Growing Through Stories: The Greediest of Rajahs and the Whitest of Clouds

 

Bangtan Hermana Notes: What is BTS asking in NORMAL?

One thing I’ve always loved about BTS is that every era asks a question. The questions simply grew older as they did.

“No More Dream” asked why young people were expected to inherit someone else’s definition of success. “N.O” questioned an education system that left little room for individuality. “Baepsae gave voice to a generation struggling against inequalities it did not create, while “Am I Wrong” challenged a society growing numb to injustice.

As they matured, so did the conversation. “IDOL” refused to let other people define who they were. “Black Swan” confronted the fear of losing oneself as an artist. “Persona”, “Shadow”, and “Ego”explored the different selves we carry, while “Life Goes On” and “Yet to Come” quietly reminded us that even extraordinary lives are still lived one ordinary day at a time.

Running through all these songs is the same quiet insistence:

Before they are idols, they are people.

That’s why I don’t think NORMAL is a departure. I think it’s a continuity; a lineage of Bangtan’s way of thinking and making art.

The boys who once asked, “Can we make it?” have become men asking a different question, “How do you remain human after the world stops seeing you as one?”

And this is where I move away from the campaign behind NORMAL, which is, in itself, a brilliant take on journalistic conventions and the manufacturing of narratives, and I return to ARIRANG, the album title.

We now recognize Arirang as a song about ordinary people. People who loved, lost, endured, left home, and found their way back. People who do ordinary things that do not appear special, yet through the seemingly mundane and routinary, arrive at something sublime.

How beautiful that BTS chose ARIRANG. Because after becoming global superstars, they’re returning to perhaps the simplest question of all, “What does it mean to remain human?”

Before they asked us to watch the  music video of NORMAL, they quietly spent time showing us what normal looked like through their vlogs. Living. Laughing. Working. Taking a break. Pursuing a hobby. Doing the things ordinary people do.

Then came the campaign using newspaper headlines. The ordinary became spectacle. The lyrics complete the thought.

“Fantasy and fame…”

Fame is a fantasy, not for the people living it, but for the people watching it. The public version of BTS has become so much larger than the seven men themselves that even standing in a bathroom becomes news. The fantasy isn’t BTS. It’s everything we’ve projected onto them.

I don’t hear NORMAL as a complaint about fame. I hear it as a gentle defense of humanity.

BTS aren’t asking us to stop admiring them. I think they’re asking us not to confuse admiration with mythology. Their achievements are extraordinary. Their artistry is extraordinary.

But none of those things make them any less human.

Within an album called ARIRANG, NORMAL feels both like remembrance and inheritance. The dream has already come true. The stadiums are already full. The question now is no longer how to become extraordinary.

It’s how to remain recognizably, stubbornly, beautifully human.

And somehow, I think that’s one of the most Bangtan things they’ve ever said.

Apobangpo! Purple and true! 💜

Maingat at Maging Maalam sa Panahon ng Sakuna! Tayo ay Magbasa!

 

When Seoul Surprises: What We Learn From Namjoon’s Continuing Namjooning

The ginkgo and birch trees that line the streets of Seoul has always fascinated me. I can’t think of a better word to describe the mood and the vibe. Basta, they’re romantic. Trees are romantic.

So, I plucked a couple of leaves from a ginkgo tree in front of the middle school where Min Yoongi studied and, in Hongdae, leaves from a birch tree. I carefully tucked them inside my journal as precious keepsakes but also as subjects for my cyanotype prints.

A few days ago, I took advantage of the afternoon sun in our yard and began printing. We were on a very tight budget in South Korea, so I thought of crafting something that would journey from there to here and back again. The more I read about these trees, the more I understood why they quietly stayed with me.

The ginkgo is one of East Asia’s most enduring symbols.

Having survived for millions of years, it is often called a “living fossil.” Across Korea, China, and Japan, it represents resilience, longevity, hope, and quiet endurance. Ginkgo trees stand beside temples, schools, and palaces, witnessing generations come and go. They remind us that strength is not always loud. Sometimes, it simply means remaining rooted while the seasons change around us.

