too. We literally ran across Sogang campus, hailed a cab, and were at the concert venue in about 20 minutes to pick up our tickets.
Our first view of the venue...holy huge poster!
There was no line for tickets since it was just picking up your online order. I've heard horror stories about how notoriously hard it is for foreigners to get tickets for some concerts without having a Korean friend/insider, or they sell out so crazy fast, so thank you, B1A4, for making it so easy! We also made a stop at the official concert merchandise booth...
Oh Korea, your merchandise is so practical, and full of puns...literal fans for the fangirls? Ba-dum-ching.
We all got fans with our favorite members (it was so hot!) and light sticks. Oooh, light sticks, you wonder? Absolutely necessary for kpop concerts. It's so cool to look over the audience, and most everyone is holding up their light sticks, moving them to the beat! I love audiences in Korea (at least in baseball and kpop), everyone is so united, so passionate about whatever is going on.
We had an hour to kill before we could line up to go inside, so we stopped by a cafe with air-con to chill out for a little bit.
The girls and their favorites: Giulia + Sandeul, Claudia + Baro + Jinyoung (she couldn't pick 1)
I couldn't pick either! Me + Baro + CNU (Shinwoo)
Finally lining up! It was a little cramped, but better than I had expected. Thank goodness for my fan, 너무 너무 더워요! (Way too hot!) But so exciting!
Official B1A4 fan club. They were relatively calm (for teenage girls at a boy band concert), since they were doing chants with the fan club presidency. Still, do not get on their bad side...
So Amaizng!
One of the first reasons I began to listen to B1A4 was for their spectacular Engrish. To quote one of their songs*: "Oh, my beautiful target, you joom joom my heart like a locket (you zoom zoom my heart like a rocket)". Bad English, and bad pronunciation = double awesome! Official sign, you both meet and exceed my Engrish expectations.
*You can look up their masterpiece called "Beautiful Target", of which the music video is also quite choice.
In short, the concert was soooo fun! It was a pretty small venue, only about 2,000 people, which I think is better, especially since I was in the standing section only about 25 feet from the stage. I was also taller than most of the Korean teenage girls, so I always had a great view (sorry girls behind me!), and I owe it to this, as well as the fact that I'm so obviously foreign, that I'm pretty sure my favorite member, CNU, waved to me. That's what I tell myself, anyways. Here are the facts: 1. No one else around me was waving; 2. I'm so pale that I glow in the dark. It just makes sense.
It was only supposed to be a 2-hr. show, but they extended it to 3 hours! So great. There really is nothing like going to a concert of a band you love, and having a Korean teenage girl stare at you because you're singing along with all the songs in Korean.
We weren't allowed to take pictures or videos inside at risk of being immediately kicked out of the concert (and I saw it happen several times), so here's a practice video of their latest song, "What's Going On?" I even learned the dance to this song before I went to Korea, which made it way more fun.
One of the Best. Days. Ever.
1 comments:
Love the dress you wore--you look really cute in it!Love the fans (the ones you kept cool with) and those are some pretty fancy light sticks! Was CNU in that one movie we watched with Jeremy in it? Can't get over how young all of the band members look. Are they all teen-agers? Hey, you now have another graduation certificate to frame!
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