Hello & Welcome to a cherry post that this time, will tell you how one afternoon ...
As a 13/14 year old girl, life did not had terrible complications, but it started to crumble with the surprise of depression alongside a growing eating dissorder. I was very sad, cried in school, nobody ever worried too much, not enough to actually figure out it was more serious than hormonal changes.
I hated my body, surrounded by a 60cm waist mother, a grandma that bought waist trainers for me when I was only eleven and the usual social pressure comming from already skinny friends, my mental health started deterioring, restricting my food intake, getting into self injury and a bad community of ANA's that were not helpful at all, at least in making progress or recovering.
This summes up a bit from my early teenager years. Rock music calmed me a lot, but most of it would be the one that comes with sad lyrics or dramatic lyrics, yup! a slight dramatic genre of it, sad ballads, sad rock, sad and angry metal, That and even more! So, my daily inspiration was not the best to stay on track with recovery, or actually trying it for real! Indulging in sad melodies everyday was definitely not the way to happy state (at least for my case).
One Saturday afternoon while browsing Youtube videos, watching some performances of my rock bands and exploring everything I could, the section called "videos being watched right now" caught my attention. It was a pink thumbnail with girls in it, to the date, the reason of why I cliked that video remains unknown, but it led to a significative point in life that would change it all.
Here I present you the first K-pop video that shook my mind
The song might not be the greates musical discovery, but it surely had nothing to do with any sadness or feeling that evoked it. It was just fun and not at all tiring, in fact, it made me want to learn their dance and sing along even though the lyrics are in korean and at the time I only understood english. That video led me to explore more, first I searched for more material of the beloved Wondergirls (sadly now disbanded) and I found a range of groups that had a diversity of charms to offer. A lot of people say k-pop groups are all the same, but believe me if you look past prejudice and actually look at them, you will eventually know k-pop has a ton of styles within, not being globed by a certain way.
Back to my story, this little girl started to follow their activities, browsing through multiple korean sites, videos and lyrics (romanized of course) leading me to grow interest not only in k-pop, but in Korea itself. Due that, I learned how to read their alphabet, to pronounce and sing propperly.
Culture has always been an interest of mine, I read a lot and investigate about a ton of them online so, Korea became my focus and I learned even more about it through, guess what! Variety Shows! Learning vocabulary and mannerisms became way easier with them on my side and this culture showed me a side of life that can really affect everyone's lives in a sweet positive way.
If you know about Korea, you must know already that self-growth, hard-work, constance and everyday upgrade are vital components of life over there. Having this in mind, even though my eating dissorder wasn't cured magically, it was certainly re-directing itself to a more positive light, having me eat healthier foods like: sweet potatoes, lettuce (kimchi influenced), milk, even meat! I was going through a vegetarian period and cut out meat but watching shows of koreans eating it simply made my mouth water :3
If you know about Korea, you must know already that self-growth, hard-work, constance and everyday upgrade are vital components of life over there. Having this in mind, even though my eating dissorder wasn't cured magically, it was certainly re-directing itself to a more positive light, having me eat healthier foods like: sweet potatoes, lettuce (kimchi influenced), milk, even meat! I was going through a vegetarian period and cut out meat but watching shows of koreans eating it simply made my mouth water :3
From this day my discipline totally upgraded, i learned dances (I still know the steps for the song above), korean language, korean culture, history and even geography! Wondergirls became my beloved girlgroup and even though there are hundreds of them now and they disbanded recently, they're always gonna be in my heart. I sincerely think that you can make the best out of any hobby such as dancing k-pop, watching variety shows and more into a really nice activity that also brings something to your own life.
My depression was not magically healed or gone, but it got way better, this songs helped me get a different perspective, everything was happier, videos made me dance and workout and overall be a happier girl in my everyday life, even now when I'm blue and need a hype I can always trust some k-pop to brighten my day!
I hope others can have this experience and get to know more than what meets the eye and not only stay with music and idols, but go beyond and explore this beautiful culture.
🍒🍒🍒
