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I think this is a fabulous read for long-time K-pop fans and also for people who aren’t familiar with the industry at all (like me!). Do you have a playlist specifically for the book? Or just a few recommendations for the unseasoned K-pop fan? Or a hidden gem? Giaae: As part of book promotion, I was able to write a playlist for Large-Hearted Boy! I tried to give a broader sampling of K-pop, focusing on first- to third-generation K-pop. The problem (if we want to call it that) is that I'm one of the few people who aren't on Spotify, so I don't have a playlist to link out easily. I also don't use Apple Music but purchase all my music on iTunes, so I've been looking into purchasing a mp3 player — or, as they're apparently now called, DAPs for digital audio players. (I’ve been working on a massive blog post, including song recommendations, that goes through SM’s entire 30-year roster of artists, though, and I hope to get that finished and posted by the end of May after I'm done with finals. It’s currently 5,000 words.) If I were to share a few songs that I think could be a primer to K-pop, adding the disclaimer that this is very SM-heavy: Your chapter titles are also songs—were they meant to be listened to while reading the chapter? Giaaae: To be honest, not necessarily! I tried to find lyrics from the artist being highlighted that fit the theme of the essay. You’re also a food writer, and your love of cooking really comes through in I’ll Love You Forever. If you could pair the book with a specific recipe or a favorite snack, what would it be? Giaae: I like kimbap, all kinds of kimbap as long as they’re balanced and well-made, so I'd probably say kimbap. With Chilsung Cider, which is superior to Sprite. Did you have a certain food, snack, or beverage that fueled your writing? I have to thank 85 Degrees’ Iced 85 Degrees coffee, large, with ¼ sugar, less ice, and an extra shot for single-handedly fueling the writing of this book. I foolishly never signed up for their rewards program. You speak very openly about the body shaming you experienced from your community and its lasting impacts. Since the book came out, has it sparked any new conversations with your family or community? Giaae: Not particularly! Not because we're ignoring it or pretending it didn't happen, but because we've done a tremendous amount of work over the last ten to fifteen years working through it. The only reason I can write as openly and, frankly, comfortably about body shaming is that all parties involved have done the work of actively healing our relationships. Nothing I wrote in the book was new or a surprise to anyone because we're done so much talking and, yes, fighting over the years because, in the end, maintaining these relationships was important to us. We're all feeling a lot of dread and anxiety these days. Do you have a comfort show or movie you return to whenever you're feeling down? Or a comfort recipe or snack? Giaae: I re-watch a lot of the same shows for comfort (apparently, it's also an ADD or anxiety thing), and my go-tos are the Reply series (1997 is my personal favorite, obviously), Romance is a Bonus Book, and Hospital Playlist. When it comes to cooking, I like rolling kimbap and coming up with weird fillings — in Beyond the Story, Jin mentions that Suga would get annoyed with having to eat when they were trainees, so he would make smoothies with chicken breast, bananas, and grapes. I've been working on-and-off on turning this into a kimbap. I already like combining protein with fruit in kimbap, so it’s the banana that’s tripping me up, but I have a few ideas. For people with a hangover from reading your book, can you suggest some further reading? Giaae: This isn’t specifically related to K-pop, but I loved Hannah Michell’s Excavations. I think she does such a phenomenal job of distilling twentieth-century Korean history into a very readable novel that isn't even necessarily a historical novel — the book is a fictionalized account of the 1995 collapse of the Sampoong Department Store, so the action of the book is focused on the aftermath of that event. What Michell does so phenomenally, though, is show how this event didn't happen in isolation — there was a lot of history that led up to it, that created the circumstances for such a horrific happening, that shaped the aftermath. One specific reason I like recommending Excavations is that I think all international K-pop fans should learn about Korean history — or, at the very least, twentieth-century Korean history. There’s a lot of ooh-ing and aah-ing over various elements of K-pop that I think make so much sense within the context of everything Korea went through in the 20th century, and I'm with RM (Bangtan) when he expressed his frustration over this spectacle-making of “darker” aspects of K-pop when there are reasons why K-pop — why Korea — is the way it is. That doesn't make these things acceptable, whether we're talking about exploitative contracts or misogyny, and there’s a lot about modern Korean society that really needs to change, but that’s for Koreans to sort out. Any thoughts on the new BTS book, Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS? Giaae: I find it fascinating how brands shape and reshape their narratives, and idols are very much brands, including Bangtan. I find it fascinating how Bangtan has internalized some of the narrative its international fanbase has embraced; I think it’s specifically the scale of their Western fame that has allowed them to do so. Your book covers so much ground—from the history of K-pop, criticisms of the industry itself, beauty standards in Korea, the bicultural Korean American experience—there’s so much to talk about here. Is there one thing in particular you hope readers will take away from the book? Giaae: K-pop is so much bigger than Bangtan and BlackPink, and it came out of a very complicated, violent history. It isn’t right to view K-pop through a Western lens — like, yes, there are very valid things that K-pop needs to reckon with, especially cultural appropriation and racism, and I am not saying that K-pop should be protected from some of the criticism it gets. I am all for companies being held accountable. Separate from that, though, as global as our world is, Korean culture is not the same as Western culture, and K-pop is K-pop — it’s not Western pop, and it doesn’t need to be, nor should it be, in my opinion. I think a group like Bangtan got so big because they’re K-pop, not in spite of, so maybe we should just embrace it!
Maybe it’s obvious given that I wrote an entire book about this, but I love K-pop so much, even while being acutely aware of its flaws, and I think it’s really cool that more people around the world are able to enjoy and experience this shiny, intense, beautiful industry that is K-pop.
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