8 Korean music to listen to this International Women’s Day — Part 2
March 8th is International Women’s Day. In light of International Women’s Day, here are eight songs by female Korean artists to listen to as your feminist fight song.
WOMEN’S MARCH by Ahn Ye Eun
Seven in the prison in muddy uniform
Kneeling down and praying to god
…
Daehan is here, Daehan is here
In Korea, March 1st is a national holiday (named sam-il-jeol) that commemorates Korea’s independence movement during the Japanese colonization era. This year marked the 101st anniversary of the Sam-il movement, a monumental movement that fired multiple demonstrations all over the peninsula. Korea’s independence was possible through these civil resistance movements and the sacrifices of the activists.
The song “Women’s March” is a project track made to commemorate the female activists during the Japanese occupation. The lyrics are based on the actual lyrics of an unknown song the incarcerated activists used to sing in the jail cells of Seodaemun jail. Even though the Korean liberation movement was led by people of all ages and gender, history mainly credits male activists and these female activists’ histories are seldom left untold. The song, written by Ahn Ye Eun in collaboration with the media company Pran, seeks to shed more light on their contribution to the country. Ahn Ye Eun reimagines the song playing into the more traditional composition that was prevalent during the era, and her voice is the perfect addition to the style. The melody is simple and easy to follow, remaining faithful to the nature of the song.
#with_you by D’avant
We’re at the tipping point
But it’s just another round
Still so many people don’t care
But, we’re not gonna give up
Till everything gets right
Just hold on and don’t be afraid
When Harvey Weinstein got accused of sexually assaulting women in Hollywood in 2017 and marked the world-wide wake of the #me_too movement, it really seemed like a tipping point. It was more than two full years later that Weinstein was finally found guilty.
Through the #me_too movement, the change it caused is less of destroying creepy old men’s lives (many sex offenders are probably still wealthy and successful) but more of seeing how through solidarity we can protect ourselves and have the courage to speak up. D’avant’s song “#with_you” is exactly that. It is a voice that promises to be with you through all. The hashtag may not be trending anymore, but the message of solidarity and hope will be relevant forever.
YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW by Lang Lee
So don’t you say that I have boy issues
You don’t even know, you don’t even know
Do you think I am pretty?
How? Really?
Do you wanna date me then?
Dating is so personal yet so political. So is Lang Lee’s song “You don’t even know.” Personally, I have struggled to make sense of myself as someone in a romantic relationship. Not because I couldn’t find the right person or was not satisfied with my relationships but rather because of the way I was perceived as a person in a relationship. Sometimes it was the minor things like feeing uncomfortable being called in possessives, or “someone’s” girl. Sometimes it was outright slut-shaming that shook me to the core. I knew these things do not and cannot define me, yet there were moments that felt as if people jumped into a conclusion about me with such details of my life.
Lang Lee’s “You don’t even know” is such a vulnerable piece with a sense of humor to it. She brings up her childhood complex and gives her own reasoning to her “complex history with men.” While the song seems so lighthearted, the imaginable history of this song and her is rather too realistic. What really moves me about this song is the courage that would have taken her to make peace with herself through all the questions about her romantic interests and all the internalized self-doubt. It may be that courage that makes her last echoing lyrics — “You don’t even know” — such a powerful and empowering statement.
MAMA, SEE by Jclef
Please turn on the volume
Stories too common to make the main headline
It simply was not my turn
I can’t live like this, feeling relieved that I was not thereMama, the world is a chaos
but the world expects me to smile
Mama, they say the world is a bigger place
but some deaths are so disposable
If I could quote all of this song, I would have quoted the whole song. Every single line really hits hard. The song is in a message to a mother figure, laying out the reasons why the artist cannot be satisfied with the way things are now and explaining the world she wants to live in the future. It feels like narrowing the generational gap of understanding gender and feminism is rather a universal struggle. And in a mother-daughter relationship, there are added layers to this struggle. A mother wishes to think that she gave her daughter the best she could have given. A mother thinks that this world is an improvement from what she had to live through. A mother thinks that life would be easier for her daughter if she gives what the world wants. I mean — what’s so wrong about smiling?
As a daughter, those are hard questions to answer. No answer would be sufficient for a woman that once meant the world to one. However, some changes must be made and cannot be slept on.
I feel like Jclef’s “Mama, see” is a perfect snapshot of what it means to be a woman right now. We’ve seen changes happening, but we also see things staying the same. We start to see deaths that were once too small to make the news now only starting to be brought to attention. There are hope and despair existing together like two faces of a coin. Even though we may fail to make everyone understand, we will go on and all we need from our loved ones is knowing that they believe in us.
So yes, that was 8 songs by Korean female artists you should listen to this International Woman’s Day. Korean music is often profiled to be apolitical — which is not entirely wrong. It sometimes seems that the Korean music scene is in a sort of vacuum, unbothered by the social and political changes around us. Maybe that’s why K-pop has such an international appeal — by being rather odorless. Sometimes this would put me in a rather lonely place as someone who loves the Korean music scene. These songs I have curated in this series truly thrilled me. That may be why I wrote this unnecessarily long and lavish post about mildly feminist songs — to share the songs that made me feel liberated with others who seek it. So I hoped you also enjoy it as much as I did.
