Laos and Justin Bieber

I came back recently from Laos for an International Service Program. I was there from the 8th to the 22nd of December, which is about two weeks. Two weeks is a long time, but it was a good amount of time which I won't trade for anything else. It was a very fun, fruitful and fulfilling trip. In addition to helping out at a local school there, I was able to make good friends and memories, and I learned quite a bit about myself too.

At the local school, we were tasked with teaching the children English. It wasn't easy. Their basics weren't there, and their English teacher couldn't speak the language properly himself. I'm not sure whether we were able to achieve our objectives in this aspect, but I can say that we tried our best.

What struck me was that even though they couldn't understand English...they still really really liked Justin Bieber. I know this because they asked us to autograph a pirated copy of his movie "Never Say Never". They also played a bunch of his songs on the school's PA system while we were doing our construction work, which I gamely sang along too, with them, of course.

Now, the glass-half-full part of me would look at this and marvel at how JB's music is able to transcend language. It will marvel at it's universal nature, the ability of his songs and his voice to go beyond the realm of understanding and touch people's hearts. They didn't understand a thing he was saying (for instance: "She woke me up daily, don't need no Starbucks" would make no sense AT ALL), yet they still bopped along to his song, and chimed in "BABY BABY BABY OHHHH" at all the appropriate times.

But the glass-half-empty part of me is thinking this: Justin Bieber's songs are so mindless that you don't need to understand what he's saying to "enjoy" his "song". They might as well be meaningless syllables. Googoogagaga blooobloooblabla.

I guess this line of thought can be applied to any musician with international appeal though, like those Korean pop stars, and their non-Korean speaking fans.

Which brings me to the subject of music, and art, but I don't want to talk about that.

Haha, I kinda got lost writing this post. I'm still getting into the swing of things, with this blogging shit. It's been awhile since I regularly typed out random stuff, so it's going to take some getting used to. But I'm sure I'll come up with something amazing soon enough.

That's it for now. I guess at the end of the day, I just wanted to type extensively about Justin Bieber hahaha.