The birch tells a different story.

Its pale bark has long symbolized renewal, new beginnings, and simplicity. Even after long winters, birches are among the first trees to suggest that spring is coming. There is something quietly optimistic about them.

Together, these two trees seemed to tell the story of our journey at Festa 2026. One reminds me to endure. The other reminds me to begin again. That is why I could not simply leave their leaves behind on the streets of Seoul. Instead, they came home with me.

Under the Philippine sun, they became cyanotype prints. In a few days, I will frame them as pasalubong for my ARMY friends and Kdrama Titas. These are my souvenirs made from leaves, sunlight, water, paper, and time. Perhaps that is what the best pasalubong has always been. It is not the price tag, but the thought that someone traveled through a place, remembered you, and returned carrying a story worth sharing.

As I looked at each finished print, I realized they were no longer simply  leaves from Korea. They had become conversations between Seoul and home. Between Namjoon’s way of noticing the world and my own.

For the longest time, Namjooning for the fandom meant visiting museums, bookstores, parks, and cafés because Namjoon had once been there. I think it means something much more.

It is learning to notice. To slow down enough for ordinary things to reveal themselves. To understand that beauty is not something we consume but something we learn to pay attention to.

A fallen leaf. A neighborhood tree. An afternoon walk. The warmth of the sun while making a cyanotype print. A simple gift made by hand.

Namjooning is not about collecting places. It is about allowing places to reshape the way we see ourselves and the world. As a librarian, I have always believed that stories live inside books.

But I also believe that stories live inside leaves, trees, sunlight, and the hands that choose to create. That is why Namjooning never really ends.

Allow a place to tell its story and listen with intention. Bring its story with you and let it inspire you to create something new. Apobangpo. Purple and true. 💜

Growing Through Stories: Super Maya

 

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Bangtan Hermana Notes: Blood Sweat & Tears. Louder Than Bombs. Munich.

I honestly don’t know if BTS planned this pairing. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. But sometimes, songs meet a place so perfectly that they begin talking to each other in ways we never expected.

For me, Blood Sweat & Tears has always been a song about desire, ambition and the beautiful temptation of giving everything to a dream. Knowing that Hermann Hesse’s Demian inspired its music video only deepens that feeling. It has always reminded me that becoming who we are often asks something of us.

Years later, BTS gave us Louder Than Bombs. And suddenly, the conversation changes. The dream has already been fulfilled. The world knows your name. But in your moments of silence, you still carry fear. Success has a cost.

If Blood Sweat & Tears asks what we’re willing to give for our dreams, Louder Than Bombs quietly asks what happens after we’ve already given everything.

Then BTS sang those songs in Munich. I had to gather my wits. Gave myself a few hours to draft and make visible my joy and admiration for Bangtan.

Germany has long been a place where people have wrestled with the biggest questions of what it means to be human. I found myself thinking about Goethe writing Faust, where ambition comes with a price; of Nietzsche asking us to become who we are; of Kant wondering what it means to live with integrity; of Hannah Arendt reminding us that even in the darkest moments, we must remain deeply human.

There’s Beethoven turning suffering into music. And Bach who made mathematics music’s beloved sibling. And of course there’s Einstein imagining a universe no one had seen before.

Different people. Different centuries. Yet somehow asking the same question.

What does it cost to create something that can outlive you?

I’m not saying BTS chose these songs because they were in Munich. I don’t know that. But I do think Munich changes how I hear them. This is one of the gifts of the Bangtan Noraebang.

The songs don’t change. The place changes, and the time too. Suddenly old songs begin to show us the breadth and depth of our humanity.

This pairing has stayed with me. I’m putting them together in my playlist. For one moment in Munich, Blood Sweat & Tears and Louder Than Bombs became songs about all of us, our dreams of becoming and discovering that success never frees us from being human.

And perhaps this is exactly why BTS is BTS. Apobangpo! Purple and true! 💜

For National Disaster Resilience Month, Let's Read the Disaster Ready Kids Series!

 

Make Your Own Storybook Workshop with Pilot Pens

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