Update on progress & some SS501 rants

I have so many blogs, it’s so confusing sometimes. I don’t really use wordpress afterall, and I only created one to communicate with the JangKiss subbing team that I’m working with right now to sub Mischievous Kiss interviews and other projects.

We will not be subbing the episodes at the moment by the way, just the interviews and other promotional activities which the main episode subbers (viikii, Haru Haru subs) will not be working on. Also, the two episode subbing team are so fast! My deepest gratitude to all of these hardworking people!

I still have videos to translate, which I have not worked on yet T.T Extremely busy these days with school work. It’s taking a huge toll on me, sigh. I’ll work harder, I promise.

SS501 are now doing their solo activities as all Triple S should know by now. Don’t you guys feel they’re making us more busy? I thought it’s going to be so boring after they stop promoting as a group.

HOW VERY WRONG WAS I!

We’re now busier than ever because there are 5 members to check up on. Already I’m dying because there’s so many leader news around. (I’m a Leader bias afterall! Though I love every single member just as much. Between choosing leader or SS501, SS501 will always be my choice ^^ )

So, really hope that they will all do well in their solo activities. I feel that once they return as SS501 again, everyone’s going to be so enriched with different talents and skills they learnt while going solo.

And best of all,

it really is my wish for all SS501 members to be recognised. Firstly, I don’t really like how they keep putting pressure on Leader as the FACE of SS501. He’s stressed enough without all of that! Second, because I believe the other talents and attributes of the other members are so incredibly amazing and wonderful, they deserved plenty of attention!

Good luck to my 5 favourite boys. We will always be watching over all of you ^^ Thank you 501, for all the hard work!

SS501 Maknae Hyung Jun’s fanmeeting 29-08-10

Best day of my life part 2: Fan meeting

I have nothing much to say about this fan meeting, except it totally is the best fanmeeting ever in my life. Beats ALL fanmeetings I’ve been to.

When it was my turn to go up, I really had so much in my mind what I want to ask Baby. With the limited Korean sentences that I know how to form anyway. I wanted to ask him, ” Is Singapore fun?” , and ” Tomorrow are you going shopping? “

But in the end, what I really asked him was,

” 안아주세요! ”   (Can we hug)

This is because there are some fans earlier who just hugged him, before manager saw and came over to ban it T.T

I can’t believe I did that HAHA.

Anyway the manager of course do not allow it, but manager was really nice, he smile really really nicely and apologetically.

But it was Baby I had my eyes on.

Baby actually consoled me!  ” Awwwww, 안데~~ Sorry~~~!! ” and he rubbed my arm while saying all these, giving me the awwwwww face.  I gave him the awwww so regretful face as well ^^ Before I left, I said Thank you to him.

Even this simple Thank you, he actually replied me and bowed, “ahh thank you! ” *smile*

Honestly, most stars will just smile politely and that’s it.

Baby really did it not just to me. He did it to all Triple S who came. He answered every single question people asked him. Even people who said, ” I love you “, he replied them too. Basically, he didn’t simply nod politely, he really took the effort to reply.

And every poster he signed, he ask for the name of the fan, and he wrote it. He wrote messages on every poster.

It was not part of the package. Baby included it for every poster he signed.

So there’s no question as to why, this is the best fan meeting I’ve ever went to. The best.

Thank you Baby~ ^^

SS501 Kim Hyung Jun Maknae Showcase in Singapore 2010

There’s those days, those moments, when you just felt like declaring its the best day of your life. There’s in fact, many “best days of my life” in our lives. We can’t decide which is the best, but those days will forever remain in our memories and hearts.

Maknae(Baby, but literally “youngest” in Korean) Kim Hyung Jun’s showcase and fanmeeting today 29th August 2010. It’s the best day of my life. I have dreamt for ages to meet the members, any one of them. Today, I finally met Maknae, who is my #3 in the group. But today, he is #1. Just today, I shall let Maknae take Leader’s seat in my heart for a while.

HERE is my FAN ACCOUNT, my very first fan account on SS501!

Start of the day: Met with Yasuko, Japanese Triple S as well as the 6 Koreans from PRETTYBOY(Name of Maknae’s personal fanclub). We can barely communicate, but Yasuko is an incredibly nice girl. She actually prepared gifts and presents for me, knowing my love for Leader. Those presents are really expensive too, because there are three SS501 albums in total, as well as their merchandise, and even food she brought from Japan.

Not just me, but my friends Jessica and Yuling ALSO got presents from Yasuko! I am quite overwhelmed by it because I didn’t really expect her to do this. Throughout she keeps saying thankyou and thankyou. Ah! What can I say… except Thank you as well!

Took group photo with Maknae Hyung Jun after that in a small room. Maknae was so good-looking. His skin is FLAWLESS. He’s also VERY pale! Leader used to say Maknae has babyskin, and he is indeed not kidding.  He towered over all of us (181cm), while a smile that never left his face. After photo-taking, we shook hands and his soft skin makes me feel incredible that I finally met a member from my #1 favourite group in the world.

Showcase started after that. Maknae sang “Girls” first. Afterwards, the lucky fans who won prizes played games with Maknae. The first game is about how well we know Maknae. Basically we know the boys so well, it was nothing!

Maknae revealed as well that he like aliens. I was shocked because I never knew this. I thought it was LEADER who is always obsessing over aliens. It turned out that both of them love aliens. Wow! He said that his dream when he was younger was to be a scientist. (He said it all in English ^^)

Then Maknae sang “Mars Men, Venus Women”, and shook hands with some of us.

