Bangtan Hermana Notes: When RM of BTS speaks about books, reading and libraries

 

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. 💜

Countdown to ARMY Day | Day 6

When Seoul Surprises: History Beneath Our Wheels

From Insadong, we took a bus to the nearest park along the Hangang, Yeouido. Our agenda was simple: go on a bike ride and chase the sunset. Mission accomplished—and more.

Near the bike rental station stood a tunnel with a sign: “A Walk Through the History of Yeouido Airport.” I was tempted to walk through it, but we had bicycles waiting and the road ahead seemed to be calling us instead. For the next hour, we rode along the Hangang, passing families on picnic mats, couples strolling beneath the trees, runners, bikers, too and children racing ahead of their parents. Eventually, we stopped beneath one of the bridges to rest. That was when a series of historical markers caught my attention.

The markers narrated the story of Yeouido before becoming the financial district and riverside park that people know  it today. Once little more than a sandy island across Mapo Port, its destiny changed during the Japanese occupation when an airfield was built there. As I walked from one marker to another, I realized that this was not merely the history of an airport. It was the history of people whose dreams took flight.

One marker bore the words: “Yeouido, Where Dreams Take Flight.” It is a beautiful phrase because it speaks of more than airplanes, arrivals, departures, or the passage from one era to the next. It speaks of aspiration.

The story begins with Art Smith, an American aviator whose aerial demonstrations at Yeouido in 1917 captivated thousands and inspired many Koreans to dream of flying.

Among those inspired was An Chang-nam, who became the first Korean pilot to fly over Korea. Beyond aviation, he devoted himself to Korea’s independence movement before his life was cut short in a plane crash at only twenty-nine years old.

His example, together with Art Smith’s, inspired Kwon Ki-ok, one of Korea’s first female pilots. She joined the anti-Japanese independence movement, trained as an aviator in China, and dedicated her life to the dream of a free Korea.

Art Smith inspired An Chang-nam. An Chang-nam inspired Kwon Ki-ok. One person’s courage became another person’s beginning.

Reading those markers, I realized that inspiration also has a history. It moves from one generation to the next, from teacher to student, from artist to artist, from parent to child, from dreamer to dreamer.

I then realized how BTS’s songs about hope, resilience, and even resistance feel deeply rooted rather than entirely new. They belong to a much longer Korean tradition in which art, music, and culture carry memory, courage, and hope across generations.

Not because BTS is equivalent to these historical figures, but because they, too, have inspired millions of people to create, study, volunteer, teach, write, make art, to simply choose one more day to live or endure difficult seasons. Their music becomes another marker along the path, reminding those who come after them that courage can be inherited.

As a librarian, I have spent much of my life believing that history lives in books as well as places inhabited by dreamers, innovators and wanderers. Seoul validated that. History also lives in parks, tunnels, riverbanks, and the places where people choose to stop and read the space and environment.

Sometimes the greatest discoveries are not found inside museums alone. Sometimes they are waiting beside a bicycle path, though unnoticed, reminding us that every generation leaves markers for the next.

Bangtan Hermana Notes: BTS: The Art of Connection and Culture Bearing

 

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Bangtan Herman Notes: Growing Up with Bangtan Sonyeondan

 

Bangtan Hermana Notes: Fandom Beyond Hype: OD Lessons From a Golden ARMY

Fandom Beyond the Hype by zarah gagatiga

Bangtan Herman Notes: Arirang is Light and Love Songs in Times of Loss and Tension

Looking Back at the 4th BTS Global Interdisciplinary Conference in KL, Malaysia

 

Fangirling @ 14 and 40: A Witnessing of the Lived Experience of Filipino Teenagers and Middle-Aged Women ARMY Zine Edition 2026

Three years ago, more or less, I wrote a paper that centers Filipino teenagers and middle-aged women ARMYs and examines how they navigate bias, prejudice, and joy in fandom spaces. Prompted by the clamor for acknowledgment and respect for Baby ARMYs in these age groups during BTS’s Enlistment Era, I recently revisited the paper and made revisions. 

Below is the abstract and the QR code for the full paper.

Fangirling @ 14 and 40: A Witnessing of the Lived Experience of Filipino Teenagers and Middle-Aged Women ARMY

By Zarah C. Gagatiga, RL

Read and presented at the 4th BTS Global Interdisciplinary Conference, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on August 16–18, 2023

Abstract

Teenage fangirls have long been stereotyped as shallow and irrelevant. On worse occasions, they are stigmatized as hysterical fans trapped in their own bubble of delusion. With the advent of K-pop, the screaming fangirl trope has resurfaced as well as the mature women who fangirl over K-pop idols, bands, girl groups, and boy groups alike. Teenagers or middle-aged women fangirls both experience prejudice and indifference from families, friends, and the larger society.

