By Sam Kim
(Bloomberg Markets) They’re called the Sampo Generation: South Koreans in their 20s and 30s who’ve given up (po) three (sam) of life’s conventional rites of passage–dating, marrying, and having children. They’ve made these choices because of economic constraints and in the process have worsened Korea’s demographic imbalances. Last year, when the country registered more deaths than births for the first time in recent history, then-Vice Finance Minister Kim Yong-beom pronounced the milestone a “death cross.”
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Will Blitzers be the next BTS? Photos: AFP
Thirty teenagers, thousands of hours of training, dozens of shattered dreams: it all comes to a head when the Blitzers is launched into the cut-throat K-pop market, hoping to become the next BTS.
An all-male septet – like the musical phenomenon that topped the US Billboard charts last year – their three years of training are being distilled into three minutes of music and dancing that will determine whether they are a hit, or just another nowhere band.
The routine, always intense, is punishing in the weeks running up to their debut: gym sessions, singing lessons, promotional shoots, and around 10 hours of dance practice into the early morning.
By Kang Jin-kyuAgence France-PresseSEOUL Thirty teenagers, thousands of hours of training, dozens of shattered dreams: it all comes to a head next week when the Blitzers will be launched into the cut-throat K-pop market, hoping to become the next BTS.An all-male septet like the musical phenomenon that topped the US Billboard charts last year their three years of training