77. KAT CHO: Cultural Context of K-Pop Fandom | Wish Upon A K-Star

Kat Cho and I are celebrating BTS Festa and the return of RM, V, Jimin, and Jungkook by talking all about her brand new K-Pop romcom, Wish Upon A K-Star. This book is a friends-to-lovers/ fake marriage romance featuring a K-Pop star and a former idol turned K-Drama actor. Kat and I are talking all about the book, as well as the importance of cultural context in k-pop and k-drama, fandom, and so much more.

The fact that this is episode 77 and dropping on the day some members get out of the military almost made me cry. Seven is a special number to BTS (they even have tattoos of the number) and for it to line up like this without planning is such serendipity. BTS IS SEVEN.

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Once Upon a K-Prom
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Vicious Spirits

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Once Upon a K-Prom
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Vicious Spirits

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Once Upon a K-Prom
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Vicious Spirits

Transcript

00;00;02;25 - 00;00;31;21
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype event. And I am so excited about today's author conversation because it combines two of my favorite things books and K-pop. If you are here, you are probably a fan of at least one of those things, if not both. And we're going to have a good time because Cat tells new book is Wish Upon a K Star, which is the follow up to Once Upon a K from this is book two, so it would be useful to read Once Upon a K from before jumping into a a K star.

00;00;32;11 - 00;00;58;01
Speaker 1
Either way, you're going to have a good time, especially if you love hip hop. This is a way romance series and it's just so much fun. And we had a great time talking about K-pop and looks at all the things we love. So without any further ado, here's my conversation with Cacho Welcome to Literary Hype. It's so exciting to get to talk to you about your new book, A Wish Upon a Star.

00;00;58;19 - 00;01;01;25
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk about this book.

00;01;02;03 - 00;01;09;17
Speaker 1
I'm very excited to talk about it to you. I love to talk about K-pop, and this is not a big stretch to incorporate K-pop into the conversation.

00;01;10;00 - 00;01;15;08
Speaker 2
Yes. I mean, that's why I wrote it, so that I could talk about K-pop and be like, This is my job, actually.

00;01;15;22 - 00;01;19;15
Speaker 1
So for anybody who hasn't seen this book already, let us know what it's about.

00;01;19;18 - 00;01;56;18
Speaker 2
So it's a K-pop rom com about this. This idol right here. His name is Moon Min Sucks. So his stage name is Moon Stir because of course it is. And he's from this like worldwide famous K-pop group called WTOP. And they have recently gotten into a little bit of a dating scandal, other members in the group. So he's kind of like on the tour on his own to try to like rejuvenate their reputation but while he's like trying going on all these shows and trying to, like, make good with the public, he acts he gets in a fight with her.

00;01;56;18 - 00;02;21;03
Speaker 2
Her name's Shin Hairy, and they used to be trainees together. And they have a little bit of a, like, combative past. And so they get into this fight, it gets caught on camera, it goes viral. And she also has a history with scandals. So they both kind of realize, like, we have to fix this. So their company signs them up for this reality show, which is based on a real Korean variety show.

00;02;21;24 - 00;02;43;23
Speaker 2
The Korean Variety show is called We Got Married. And in my book, it's called Like Our Celebrity Marriage. And so pretty much the concept is that it takes two celebrities and it forces them to like become newlyweds and do, like, the newlywed life and newlywed challenges. And it's just like both hilarious and romantic and like lots of hijinx ensue.

00;02;43;23 - 00;02;49;03
Speaker 2
But of course, these two end up falling for each other, which wasn't in the plan. Yeah.

00;02;49;22 - 00;02;51;06
Speaker 1
Dun dun dun.

00;02;51;22 - 00;02;52;20
Speaker 2
Oh, no, I.

00;02;52;24 - 00;02;56;29
Speaker 1
Know that they will find each other in a rom com oh, wow.

00;02;56;29 - 00;02;57;27
Speaker 2
What a twist.

00;02;59;09 - 00;03;08;11
Speaker 1
This is like kind of a follow up to Once Upon a K prom. Bush came out three years ago, so what took so long to get to this story?

00;03;08;21 - 00;03;28;25
Speaker 2
Part of it is polished. The process of polishing, not to get too real on the podcast, but publishing just can take a really long time and like a lot of times, like, you know, I had some anthologies come out in the meantime and people don't want to step on each other's toes and they're all some different publishers. So there is a lot of that going on behind the scenes.

00;03;30;12 - 00;03;50;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. So it was just schedule. I would have love for it to come out sooner. I had the idea for our story. He was in What's Part of Cape Town because the main guy in wants kind of Cape Prom. Robbie is the among the youngest of DB, so I knew the next person I would write a story for.

