Bangtan Hermana Notes: Singing Beyond Empire

@rkive posted on IG Story the facade of the building where the APEC CEO Summit is held. This is today, October 29, 2025. @rkive, RM, Kpop Idol, Kim Namjoon of BTS, our Leader Nim will deliver a keynote speech. As he stands before the world’s business and political elite at the APEC CEO Summit in Korea, I reflect on the importance and significance of this moment, for South Korea and its management of the arts as an economic force, for countries in Asia that has a history of colonization and imperial influence, and for ARMY a diverse fandom who can approach this milestone with nuance.

At first glance, this might look like another victory for K-culture, another proof that Korean creativity has “made it” into the halls of power. But if we pause and listen with the ears of those who know his story, and the story of Bangtan, we might hear something more radical humming beneath the polite applause and our enormous pride as ARMY.

RM’s presence at APEC unsettles the very logic that built such summits. APEC is a space born of global capitalism and postcolonial hierarchies, where nations compete to sell, to produce, to consume. And here stands an artist whose body of work has long questioned those same systems; an artist who insists that the self is not just a brand, that creativity is not only a just commodity, that love and integrity are forms of resistance.

Through his words and his art, RM redefines what it means to lead, to represent, to succeed. He enters this space not to reinforce empire, but to remind it of its humanity. His talk on “Cultural and Creative Industries in the APEC Region and the Soft Power of K-Culture” invites us to rethink: What if power is not in the market, but in meaning? What if the truest form of growth is not economic, but ethical, relational, and imaginative?

For some of us, ARMYs, those who came to care and to think through their music, this moment is not simply pride in seeing “one of ours” on a global stage. It’s an act of reclamation. RM’s participation gestures toward a decolonial imagination, where artists from the once-colonized world speak not as cultural exports, but as equals shaping discourse, redefining value, and unsettling the West’s monopoly on modernity.

In a summit of CEOs and ministers, RM represents something that cannot be quantified: a people’s longing to be seen and to create freely, beyond the binaries of consumer and producer, colonizer and colonized. He stands not as the product of a system, but as its quiet critique. This is proof that art can inhabit power without surrendering its soul.

And maybe that’s why we, the ARMY who read between the lyrics, are moved. Because in that brief moment on the APEC stage, the story of Bangtan, our seven boys who turned their wounds into wonder, becomes the story of all of us still learning to sing beyond empire.

Apobangpo! Purple and true! 

Heart and Seoul Travel Log Day 4: I do believe your galaxy

It was the height of Covid when I came upon this interview of BTS in Rolling Stone. It was one of their better interviews, I think, and of the seven, it was Namjoon’s that I was drawn to because there was a part in it where he speaks about the unnoticed, the ordinary, and even the forgotten carrying entire universes within. That each of us, even rocks, has the potential for growth and the capability to shine. The irony is, we don’t realize or recognize it until it is too late.

Believe it or not, I carried his words like a mantra the entire lockdown and it saw me through until the restrictions were lifted in 2022.

Fast forward to Festa 2025 where I found myself and ARMY Daughter at Café Far Ben in Seongsu. We ditched the Festa celebrations to bask in one of the galaxies of Kim Kyung Min, the sister Namjoon believes to have galaxies inside her. Sitting there, I realized, maybe it takes one galaxy to recognize another.

I’m glad we came back on a quieter day, when there were fewer people and space to breathe. Namjoon’s sister wasn’t there, which, in its own way, made it even more meaningful.

We were there to seek and share quiet moments of our own and yet, bound by togetherness. I was there to give respect and express gratitude. ARMY Daughter was there to stand by me. We were there for each other.

We were a mother and daughter, on our artist’s date: me, watercolor painting; Zoe, reading, taking pictures, and journaling. The café, on that day, exuded an energy of openness and calm. As if the very walls knew they were made to hold softness, silence, and the creative shaping of stories— our own galaxies soon to shine. When darkness comes to envelope us again, we have an array of stars to catch or look upon with love and hope. Being in the dark would be less frightening.

Apobangpo! Purple and true!

#bangtanpilgrimage #festa2025 #seoulsearching

Kuwentong Bangtan: Kim Namjoon and the White Porcelain Vase

Apologies and rectifications are in order.

A few days ago, last Friday, Dec.6 to be exact, I posted on my FB wall and Threads a screenshot of Joon’s profile photo on IG with my notes on kintsugi. It earned some engagements including corrections. And yes, I admit my mistake in the thread.

What I appreciated the most was the manner in which I received the correction. It was decent and kind.

How refreshing.

Following links and using image search, I have gained a deeper understanding of the vase in question as well as the online behavior of friends and fans, and my own, too. No one is exempt. No one is beyond learning and growth.

And now, for the vase.

As pointed out, the golden brown design is a rope; an underglaze on porcelain. Ah, white clay.

I have only used white clay and Japanese clay for hand building three times because stoneware is more common where I live. It costs higher, besides. Compared to stoneware, white clay is smoother, more elastic and supple. When glazed and fired on a higher temperature, the finished product is sturdier and shinier. More brilliant.

The Joseon vase, it’s a bottle, actually - as curated by the National Museum of Korea, is simple, elegant and astute. It is the rope design that makes the art piece compelling. While the porcelain stands like a Joseon nobility, the golden brown rope tethers it to the ground. It conveys being tied to something or to someone. A connection to one’s roots or heritage. An expression of loyalty. A bond. A devotion. Isn’t this sublime?

