At a cinema in Seoul eight middle-aged women in matching sky-blue hoodies, hair bands and face masks are sharing dried figs and persimmons as they chat and snap selfies. They have travelled from all over the country for the opening weekend of “Mr Trot”, a film based on a South Korean television show that aired earlier this year. In the show, a mix of washed-up and aspiring male crooners chosen from 15,000 applicants dress up in pastel suits and semi-unbuttoned silk shirts and sing old South Korean ballads to compete for the title of “Mr Trot”. The women, whose hoodies read “Lim Young-woong, you are my hero”, are members of an online fan club for the winner. They are not alone in their obsession: more than 30% of South Korean television-viewers tuned into the show’s final episode in March.Trot, which emerged in the early 20th century when the Korean peninsula was a Japanese colony, blends traditional Korean music with elements of the Japanese and Western popular songs of the era. It has long been ubiquitous in South Korea, but it has been a long time since it was considered cool—if it ever was. The ballads, with their cheesy melodies, melodramatic lyrics and repetitive beats are perennial favourites with drunken revellers in noraebang, or “singing rooms”, the South Korean equivalent of karaoke parlours. Songs about doomed romance, lost hometowns and the general tragedy of life blare from speakers at motorway service stations and from the radios of buses and taxis driven by older men. The more up-tempo numbers are beloved of political parties at election time, when candidates and activists regale voters with clunky dancing set to trot blasting from campaign lorries.
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