Updated: Mar 3
Have you ever wondered why J-Hope and Suga have named their joint broadcasts Hwagae Market?
Have you ever wondered why they open the market doors at the beginning and close them before they leave?
What Hwagae Market even is
In this blog post, I shall answer all of these questions.
They could easily have decidede to call their broadcasts Sope, since they have also decided to give their won ship and official name, but they didn't. So...
What is Hwagae Market?
And I mean the real Hwagae Market, because, unlike some fans have ended up concluding, it's not just a random name that J-Hope and Suga made up.
The Hwagae Market
(or 화개장터 in Korean)
is....
*drumroll*
...a countryside market place in South Korea..?
It's is indeed a marketplace that is open five days a week.
And as all countryside market places it sells a variety of things, like food, seafood, spices, plants, traditional cooking supplies, and knick knacks.
This doesn't satisfy your curiosity at all, does it?
Why in the world would Sope name themselves after a random marketplace?
Well, here is the thing:
It's not just a random market place.
Not to Suga and J-Hope.
In order to look into what this marketplace means to Suga and J-Hope, we're going to have to briefly look into their pasts.
As most of you probably know, since he loves to put this into every single song, and even his rapper stage name, Suga was born in Daegu.
Daegu is a town in the Gyeongsang Province.
As for J-Hope he was born in Gwangju, which is a town in a different province, the Jeolla Province.
Location wise they're pretty far from each other.
But there, right between the two provinces, is a meeting place. A place where people from both Gyeongsang Province and Jeolla Province come together on equal ground.
A place called Hwagae Market.
The Hwagae market is not just any market place to people from these two provinces.
It isn't just any market place to Suga and J-Hope either. It's a place that represents them coming together.
When they open the doors to the market, they're there to get along and have fun, despite their differences.
People from Gyeongsang Province and Jeolla Province don't typically get along, but at the Hwagae Market, they leave their differences at the entrance.
In Sope's first personal introduction as Hwagae Market (see gif above), Suga sang part of a famous song about the marketplace, adapting the lyrics to themselves.
"Those who travel through Gyeongsang Province and
Jeolla Province,
Suga and Hobi,
Embrace each other
at Hwagae Market."
The song is called Hwagae Market (you can listen to it here).
The song talks about how people from both provinces get along at the market, and how it's more than just an every day market place.
You can find everything that you need at Hwagae Market, but more importantly, it's a welcoming place to all.
It's the perfect theme song for the two of them and the perfect place and name for them to identify with.
It symbolises that when they're together, they put their differences aside and have fun together.
By the Hwagae Market, a cherry blossom path unfolds.
And in Spring people both from the Jeolla Province and the Gyeongsang province stream to the Hwagae Market to watch the pretty flower petals fall over the marketplace.
As different as the two provinces might be, and as much as the people from those two provinces fight, they come together at Hwagae Market.
As different as Suga and J-Hope are, they find their middle ground when they're together and open the doors to the Hwagae Market.
I hope this answered your questions, and I now declare the Hwagae Market case closed.
Only one thing remains for me to do:
Time to close the doors to the Hwagae Market.
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#KPOPHISTORY #SUGA #JHOPE #TRANSLATION #Culture #SouthKorea #BTS