South Korean pop culture has in recent years become more noted on the world stage. See, for example, the success of Squid Game (Ojingeo geim).
South Korean pop music, known as K-Pop, has won many international adherents, including in Mexico. In fact, Mexico is the fifth-largest market for South Korean popular music.
BTS, a popular South Korean seven-man boy group, recently did some concerts in Mexico, and was a big hit. BTS has appeared in Mexico before, in 2014 , 2015, and 2017.
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This time, the boys of BTS were hosted on May 6th at Mexico’s Palacio Nacional by President Claudia Sheinbaum herself.
President Sheinbaum and BTS. Source: Press Office, President of Mexico
At one point they went out on the balcony to appear before 50,000 fans who had assembled in the Zocalo plaza below.
Also during their visit, 4 members of BTS attended a lucha libre wrestling match in the Arena México.
The pop group’s three concerts were held at Mexico City’s GNP Seguros Stadium on May 7th, 9th and 10th, with thousands of fans gatherered outside for whom there was no more room inside.
The BTS spectacle was going on at the same time as the indictment crisis, in which 10 Mexican officials or former officials, chief among them Ruben Rocha who was governor of Sinaloa, have been indicted in the United States. (See here, here, here and here and here).
A Mexican cartoon portrays Claudia Sheinbaum with the members of BTS and all the fans, as she yells to Ruben Roche “Run, I’m Distracting Them!” Rocha exits through a door.
