ITZY — Blog — Healy Chen

ITZY, MIDZY, Let's fly!

I don’t always go to Kpop concerts, but when I do, I travel to Dallas to do so. Why? Because it’s far easier to get tickets for cities that aren’t Los Angeles. Besides, we have a friend who lives in Dallas, so it made sense to kill the proverbial two birds with one stone. The increase in cost in terms of airfare and hotel is a worthy tradeoff to spend some time with a cherished friend. Money, we can always make back. Relationships, might not be here tomorrow.

The Kpop act we went to see at the Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas (close enough to Dallas) is ITZY. I’ve been a fan of this quintet since their debut back in 2019. One long pandemic later and they are finally having a world tour. Perfect time to go see them live. I’m glad ITZY is not so popular to perform in huge venues like arenas and stadiums. The Toyota Music Factory seats 4,000 indoors, and it’s just the right size that even in our “cheap” seats, it’s intimate enough to see the singers’ faces.

I never understood why people go to stadium shows. Unless you pay absolutely through the nose for seats up front, you really cannot see shit when you’re up in the bleachers. From that position you’re more watching the LCD screens instead of the acts themselves. At that point, why not simply watch the concert DVDs? Even though I enjoy Taylor Swift’s music, I cannot ever attend her stadium concerts. I’m not rich nor fanatical enough to pay for the expensive seats.

Anyways, back to ITZY. They are fantastic to see live. The five of them really showed off their vocal abilities. To be able to dance choreography and sing live at the same time, song after song, is really difficult and impressive. The allure Kpop for me is always the synergy of song and dance into one complete performance. Not all groups in Kpop achieve commercial success, but I can say all of them work their butts off.

I was only disappointed that ITZY did not perform my favorite song of theirs: Swipe.

Yeah maybe not

Okay, maybe this is a bad idea.

Every weekday I try to watch at least one hour of Korean-language television. It’s part of my ongoing quest to learn Korean that’s going on its fifth year. I’ve long surpassed the stage of book study, and now must rely on Korean shows to keep my mind fresh of the language. In my day-to-day life, there’s obviously very little exposure to Korean, outside of music.

The television shows I tend to watch are variety shows, because the words spoken between people are more natural and “everyday”, matching what you’d hear if you were dropped in the middle of Seoul (I can confirm). In contrast, the dialogue in scripted drama series always sounded a bit contrived to my ears, which is why I seldom watch them for my studying. Besides, I’m afraid that a series would be so good, I wouldn’t be able to stop and move on to other tasks.

Today I made the mistake of choosing a travel program to watch. Its’ a show about Kpop group ITZY’s adventures in Paris, France. Not to say there’s anything wrong with the program, it’s just that seeing people traveling to foreign countries and enjoying life threw up a massive mirror back to our current coronavirus predicament - none of us are taking a trip anywhere via airplane anytime soon. It’s a bit sad that I wouldn’t be visiting somewhere far in 2020, a would-be continuation of a binge of foreign trips in the past five years.

This would have been the year I finally make it to Europe, or go back to my beloved South Korea; you know, to use my improved Korean skills. But, as we can all see on social media, there are far bigger things going on right now.