This academic essay explores the narratives and lived experiences of Filipino teenage girls and middle-aged women ARMY who, in one way or another, have survived and thrived in their own ways through interacting and engaging with co-ARMYs and their chosen fanbase. Using phenomenology as research design, the thematic analysis shows that Filipino teenage girls gravitate to the self-awareness and identity formation present in the art and music of BTS. On the one hand, middle-aged women are drawn to BTS’ songs and aesthetics that engage them to introspect, leading them to reclaim their lost selves and rediscover new talents and rekindle friendships with co-ARMYs in their age group. The essay highlights the unifying power of BTS in bridging age gaps and fostering camaraderie among female fans of diverse backgrounds.

Bangtan Herman Notes: The Power of Seven

At a pottery workshop with ARMY friends last month, while our hands were busy building pots and mugs, we were marveling at something we could suddenly articulate: BTS was designed to grow individually without growing apart. As separate clay projects took form side by side, the metaphor felt unavoidable. It is rare to witness fullness without fracture, change without loss.

That moment stayed with me long enough to send me back to Murray Stein’s Map of the Soul: Persona, Shadow & Ego in the World of BTS. The book is grounded in Jungian psychology, particularly the framework of individuation: the lifelong process of becoming whole through the integration of persona, shadow, and ego. Stein, a Jungian scholar, wrote with evident excitement about BTS’s thoughtful adoption of Jung’s ideas. This was the Map of the Soul era, when BTS was preparing for a world tour that would never come because of the pandemic.

I think, one of the most striking creative choices of this era lies in the rap line tracks themselves, Persona, Shadow, and Ego. Each song samples an intro from BTS’s earliest albums. Skool Luv Affair for Persona; O, RUL8 2! for Shadow and 2 Cool 4 Skul for Ego. This is not nostalgia nor is it just a creative design. It is musical intertextuality: BTS treats their own discography as a living text, returning to earlier works to make meaning of the present one. In Jungian terms, this is individuation, but in song and in sound. The present self revisiting its origin points, not to discard them, but to integrate them.

Stein reflects that “the number 7 completes things,” and that completion signals not an ending, but a time to rest after immense creative labor. In hindsight, Chapter 2 feels less like interruption and more like care. Care for the self. Care for the other. Rest became part of the work.

Seven, Stein reminds us, is also a prime number that is indivisible except by itself. In BTS’s 7, it exists as a single entity not by suppressing individuality, but by safeguarding it.

When I first read this book, it was during the pandemic, and I was a Baby ARMY learning alongside my ARMY daughter, who gently guided me through songs, names, and histories. I read Stein then with curiosity. I return to him now with recognition. Watching BTS today, sometimes alone, sometimes together with ARMY Daughter or with ARMY friends,I see the truth of Jung’s insight made visible: separation does not undo the whole. It deepens it. Seven remains prime. Seven is one. One is seven.

Apobangpo! Purple and true!

First Book Acquired in 2026

 

@titazeeh7

BTS Book Budol 💜😅💜

♬ Stay Alive (Prod. SUGA of BTS) - Jung Kook

From ARMY of Bangtan's (AoB) BTS Reading List 2025: A Review of Jack-in-the-Box, A Short Story by Ray Bradburry

Ray Bradbury’s “Jack-in-the-Box” reads, for me, as a story of emancipation: about Edwin, a child who escapes a world built for him, but never with his consent or consideration of his being. His confinement is not merely physical. It is structural, ideological, and emotional. His world is carefully designed, orderly, and suffocating, shaped by fear disguised as protection and authority disguised as love.

When Edwin finally breaks free from this boxed world, his declaration is "I’m dead! I’m glad!” reframes death not as an ending, but as liberation. What dies is the imposed self, the obedient version trapped within manufactured boundaries. What emerges is the possibility of living again, this time as a self that chooses, feels, and experiences the world beyond fear (sounds like Ego, right?). In this story, death becomes transformation, and freedom is earned through breaking away and sundering.

