MUNSAN,
South Korea — “We can’t have another Korean War. Do you agree with me?”
Jung Ki-youl, chairman of the local government here, asked an estimated
25,000 mostly young South Koreans at Nuri Peace Park, only five miles
from the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas. The crowd was
eagerly awaiting a two-hour concert on Saturday night featuring some of
the biggest stars of K-pop, a popular genre of music in South Korea.
“That
is why this peace concert is so meaningful,” Mr. Jung said. “Let’s
shout ‘no’ to missiles and ‘no’ to nuclear weapons development and ‘we
want peace.’ Maybe North Korea can hear us,” he said. A roar rose up
from the crowd in response.
But
the volume of these shouts was nothing compared with the shrieks of
young men and women that filled the park after the performances of their
favorite K-pop stars, including Girls’ Generation, BTOB, Cosmic Girls,
Mamamoo and GFriend, who performed at the seventh annual summer DMZ
Peace Concert.
Nam
Hyung-jin, 18, a college freshman studying Chinese language, had
traveled 70 miles north from Osan City. He felt apprehensive about
attending, knowing how close the concert was to North Korea. He was
unsettled by the bellicose remarks exchanged between the leaders of the
United States and North Korea last week.
But
after cheering the Cosmic Girls as that 13-piece group bounced up and
down in unison singing their syrupy hit “Happy,” Mr. Nam said he hoped
that North Korea could hear “the sound of freedom” from the south.
“If
enjoying K-pop right near the border with the aggressive North Korea is
not freedom, what is?” he said. “I hope North Korea, too, understands
how much happiness freedom can bring and chooses a path toward peace.”
Another Cosmic Girls fan, Kim Ji-hyun, 12, a sixth-grader from Paju City, a few miles away, also felt some trepidation at first.
“I
live close to the border so I am used to seeing soldiers around, but
there are soldiers here at a peaceful culture event. The security
situation in our country must be serious,” he said. “But Cosmic Girls’
act totally distracted me away from feeling scared.”
This
is the seventh time that the local government and the Korean national
television network MBC have hosted the annual DMZ Peace Concert. The
event commemorates National Liberation Day, a holiday common to both
Koreas, that remembers the end of the 35-year Japanese colonial
occupation in 1945. This year’s concert, which had the slogan, “Again,
Peace!,” was organized with the participation of the South Korean
Ministry of Unification. The ministry is mandated to prepare for the
reintegration of the two Koreas into a single nation.
“Young
Koreans tend to not care about unification,” said Kim Nan-young, deputy
director of the ministry’s cultural affairs division, adding that
events like this one, intended to pique young people’s interest in
unification, are important.
The
effort has been effective, Kim Nan-young said. “Young people inevitably
get to think about unification and security issues when they come to a
place near the border with North Korea.”
The
government’s efforts seemed to have worked on Kim Ha-min, 15, a high
school student who came to the concert from Incheon, just west of Seoul.
For Ms. Kim, North Korea had always been a scary, distant place. But on
Saturday, when her to favorite K-pop boy band, BTOB, dedicated its
ballad “Someday” to the hope for unification, Ms. Kim said that it made
her think differently.
The
song’s lyrics made her realize “that there are people just like us
living in North Korea,” she said, “and not just its belligerent leader,
Kim Jong-un.”
“They are just over that border,” Ms. Kim said, pointing toward the north.
In
between acts, a huge screen behind the stage showed K-pop stars in
scenarios envisaging a peaceful society after unification of the
peninsula, in which South Koreans would be able to vacation in the north
and young people from both sides would be able to date and make
friends.
During
those scenes, many teenagers took a rest from screaming for their idols
and instead used their smartphones to look at Facebook and other social
media platforms. Yang Ahn-na, 14, a BTOB fan from Paju City, felt
cheated that not all of the concert was about the music.
“The
government used K-pop as bait to lure us teenagers to come to this
concert so that we would want unification,” Ms. Yang said.
Others
at the event agreed. “Mobilizing K-pop entertainers to spark people’s
interest in unification doesn’t seem quite right,” said Cho Eun-sol, 26,
a human resources content developer from Seoul. “It is not their job
and it puts an awkward burden on the entertainers.”
But
her boyfriend, Ha Bong-ahn, 27, a software engineer, also from Seoul,
felt differently. Mr. Ha, who served his compulsory military duty near
the border a few years ago, said that while people had come to the
concert despite is proximity to the demilitarized zone, South Koreans
shouldn’t forget that the threat of war is always looming so long as the
peninsula is divided.
“That’s why people should become more interested in unification, and if K-pop artists can help, that’s good,” Mr. Ha said.
The
concert ended with all the participating K-pop entertainers onstage
together for a song about how happy everyone would be on the day the two
Koreas come together. The screen behind them showed enormous South
Korean flags waving.
“At
first, I felt scared about coming here so close to the border with
North Korea,” said Kim Na-young, 14, from Geojedo Island, “but I am glad
I came. I can see now that we can enjoy ourselves anywhere even if
North Korea threatens us.”
Ms. Kim added, “I hope people in North Korea got to hear the K-pop songs and our message of peace, too.”
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