When Seoul Surprises: Why BTS’s Arirang resonates with so many people around the world

One of the joys of traveling through South Korea was discovering that art seemed to be everywhere. It is inside museums or galleries, in school and university campuses, public parks, neighborhood streets, riverbanks, bike paths, and places where people simply passed through on their way home.

This did not surprise me because I was unfamiliar with public art. Our annual visual arts exhibition in school includes art installations of our students, and when my children were still in university, I often spent afternoons sitting beside sculptures while waiting for them after class. Public art has always invited me to linger.

What gladdened me in South Korea was something else.

Everywhere we went: Busan, Changwon, Daegu, and Seoul, art was not an afterthought. It felt woven into the country’s everyday conversation with its people. We encountered contemporary sculptures standing quietly against mountains, historical monuments in city parks, mosaics on neighborhood walls, granite animals beneath pine trees, bronze figures honoring books and learning, and historical markers preserving stories beside bicycle paths. None of them demanded attention but I did notice somehow. What left a lasting impression is that they simply existed alongside ordinary life, waiting for anyone willing to slow down, to pause and notice.

That says something about South Korea.

Art is not reserved for museums or special occasions. It lives among its people. So does history.

On our free day of the tour, while biking through Yeouido along the Hangang, we stopped beneath a bridge where a series of historical markers caught my attention. They narrated the story of Yeouido before it became the bustling financial district it is today. Once a sandy island across Mapo Port, it became an airfield during the Japanese occupation.

One marker carried the words, “Yeouido, Where Dreams Take Flight.” I lingered over that sentence because it speaks of more than airports, arrivals and departures, or the passage from one era to another. It speaks of aspiration. The markers introduced pioneers of aviation whose dreams inspired others to imagine new possibilities for themselves and for their country.

Dreams and aspirations move from one generation to another, from teacher to student, from artist to artist, from parent to child, from dreamer to dreamer. This is why BTS’s What Is Your Love Song? campaign makes a lot of sense.

Earlier this year, many ARMYs wondered why Arirang seemed to receive so little promotion. There were no endless countdowns or overwhelming publicity. Instead, BTS offered a simple question: What is your love song? We got to see buildings wrapped in humongous red ribbons.

Walking through Korea, I began to see that question differently. It behaves like public art. It does not tell us what to think. It invites us to participate. It asks each of us to pause, reflect, and discover our own answer.

This is also what Namjooning has come to mean for me. It is not simply visiting museums or cafés because Namjoon had been there, but learning to pay attention to the culture that shaped his artistry. Public art. Historical markers. Trees. Pottery. Sculptures. Rivers. Books. Conversations. Ordinary things that lead to every day beauty.

As a librarian, I have always believed that stories live inside books and that it expands outside its pages. South Korea amplified and validated this belief.

Stories are cast in bronze. Carved in granite. Painted on walls. Placed beside rivers. Installed in parks. Waiting for someone curious enough to stop.

Looking back now, I think the greatest gift South Korea gave me was not only the opportunity to celebrate BTS during FESTA with my grown up children who were also carrying their own questions about life and the bigger world. It was showing me a country where art and history are woven into everyday life, where culture is encountered on an ordinary walk or bike ride at sunset by the river, and where inspiration quietly waits in public spaces.

That is also why BTS’s music resonates with so many people around the world. It did not emerge in isolation. It grew from a culture that understands the importance of persisting, remembering, creating, questioning, and leaving something beautiful behind for the next person to discover.

That too, is a love song. A song of the people. Arirang.

Apobangpo! Purple and true!