i know you got seoul...

So I’m in Seoul now- I’m staying in the Hongdae area which is the university district of the city with my sister’s childhood best friend, Kimberly Kim. But before I got here I was faced with Korea’s customs…

Are you bringing any pornographic materials in the country? Why that’s a personal question. I wonder how many people answer this truthfully and what they do if you check yes… or if you check no and they find some porn on you. Haha. Of all the borders I’ve crossed in my lifetime, I don’t think any of them have asked me this question. So if you’re planning on coming to south korea, leave your porn behind!

Anyway, back to Hongdae, there are at least 4 universities in the immediate area, so it’s full of bars, clubs, small basement venues, and youth vitality. There’s events almost everyday, so the streets are constantly littered with posters and flyers of punk, indie, emo, metal, and hiphop shows. I thought I’d have to dig around a little, but hiphop is pasted up all over this area- there’s at least 6 clubs that claim to be hiphop clubs, there are numerous hiphop events in the next few weeks, and there are a million bboy battles (just a small exaggeration). Maybe that’s why Korean bboys are so good, they seem to battle every other day. Bboying is very much in the mainstream culture now- I think this is because of Korea’s multiple Battle of the Year wins (the yearly worldwide bboy competition). Korea is extremely nationalistic, so if a korean person or team becomes famous for anything- the whole country is behind them… even if its something like bboying. Its so far into the culture, there’s even a bboy play that’s running now- which is apparently a story about a bboy and a ballerina falling in love (oh come ON now…) but maybe I’ll go and see what its all about anyway haha.

So the battles… there was a really big battle a few days ago, the Armory Cup. It’s a bboy battle that is touring around asia- korea, taiwan, china, japan? That’s somehow affiliated with the freestyle session. I planned on going, but I estimated that it would start to get good at around 10, since most of the bboy battles I have been to this year run for about 7 hours and do not start on time… but when I got there, I saw large groups of people leaving with posters and such so I got there right when they finished. It was unfortunate because the line up was pretty impressive and I think the originality lockers were there (which I can’t seem to find any information on- I really want to take locking classes while I’m here). But hopefully I’ll find another way to find them. There was also another battle that same night, but it was a commercial battle- the Puma Beat Battle. They stole a few of the good crews, but I think some people boycotted the thing because they think puma is just trying to exploit the hiphop culture (what’s new?).

But all was not lost, there was still the Xtussy party that night (sponsored by stussy, lrg, supreme, zoo york, creative recreation, and a bunch of other street labels… I’m not sure how they were involved but none of them had booths or anything- just banners up). It was held at a new club in the area, Club Catchlight, which turned out to be a pretty large basement club. I originally though it was just going to be some standard party but one of my contacts, Jay Kim, the designer of Jaygear, said he’d be at the party- so I figured I should go out and meet him. (MC Yan was nice enough to hook me up with his contact information, so I owe him one).

He was really nice, gave me a bunch of tequila shots while he introduced me to DJs, MCs, and beatboxers. It was too loud to hold a conversation so it was just left at introductions- but hopefully I’ll meet up with him soon outside of a club. Apparently he’s dating one of the members from the famous, but now defunct Korean hiphop group, Drunken Tiger (I was actually introduced to them by a Korean friend during my high school sophomore year summer, which I spent at Philips Academy).

First up was Trespass, a two MC one beatboxer setup- they were pretty good- it’s a change from all the Chinese hiphop I’ve been hearing. Korean lends itself to flowing much more than Cantonese and Mandarin. After they performed, DJ Skip (a famous DJ in these parts), stepped up to the ones and twos and played a good set with a good balance of jiggy and some old school shit, respect. (no Korean hiphop though). Then a beatboxer/multivocalist (from the Secret Team?) did something like a half hour set.. I recognized a few killa kela beats thrown in but he did flip some and most of it was his own routines… he was pretty ill. i only heard about one beatboxer in china, but never saw him perform, so I can’t compare him to anyone else. they seemed to have an auxiliary team of hiphop dancers which did short routine in the middle of the bboy’s long routine.. but it was far more impressive to me than the bboy’s routine… you know why? Because they danced to MC Hammer’s 2 Legit 2 Quit. 90s muthafuckaaaa! They were bustin’ out all the moves from the video too, GET BUCK! GET BUCK! (this is especially funny to me because I was sitting around with ryan one day in hong kong and was showing him all these dance videos I’ve accumulated over my trip.. and we happened to watch the extended version of 2 Legit 2 Quit (complete with the James Brown cameo) and we talked about learning all the moves and busting them out at a club). I filmed it with my digital camera, but unfortunately I think I was a bit too excited and the lighting was bad so I won’t be able to share the video. Haha.. I think most of the crowd had no idea what was going on, but I was going crazy.

So what am I going to be doing here? Some events that are coming up that I hope to attend:

House battle, house rulez… so there’s a house dance community somewhere.. hopefully I’ll be able to find/take a few house classes too.

K-spray, a stencil contest sponsored by K-swiss shoes. There’s a lot of murals around hongdae and a few big graf pieces… I’ve only seen a handful of stencils in the area so this might be interesting.

there's a few others that i'll get the flyers up for if possible.. so it looks like i'll be pretty busy. Oh the food is amazing by the way. Too much stuff to even start writing about, so you can just indulge yourself with your eyes over in my food album on flickr. I don’t know how people here stay so skinny, they just drink and eat… and eat and drink some more. there’s tv shows devoted to food- showing all the new restaurants or the trendy new food out… i’m going to get so fat.