I chose this short story as part of the AoB Reading List because I wanted Jhope to be represented. Last year, I revisited "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", a book Hobi read in high school and which later inspired Hope World. For 2025, with the HOPE ON THE STAGE tour marking a defining moment in his career, Jack-in-the-Box felt like a timely and necessary read.

Bradbury’s story resonates with Jack In The Box, the album, in concept, song lyrics and sonic qualities. Both confront boxed expectations, manufactured identities, and the cost of stepping outside what is prescribed. Both insist that emancipation is not always gentle, but it is essential.

This pairing honors Jhope not only as a performer, but as an artist continually choosing authorship over confinement, and selfhood over safety.

#ARMYofBangtanPH #ARMYofBangtanBookClub #BTS_JHOPE

Bangtan Hermana Notes: Plurality in Fandom

 RM once said during Map of the Soul ON:E:

“Our first march started with a very small dream of seven little boys… Along the way, we met many people who were like us. Anyone can join us. BTS is not just a story of seven people.”

I find myself going back to this quote of Namjoon a year after I wrote about ARMY multistans and multistaning. It comes at the wake of Jin losing the Daesang at the MAMA 2025. Threads is ripe with discussions on fandom identity, solidarity, belonging and evolution besides.

I face this conflict once again: the tension between plurality and loyalty.

RM’s words are true. The march did grow. ARMY is no longer the single, roaring purple wave we once were. We have become an ocean with many currents: multistans, old fans, casual listeners, new joiners, soft stans, tired stans, nostalgic stans, hopeful stans. Different hearts. Different histories. Different ways of loving.

This plurality is not failure. It is the natural evolution of a fandom that has lived, changed, and endured for twelve years. It is the proof that BTS’ love has made room for many forms of belonging.

But if I am honest, plurality also carries consequences, especially in spaces that demand focus, unity, and numbers: streaming, voting, charting, award shows.

It was painful to see votes split. To see playlists divided.

To watch Jin lose a Daesang not because he lacked impact, but because ARMY today walks many roads at once. And for a moment, I felt torn:

How do I embrace plurality without abandoning my own sense of devotion?

How do I honor different journeys while grieving the effects of divided participation?

The answer that found me was simple, gentle, and grounding: Plurality explains how fandoms evolve. Loyalty explains how I choose to love.

I can now acknowledge the multiplicity of ARMY with kindness without erasing the clarity of my own devotion.

I can now understand why multistans exist, why priorities shift, why the ocean no longer moves as one and still firmly choose my lane: My votes are for BTS. My streams are for BTS. My energy, intention, and love remain with BTS alone.

Not out of hostility toward other groups. Not out of disdain for multistans. Simply because this is where my heart has chosen to stay.

This is the distinction I needed: a boundary that is honest, not bitter; clear, not harsh; kind, not compromising.

RM said “anyone can join us,” and I believe that. Everyone’s way of loving BTS is valid.

But my own way is focused shaped by twelve years of sincerity, memory, and a bond that has never asked me to look elsewhere. Plurality and loyalty are not enemies. They simply live in different chambers of the same heart.

So as Jin’s birthday approaches, and my favorite album by RM celebrates its 3rd year, I return to what has always been true for me: We show up because the heart remembers.

I stream and vote for BTS because their story is the one I walk.

I honor plurality with kindness, but I stand with BTS with clarity.

And in this, I find peace. Not the peace of uniformity, or belonging to a clique or an exclusive group, but the peace of knowing who I am as a fan, and with joy of who I am marching beside.

Apobangpo! Purple and true!

Book Review: Two Tales of Emancipation: Madeline Miller’s Galatea and Kim Taehyung’s Winter Ahead

Madeline Miller’s Galatea is a tale of emancipation from a creator-husband who controlled her every will; a man who gazed at her as his own work of art. No agency. No voice. No choice. Until, at last, she reclaimed all her faculties in a cruel, shocking act that left me pondering justice, liberation, and the cost of becoming fully human.

Winter Ahead by Kim Taehyung (feat. Park Hyo Sin) explores a parallel theme, though the rebellion here is softer, quiet, humane, but no less liberating. The music video suggests references to the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea besides.

The lines:

I’ll be with you until the spring runs by

And the summer starts to burn

And I’ll be with you when autumn returns

Yes, when all the seasons turn

signal a different kind of subversion.

They imply: He will be with you through every change, but not at the cost of his own becoming.

A love that honours presence without demanding permanence. A devotion that refuses self-erasure.

