So I've been watching these fancam performances of Jay Park during 2010 White Love Party Concert and though I think that the performances were amazing and that he's an amazingly talented guy a part of me can't help but laugh. From the fancams that I watched I gathered that the majority of the songs he did were in English. Okay....so what's the problem you may wonder. Well the concert was in Seoul. Seoul, South Korea. National Language: Korean. And though I got every bit of understanding that was pumped into the songs he was singing, I can't help but feel that his Korean fans missed out.....on alot.
For example, during one of the performances he had two of his fellow AOM members go out into the audience and pick a girl for him to sing to on stage. The chosen song? A cover of Usher's classic "Nice and Slow". Can I call that a classic? Should be able to. Whatever. Anyway can I get a moment's pause for the pure sexiness of that song?..................
So that girl gets up there and he starts his magic, and of course he can't really touch her alot cause this is Korea and its still really "conservative" with its views on guy/girl public displaces of affection/intimacy so that takes away from some of the performance. The other thing that takes away is the girl's expression. Of course she's all nervous cause she's on stage getting serenaded by a major celebrity, but that's all replaced by the confused expression she adopts when he begins to sing the English song. If it were me- and I'm not even that big of a Jay Park fan- I would be dying on stage. 1) From the sexiness of the situation and 2) From the sexiness of the lyrics, which enhances the sexiness of the situation. Wasn't the case here, because the comprehension of the sexy lyrics simply didn't exist.
Now to give the Korean audience credit were credit is due, during Jay's cover of Usher's U Got It Bad (is there a pattern here or is it just me?) while he was singing the part "You're my girl, I'm your man..." he turned the microphone to the crowd for the girl appropriate lyrics and about half the crowd replied with a very confident "Your my man". I was very surprised actually, though still it means that the other half due to a language barrier were clearly left in the dark. I want to say it'd be like the equivalent of me going to a Tokio Hotel concert here in the States and having them talk to the audience the entire time in English, but sing hit songs of famous German artists I've never heard of before. I can imagine myself in that case adopting a confused expression though in this case it may not have been all that dramatic since American music is really popular worldwide. So to say that most of the Korean audience had heard of the songs before hopefully wouldn't be an incorrect statement.
One thing that made me laugh when thinking about it was finally coming to the understanding and realization of how absolutely American Jay really is. Now I'm American. Some of my friends may not agree and even in playing sometimes I hate it when they do that, but at that moment watching the fancam I was like 'Whoa, he's so American. I'm more Korean than he is." Then of course he began speaking in Korean, which totally shattered that thought. Actually when he went from English song to Korean speech I almost burst out laughing, it was so funny. I had only ever known K-Pop idol Park Jaebeom- 2PM's Korean speaking, Hangul illiterate, short fuse of a leader- but at that moment it was Jay Park performing and the Korean, not the English was what didn't seem to fit him. It was almost, but not quite like I was watching a different person. In other parts where he was talking to the audience I could almost feel that he wanted to speak in English. Alot of his concert definitely would have been more effective in American as far as reaction from the crowd, because they really were amazing performances.
It makes me wonder though, as an American K-Pop fanatic whose Korean understanding barely goes passed "Oppa, Saranghae", exactly how much of the meaning of my favorite Korean songs is lost to me, because I don't understand the language. Surely I can look up a song's translation to get the general meaning, make sure nothing vulgar is being sung about, but I'll never truly understand the song word for word and word for word is exactly where things get lost in translation. I guess for that I'll always have Jay Park singing American songs at Korean concerts to make me not feel so bad for a lack of understanding :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TypkVKXpniM&feature=fvwk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhXmqUnNnew&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd9kPQA3cH8
