In South Korea, K-Pop Pleads for Peace
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."
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 vacation in the north
and young people from both sides would be able to date and make friends.
"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.
"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.
Yang said that The government used K-pop as bait to lure us teenagers to come to this concert so that we would want unification,
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.
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.