00;03;50;12 - 00;04;10;27
Speaker 2
It would be Monster. Like everyone liked him the best, like he kind of jumped out on the page at me while I was drafting. I knew he would be really fun to write more about. So yeah, I was ready to go writing it. It was literally just like the behind the scenes bureaucracy and paperwork.

00;04;11;06 - 00;04;21;28
Speaker 1
And before we get too deep into the world of K-pop, so if someone's picking up this book and they have not read and know, they don't know anything about K-pop, what should they know before they dove into this book?

00;04;22;04 - 00;04;44;27
Speaker 2
I really tried to write it so that you could come as a total newbie into the book. And I think I have to practice with that because I unabashedly write about my Korean culture and all of my books, but I'm writing it for a Western English speaking audience. So I never make any assumptions that people know about the cultural norms that are like average to my characters.

00;04;45;06 - 00;05;08;10
Speaker 2
Now, I'm not going to be like, Oh, how many? That means grandmother. I'm not going to do that in the text. But I do try really, really hard to give organic context clues to like pretty much everything, and especially if it's like a very specific or difficult concept that's very K-pop specific my characters are very like they overthink everything.

00;05;08;10 - 00;05;33;03
Speaker 2
They actually inherited that from me. So they do have opinions about things like dating clauses and dating bands or like netizens or sassing fans and anti fans. Like all of those concepts. Like if you've never heard of these before, even though it's referenced in the book, it might be in passing. My characters will have some kind of opinion about it that will give you like really good context clues is my hope.

00;05;35;10 - 00;05;38;04
Speaker 1
Saw things, the things the world could live without.

00;05;38;13 - 00;06;07;09
Speaker 2
Yes, I will say, like it doesn't hurt to kind of understand what fandom means in K-pop. If you want to look into something, not you. I know you know everything about hip hop, but like the casual reader who doesn't know anything about K-pop fandom means something. I mean, I think there's familiarity with it in the Western world. I think like Lady Gaga and her little monsters like that's really similar or swifties, you know, that's really similar.

00;06;07;09 - 00;06;34;05
Speaker 2
There are a lot of similarities, but a lot of the reason why we have such a closeness is that, like transfers into our social relationships in K-pop is because of cultural things that end, in my opinion. Like, I really do think that because in Korea we're so homogenous and we do believe like every individual success equals success for our whole entire community.

00;06;34;05 - 00;06;57;00
Speaker 2
And culture that, like, the way we support our celebrities is not like, Oh, you're so far away from me. It's like your success means so much to me personally, because you're enhancing the Korean culture. I mean, that's why BTC is like a national treasure, because they're considered to have advanced like awareness of Korean culture globally.

00;06;57;08 - 00;07;15;04
Speaker 1
Which, speaking of beats, there are some little beats vibes that I picked up on with DB and Bright Star Entertainment. This is talk a little bit about picking and choosing what elements of existing K-pop stars and companies you wanted to incorporate into this story.

00;07;15;06 - 00;07;26;28
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, well, there's actually named real K-pop stars, like, not like interacting on the page because that would be weird. And so like, you know, how could I presume.

00;07;26;28 - 00;07;28;02
Speaker 1
To, like, say what.

00;07;28;02 - 00;07;47;21
Speaker 2
You know, Chinese Ki would say to my characters, although I love them anyway, but they're like referenced in like member profiles like so-and-so is friends with, you know, eighties is, you know, young or something like that. Right. And so obviously a lot of that is like my little Easter eggs for people who like actually are fans of these real life groups.

00;07;47;21 - 00;08;16;04
Speaker 2
But when it comes to W, yeah, they're like pretty much a parallel for betas there are they start out from their back story is so inspired by these guys. They started out with this like small brand new entertainment company that so far before them hadn't like debuted a whole brand new Idol group. It was a very small company that was not part of the Big Three at the time.

00;08;16;04 - 00;08;39;19
Speaker 2
And so they struggled to get on to broadcast and radio shows and TV shows and all that stuff, and they weren't treated with a lot of respect and like, I know this is so sad to hear because like now probably people are thinking, Wait, beats went through that? And yes, they did but at the same time, like for Beats and for my group, like it created this like bonding.

00;08;39;19 - 00;09;04;29
Speaker 2
Like they're not just coworkers they're not just a group, their family, their brothers, because like they went through all of this together, they survived it together, they believed in themselves together. And so I really wanted that kind of a vibe in the group where like even if they're fighting, which they kind of are in which kind of star like but even if they're fighting, it's not like two celebrities are fighting.

00;09;04;29 - 00;09;19;00
Speaker 2
It's like brothers are fighting and like the emotional ramifications of that. And so in that sense, like, yes, they're very based on beats as background because I just wanted them to have that really deep, deep connection with each other.

