Stuck in the middle with Korean pop

John-Francis Kinsler

After spending way too much time on the oh-so-common expat hobby of singing the praises of my hometown while in Seoul, I headed back to Vancouver recently. Now, the hometown talk usually crops up as a counterpoint to some complaint about the local environment. But when I got home, I found myself pointing out everything Vancouver lacks compared to Seoul (stuff stays open past 6 here, for example).

But no one ever said that being an expat didn’t have a weirdly dislocating effect on the mind.

Far more justified in this lost-in-the-middle sensation is John-Francis Kinsler, known to his friends by his Korean name, Johan. Kinsler has an American dad and a Korean mom, but grew up here. “I feel like a gray sheep. Growing up in Korea I was always just a waegookin, until I went to America and realized I wasn’t quite American,” he said.

A professor of English at Ewha Womans University, he experienced a similar clash of preconceived notions and reality in his foray into the Korean music industry in the late ’90s. To start with, he had to battle the red tape.

“Legally I was a complete foreigner even though I spent most of my life in Korea. I had to hire a big lawyer to get a visa to do music.”

His trouble was with the traditional hojeok system in which nationality is passed through the father.

“But they’re realizing it’s not just a paternal thing,” he said. “It’s changed now. I’m considered a Korean national with a foreign passport. I can do everything except vote.”

Of course, making it in the music biz is no easy feat, but Kinsler had a reason to keep at it.

“Music was a way of negotiating my place in Korean society,” he said.

After plugging away for five years, even forging on after his bandmates gave up, Kinsler finally got signed by a label called Rock Records and released an album. Unfortunately, he was in for more alienation.

“By the time it came out it was no longer this tongue-in-cheek play on ‘Strawberry Fields’ and the music of the ’60s, it was just pop for kids,” he said. “To be honest, it was a little embarrassing in the end.”

And why is K-pop so all-powerful? “It goes back to the ’70s,” he said. “Had those [musical] artists been able to get a foothold, they would have provided a foundation for alternative culture. But they were decimated and beaten, and not allowed to perform.”

“Unfortunately, in Korean culture it doesn’t pay to be original,” he said. “But it’s definitely heading in the right direction now - there’s something dynamic there.”

And that’s the spark that keeps us expats here, complainers though we may be.

By Richard Scott-Ashe Deputy Editor [richard@joongang.co.kr]