IMOS JEON SOMI
Oh Minji: As JEON SOMI gets ready in her video “Only 20 Mins but Perfectly Ready: Idol JEON SOMI’s Realistic GRWM for Work,” she reads the words adorning her coffee mug. “A girl must be two things: classy and fabulous.” It’s her “motto,” she says, and it doubles as a pretty good description of her YouTube channel, IMOS. Her videos capture two different sides of the idol: the SOMI who puts on fabulous performances onstage, and the classy, everyday IMOS—her name flipped backwards—whose personal tastes are given space to really shine.
From the members of I.O.I “Suddenly” having a reunion 10 years later for dinner and rehearsal to a tour of the headquarters of longtime partner THEBLACKLABEL and a get-ready-with-me on the way to work, JEON SOMI opens up completely about what happens when she’s offstage. The other side of the channel zooms in on her interests and everyday life—getting a great shopping haul for summer, power walking around to recommend her favorite spots in the Yeonhui-dong neighborhood she’s called home for 15 years, dyeing her dad’s hair, and taking a day trip to Shanghai for afternoon drinks and irresistible eats. While SOMI the performer commands a crowd with unparalleled stage presence, IMOS steps away from the lights and camera, living a regular life on her own terms.
Like a mirror reflecting what’s real, IMOS is really another face of SOMI, highlighting the connection between the fabulous idol and the ordinary person. You catch glimpses of JEON SOMI the idol through the everyday individual, and discover just as much about the ordinary woman through the idol. Her channel IMOS is so much more than a slice-of-life vlog—it’s video after video that helps you understand the performer through her tastes, her routine, and the raw moments that you’ll never see onstage. Moving between the reverse image of SOMI and IMOS, performer and person, the channel catches JEON SOMI from every angle, and in doing so, she makes good on her own motto—classy and fabulous, her way.
“The Wave” (nOiZeGaRdEn)
Na Wonyoung (music critic): On May 31, nOiZeGaRdEn took to the Asian Pop Festival stage on Yeongjong Island. For me, at least, they were the ’90s cult classic Korean indie band, and their reputation preceded them—mythologized 15-minute battle-of-the-bands sets, two studio albums that passed into legend, a 2014 reissue and reunion that felt like the biggest event of the day … They felt larger than life, and their stature felt as towering as it did intimidating to a teenage version of me who’d first encountered guitarist Byeongjoo Yoon through Lowdown 30. What would they actually be like, now that they were back? The venue was cool but the audience hummed with heated anticipation for a show marking 10 years since the death of lead singer Park Geon and 30 years of nOiZeGaRdEn, the name he used to wring out syllable by syllable. The crowd roared as thick, heavy music filled every inch of the place, and when the mysterious new lead/a mysterious singer pulled off the black covering masking his face and stepped back onstage to the dense opening riff of “Porcupine,” it clicked—this was a song by the band that had opened for nOiZeGaRdEn’s previous reunion. I mean, how could it not be?
Lee Suckwon from Sister’s Barbershop, a longtime friend of Byeongjoo Yoon, elegantly compared nOiZeGaRdEn’s status to an island that’s bigger than its mainland, but in the history of Korean rock, they were never a remote island. Their first single in roughly 25 years, “The Wave,” was made with friends that might be called Byeongjoo Yoon’s extended evil force: Rockgun Kim, bassist for the aforementioned Lowdown 30, and Ham Jinu and Kwang Il Kim, drummer and singer in the Busan rock band Unchained. Like Lowdown 30, Unchained’s been active since the early 2000s, and their 2014 album “Thorn” made the case that nOiZeGaRdEn’s utterly unique achievement wasn’t an isolated one, that their legacy was something to be drawn on as freely as the influence of grunge. All share a tendency to synthesize the blues, hard rock, and heavy metal of the 20th century through the thick, grimy feel of electric guitar, and “The Wave” leads with a driving riff while airing things out enough that they don’t feel quite as dank as listeners might remember. With the image of Park Geon onstage a tribute to time that’s passed, Kwang Il Kim’s voice rings out in front of it, resonating with the band’s new plan to “start with a recreation of the past and move onto something new.” “The Wave” is a first step in that direction—one that refuses to chase after the myth and legend of the past that gives rise to an “ego grown too large” and “the throne where you belong,” perhaps yelling over the idea, “We’ll all be watching your downfall.”
“White Mulberry” (Rosa Kwon Easton)
Kim Boksung (writer): “White Mulberry” is both historical fiction and semibiographical. Inspired by the real life story of Korean American author Rosa Kwon Easton’s grandmother, Miyoung is just 11 years old in 1928 when she decides to leave her village outside Pyongyang to follow in her older sister’s footsteps. And while that means moving to Japan, unlike her sister, she has no intention of being forced into marriage.
With big dreams of becoming a teacher, young Miyoung sets out for Kyoto, leaving the rest of her family, and their name, behind, as she transforms into Miyoko, a Korean nurse passing as Japanese in an imperial nation where anti-Korean feelings run rampant. With all these changes, plus a deepening connection to the church and soon a new family of her own, Miyoung faces a serious identity crisis in a world on the cusp of war.
The author’s debut novel is a heartbreaking tale of how outside forces and personal decisions constantly change the path we’re on, perhaps the latter more so. While Japan’s occupation of Korea sets the tone of the story, the core theme is really resilience found in family and faith. “White Mulberry” never loses steam, right until the very end, which reads almost like a cliffhanger. Luckily, a sequel is in the works.