"Oh the pain the pain"
Posted on 03/31/2006 2:32:33 PM PST by Screamname
Defector lured by 'shockingly beautiful' Western music
Friday, March 31, 2006
SEOUL — Pianist Kim Cheol-Weong said he decided to defect to South Korea after hearing decadent Western music in a coffee shop in Moscow.
“I listened to Richard Clayderman’s music such as ‘A Comme Amour’ and ‘Love Story,’” he told an interviewer. Returning to North Korea, he said he was forced to write a 10-page apology when a security official heard him playing a Clayderman piece while alone.
It was then, he said, that “I decided to defect to South Korea.”
Kim, who teaches piano here, rebelled against the notion that Western music was “barbaric” while being forced to play pieces that venerated either Kim Il-Sung, the long-time leader of North Korea who died in 1994, or his son, Kim Jong-Il.
Musicians, he said while rehearsing for a concert here, “were only a means and a tool to maintain the regime,” while “jazz is considered barbaric because it has no melody.”
Kim, 31, said he “learned that [Western music] is the most corrupted culture rooted from capitalism” but “the music, which I had had a bad image of, sounded shockingly beautiful to me.”
Said to be the son of a senior North Korean military official, he escaped across the Tumen River to China and wound up playing in a Christian church. At a concert here, he played in a manner that seemed quite gentle in comparison to the strong, tough music of rebellion that some members of the audience had expected.
Kim said that his consuming ambition is to play at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Kim worries, however, about the impact his defection will have on his father’s position — and on the safety of others members of his family. North Korean security officials are notorious for punishing family members of defectors, often sending them all to prison camps.
In the meantime, said Kim, Clayderman “is still my favorite even though I have encountered many other genres.”
What about "My achey breacky heart"?
Wait dude until you hear Yanni and Kenny G.
P.S. Can we deport those two and Clayderman (we'll throw in John Tesh for free) to North Korea?!
"Oh the pain the pain"
Good Lord man, I have to put up with bills, a vindictive ex-wife and a job I hate...NOW I'm gonna have that damn song in my head all freakin night..you outta be ashamed..:)
Let him hear Garth Brooks and he'll run back to kiss Dear Leader's feet!
Someone left the cake out in the rain, I don't think I could take it, `cause it took so long to bake it, And I'll never have that recipe again, oh noooooooooooooo!
Don't you two start fighting like cats and dawgs...
You can tell my ma, who moved to ARkansas... but dont tell my heart, my achey breaky heart...
Say what you want, at least the North Korean can recognize truly barbaric music!
This can't be true. The security official couldn't have stayed awake long enough to even figure out what was going on. This music is like sleeping gas. Ten seconds of it and I go into a coma.
ROFL..I'm still laughin..:)
Hey, maybe I'll run for President on a platform of ridding the world of Helen Thomas pictures. That could be good for quite a few votes, especially on this forum.
thanks for that..now helen thomas is a thing of the past...the WAY past..:-)
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