On the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 10, Moscow locals and University of Idaho students gathered at the Kenworthy Theatre for an AsiaPOP! event. Attendees were treated to a free screening of the documentary, “Us and Them: Korean Indie Rock in a K-Pop World” (2015), followed by a performance from the Korean punk band God of Universe.
“Us and Them,” directed by Stephen J. Epstein of Victoria University of Wellington and Timothy Tangherlini of the University of California, Berkeley, explores the rise of Korean punk and independent rock from the late 1990s onward. The documentary features interviews with Crying Nut and The RockTigers, two of the most successful independent rock bands in South Korea.
The AsiaPOP! 2024 Symposium focused on Korean culture, which is often viewed through the lens of K-pop. The documentary was chosen to highlight the diversity of Korean music beyond the pop genre.
“Everyone knows K-pop,” said Jeff Kyong-McClain, director of the Habib Institute of Asian Studies and Associate Professor of History at UI, in an interview with the Argonaut. “We’re glad that students are interested in it, but we want to make people aware that even within specific East Asian cultures, there’s a wide variety of cultural expression that can’t all fit into one thing or another. This [Korean punk] gives you one example.”
The documentary was well received by students, who attended for various reasons. “I like punk and my friend has an assignment due,” said Althea, a sophomore majoring in Fforestry at UI. “I thought [the documentary] was so cool — it really got me excited for the show!”
Not all students were familiar with punk, but God of Universe brought undeniable energy to their performance. While some attendees stayed seated or off to the side, many students crowded the front of the stage, waving their arms, cheering and even moshing — a common dance style in the punk scene where participants purposefully crash into each other.
“I’d never been to a punk rock show or, like, headbanging or any of that,” said Quinn Smith, a senior majoring in Medical Science who attended to support her roommate, an ambassador of the Habib Institute. “I didn’t really know what to do… but it was really cool, I really enjoyed it!”
God of Universe began as a one-man project by Dongjin Yang in 2019. The group expanded in 2022 when bassist Namyeong Kwon joined and in 2024 when drummer Yong-Pyo Hong came on board. UI first encountered the band in 2023 during a spring break study-abroad program in Seoul, where UI students, exploring the city, discovered Korean punk.
“We saw a bunch of bands, but this one was really striking,” said Kyong-McClain. “We didn’t really know where we were going with it, but we were like, ‘Yeah, you should come to the U.S. sometime,’ and they were, of course, eager… This year we decided to shift [the AsiaPOP! theme] to Korea and fortuitously we knew a band in Korea and that’s how it all came together.”
God of Universe enjoyed the night as much as the crowd did. Spokeswoman Hyewon Yang, translating for Dongjin Yang, said, “They [the crowd] were incredibly fantastic. He didn’t expect such energy from the audience, and he was surprised, but very happy.” After the show, the band stayed to take pictures with and sign every piece of merchandise the audience brought to them.
“This doesn’t answer all the questions [about East Asian culture], seeing a punk band,” Kyong-McClain said. He hopes that although AsiaPOP! has focused on individual East Asian cultures so far — namely Japan and Korea — the theme can expand in future years to include overviews of various Asian cultures. He also hopes that as East Asia becomes increasingly influential on a global scale, AsiaPOP! can inspire UI students to engage with the Habib Institute and take political, historical and language classes centered around Asia.
Cal Torres can be reached at [email protected]