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[BTS Gwanghwamun D-33] "Silver Voice"... Profile Series ② Jin, the Eldest Member of BTS

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  Original article:  Aju News ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ As BTS prepares for its comeback in March, the world is once again abuzz with anticipation. News of the comeback, delivered through "Arirang," along with plans for a world tour, signals a massive phenomenon capable of generating immediate responses not only in the music industry but also across tourism and regional economies. BTS is both a global economic force and a symbolic name that elevates South Korea's national image. Ahead of this comeback, this publication presents the "BTS Profile Series," examining each member in turn and documenting the seven faces that make up BTS. <Editor's Note> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Jin (real name: Kim Seokjin), the eldest member of BTS, is a name that embodies both the longest endurance and the firmest emotional steadiness within the team. As a sub-vocalist, he supports the group's sound, and offstage, he has consistently played a role i...

[Article translation] 93% of BTS Fans Study Korean, but Systematic Support Remains a Challenge

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Original article:  Newswhoplus ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ A survey has found that more than nine out of ten overseas fans of BTS have experience learning Korean language. The findings suggest that moments of suggest that moments of singing along to music have led to voluntary language learning, demonstrating that the influence of K-pop fandom is expanding beyond cultural consumption into the field of education.  According to A Basic Study on Developing Online Korean Language Education Programs for Fandom Communities , released by the Multicultural Convergence Research Institute, 93.4% of the 381 fans from 69 countries surveyed said they had learned Korean. The most common motivation for learning was "interest in K-pop and artists," cited by 70.6% of respondents. In other words, fan activities have become a direct driving force for learning.  However, learning methods were largely disconnected from systematic education. Only 7.8% had taken in-person classes, while...

Jungkook Confess an Obsession From His Days Living with BTS That Still Haunts Him Today

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  From every perspective—both physically and mentally—ARMYs would undoubtedly rank Jungkook among the bravest members of BTS. While other members—even the oldest one—are often afraid of things like ghosts, heights, or extreme sports, the "Golden Maknae" seems to fear almost nothing at all.  Jungkook can jump off swings without hesitation and enthusiastically take on  bungee jumping challenges towering cliffs.  Just watching him is enough to make one's heart race. Many idols would probably back out, but he remains calm and even excited when facing such activities.  Fans also know that Jungkook has a strong personality and always confronts challenges head-on. He participates in various sports, such as boxing and weight training, and performs difficult dance routines that require both mental and physical strength.  Because of this, it is hard to imagine anything could startle or scare him. However, Jungkook has shown that he is completely human and carries a f...

[BTS Gwanghwamun D-35] "A Cultural Icon Beyond K-pop"... Profile series ① Leader RM of BTS

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  Original article:  Aju News ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━─ With the comeback of the group BTS scheduled for March, the world is once again buzzing with with excitement. News of their return, delivered through "Arirang," along with plans of a world tour, signals a massive phenomenon that is expected to spark immediate reactions not only in the music industry but also across tourism and regional economies. BTS is a presence that influences the global economy and, at the same time, a symbolic name that elevates South Korea's national image. Ahead of this comeback, our publication presents the "BTS Profile Series," which takes an in-depth look at each member in turn, documenting the seven faces that make up BTS. <Editor's note> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The leader of BTS, RM (real name Kim Namjoon), is both the group's starting point and its compass. As the main rapper and the core of t...

[Article Translation] Accomodation Prices in Busan Rise by Up to 7.5 Times During BTS Concert Period

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  Original article:  Yonhap News ⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋ Accomodation prices in Busan are set to rise sharply in June, when the K-pop group BTS holds its concert, with average rates increasing by 2.4 times and peaking at as much as 7.5 times.  The Korea Fair Trade Commission , together with Korea Consumer Agency , released the results of a survey covering 135 accomodations in Busan (52 hotels, 39 motels, and 44 pensions).  According to the commission, the average room rate on June 13, the scheduled concert date, was 143.9% higher—about 2.4 times—compared with the week before or after.  In particular, motels recorded the steepest increase at 3.3 times, followed by hotels at 2.9 times and pensions at 1.2 times.  There were 13 cases—about 10% of all surveyed properties—where prices rose by more than five times compared with normal rates, including instances where rated reached 7.5 times the usual level during the concert period.  The commission exp...

BTS hyung line names the most mature member in the maknae line after a decade, surprising fans

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  BTS debuted on June 13, 2013. As of now, the seven members have officially entered their 13th year of activities together. Even the group's maknae, Jungkook—who debuted at just 15 years old—is now approaching his 30s. Although age is just a number, it is undeniable that the passage of time has brought significant changes to both their personal lives and careers. It can be said that each member's coming-of-ave journey is closely intertwined with their career. The ups and downs of life have shaped them into the top K-pop superstars in their 30s that we see today. Looking back on this journey, if fans were asked to guess without hearing the members' opinions, most would probably choose Jungkook as the member who has shown the most remarkable growth—in terms of appearance, personality, and aura. However, the members themselves seemed to feel differently. When discussing the topic of "Who is the most mature member?" among BTS, they gave a variety of answers.  First, ...

[Article trans] From BTS to K-pop Demon Hunters' "Golden"... K-pop Expands Its Presence at the Grammy Awards

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  Original article:  Naver ⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋ The "Grammy Highway" That Began with BTS "Optimism Grows for BTS's Fifth Album Arirang to Win a Grammy If It Delivere Strong Artistic Results" ⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋⚋ K-pop's challenge at the Grammy Awards is reaching a turning point around this year.  According to the K-pop industry on the 10th, from 2021 to 2023, the global supergroup BTS consistently proved that K-pop is a genre worthy of discussion at the Grammy through repeated nominations and stage appearances.  Building on that accumulated momentum, this year has marked a new phase, with various K-pop artists and works demonstrating story visibility across nomination, performances, and awards, creating a fresh pattern of success.  At the 68th Grammy Awards, held in the 1st (local time), "Golden," the original soundtrack from Netflix's K-pop animated film "K-pop Demon Hunters," won Best Song Written for Visual Medi...