In this way, Taehyung seems to gesture toward the K-pop industry’s traditional creator-captor dynamic, where idols are sculpted into images and deprived of agency. A modern Pygmalion myth. But BTS, across their career, have steadily subverted that narrative, becoming auteurs of their own art, identities, and stories.

And in Winter Ahead, Taehyung widens that subversion into something tender: an articulation of loving and being loved with freedom, with consent, and with the right to grow into one’s own form. A gentle rebellion and perhaps the most radical one of al

When We Read, We Never Walk Alone: An Interview with Ms. Andrea Posner Sanchez, Editorial Director of Little Golden Book

On October 4, 2025, the ARMY of Bangtan (AoB), in partnership with Fully Booked and Penguin Random House, hosted a joyful book party to celebrate the launch of BTS: A Little Golden Book Biography. Parents and children filled the space with laughter and excitement as they joined games, raffles, and a read-aloud of the beloved children’s book.

For ARMYs, this event marks a milestone worth cherishing. A beautiful moment where two icons meet. BTS and the Little Golden Book series come together to leave both children and adults with a legacy of inspiration, creativity, and love that will last for generations to come.

As AoB’s Bangtan Hermana, librarian, author, and ARMY, I was deeply honored to be given the chance to interview Ms. Andrea Posner-Sanchez, albeit online and through Ms. Jennifer Javier and Rafa Ashraf, of Penguin Random House. 

Ms. Posner-Sanchez is Editorial Director of Little Golden Books. In this interview, Ms. Posner-Sanchez shared the creative process behind bringing BTS: A Little Golden Book Biography to life.

ARMYs, both young and old, will be delighted to learn about the thoughtful decisions and care that went into every page. Readers of all ages will come away inspired, seeing how pop culture can open meaningful avenues for learning, imagination, and connection.

1. What inspired Little Golden Books to include BTS in its iconic biography series, and what does their story bring to young readers that felt essential to highlight?

When considering who to feature in a Little Golden Book Biography, we look for notable and inspiring people from diverse backgrounds. When author Jan Ann suggested BTS, I honestly didn't know much about them aside from the fact that they were enormously popular. I did some research and quickly learned that BTS doesn't just make terrific music. What sold me on the book was watching footage of RM at the UN General Assembly urging young people to "Speak Yourself". That was just one inspiring moment Jan Ann included in her manuscript. Other parts of BTS's story we felt were essential to highlight for our young readers include overcoming obstacles, working together, and not giving up on one's dreams.

2. The Little Golden Book Biography series has featured changemakers, artists, and leaders across history. How does BTS’ inclusion reflect the series’ commitment to introducing children to figures who shape culture?

There is no doubt that BTS has shaped culture! They significantly increased global interest in K-pop and South Korean culture through their relatable music. Their countless Korean-language hits such a Mic Drop, Idol, Spring Day, prove that music transcends language. And they took artist-fan relationships to a whole new level by using social media to directly engage with fans around the world.

3. From an editorial perspective, what were the most important values or messages you wanted to emphasize in the BTS Little Golden Book—especially for children just learning to read?

The members of BTS exhibit so many good qualities that are beneficial for young children to read about. As an editor—and a mom—I especially appreciate how kind, respectful, empathetic, and gracious RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook are.

4. BTS’ journey is deeply rooted in themes of resilience, creativity, and hope. How do you see their story resonating with families and children outside of the fandom?

Everyone loves a success story! Through a combination of talent, hard work, perseverance, and staying true to themselves, BTS overcame challenges as they chased their dreams to become global superstars. Even people unfamiliar with their music can appreciate that.

5. Looking ahead, what role do you think books like this play in bridging popular culture and children’s literature, especially in helping young readers discover joy in reading through the lives of people they admire?

Any book that inspires a child to read is a good book. The more you read, the more you improve your literacy skills. Reluctant readers especially may be more inclined to pick up a book about their favorite actor, athlete, or K-pop group rather than try to read and comprehend an unknown story. Little Golden Book Biographies about pop culture icons are a terrific way to help encourage a love of reading.

So, what are you waiting for? Visit the nearest Fully Booked in your area and get a copy! Read with your child! Shine! Dream! Smile!

Bangtan Hermana Notes: From Me to We: On Personal Joy and the Collective and Communal Nature of Fandom

RC Muñoz’s autograph post. Ticketing battles won or lost. Barricade flexes and seated preferences. Again and again, fandom conversations circle back to this: personal joy versus collective care.

