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For Boba, a 20-something living in Auckland, New Zealand, K-pop goes beyond just listening to music — it’s a form of community that helped them find comfort and acceptance growing up.
They have always been a fan of K-pop — they loved SHINee, Wonder Girls, and Girls Generation and are now a BTS fan — despite being bullied for their interest in the genre. After the passing of their dad, Boba, who is of Tongan descent and identifies as non-binary and lesbian, joined a K-pop dance group that helped them not only work through grief, but connect with a community that encouraged self-love.
Boba is featured in K-POLYS, a new documentary from New Zealand exploring the unexpected relationship between Pacific Islander youth and the K-pop community. K-pop is, of course, a global phenomenon, and consists of countless artists, but director Litia Tuiburelevu found it fascinating that its power has reached even the most remote parts of the world, helping youth in these places find both solace and community. Inspired after going on holiday in Fiji and seeing how impactful Korean culture has influenced the islands, Tuiburelevu felt there was a story that needed to be told.
“I was in Fiji and I was like, ‘Wait, this is really fascinating that this little island in the South Pacific is doing a K-pop contest and a K-pop festival,’” Tuiburelevu, who is also a fan of BLACKPINK, tells Teen Vogue. “I think there's a really interesting story about this cross-cultural connection between Pacific Island youth and their relationship to K-pop, because it's very unexpected. A lot of people, when you first say it, they're like, ‘No, no, no, that's not a thing.’ And I was like, ‘No, no, no, it is really a thing.’ There's actually a lot to say here about cross-cultural exchanges and identity.”
Alongside Boba in the documentary are two other young people who have their own unique relationship with K-pop. In a tiny studio in Suva, Fiji, Ethan, also in his early twenties, teaches a K-pop dance class to a handful of students as an effort to share new modes of self-expression with his community through dance. As a Pasifika male, he’s well aware that this style of dancing isn’t widely considered as “masculine” in the community, but hopes to break down the stigma by bridging the gap between his traditional Pacific roots and K-pop. “I really believe that if males, especially Pacific males, partake more [in dancing], it creates that bond with other brothers that you can invite as well,” shares in the documentary. “You don’t have to be ashamed of it or feel like it makes you less of a man.”
Meanwhile, Ashley is Cook Island-Niuean but was adopted as a child and didn’t grow up closely around her two Pasifika cultures. While on her journey to find connection back to her roots, K-pop has become a huge part of her story as she’s been able to find family members through the community. “I’ve found more of my cousins through K-pop than I’ve found my cousins at actual family gatherings,” she shares in the documentary. Ashley has also danced the majority of her life and is professionally trained in different styles, but she decided to take a break from it as she got older. It wasn’t until she entered university that she rediscovered her love of dance through K-pop.
Growing up in Pacific Island culture looks different for everyone, but it is quite common that responsibility gets put on young people from an early age, alongside an expectation to stick to the status quo: respect your elders, do as you’re told, and uphold Pasifika cultural traditions. Those expectations often leave little room for self-expression.
“I think there's a lack of spaces for Pacific youth to authentically express themselves,” Tuiburelevu says. “That's particularly true of those who may be gender diverse or gender non-conforming, who may be part of the LGBTQIA+ community, who don't necessarily sit within those sort of stereotypical norms of what it means to be a Pacific Islander, which I think is not even a real thing anyway, because our communities are so diverse, our cultures are so diverse, and we're not a monolith.”
We are certainly not a monolith, though we often get placed in certain boxes that we are expected to adhere to: listening to certain types of music, dressing a certain way. Straying away from these boxes is rare. Pasifika youth exploring their niche interests and leaning into their true, authentic selves is an act of radical self-love that Tuiburelevu hopes to see more of within Pacific Island culture.
“Just because someone's into K-pop or they could be into heavy metal or whatever it may be, it doesn't take away their Pacific-ness, it's just another thread to their identity or something that they're interested in,” she says. “It's really important that we interrogate the boxes that we can be put in and the kind of colonial implications or the structures that inform those. We should be embracing of all people and their identities and what interests and what they love, because ultimately if it brings them joy and it's not harming anyone, then I'm all for it.”
To see these young people in her documentary lean into self-expression while being supported by their families was something that delighted Tuiburelevu while filming. “It was really beautiful, particularly with Boba, but I think with all of our talent, [seeing] how supportive their families were of their K-pop journey. I think sometimes there's a perception that with young Pasifika people, if they're doing things that aren't considered traditional or sort of outside the norm, that might be shunned by their family,” she says. “To see [Boba’s] mom, this really proud Tongan woman at every practice, every performance. Just so supportive of her daughter. It was really beautiful to see that, too.”
Ultimately, K-POLYS is a celebration of Pasifika joy that Tuiburelevu wants to share with the world. “I think our joy in what is happening in our lives and what we find joyful is so worthy of being told on screen and so worthy of being a screen story,” she says. “... Pasifika K-pop fans, all the way in essentially the bottom of the world, are passionate and excited and interested and amazing dancers. Many [have] found a sense of a beautiful community amongst each other and within K-pop and a place to express themselves.”
She hopes people, especially other Pasifika young people and elders, will watch the documentary and feel excited about what Pasifika youth are excited about. They’re building onto their own history.
“We should be embracing and supporting and encouraging them,” she says, “because this is a part of the contemporary Pasifika history and identity.”
K-POLYS is now streaming on The Spinoff.
