When I was about six or seven we moved to New York, my mother getting promoted and then a job transfer. My father wasn’t too happy about it because he had worked hard to set up the mechanics shop but he wasn’t going to stay while my mother left so we all moved. It was rough for my father to settle in and me too considering I was so small. We bother adjusted though, we learned the language and my father even opened up another mechanic shop.

I started to go to school, I had to be in a special class because English was still tricky for me however I grew out of that as I got older. Also as I got older I started to get involved with my father and his work, he started to teach me how to fix things and I started to love it. I would help him out with small things since he didn’t think I was ready for big repairs. At some point I did get the wound that left the scar on the back of my hand, that was probably the biggest scare of my father’s life even if he knew it wasn’t life threatening or anything.

I grew up a normal teenager, going to school during the day and in the afternoons and at night I would help my dad in the shop. My dad was homesick but he put up with it for my mother. I would say if I was too, but I was so young when we came over I didn’t remember too much about Korea. I just knew I still had a strong connection with music from home, and I started to get more and more into it. I loved music, I loved singing – the music teacher at my school was encouraging me to go more and more into it. My father seemed to love the idea. Sure, he would’ve liked to see me take up the shop after him, but he loved the fact that I wanted to do something that I loved.

My mother disagreed. She didn’t think I could make an actual career out of singing and dancing and urged me to do something more. She didn’t even agree with me possibly being a mechanic like my father. She thought something that would give me a higher pay was worth going into. This caused my parents to fight as I started to research some ways of getting into this field. When I just turned 17(Korean age), and my mother was away on a business trip, my dad took me to an international audition. I had been practicing for months with my music teacher and dancing in my father’s garage, and my father thought that I should give it a shot. My mother didn’t know any of this was going on, and we weren’t going to tell her unless I actually got accepted. I was so nervous and we were actually late for the audition. For a moment I didn’t think they would spare me a moment even if I was only a few minutes late. Still, they made the exception for some reason or another – maybe it was mine or my father’s words. Probably his honestly, my father has always been good at winning arguments

I honestly wasn’t expecting to get into Je t’aime entertainment on the first try. The friends I had and my father and teachers were thrilled, and we met with people from the company to discuss my training and everything. My father already gave his consent so now we just had to talk to my mother – which was a bad idea.

She was furious that I even went to the audition. She started to yell at me, and my father for taking me. It was probably the first time I ever raised my voice at all, let alone towards my own mother. The fight ended up with my father saying that he would file a divorce and me and him spent the night at his shop so everyone had a chance to cool down. The next day my mother came by and asked my father to go with her somewhere. I was left with the shop and a few minor repairs to do. My father comes back a few hours later saying that my mother had left us and that I was left in his care.

I wasn’t even to sure what to think at that moment. I broke down – I didn’t think that me trying to follow my dreams would break apart my family. However my father tried to convince me otherwise, saying that him and my mother had actually been arguing about this for a while because he was trying to get her to go back to Korea while she didn’t want to return at all. After about a month, giving us time to get a lot of our stuff out of the house and find a place back home and then we were moving again.

I was put into training almost right away when we got there, so I couldn’t really help my dad move in but he understood and didn’t force anything on me. Every time I came to the house things were in the middle of being unpacked and my dad was either taking a nap or still working on unpacking. He wasn’t able to open up his own shop right away but he got a job at a mechanic shop not far away from our small place. I managed to keep up with school aswell, though it was tough readjusting to the system and the language after being gone for ten years – but I managed it.  My singing improved, I got more and more praise and I was loving my new life. Sure, there were times that I missed my mother, and my old life. But at the same time I was living my dream and that was the best thing I could ever think of.

+ Father | Shin SiHyun | 49 (July 23, 1965) | Owner of mechanic garage | alive

Personality | My father is a very caring person, always looking out for other people. We barely ever fight; he barely ever raises his voice even when he’s upset. He’s one of those people that are easy to talk to and you know you can rely on them. If I had a complaint about his personality is that he likes to make sarcastic comments. A lot.

Interaction | Me and my father have a very good relationship, we’re best friends along with father and son. We spend a lot of time together and we talk and joke around a lot. Sometimes it feels like he’s smothering me but he knows when to back off and give me my space and the same goes if he needs space – I back off. I know I can go to him for anything and he would be willing to help me out. He’s the best father I could ever ask for.

+ Mother | Choi Min | 48 (January 25, 1965) | Alive

Personality | My mother is hard to explain, but I can say she’s very two faced. At times she can be very sweet, speaking in a soft tone and being polite. Then if you do one thing wrong she turns into a woman of iron, very stern and taking no excuses. She is a very confusing woman.

