Korea Tour: De-Terriblization with Mark Russell

In Seoul's Hongdae district, Colin talks with Mark Russell, author of the books Pop Goes Korea, K-Pop Now!, and the coming novel Young-hee and the Pullocho. They discuss what unites Korean pop culture other than having made by Korean people; the tendency toward mixture that characterizes so much of the country culture; his early experience with Korean culture practicing tae kwon do in high school; where the "if this doesn't work, I can go teach English in Korea" took him, how he envisioned that prospect, and how he found himself on a plane to Korea the same week he brought up the idea; the "completely different" Seoul of today from the "bare" one he found in the nineties, where Pringles could excite him; what in Korea doesn't change, amid all the change that has gone on; the European look backward, and the Korean look forward; how Korea makes the impossible possible, but sometimes takes the possible and screws it up; the bygone days when every foreigner was assumed to be an American; whether K-pop saturates Korea more than American pop saturates American; what, exactly, makes pop music uncool; the consequences of the fact that "most people don't live at the PhD level; what makes Korean blockbusters more interesting than American ones, including not having quite cracked the "scientific blockbuster code"; the Korean popular culture his first discovered; what happens when you go drinking with a favorite director; what happens when you look too closely into the "sausage factory" of art production; the pop golden age people remember from three years ago; when he realized his own life in Korea had taken shape; his plunge into the Seoul alternative music scene; when Busan, not Seoul, had the best music in Korea; the role Hongdae has played in Korean music, having become the Korean music scene itself; why groups have trouble touring the country; Korea's lack of unconventional "slots" in which to live, especially outside Seoul; when he began writing fiction, and how he wrote a novel set in Korea while in Spain; the all-important "de-terriblization" process in art; how much insight traditional Korean folktales give him into the culture today; the foreigner's freedom to "get things wrong in your own way"; his years in Spain, and the difference drinking wine there versus drinking wine in Korea; what he began to miss about Seoul while away; his impressions of the Spanish economic crisis; his sense of Korea getting better and better, economically as well as culturally, despite the fact that he "wants to be as cynical as everyone else."