美国国家公共电台 NPR Parade Floats And Altered K-Pop Songs Mark South Korea's Coming Election

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Tensions may be rising over North Korea's nuclear program, but South Korea remains¹ outwardly calm. A presidential election comes next week, and the scene in the capital, Seoul, includes parade floats and K-pop. NPR's Lauren Frayer is there.

LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE²: Presidential election season in South Korea is when Korean pop songs like this one, "Cheer Up" by the girl band Twice...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHEER UP")

TWICE: (Singing in Korean).

FRAYER: ...Get turned into this.

UNIDENTIFIED MOON SUPPORTERS: (Singing in Korean).

FRAYER: Moon Jae-in, the name of the frontrunner in next week's election. Freelance film producer Lee Eun-ji, a volunteer on Moon's campaign...

LEE EUN-JI: (Speaking Korean).

FRAYER: ...Explains how they've changed the words to insert their candidate's name. Each campaign has its own set of songs drawn³ from what the world knows as K-pop.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing in Korean).

FRAYER: For weeks, dancers have been riding around the South Korean capital, Seoul, on huge parade floats, belting out K-pop in favor of one candidate or another. They wear their candidate's signature color with matching hats, umbrellas, even clown wigs⁴ and fake animal ears.

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing in Korean).

FRAYER: So just in case you thought South Korean youth were cowering⁵ under their desks Cold-War style because of the nuclear threat from North Korea, meet volunteer K-pop dancer and lyricist Jeong Min-hong, fresh from the South Korean army, a people's soldier, he says.

JEONG MIN-HONG: I am a people's soldier. Army - army, yeah Korean army, and now no job.

FRAYER: No job.

JEONG: (Speaking Korean).

FRAYER: "Never mind North Korea's provocations," he says. Youth unemployment is his generation's issue in this election. And he wrote it into the Moon campaign's alternate K-pop lyrics⁶, along with care for the elderly.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing in Korean).

FRAYER: Morning commutes⁷ during election season here mean ducking past rival campaign floats blasting K-pop at one another.

HONG YOUNG-RAE: (Speaking Korean).

FRAYER: It's part of Korean culture and community spirit, says 60-year-old Hong Young-rae. Even he knows most of these teen beat songs, though he says he's able to tune⁸ them out when he needs to - easy for him to say.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing in Korean).

FRAYER: Covering an election in South Korea has given this visitor a pretty acute case of ear worm. Come Wednesday, this country will have a new president, and the streets of Seoul may seem eerily⁹ quiet.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GANGNAM STYLE")

PSY: (Singing in Korean).

FRAYER: Lauren Frayer, NPR News, Seoul.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GANGNAM STYLE")

PSY: (Singing in Korean).

1 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

4 wigs   

n.假发，法官帽( wig的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They say that wigs will be coming in again this year. 据说今年又要流行戴假发了。 来自辞典例句
• Frank, we needed more wigs than we thought, and we have to do some advertising. 弗兰克，因为我们需要更多的假发，而且我们还要做点广告。 来自电影对白

5 cowering   

v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He turned his baleful glare on the cowering suspect. 他恶毒地盯着那个蜷缩成一团的嫌疑犯。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He stood over the cowering Herb with fists of fury. 他紧握着两个拳头怒气冲天地站在惊魂未定的赫伯面前。 来自辞典例句

6 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

7 commutes   

上下班路程( commute的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She commutes from Oxford to London every day. 她每天上下班往返于牛津与伦敦之间。
• Barbara lives in Oxford and commutes. 芭芭拉住在牛津，通勤往来。

8 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

9 eerily   

adv.引起神秘感或害怕地

参考例句：

• It was nearly mid-night and eerily dark all around her. 夜深了，到处是一片黑黝黝的怪影。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译
• The vast volcanic slope was eerily reminiscent of a lunar landscape. 开阔的火山坡让人心生怪异地联想起月球的地貌。 来自辞典例句