00;09;19;10 - 00;09;44;18
Speaker 1
As soon as I read that, I was like, Oh, I know where these this story came from. It's so there is a line of one of them talking about how, as a celebrity, you don't belong to yourself, you belong to your fans. So talk a little bit about you talked to touch a little bit on the cultural implications of that, but diving deep into that world in K-pop and K dramas and what that means for the actors and their lives.

00;09;44;25 - 00;10;06;29
Speaker 2
I think people are going to have varying opinions about the idea of that. Right? Because I do think it's very fair to say, like just because you're celebrity doesn't mean you're not still like a human being with like your own needs for a private life and for privacy. And I think like it comes up a lot more and more nowadays with more people because of influencers.

00;10;06;29 - 00;10;39;22
Speaker 2
Right, and social media and the fact that, like, you don't need a big, like media company behind you in order to become celebrity status. I think authors think about it a lot. I don't think we're like full, huge celebrities, but I do think we have public platforms like the moment you your work is being traditionally published into the world in order to disseminate your thoughts and your ideas and your characters to other people, you immediately have more of a platform like than the average citizen.

00;10;39;22 - 00;11;18;24
Speaker 2
Right? So I think about that a lot for myself. Like if I'm going to post something on my social media and it's an opinion, like, is this an opinion that's needed? Is this an opinion that would cause harm? Right. So I do think that it's something that's a reality. And especially in K-pop, like I said, like because the primary audience, like when K-pop was first developed and even sometimes today, I think like a lot of companies do target a lot of new materials to the Korean based audience first because they're just geographically closest.

00;11;19;26 - 00;11;39;26
Speaker 2
So the primary audience like has such access to these idols. There's like it's not just that you really some music video and you're done. You go on like two weeks of music shows where the audience is, your fans and they're like in your face. They're like so close. I don't know if you've ever been to a music show in Korea, but like you're literally right next to the stage and they're talking to you.

00;11;39;26 - 00;12;06;13
Speaker 2
There's high touch, which is literally you're touching the K-pop idol, like there's fan calls, there's all this stuff. So there's such access to them. And because of that, the fans do feel like these idols are their friends. Like, I don't want to go so far as to use the word belonging to them. I think that's like really, you know, that's really gray area.

00;12;06;23 - 00;12;09;01
Speaker 1
But I do just more in the sourcing territory.

00;12;09;11 - 00;12;32;04
Speaker 2
It does, which like I am very cautious about because it's just a slippery slope. But I will say, like, there is so much that an Idol has to be aware of in their actions because it's not just like, OK, all my public facing stuff is only my music, right? That's not true. They're on variety shows or on radio shows.

00;12;32;04 - 00;13;02;01
Speaker 2
They have their own YouTube channels with their own variety shows. They have like they do lines all the time. It's they're not really like living just for themselves anymore. And they're and but they're also a lot of them are starting out as teenagers. And so it's like really an important thing to discuss. I think like it goes too far sometimes with like the expectations that fans have for idols.

00;13;03;17 - 00;13;08;29
Speaker 2
But it is something that is true in their lives that they're not just living for themselves anymore.

00;13;09;10 - 00;13;17;12
Speaker 1
And we kind of saw that play out with Sugar and his scooter incident of basically having the dogs himself and out where he lived just to prove he wasn't lying about what happened.

00;13;17;28 - 00;13;41;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. And and the thing is, is like because the fans took to give to give fans the benefit of the doubt. Right. With a lot of these instances, I do think when they're like, look, I found this CCTV footage of him, it's not because they're trying to tax him or they're trying to like do malicious things unless you're like an anti fan.

00;13;41;06 - 00;14;08;12
Speaker 2
Right. But I think that that like sometimes the best intentions can have the worst results where you do dox your favorite K-pop idol or you do accidentally post the wrong video of the wrong person. And it gives the incorrect context to a situation that might have legal ramifications referencing the monkey situation. So it's just fans because there's so many of them, right?

00;14;08;12 - 00;14;22;28
Speaker 2
So like it's not just like, OK, here are my 20 fans and like let's have a talk and you all understand we're all on the same page. There's like thousands and thousands of fans. You can't control the mindset and the actions of all of them. And sometimes it floods out of control.

00;14;23;08 - 00;14;33;07
Speaker 1
Like it does in the book. Yes, but we won't go into that because I don't want to I don't like spoiling things, but there's some tension there.

00;14;33;17 - 00;14;49;26
Speaker 2
The tension, it's very melodramatic. I will say, like I think this book is way more melodramatic than the first one. And I had like a serious talk with my editor. I was like, Did I go too far? And she was like, Oh, no, we love it. And I was like, OK, but I.

00;14;49;26 - 00;14;51;00
Speaker 1
Did I did.

00;14;51;00 - 00;14;58;21
Speaker 2
Wonder if I, like, went to like full melodramatic drama styles. OK.

