The plane journey to South Korea was better than I had thought it would of been, I was used to the long flights as I would always fly back to China for Chinese New Year each year. I had befriended the other guy I was going with, his name was Kevin, we had a lot of similarities and one being our excitement about arriving in South Korea to start our training.

Kevin started to talk about how it was his second time taking the auditions, as he didn't make it the previous year, he said he had a real passion for the music that the K-pop artists sang to and that he had been making some tunes up himself. I was impressed but also confused, why would the people at S.M choose me? Kevin was chosen because he could produce decent music and had a real passion for the industry. I just stood there rapped a bit and showed off by language ability, I was almost certain that there wasn't anything special about me and probably a hundred others could do the same.

It then hit me what Ben said, my friend that loved K-pop, he said that you didn't necessary have to have a talent that stood out from the rest. He said that sometimes they choose depending on your looks as they train you to have talent anyway. I remembered how they took me to one side and started to examine my face, I thought it was a normal procedure at the time and I suppose now that it wasn't. They also measured how tall I was, I was by far the tallest Asian there, but I didn't think that mattered when choosing an idol.

I eventually came to a conclusion that I was chosen because of my looks, sure I wasn't terrible at rapping but there were others that could be named the next Eminem in the same room as me. I'm not really cocky but when it comes to my looks I like to brag about it, after all my mom's a very beautiful lady what do you expect? My friends would always joke around asking why I hadn't ditched their 'ugly ' to go for the girls. I was never really interested though, I was too busy to have time for relationships, it would never work out. Plus when I did have a relationship, I wanted it to be serious, not messing around, so I always turned down girls offers of 'wanting to have a good time' as I knew it wouldn't last long and they would soon get tired of me and move on.

After a couple of hours talking to Kevin about who we thinks going to win the NBA tournament this year, we decided to take a few hours rest as when we get there we most probably wouldn't have the time. I dreamt of crowds of young teenage girls chanting my name and my group being called up onto the stage to collect numerous awards. Them I was jolted awake by something shaking my shoulder.

I woke up to find Kevin smiling at me, he said that I'd been screaming 'thank you' for the past hour and that the plane had landed in South Korea. I was embarrassed but excited as I collect my rucksack out of it's compartment and made my way off the plane. Kevin told me that one of the staff that was in charge of the new trainees had sent him a text to meet him at the departure gates. I nodded and after we collected our luggage we made our way over to the man with a board named S.M. He greeted us and asked if we had a nice flight. He seemed to be nice enough and he could speak English which was a plus, his name was WoonHa but he said we could call him Woon.

He guided us to what looked like his car and informed us that we had to go to the S.M building to sort some things out before we got settled in our dorms. We put our luggage in the back of his trunk and got in the back. I quickly sent a text to my mom saying that I had landed safely and that I would ring her once I had sorted things out with the company. Woon went to talk about how we would fit in just fine with the other trainees and that there would be no need to worry about finding new friends. I was informed by him that that there were others that could speak either English or Chinese so I didn't have to worry about the language barrier.

We stopped at a building that was about 4 stories high and had a big star in the middle with 'SMTOWN' in the middle. Woon said to leave our bags here as we wouldn't be long, we got out of his car and made our way over to the building. I was nervous back then, everything was new, there was nothing like this company back in Canada or China so I didn't know what to expect. Woon took us up to the top floor and said to sit down at one of the tables and wait for him. He came back a couple of minutes later with two chunks of paper in his hands.

He gave one to me and one to Kevin, I looked down at the paper to find thousands of words about what S.M would provide and what we needed to provide to be kept on the contract. Did he expect us to read every word? There must of been at least twenty pages of ink. I looked across to Kevin to see that he was also shocked. Woon began laughing and saying we didn't have to read it all and that he would explain the general idea of what was on the pages.

He began talking about how they would give us a place to stay, which would be shared with the other S.M trainees and that they would cover training expenses and give us allowance to spend on food and other much needed equipment. He said that we would start paying the company back once we debuted, if we ever did. It scared me to think how much I would have to pay if I didn't make the cut. He reassured us saying that we would sure make it, and the company had high hopes for us. He said that we wouldn't be aloud to date once we debuted for the first couple of years, Kevin asked why and he said that it attracts more fans to know that you don't already have someone in your heart and that they had a chance. I was going to burst out laughing but then realized how serious he was being, I could last a couple of years anyway, it's not like I'm already dating someone or a player and I'll be too busy training to be concentrating on a relationship.

He said that was the stuff that mattered and the rest was just about the basic rules and regulations that we had to follow while with S.M. I just thought it would be like be in by 10pm and don't have parties and such so I didn't worry to much about the rest. I was here now anyway I might as well at least see what it's like and make the most of this opportunity.

I printed my name and signed the paper and handed it back to Woon. After a short hesitation from Kevin he also signed and gave the paper to Woon. The contracts couldn't be that bad could they? They provided you everything and you just had to sacrifice not going out with someone for a couple of years and the worry of not making it, which I probably would as they said they had high hopes for us, they were the professionals anyway right?

Oh, how I couldn't be anymore wrong. That contract literally would change by life forever, but back then I was young and naïve and didn't look too much into it and thought it wasn't worth worrying about.