CHILGOK, South Korea — CHILGOK, South Korea (AP) —
Carrying an outsized bucket hat, silver chains and a black Miu Miu shirt, 82-year-old Park Jeom-sun gesticulates, her voice rising and falling with staccato strains about rising chili peppers, cucumbers and eggplants.
Park, nicknamed Suni, was flanked by seven longtime buddies who repeated her strikes and her strains. Collectively, they’re Suni and the Seven Princesses, South Korea ‘s newest octogenarian sensation. With a median age of 85, they’re most likely the oldest rap group within the nation.
Born at a time when ladies had been usually marginalized in training, Park and her buddies had been amongst a gaggle of older adults studying learn how to learn and write the Korean alphabet, hangeul, at a group middle of their farming village in South Korea’s rural southeast.
They had been having a lot enjoyable that they began dabbling with poetry. They started writing and performing rap in summer time final 12 months.
Suni and the Seven Princesses take pleasure in nationwide fame, showing in commercials and going viral on social media. South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo despatched them a congratulatory message final month on their first anniversary, praising their ardour for studying.
At a highway close to their group middle in Chilgok on Thursday, Park and her buddies had been rehearsing for a efficiency Friday night within the capital, Seoul, the place they had been invited to open an occasion celebrating hangeul heritage.
“Selecting chili peppers on the pepper area, choosing cucumbers on the cucumber area, choosing eggplants on the eggplant area, choosing zucchini on the zucchini area!” the group rapped together with Park. “We’re again house now and it feels so good!”
Park mentioned the group often practices two or 3 times every week, extra in the event that they’re getting ready for a present.
On Friday, lots of of individuals applauded and cheered, after which the group lined up for a photograph with South Korean Tradition Minister Yu In Chon.
Park talked in regards to the pleasure of studying to learn, saying she will be able to now “go to the financial institution, trip the bus and go wherever” she needs with out somebody serving to her.
“Throughout and after the Korean Battle, I couldn’t examine due to the social ambiance, however I began studying hangeul in 2016,” Park mentioned, referring to the devastating warfare between North and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. “Being launched to rap whereas studying hangeul has made me really feel higher, and I assumed it might assist me keep wholesome and keep away from dementia.”
Kang Hye-eun, Park’s 29-year-old granddaughter and a neighborhood healthcare employee who helps older adults, mentioned she was proud to see her grandmother on tv and in viral movies.
“It’s superb that she bought to know hangeul like this and has began to rap,” she mentioned.
