Seoul Music : The World Is Finally Ready for K-Pop

Han Myung-Gu / WireImage/ Getty Images

South Korean idol group Big Bang perform on the stage during a concert at the K-POP Fashion Concert on March 11, 2012 in Seoul.

Katya Popova looks as if she's going to cry. The 22-year-old from Irkutsk, Russia, is in Seoul for the first time to see her favorite band, Big Bang, perform. For two years, Popova has been watching the South Korean boy band's videos in her bedroom in eastern Siberia. Now she's sitting in a stadium seat, waiting for them to appear onstage. She fans her cheeks with her hands and searches for words to describe the moment. "I love them a lot," she says. "A lot, a lot, a lot."

Popova is surrounded...

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