The next game he played was drawing. He was to draw the faces of 5 lucky fans. Maknae was MOST adorable here. He kept saying in English, ” I’m a good artist!”

“Wow, so busy! So many people!” (He’s talking about how he had to draw many faces)

Later on, he started wanting to charge for his drawings. it was “$10!” at first, then “$20″ then suddenly “$100!”

We asked him in Korean, “It’s expensive! Can you make it cheaper? ”

Maknae replied in English, ” NO!!!!!!!!!”

Maknae revealed later that he was the bottom of his class in Art and the teacher told him, to go back home and work harder! (This part, he said it in Korean)

Afterwards, Maknae played another game with some lucky fans. It’s Scissors, Paper, Rock but using your entire body. It was so funny! He kept looking at us, trying to get us to tell him what should be his next move. (He and the fan he’s playing with must turn their backs on each other)

Then, it was SG TRIPLE S’s specially prepared video for Maknae Kim Hyung Jun… This is the saddest part. The video was incredible. I cried watching it. It’s because it describes Hyung Jun so well….

Our Maknae has always been feeling … sort of regretful because he is the youngest of SS501, and very often he’s the subject to a lot of teasing and bullying. (Joking ones) Maknae always take it in cheerfully, but there’s also a place in his heart that feels sad, because it makes some people see him differently.

Sometimes when hosts tease him as well, calling him “loser!” he laughed but he confessed once that he felt really bad, because there are people coming up to ask him, ” are you really like that? ” and he felt sad.

Our Maknae, because of him being the youngest, always felt he didn’t shine as much as his older members.

If you follow them, you’ll know that our Maknae is an ambitious person. He wants very much to shine brightly, to do very well, to be the best. It’s what he really want in his life. Imagine the pain he went through when he had to endure an image of “little boy being teased all the time” instead…

The lyrics of the song in the video is perfect… Basically telling our Maknae, even though you’re the youngest, even though you’re always being teased and you felt overshadowed sometimes, … please remember… you have always always always shine, in our eyes, you are special, our special Maknae, our crybaby, and the Maknae who cares the most about the fans.

Maknae Hyung Jun cried while watching the video. He teared at the side…

Another reason why I cried was because in the clip, there were pictures of the other members. There were clips of their last performance as SS501 on 13 July 2010. Clips of Jung Min crying, and Maknae hugging him. Photos of Maknae with all the members.

And especially the last part, Maknae’s very own words to Triple S on their last performance… asking for us to believe and trust SS501. SS501 and Triple S will always be together forever…..

I realised at that moment how much we have all suffered.. all these weeks since the news of disbandment started coming up. We’ve all suppressed it all along, for the sake of wanting to always have faith in their words. But the truth is, it still is difficult, and it is painful, not seeing them together for a long time.

This video just brings out all the pain we all felt, not just us, but the 5 of them. It’s a nostalgic kind of feeling. Even though it’s painful, yet we all know, we will always believe.

After that, Maknae performed “ I AM ”, and we sang Happy Birthday to Maknae after that, with cakes brought out and everything.

It was very quick, it’s the end of the Showcase.

I will write more about the fanmeeting in the evening in the next entry! :)

Fangirl/boy activities

I think many of us who are fans of Korean Pop or Kpop for short often met with the same kind of obstacles along the way as we pursuit our interest in Kpop.

Many people out there and around us, those who are not involved or in any way interested in Kpop, tend to view fangirl (or fanboy) activities in a trivial manner.

I, however, hold very different views when it comes to fangirl/boy activities. While it is true, that fangirl/boy activities are not as serious or intellectual as so many other activities out there, it doesn’t mean that it is any less important than any of them.

While fangirl/boy activities doesn’t enrich me intellectually as much of my studies in university does, it has however fulfilled many other needs that all of us require in our lives.

First and foremost, fangirl/boy activities brought me joy and laughter. It may not carry the same intellectual weight, but fangirl/boy activities have a power of its own. It brings joy and laughter to all of us who watched our favourite groups from the screen. I need not explain any further in fact, how very important laughter is in our lives, and how so many people out there are in fact searching so hard, just for a reason to smile.

Aside that, fangirl/boy activities brought me to know many people out there from different parts of the world. We may not have seen each other ever in our lives, but in our minds lives a common identity, interests and a sense of community. (I may have taken that somewhere from my study of Geography ^^ Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities”)

From Triple S, which I am one, I get this a lot, and it never fails to impress me; the fact that we may live in a very bordered world (separated by different countries) but in our hearts and minds, these borders ceased to exist.

My life before the entry of SS501 is very much what every one associates a good student to be. Even now, I remained very involved in my schoolwork and I am extremely interested in what I’m learning. When I became interested in SS501, many of my friends were in fact taken back by it.

I however, am not that surprised with myself, because even though I hold serious school work as my top priority, I am very much aware of my true self. I am someone who feels that there is a great need for a good balance of the serious and the not-so-serious matters in our lives. I will be living in a very depressing life indeed, if I only discuss intellectual matters with people and on blogs, even though I very much want people to see me as an intellectual being. But this is not a complete version of me, and I do not want to hide who I really am.

So the point of writing this entry, is in fact for many of you out there who may feel antagonized because of your interest (Be it anything out there), you’re definitely not alone, and there’s definitely a way to cope with it.The most important thing, I feel, is never to hide who you really are for the sake of pleasing everyone else around you. It doesn’t work and you can’t please everyone in the world. If this is who you are, people who matter in your life will embrace you with open arms, and this is all that matters.