Seoul is a real extraordinary city. (Jun In) – Seoul is a real extraordinary city... For years, I only have heard about it while trying to imagine how it could be like. My father used to say he would have liked to spend his old days there, in the city where he was born because it was one unique place. Go there one time and you will want to go back again and again. The city creates a lack... I had this lack inside of me even before I went there for the first time. I daydreamed about what I could be doing there and with the sensation that it could be the only place in the world where I could be myself at one hundred percent, without hiding, without playing. In my child and teenager's eyes, Seoul was the city of freedom... Of liberation.

Mom never talked about Seoul, or even about South Korea, the country she was born in. Mom was born in Gwangju but has been adopted fifty four years ago by an American family, whom she took the name, Dwight. She has met dad, who has lived his whole life there, in a gala charity ball. They never left each other until his death. Mom already had four children from a former marriage. Her ex-husband was Korean as well. Even if mom pretends she's completely American - we're living in Chicago - she can't deny her origins and only loved men from her motherland.

It's been a year since I have left Chicago to study in Seoul, at the SIA, the Seoul Institute of the Arts. I could perfectly had occupy the seats of one of the several American schools aiming the training of budding writers and essayists, and, by the way, benefit from advices of some of the best teachers of the matter but the occasion was way too tantalizing for me to finally get over my family and to leave for the country which always made me dream, so close and yet so far...

Many persons around me have tried to persuade me not to choose that path, that school. It's a good thing wanting to be a writer. To become a writer for real is different. I'm aware the future I would like to build for me is unstable and that there's a few chosen for a lot of wannabes but in life if you never try to get a chance, you'll never achieve anything. If I miss it, I'll miss, too bad. At least, I would never regret not to have tried.

That's country and a society in movement that I have met with for the first time one year ago. Even if I immediately felt at home, I also quickly noticed that I had more American automatic reflexes that I thought I did. I have been raised among a family with three daughters and only one other big brother who is far from being a good example for a boy, with values that often are very close, and often very far from the ones taught in this country that is mine wihtout being mine. Despite it all, there truly have been a culture shock at times, even if my hair is black, my eyes are slanted and my skin is pale. Even if I'm speaking the same language than my counterparts born in here. I needed a little time to get adapted. Today, I can proudly say that this time is soon over. I think I have absorbed the way the South Korean culture is working and I will finally be able to watch its perpetual evolution.

My name is Moon Jun In, I'm twenty and this year, the world is going to open up before my eyes. Life can begin...

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I don't believe in fairy tales. (Mi Yeon) – I don't believe in fairy tales. In life, everything is a matter of choice, work and toughness with a good measure of luck, if you know how to get it. Yet, my image is this of a head-in-the-clouds girl... Maybe I am a bit head-in-the-clouds but oppositely to some girls, I don't only dream. When there's something I want, I do my best to get it. I'm the kind of persons who always want to be number one but I'm not the kind able to step on the others to get my goal done. There's room for everyone... I only think one shouldn't wait for destiny to decide. Nothing comes from above and in my life, I have learned that many times. You have to give everything of what you are to get your dreams come true.

Since always, I only got one thing in mind : to sing. I have sang before I have known words. I love music above everything else and I can't see me doing something else of my life. My ambition never been to become a star, my ambition was to get singing as my job. To live from your passion, isn't it the most wonderful thing in the world? I have told mom when I was only a little girl and here was what mom told me : "if you want to sing, Mi Yeon, sing... I will support you in this, always, but you've got to know that for your dream to come true, just wishing upon a star wouldn't be enough. You have to do everything that's possible to get that dream in your hands. What's make the difference is persistence." I will never forget her advice.

Mom enrolled me at piano lessons. The lessons were highly expensive and mom had to do a lot of sacrifices to be able to pay it to me. Seeing all those sacrifices, I couldn't allow myself to be a dabbler, she was doing it all for me, for my happiness. I got involved into it completely, to make sure mom was proud. Thanks to music theory, I have improved my musical ear. Mom sacrificed herself a bit more and enrolled me at singing lessons. Life wasn't always sweet and calm but we were happy somehow. Me, because I was doing what I loved the most and mom, because she was glad she could see me happy. I never loosen my efforts.

It's thanks to mom, to her sacrifices, but also thanks to my persistence that, maybe, I will be able to achieve my final aim soon, to get my most precious wish come true. It's been now three years since I'm a trainee at HTS Entertainment, a famous agency... The places are expensive and I have fought to get mine. Since I'm living in Seoul and I'm far from mom, even if I feel lonely, I have become more tough, I have hung up at my dream all I can. I have persevere and I will keep on persevering to be chosen. Once I will succeed, nothing will be missing in my life...

There's a wish I haven't made come true yet, something wih nothing in common with my passion. I don't know when it will happen. Soon, I hope. Who knows what the future will bring?