00;15;00;05 - 00;15;21;22
Speaker 1
So your main character, Monster, he is visually based on, you know, from eighties yes. Eighties Girl over here. Yeah. And you know, is the other half of my future second husband, Benji so what was it about, you know, that made you want to incorporate him into this character?

00;15;22;21 - 00;15;54;02
Speaker 2
So it's so funny because what I liked about, you know, as a visual so he's the visual come not the personality cult which I want to clarify to people constantly because I don't want people to be like this is anything like, you know, he would never do this. So but the reason I use him as the visual clown so easily without using any of his personality is that I when he debuted up until 20, 24, he was so protective of like private information.

00;15;54;02 - 00;16;32;07
Speaker 2
Like when you really think about it, we knew so much about the other seven guys and it was like, how do you really know too many private details about, you know, I knew like funny facts and stuff like that about him, but like he was so good at separating those things and I was like, great. So like, it'll be so easy to, like, visualize, you know, but then to tack on like oh, young personality and then all of a sudden they go to Europe and go on tour and, you know, posting thousands and thousands of Tic-Tacs, shirtless Tic-Tacs like all Instagram, all this stuff, he's like, welcome inside of, like, my private space.

00;16;32;07 - 00;16;33;07
Speaker 2
And I was like, you know.

00;16;33;08 - 00;16;36;25
Speaker 1
What are you doing? I needed you to, like, stay neutral.

00;16;37;05 - 00;17;00;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, but I mean, I'm not mad about it, but it was it was a really funny it was a really funny moment. For me because I really just thought, like, he would be, like, the most neutral person to choose. And then all of a sudden, he's creating this fervor and I posted like this one throwaway Photoshopped post, which I did for the first book, too.

00;17;00;23 - 00;17;21;16
Speaker 2
And it's like, you know, holding the book. And I was like, he's a visual comp. And I was like, great, I'll get like 50 likes on this. And it went like into eighties Twitter, apparently. And I'm not on Twitter anymore, but like I was informed by one of my friends, she's like, You're on Twitter. It's like, Oh, no.

00;17;22;10 - 00;17;27;15
Speaker 1
Oh, no. Or, Oh, yes, because now all these people are going to discover your book because, you know, is holding it.

00;17;28;03 - 00;17;42;00
Speaker 2
They were so nice. I love Teeny. I mean, they're like every fandom I think is as distinct as a group themselves. And 18 he is like, I don't know. Can you a fan of Bias? Either one of my fandom biases?

00;17;42;15 - 00;17;44;22
Speaker 1
It depends on the moment I think too.

00;17;44;26 - 00;17;46;09
Speaker 2
That's true. That's true.

00;17;46;09 - 00;17;50;23
Speaker 1
There's always a love army, but sometimes it feels stupid.

00;17;51;23 - 00;18;03;06
Speaker 2
I think. Yeah, I think like I'm just mostly talking about like the average general 18, not the like extreme outliers.

00;18;03;26 - 00;18;22;07
Speaker 1
And my husband and I talk about this all the time of like you have your core group and what the core group is like, but you're always going to have the outliers of the weirdos and the not so nice ones. And keeping that in mind that it's not just one person or one small group within the big group that dictates what the group is really like.

00;18;22;23 - 00;19;00;18
Speaker 2
Exactly yeah. And I think like, I mean that's true of any group, but the bigger it gets, right? Like with any social norms not to get through to like into like the anthropology of it all or but I do think like I have learned over my, you know, decades of being a K-pop fan because I became a K-pop fan when I was like, I don't know, like in elementary school at this point, but like I used to be like, oh, literally all super junior fans are like this one horrible person, like, and I would and I would feel like, oh, just stay away from them because I heard this awful thing that they did.

00;19;01;02 - 00;19;13;05
Speaker 2
And as I've gotten older, and as I've seen the nuance of it, I do realize like those are definitely extreme outliers and it's easier to, like, kind of take a step back and like judge the group by that person.

00;19;13;16 - 00;19;25;21
Speaker 1
And with, you know, you've done a lot of esthetic posts with pictures of him. And so I had to know how many pictures and videos did you download, you know, for all static posts.

00;19;25;28 - 00;19;53;04
Speaker 2
Oh, my God, I have a whole folder I have. Can he you know what he did, though? Like, he he started posting way more on his Instagram. So I would definitely like and it comes up on my feed. It's not I'm not even searching for it. I think the algorithm just knows I'm looking for it. But I just yeah, if I it's like it's like all I mean and she's the go yin yang is the girl.

00;19;53;04 - 00;19;59;27
Speaker 2
Inspiration is just like all of these like. Yeah. From his Instagram. These are all like him.

00;20;00;08 - 00;20;13;04
Speaker 1
I understand. This. I have so many pictures of monkey that I took it their concert and it's fine. It's he's in the background on my phone. My husband was not very happy when I made that decision. He's like, I've never been the background on your phone. And I'm like, Well, you're not big.

