Different Amalgams · Polyphonic: Mission After Empire · Radar

K-Pop, Youth Culture & Globalization0:47 – 3:13

Imer SantiagoHost

0:47

Have you delved into any of that? I was just, as you were speaking, I was thinking, so I teach middle school, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

Imer SantiagoHost

0:56

And every year that I've taught middle school, at least at the current school I'm at, St. Paul Middle, there's kids who are big fans of K-pop.

Imer SantiagoHost

1:04

and we don't live in

1:05

1:06

That's a good

Imer SantiagoHost

1:07

example.

Imer SantiagoHost

1:07

They don't speak Korean, they don't live in South Korea, but yet they're following this music.

Imer SantiagoHost

1:15

And so I think, like you said, with the platforms musically, whether it's Spotify, Apple, whatever, you can listen to music from all over the world.

Imer SantiagoHost

1:24

And YouTube, right, so they can watch videos of certain K-pop groups.

Imer SantiagoHost

1:28

That's interesting.

Imer SantiagoHost

1:29

But they're not Korean, but they're following hardcore.

Imer SantiagoHost

1:32

And some of it's like they're big fans of these students.

1:35

Well, maybe that's going to open up new ways for us to think about and do cross-cultural mission.

Brian StanleyGuest

1:43

With the advent of global media, social media, global music, the younger generation are increasingly... maybe not homogenized, but more homogenous than the older generation, who were perhaps more attached to more traditional cultural forms.

Brian StanleyGuest

2:06

So wherever you go in the world, you tend to find generational arguments between Christians over what music should be sung, how it should be sung, what instruments you should use, etc., etc.

Brian StanleyGuest

2:20

So you get into the whole subject of What do we mean by globalization? Does globalization necessarily mean everything becoming homogenous, the same? To an extent it does, but I think it's more complicated than that.

Brian StanleyGuest

2:35

It's about the way in which the indigenous interacts with the global, and you get different amalgams coming out in different places.

Imer SantiagoHost

2:47

On the one hand, we try to be very aware of cultures so as not to erode or dilute them.

Imer SantiagoHost

2:53

At the same time, the world has become smaller and moved toward a more global society where cultures are more easily impacted by others across the world.

Imer SantiagoHost

3:02

So, are we meant to be cultural protectors or should we just allow this amalgamation to occur? There was a very real example of this seemingly inevitable blending back at the Puerto Rican Day Parade.