Interaction | When I was growing up I thought my mother was the nicest person ever. We would spend as much time as we could together, considering she was always busy with work. I loved spending time with her up until I was in my teens, then she started to be more stern and angry with me. I shied away from her most days, and our conversations didn’t seem to last very long. I still try to keep in touch with her, but she normally hangs up the phone before we can talk to much - and I've only physically seen her once since the divorse and that didn't end well either.

[ idol best friends ]

+Luhan | 24, Apirl 20,1990 | EXO-M

Personality | Luhan to me is abit more mature than everyone seems to make him out to be. Yes, he’s cute, but that’s not his entire image. Still, Luhan is a guy who can make almost everyone laugh, a real mood maker. He knows how to make a tense room not as such and make everyone smile and I can really admire that about him.

How You Met | We both met when we were still trainees actually. One of those ‘a friend of a friend’ get together. I was asked to go along to a party by one of my fellow trainees so I figured why not? We didn’t get much time to be on our own anyways. So I went out and Luhan happened to be there, but he was shy and staying in the corner so I tried to talk to him – I found it funny that our names were so similar. I managed to get him out of the corner and enjoy the party.

Interaction | Me and Luhan are best friends, and you can see it when we’re together. We’ve gotten passed a lot of formalities, being very relaxed and mostly informal around eachother; Though in public we’re careful to use the formalities so we don’t get those strange looks. I can talk to him about anything really, my love for baseball, my mechanics, and he’s always there to listen and in turn I do the same for him. We have gotten into a few of those ‘best friend fights’ but we’ve overcome that and I think it’s only made us closer. We like to talk over the phone a lot and he used to sleep over at my house a lot during our trainee days.

+Lee Chan Hee (Chunji) | 21, October 5, 1993 | Teen Top

Personality | Chunji is something else I'll tell you that. He's fun, exciting, easily embarrassed even though he doesn't show it. He likes to mess with other people and make them blush before they get to him. Even though he's abit loud and messes with people, he's a really nice, caring person. Just get passed his attitude and you'll see it.

How You Met | I'm actually a fan of Teen Top, and I've gone to a fan sign or two, that's how I first met him. I mentioned that I was a trainee for them and they all got pretty interested. So in the few seconds i had with chunji in the line I wrote down my number and he promised to call me up. It took awhile, I think the next week, then he called me. He apologized and said that he had actually lost the card with my number on it and had just found it in his bag. We've been talking ever since.

Internaction | I guess you could say that we're sort of a tag team duo. When we're together we seem to read eachother's minds and sometimes finish eachother's sentences. I don't mess with other people as much as he does, but I'll give him a joke here and there. He's always there to listen to me, even when I'm rambling on about something he doesn't understand, and even if he makes a joke at the end I know he listened and that's the important part.

[ idol friends ]

+Kim Jongdae (Chen) | 21, September 21,1992 | EXO-M

Personality| Jongdae is a child most of the time. He’s always joking around and laughing with his other members and his friends. Hardly anything seems to get him down, and when a depressing situation comes up he still tries to keep other happy. He’s a real nice guy, putting other people infront of himself.

How you met| I met Jongdae through Luhan. It was probably the first time I ever hung out with the other trainees Luhan always talked and told me about. He was one of the first to come up and introduce himself to me. We seemed to hit it off right away, and we've been hanging out and talking ever since.

Interaction | Me and Chen aren’t as close as me and Luhan are, but we’re pretty close. I joke around with him more than I do with others. I try to keep up my ‘gentlemanness’ as he calls it, but he normally breaks down my walls and has me acting like a child for a few moments before my walls go up again.

[ non-idol friends ]

+Kim Dongho | 24 (August 6, 1990) | alive

Personality | Dongho is one of those ‘strong and silent’ types, he doesn’t talk very much and he doesn’t really need to. Truthfully he’s just abit shy and he needs time to open up to people. However people take his silence the wrong way and think he’s a bad person. Thankfully I’ve known him long enough to know that’s a lie, he’s quiet but a really happy person.

How you met | Me and Dongho worked together at a restaurant when I was a trainee. He worked in the kitchen and cleaning tables while I was a waiter and delivering food. We normally had out breaks around the same time so one day I just decided to sit with him outside and talk with him. It was slow at first but after a few days he started to open up.

Interaction | People would think we’re not as good of friends as we really are if they saw us together. I don’t force him to talk a lot so unless we’re deeply invested in a conversation we’re normally silent, only saying a few things here and there. He comes over to my house a lot and he gets along well with my father, he’s practically my brother and we’ve even taught him how to do minor repairs and such so he can do those sort of things around the restaurant if something happens.

[ rival ] None