00;20;14;16 - 00;20;21;23
Speaker 2
He just needs to, like, style himself, like a K-pop idol and do a whole photo shoot. And maybe he can be in the running, but he has to put the effort in. Clearly.

00;20;22;07 - 00;20;23;23
Speaker 1
He might go to street kids in Chicago.

00;20;25;01 - 00;20;29;10
Speaker 2
I think when you see someone like it changes your perspective of K-pop.

00;20;29;17 - 00;20;45;22
Speaker 1
Oh, for sure. Like, my first concert was permission to dance L.A. Night number two. And I just met with my because we were already in california. We found some cheap tickets so my sister loved them. I was like, OK, cool. And now here we are like five songs.

00;20;46;01 - 00;20;47;10
Speaker 2
I can't believe that was your first.

00;20;50;13 - 00;20;57;28
Speaker 1
I started real big. Huge. Yeah. And now it is taste and send off, and I will never go back.

00;20;58;13 - 00;21;00;09
Speaker 2
Well, my gosh, that's crazy.

00;21;00;22 - 00;21;23;12
Speaker 1
What are the things i love about this book is that you have these little profiles for the characters, which breaks down a lot more detail than you would ever need for an actual character. Like you don't need their blood type or their other Myers-Briggs personality type. So what's it like for you to create these and how does those profiles influence the characters throughout the story?

00;21;23;17 - 00;21;55;16
Speaker 2
So here's the secret Every author makes profiles like that. They just aren't allowed to put it in the book because it doesn't like fit like within a narrative. But because this is a K-pop book and and member profiles is a thing in K-pop, I was like, Oh, I benefit from like the obsessive, like relationship that fans have with idols and they want to know their blood type, which to be fair, it sounds creepy to a Western audience, but it is a thing in Korea.

00;21;55;27 - 00;22;21;24
Speaker 2
You ask people, you'll ask you can ask a stranger what their blood type is, because in Korea we believe that blood type like correlates with personality types like Myers-Briggs and like it's why Myers-Briggs blew up in Korea, because we love to be like, Oh yes, because of this one factor. I know everything about how you're going to respond to like situations so yeah.

00;22;21;24 - 00;22;46;28
Speaker 2
So I was just like, Oh, great. I get to use this thing that I know every single author already does for their characters and actually like, put it in the book. But yeah, I, I definitely had to catch myself sometimes, actually. It was a blessing and a curse because I love that. Like, I could share this, like, really detailed information that I have about each character with the readers.

00;22;46;28 - 00;23;05;24
Speaker 2
But at the same time, like, sometimes I would get to a point, I'd be like, Oh, I actually think they're more like this. And then I have to remember, like, you have to go back and you have to change the Myers-Briggs. So you have to change all this same with birthdays. Actually, birthdays are really important when it comes to relationships in Korea.

00;23;05;25 - 00;23;25;02
Speaker 2
Not as much now as like back in the day, but like for a really, really long time. Like you just weren't friends with someone who wasn't born the same year as you. Like, you could be friendly with them, but if they were older than you, they were like hanging out all those things. Like you couldn't call, you wouldn't call them friend.

00;23;25;02 - 00;23;45;09
Speaker 2
Like it would almost be like offensive to say, This is my friend. You'd have to address them with like seniority and say, My someone was younger than you. Like, you would be like, Well, they're not my friend. They're younger than me. So there were certain characters where I was like their friends. And then I would and I would realize like, Oh, wait, I made them born in different years.

00;23;45;09 - 00;24;04;22
Speaker 2
I have to change their birthdays. Now, the one thing I will say is that in K-pop, the line is blurred a little bit because when you're like training with someone for like years and years, like since you were like 12 years old, the fact that they're a year older, a year younger than you is kind of blurred because like trauma bonding, right?

00;24;06;09 - 00;24;29;16
Speaker 2
So I kind of use it as an excuse to be like because the main here, he her best friend is younger than her in the book and she calls her her best friend, but she still has moments where she's like the dynamics of this relationship. I'm the one who should be taking care of her because I am older and she will actively thing things like that because of the age hierarchy that is like very inherent within our culture.

00;24;30;05 - 00;24;54;01
Speaker 2
So yeah, they're just like different things like that where I was like, I need certain details. Cannon But then if I did something within the text that like that was the, you know, counter to that thing that I made. Cannon on like a, you know, random decision I made like six months ago. It was really important for me to go back and fix that mistake.

00;24;54;03 - 00;25;13;13
Speaker 1
And you touched on her best friend and those the sisterly relationship that they kind of have from being bandmates. But also on the flip side, there's Kim Anna, who's kind of her nemesis in this stuff, a little bit about crafting the female relationships in the context of all of this media opinion.