On the surface, fandom looks like a string of individual stories: I got lucky, I persevered with my iPhone 16, I saved for years. Social media magnifies this focus on the self, rewarding posts that showcase proximity or possessions. Hyperindividualism at its finest at a time of war, division and uncertainty. It is no surprise that the prevailing mindset becomes: “I’ll celebrate my way, and that’s enough.” It does not help that in a capitalist consumer culture, fandom is too easily reduced to what we buy, what we hold, what we can show.

The artists we stan becomes COMMODITY.

But fandom is not only personal. It is also communal. Lighting the MOA Globe purple, singing in unison at concerts, streaming in circles, organizing cupsleeves events and watch parties. These are not solitary acts; they are rituals of community and belonging. And as Clifford Geertz (1973) reminds us, rituals are texts we interpret. To do a “thick description” of fandom* is to see beyond the surface gesture and into the layered meanings: a light on a globe is not just electricity, it is longing, belonging, a collective claim to space. A cupsleeve is not just paper, it is memory shared over coffee, proof that ARMY is plural.

So why does individualism still prevail? Because it is the language capitalism teaches us. Because “celebrate your way” is easier than asking “who gets left out?” Because envy is deflected by shrinking fandom into personal coping, rather than expanding it into communal and relational accountability.

The challenge is not to erase personal joy, RC’s happiness is hers, barricade victories are theirs. The challenge is to keep joy mindful. Joy is sacred. And in fandom where fangirls are prejudiced, A WOMAN’S JOY IS SACRED. To celebrate with gentleness, knowing others were scammed, excluded, unlucky. To remember that purple is not just a personal color, but a shared one. These all point to connection and community despite individual differences.

Maybe ARMY’s work is to resist fandom being flattened into “me” and recover the “we.” To thicken our descriptions of what it means to be fans not just as consumers, but as companions, co-creators, caretakers. BTS has always reminded us that we never walk alone. That they are more than idols, artists and products of an industry. They are people. And in their art and music, we find humanity. BTS never sang alone, and neither should we.

Apobangpo. Purple and true.

* Geertz defines thick description as a method of interpreting culture by attending not only to observed behavior but also to the context and meaning behind it, like “sorting out the structures of signification” through which people make their actions meaningful (The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973, p. 6).

#BangtanHermanaNotes #ARMYAfterThoughts

Bangtan Hermana Notes: The Many Ways to "Purple You"

 

Book Review: BTS: A Little Golden Book Biography (2 of 3)

In Part 1 of this series, I reflected on the cultural and emotional weight of BTS: Little Golden Book Biography and how its very existence feels like a milestone in both early literacy and BTS’ legacy.

Now, with the digital review copy from Penguin Random House, I’ve had the joy of reading it cover to cover. What I found was more than just a charming children’s biography. It was a tender, artful retelling of a story ARMY knows by heart, filled with details that speak to both newcomers and long-time fans.

Here are my impressions.

Part 2: My Reading Impressions of BTS: Little Golden Book Biography

The underdog narrative was kept and honored in this book without being judgmental or accusatory. It's told with the tenderness of a story that knows where its heart is: in the long, winding journey from obscurity to the global stage.

ARMYs, believe that "1 is 7; 7 is one." This belief is beautifully presented on the very first page: all seven members in a huddle, with Suga facing away as he always does in these moments. That detail alone made me smile. From there, the book unfolds with each member's origin story, a tale every ARMY knows by heart, yet one that never loses its magic in the retelling.

The illustrations are simply adorable, soft, endearing, and, I suspect, rendered in watercolor. If so, my oh my! All the more reason for me to love this book. The gentle palette and expressive lines make the storytelling even warmer, inviting young readers into BTS' world with ease.

As a school librarian, I find BTS: Little Golden Book Biography worthy of acquisition. Call it my bias if you must but consider this: how many students in your school love K-pop and are fans of BTS? How many readers in your learning community are ARMY? The presence of this book in a school library is not just about fandom; it is a message of representation and a nod to the benefits of learning from pop culture and its influences.

In my next post, I'll share activities you can do in the library or at home using this book as a springboard to expand and extend the reading experience.

Read part 1 of the series here, Kuwentong Bangtan: BTS A Little Golden Book Biography (1 of 3)

As the release date draws near, the celebration goes beyond my own reading joy. In Part 3, I’ll share how the ARMY of Bangtan will mark this milestone through a month-long blog tour along with a guide for parents and school librarians to make the most of BTS: Little Golden Book Biography in nurturing young readers.