And in this, the vase mirrors Kim Namjoon himself—steadfast and grounded, yet luminous in his brilliance, embodying the kind of leadership that ties people together with wisdom, humility, and an unwavering devotion to both heritage and growth.

Kuwentong Bangtan: Come Back to Me, A Music Video Review

Kim Namjoon, my ultimate bias and leader of BTS, has once again served awesome sauce. In his new single, Come Back to Me, he contemplates on his many personas which he assumed, earned and accepted over time. Many of these personas are dictated upon him by family, fans and friends. If you are a solid and loyal ARMY who has been in the fandom for quite a while, you know the depth of Namjoon’s pain and his years of struggle in dealing with these personas. To deal with this tension, he poured it all on creating music - his one true love. Oh, he loves many things, art, books, trees, the stars and ARMY; his family and blood brothers; his freedom. But music is his home.

In this home, he created masterpieces that speak of his battles, both internal and external. It can be found in BTS’ decade old discography. One of them is Intro: Persona (EP, Map of the Soul 2019) where he asks, “Who the hell am I?” The song, a fusion of hiphop and trap genre, is an assertion of self preservation. Taking off from the Love Yourself era and the UN Speech of 2018, Namjoon, in Intro: Persona, decides to choose his Self from the many personas and persevere seeking what will make him whole in a manufactured and plastic industry.

Forward to 2022. On the release of his full length album, Indigo, he sings of yet another decision of being true to oneself in the title track Wildflower. Using the metaphors of fireworks, flowers growing in the wild and a landscape of mountain and air, Namjoon tells his story of equilibrium.

At the height of fame and global success, BTS pauses for military service. Who else can give up gold and glory to fulfill yet another duty, another designed persona by someone else but our Bulletproof Boyscouts. They know their priority. They are balancing out roles from duties keeping intact the identity that grounds them. The artistic identity of the seven shine so bright in this era of hiatus as one member drops content and solo projects one after the other highlighting their own choice of music and art. I have never seen such diversity and depth by a Kpop group or foreign act.

Then again, BTS is a class on their own.

With the release of Namjoon’s single, Come Back to Me, he once again harps on the theme of choice and self love. This time, he does it with sophistication and tenderness. The music video shows him in many rooms and in many personas. He experiences different levels of conflict in each. Meeting his anima half way through, he is able to make peace with his personas. In the end, he elects to be with his anima. His soul. His true self. Together they left the rooms of personas. Pain divine

This is bittersweet for me. CBTM touches and communicates with me on many levels. That happy sad feeling lingers as I watch our Bangtan boys grow up and become the persons they choose to be.

Now, it is my turn to come back to me.

Giyeok, Kim Namjoon's First Precious Memories

March 21 is World Poetry Day. It is an international celebration of the diversity present in languages and multicultural understanding which UNESCO spearheads since 1999. For this reason, I’m sharing a video clip of Namjoon reading aloud his poem, “Giyeok”, (which became Giyeok Memories as Jimin called it, towards the end of the show) in Episode 56 of Run BTS (circa 2018).

In Giyeok, Namjoon lists objects and memories he has of each member when they were first starting out in the Kpop industry. He did it with the intent to evoke not just nostalgia but to move his members in remembering who they were and where they stand in the here and now. The former being explicitly conveyed and the later expressed as an implication. The members knew and felt the unspoken message. They listened and “read between the lines” as Namjoon lovingly recalled V’s half buzz cut and Jimin’s chubby body to Jin’s pre-Dad Jokes era; the clothes JK, Hobi and Yoongi wore and words that defined their triumphs, losses and hard work for the past five years.

It seemed that each line, object and memory holds a special meaning for a member and for the team only they know. Such is the effect of a list poem as literary device and tool. And Namjoon, who seemed to have adapted this technique from the dead poets, Homer, Walt Whitman, Cristina Rossetti and Shel Silverstein, was in his element. He is the philosopher who raps. In that moment, he seized the day and became the leader who is gentle and steadfast.

Such is the transformative power of poetry.

The second video clip has the members explaining their purpose for writing the poem they shared at the campfire. How natural they all were and deliberate in communicating their ideas and intentions. 2018 for Bangtan was indeed a turning of the tide. Something has changed and BTS was taking courage to face it. Well, we know what happened next. And here we are, waiting and anticipating beautiful moments, yet to come.

Link to the full video: https://youtu.be/m0r9Sa8deiQ?si=WKgsdSkBlX0XxylF

Kuwentong Bangtan: Kim Namjoon's Indigo

Indigo, Kim Namjoon’s first solo album is the deep breath before taking that leap of faith.

Sonically, the tracks are so diverse sounding that it breaks conventions with lyrics that probe the consequences of popularity; leading the listener to ponder on what truly matters in one’s life. Indigo is an album of quiet reflection, disturbing and painful too but satisfyingly beautiful in its portrayal of Namjoon’s journey as Bangtan’s leader and artiste. Moving out of Mono, Joon is in transition and Indigo is that bridge for the best moments yet to come.

ARMYs would know how to respect and revere the man that is Kim Namjoon and his works of art.