00;25;13;21 - 00;25;44;28
Speaker 2
I think about this a lot when it comes to like creating friendship friendships between different gender dynamics, whether it's like, you know, boy, boy, boy, girl, girl, girl, and be like, you know, trans characters. I have all of that in my book. So but I do think that there is a lot of stigma at or at least there was stigma from like you remember, like the 2008 era of Y.A. where like there was always like the main girl and she was perfect.

00;25;44;28 - 00;26;04;06
Speaker 2
And then all other girls in the book were super jealous of her and hated her because she was perfect and three werewolves were in love with her. And it was like such a discussion right? Like we would always be like, how come boys can be best friends and all these books, but girls can't have good relationships? And I'm constantly thinking about that.

00;26;04;17 - 00;26;46;09
Speaker 2
But at the same time, there is a reality about gender norms within Korean culture. Where like it is a patriarchal society, so boys are given a lot more freedom to just be goofy and, and play around and not be judged for that. Whereas a girl, if a girl isn't absolutely perfect, her behavior is constantly nitpicked and it's really heightened in K-pop and in celebrity culture in Korea, where, like, boys can like just be the dark, like the dumbest people like on a variety show.

00;26;46;09 - 00;27;18;26
Speaker 2
But if a girl doesn't have like perfect hair and perfect behavior and perfect laughter, then people are like, oh, she's gross. And the stigma has like slowly been peeled away and peeled away. There's a lot of groups, like one that really comes to mind is Mamma Mia! And they were like one of the first girl groups that was labeled a beagle group and people groups not to get too much into K-pop lore the term beagle is used to describe people celebrities when they're like, they're just crazy.

00;27;18;26 - 00;27;38;13
Speaker 2
They're like, just like too much energy. Too much energy, like a beagle like just running around and running around and like falling over things and clumsy and goofy and silly and just hyperactive. And it was very, very much used for boys in a very loving context. Like there's this boy Group B to be who I love. And they were a beagle group.

00;27;38;23 - 00;28;03;15
Speaker 2
PTA is a beagle group. And it was never used for girls because girls how dare girls would ever act in a hyperactive way. And Mom only was the first girl group who was lovingly labeled a beagle group and embraced for that behavior. And I do think a huge part of it was because they were so undeniably talented. They're like to this day some of the best female vocalists in K-pop.

00;28;03;26 - 00;28;48;02
Speaker 2
And so I think like they they helped break that mold. And so it did create this ability to like let girls not be perfect. And K-pop and I really like did want to show like girl relationships in like that fun, goofy way. The younger best friend in is about to debut in a new girl group. And like, my hope is that if I ever get to write another book that features one of them, I really want to show that female like the more wider breadth of that female relationships and like the complicatedness of it within that group but there's also reality where like in a, in a culture where the expectation is to be perfect,

00;28;48;14 - 00;29;17;00
Speaker 2
then it goes hand in hand with the idea of are you perfect enough compared to this other person that we think is more perfect, right? Like comparisons just tends to happen when there's more than one person doing the same thing. And so that happens a lot in K-pop, and I think it happens way more for girls and like in a in such a toxic way where you're comparing one girl to another so much more freely than when you're comparing boys to each other.

00;29;17;00 - 00;29;46;29
Speaker 2
Boys are allowed to be complicated and individuals individualistic. Whereas girls are like, if you're not formulaically perfect enough, then like you get nitpicked in comparison to this other girl. And so that's the relationship with Carrie and Kim Anna, because they were both like the two top contenders in this are in this variety survival show where they were competing to be in a K-pop group, and they both made the K-pop group.

00;29;47;18 - 00;30;20;07
Speaker 2
But Kim Anna was seen as like an angel, and she was so perfect. And Kitty kind of came out because of the decision of the producers and the editing of the show as the villain. And what kind of spurred that on was that she was already getting criticism because people believe she was only picked for the show because her brother was already a famous K-pop idol, and they're like, she was chosen for ratings and that wasn't true.

00;30;20;28 - 00;30;45;13
Speaker 2
But once, like a rumor, salacious rumors out there, it's hard to pull it back in. Right? So she kind of became the villain and Anna was the one her foil like on the show. And so, like they started out as friends on the show. And then because of the show, they become enemies. And I really wanted to explore like the complicatedness of that dynamic.

00;30;45;18 - 00;31;02;11
Speaker 1
So you touched earlier on Oppa, which is a big part of this book, and say you're using that term. So for people who don't know the cultural context of why that's important, it's us. A little bit. On why calling him Oppa was such a big deal for her.

00;31;02;18 - 00;31;29;20
Speaker 2
Yeah, I actually, you know, have recently been seeing a lot of like tick tock hot takes on it. From other like Korean creators were like, they don't like that Oprah is used for someone who's not related to you. So like oppa the like the core of it is the definition is an older brother of a female. So like my older brother would be an oppa, but a boy's older brother would be a him, right?

00;31;30;19 - 00;32;00;27
Speaker 2
So it's different terms. But over time, oppa has also been used as like a loving term for a boy who's older than you. Like if you're a girl, a boy who's older than you that you have a very close relationship with. So it doesn't have to be romantic. It could literally be like the next door neighbor. And he was like always protective of you and your best friends or whatever when you're close, not best friends, but you're close and you start to pull him apart because of that close relationship.

00;32;01;07 - 00;32;31;06
Speaker 2
And a lot of our labels for each other in Korean are indicative of of the closeness or the like, the distance of our relationship to someone. Like, if I if I like were to, like, meet someone in a professional capacity and they were above me, I could call them like Sunbae Nam, which is such a formal way of saying, you're senior to me within our shared profession or our shared field.

00;32;31;16 - 00;32;58;01
Speaker 2
But then if we get super duper, duper close, I might start to call him oppa right so it's like it's like that, right? So for them, when she was younger, she would call him oppa, and part of it was because he was best friends with her older, actual older brother. And the other part was because she had a huge crush on him when she was like 13, 14, 15, and it was a little bit of her being like, Oh my God, I get to call him.

00;32;58;07 - 00;33;29;29
Speaker 2
But like that kind of a feeling, right? And he let her, he let her call her him oppa. But over time, like some stuff happened between them where they like through distance, you know, and they start to have a more combative relationship. And so she stopped calling him oppa and like started calling him either like very formally Sunbae or like Mr. Shi like, so a person's name plus she is like kind of like a formal title for someone.

00;33;32;00 - 00;33;57;23
Speaker 2
And so she is bothered by it. Like, she doesn't admit it at first, but he's bothered that she pushes him away. Like that relationship wise, she's keeping a distance between her and him. And I'm not going to tell you why he you've actually find out why he's so bothered by it, but he wants her to call him Oppa again, and she refuses.

00;33;57;23 - 00;34;13;08
Speaker 2
And it's kind of like this line. It's not so much about the term, it's about how she needs to keep a distance from him and how he's constantly trying to shorten that distance and who wins. We have to read to find out.

00;34;13;22 - 00;34;29;18
Speaker 1
It's like with Squid Game, they captioned Oppa as Babe. And I was like, That is not even close. Up. And now we've got making videos where he's like, 005. This is what you sound like. Oh, pass.

00;34;31;12 - 00;34;58;02
Speaker 2
I think I do. I do have an issue with like trying to it's so hard, right? Because like trying to translate a term that has so many different meanings depending on context is really hard. And I actually have met like a Netflix subtitle person who like subtitles dramas for Netflix. And I was like, OK, so like why do you guys do it like this?

00;34;58;12 - 00;35;23;28
Speaker 2
Like, because I'm so curious. Because I know it's not an exact translation. And I'm like, Why did you subtitle it like that? And there's so many rules and I get it. But yeah, that one, I don't love it just because it could make people think here like a younger sister, call her older brother and be like you. You called your brother babe it's like, No, she did it, I swear.

00;35;23;29 - 00;35;24;11
Speaker 1
Like.

00;35;24;29 - 00;35;26;08
Speaker 2
That's not actually what it means.

00;35;26;13 - 00;35;37;14
Speaker 1
Cultural context is important for sure. So this book and the first book in the series are both the childhood friends to lovers. What is it about that trope that you loved so much?

00;35;37;21 - 00;36;05;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I actually hadn't realized I had done that until I had like, like, started, like, really seriously drafting this book. And I was like, oh, my God, they were childhood friends. And now they're getting together. But yeah. And so I love I think I don't know if I get this from dramas or not, but like, I love the idea that people are connecting who have had a past connection, whether they realize it or not.

00;36;05;21 - 00;36;30;03
Speaker 2
And it's such a drama thing where like the two main characters meet and they never realize that the boy who had saved her from, like, the car crash was him the whole time, you know, that kind of thing. And we love doing it in dramas and I love doing it in my books. And it's kind of like this idea of being like, I do think it helps with like the unfortunate trope of insta love, of being like, no, no, no, no.

00;36;30;03 - 00;36;53;08
Speaker 2
They've always had this connection. It's not like that kind of a thing. There's a kind of called John in Korea, which I don't have they. Did you ever see the 12 Boys I Love before movies? She talked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, she talks about it in those movies. It's a concept of like a connection an innate connection you have with like another human being.

00;36;53;27 - 00;37;14;25
Speaker 2
And I love this idea of like, like exploring this, like, deep connection you have with another person and you can't really explain it and like, it's just exists within you and like, it's hard to fight against and all that stuff. Like, no, matter. All the stuff that's gone on between you, like you keep coming back together, like that kind of a feeling.

00;37;15;29 - 00;37;49;02
Speaker 2
I will say, like in Once Upon a Capon, I definitely wanted to write that one more as like childhood friends who had lost contact and got back together. But like, it wasn't necessarily like he had actively broken her heart. It was more like she was just like confused because he became a celebrity in the meantime. Whereas in Wish Upon a Star, it was, it was supposed to be more or it is supposed to be more antagonistic because he did something to her actively that broke her heart.

00;37;49;19 - 00;38;06;01
Speaker 2
And so it once upon a problem is more of a pure friends to lovers and wish upon a star is more like antagonists to lovers but yeah, I just I just love I just love deep mining, past relationships between two characters.

00;38;06;09 - 00;38;11;02
Speaker 1
So the last question we always ask because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about right now?

00;38;11;11 - 00;38;31;19
Speaker 2
I am currently reading The Floating World, which comes out the same day as Wish Upon a Case. Ah. So I'm sure that by the time this airs this book will be out, I will. Full disclosure, she's my cousin, so I you could say I would be biased, but I actually think that because she's my cousin, I'm much more critical because we're family.

00;38;31;26 - 00;38;58;12
Speaker 2
So the fact that I love it so much means it's that amazing. But it's yeah, it's Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone is like how they pitch it. And I will say like, that is actually a really good way to pitch it because it has all of those amazing like final fantasy slash anime concepts like the, the big world building.

00;38;58;12 - 00;39;15;17
Speaker 2
There's like this floating world, and then there's this like underworld and then there's the heroine who, like, has this, like, light power that she's trying to hide. And then she gets discovered, and then the hero who has, like, this shadow demon inside of him, and he's he's a sword for hire, and he's tasked with, like, hunting her down.

00;39;15;24 - 00;39;45;07
Speaker 2
But then they like bond and run from the evil people. And there's like this captain of the army that you don't know if he's good or he's bad. It's just it's such a good book and I love it so much. So that's definitely one that I would recommend to everyone and I'm also I finished X Marks the Spot by Gloria Chao, which like, if you love romcoms, then you would really, really like that.

00;39;45;08 - 00;40;18;16
Speaker 2
Gloria did such a good job of like filling that niche gap that I think exists between like high school and like older romance like that, like college age romance. X marks the spot. I think there's the she's still in high school but like Gloria does a lot of like college romances that are put into the whitespace space. And I think it's just like she does such a good job with like that kind of feeling of like venturing out in the world for the first time and like finding your identity while like finding your independence at the same time.

00;40;18;22 - 00;40;27;28
Speaker 2
And of course, like, she uses a lot of her own culture in it, which I love. So yeah, those are two books that I'm like raving about.

00;40;28;10 - 00;40;36;13
Speaker 1
I definitely had XY on my list of questions, sharing a release, least with someone that you're so close to.

00;40;36;18 - 00;41;09;03
Speaker 2
It's amazing. I think like I think it's really funny because I see a lot of times where like, people are like, I'm sorry and I don't, like, want to get to you know, hot takes on this. But I think like the more it's more fun to get excited for other people think for yourself sometimes and in that same vein, like it's so fun to like become friends with other authors.

00;41;09;03 - 00;41;18;26
Speaker 2
I mean, acting everybody friends, right? But is so fun to like have that community and build those relationships. And so like I do think sometimes I talk about.

00;41;19;19 - 00;41;20;10
Speaker 1
Her book with.

00;41;20;10 - 00;41;48;24
Speaker 2
Like talk about wide, but it's just so fun and like it's I can going back to like fandom, it's so nice to just talk about a piece of work as a fan as opposed as a creator. I think like that's the thing I've learned after becoming an author is that there is a lot of pressure to talk about your work as a creator of your work, but to be able to still talk about like other people's books is like the pure joy that comes with this profession.

00;41;48;24 - 00;41;49;09
Speaker 2
For sure.

00;41;50;03 - 00;41;54;08
Speaker 1
Well, thank you so much for taking time to talk about Wish Upon a Star with Literary Hype.

00;41;55;00 - 00;41;55;23
Speaker 2
Yes. Thank you so.

00;41;55;23 - 00;41;56;22
Speaker 1
Much for having me.

00;41;59;19 - 00;42;22;14
Speaker 1
Thanks again to Kat for taking time out of her day to talk about Wish Upon a Case are with me. And on the K-pop things, we continued before and after this couple that we were filming. We've definitely talked more about K-pop and like how big of a pain in the butt taking massive and impeding our dreams of being close to our favorite Korean singers.

00;42;22;16 - 00;42;41;08
Speaker 1
If you'd like to check out Wish Upon a K Star or the first book Once Upon A K from the links to this show are down below. Kat also writes some fantasy books that have some Korean mythology inspirations, so those links are down below as well. If you enjoyed this conversation, do not forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype podcast.

00;42;41;09 - 00;42;45;16
Speaker 1
Give us some stars and share it with the friend. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.