Six months of Korean language boot camp was… well, let’s just say fun was not in my vocabulary. I enjoy languages, but this level of rigor and strictness was surprising to say the least. But it worked. I was pretty confident in my conversational Korean, and I figured a few weeks of immersion and I’d be good to go. I was blessed by my Korean instructor by mid-May so that I could fly to Seoul on the 25^th.

                I still had not received any more information on whom, exactly, I would be collaborating with, but in my six months of Korean studies, I had become fairly certain that my original assessment was correct. It had to be SM, JYP, or YG requesting me. From what I had gathered, a ticket had been bought for me, and a return date had not been set, meaning I’d be staying as long as it took. It’s an expensive venture, holding an American super star in a foreign country for an indefinite period of time. I was, quite honesty, impressed with the resolve of my mysterious benefactor.

                My speculation had to end, however, because my day of departure arrived before I got any answers. I was whisked away on an airplane, where the first class ticket was thoroughly wasted as I slept the whole way. I landed peacefully in Seoul, slung my favorite backpack over my shoulder, and awaited my grand waiting party. As much as I attempt to remain down-to-earth in this industry of stardom (I suppose I don't do as well as I'd like to think I do), I did develop some… expectations. Expectations that were not met that day. Instead of flashing cameras and security detail, I was met with a relatively empty terminal, and a short middle-aged Korean man holding a 8 1/2x11” paper with “Mira” written on it in Sharpie. The man spotted me, and his eyes shone behind his thick rimmed glasses.

                “Miss Mira, it is an honor,” he spoke in heavily accented English. I appreciated the gesture, doing my best to hide my disappointment and confusion. “You may call me Mr. Kim, I am from Jellyfish Entertainment,” he continued speaking carefully, but I tuned him out after his introduction. Jellyfish? I had never in all my research come across that record label name. Was it a subsidary or something?

                Charlotte, who had been allotted three days with me to ensure my safe arrival, interrupted the man. “She knows Korean now,” she announced so matter-of-factly, that I couldn’t help but cringe inwardly. Mr. Kim took it gracefully in stride and looked to me, expectantly.

                “Ah, yes,” I began, suddenly nervous to exercise my hard work. I took a breath and pushed past my trepidation, “I have spent these last several months learning Korean in order to work with you,” I said in as smooth of Korean as I could manage, bowing a little to show my sincerity. Culture was a part of my Korean torture, so I figured I’d use it. I only really knew enough to be dangerous. The risk of offending someone was pretty high.

                The man seemed extremely relieved, “Thank goodness,” he replied in quick Korean, “We were worried we would have to hire a full time translator,” he explained with a smile. “You see, one of our members requested that we try to contact you, and we are so pleased you have accepted,” he continued quickly. I was rather proud of myself to keep up as he continued, “But you are, ah,” he paused, “quite expensive,” he finished with an apologetic smile, nervous laughter on his voice.

                I laughed awkwardly, “Yes,” I started noncommittally. How was I supposed to answer that? “Sorry,” I added, but quickly continued, “I am pleased to be here, sir. I look forward to meeting your artists.”

                He beamed at me, nodding enthusiastically. He looked like he was about to speak when Charlotte, who I had forgotten completely, spoke up rather loudly, “I’m still here and I do NOT know Korean,” she interjected.  “Aren’t you guys being, like, a bit rude?” she asked incredulously.

                I sighed before forcing a smile, switching back to English was easy, at least, “Yes, of course. Mr. Kim, this is my assistant Charlotte. She will be here only a few days to ensure I am safely situated,” I emphasized only to ensure Mr. Kim caught my insistence on her very brief stay.

                He bowed quickly, “Yes of course,” he replied politely. “Before we show you your temporary living situation, we would like for you to meet VIXX. They’re our only group, you see, we generally only employ solo artists,” he began to ramble as he ushered us to receive our luggage. So that was the name of the group I was to work with, huh? And we were going to meet them straight away without any research. I shrugged to myself, as there wasn’t much to do about it. I generally made it a habit to know everything I could manage before meeting a fellow artist.

                “You know, if they’re not any good, our contract says we don’t have to work with them,” Charlotte suddenly spoke up again, and both Mr. Kim and I looked at her in surprise. I knew that would be a clause in the contract, though not worded so rudely, but it was still a rather harsh thing to say aloud.

                “Yes of course,” Mr. Kim said again, rather slowly, as if he was trying to gather his thoughts, “We do hope you are not disappointed, then.”

                I smiled apologetically to the man again, worried that this would become a habit for the few days that Charlotte would be my shadow. I shot her a stern look. The last thing I needed was for her to sour my reputation. We spent the rest of the trip in silence, heavy with awkwardness as Mr. Kim drove us to one of his company’s studios. When we arrived he turned to look at us, his face suddenly full of his original excitement that I had seen after landing in Seoul. “You see, this is somewhat of a surprise. We’ve been working for several months to arrange this meeting, and we told our members think that you were not available. We will ask them to perform for a recording, but they won’t be able to see you until the end,” he spoke in a hushed voice, as if the objects of his deception were right outside. He stopped suddenly, looking to Charlotte, who was looking listlessly out the window, “If that is acceptable to you, of course,” he added, glancing back to me.

                “Sounds fun,” I said with a little smile and a shrug. I was honestly apprehensive about this whole setup, but if one of the band members was as much of a fan as he said, then I could see this being a pretty great present to the guy. Too bad I had no idea who any, not to mention how many, of these boys were. Mr. Kim ushered us into the studio, where the sound of hurried footsteps and hushed chattering were already all around us. We were brought into a dark auditorium, where bright lights were pointed directly at the stage. Understandable, then, that we would be a surprise. With the seating so dark and the spotlights so bright, there was no way anyone on that stage could see us. We shuffled to our seats in the middle of the audience, where I reached into my trusty backpack to grab a notebook and a pen. Suddenly a hush came over the stage as a well-dressed and important looking man’s voice rang out over the crowd on the stage.

                “Alright everyone,” he began in very firm Korean, “We have a special surprise guest in the audience today. Please do your best.”

                The stage cleared except for six young Korean men. I should have guessed they were the artists, as they were very well styled in all black clothing. Four of them had various shades of dark red to auburn hair, recently dyed no doubt, while the other two had more distinct hair colors. They introduced themselves all at once simply as VIXX, but did not give individual names. Even if they did, I would have a problem. “Mr. Kim,” I whispered quietly, “Do you think we could, I don’t know, put numbers on them or something? If they’re going to dance, I don’t know them well enough to keep track,” I spoke quickly, trying not to cringe at my own admittedly disrespectful (and slightly racist) words. As much as this wasn’t a nice thing to say, I was about to go into work mode, and I needed to take efficient notes to make my determination.

                Mr. Kim simply nodded, noting the notebook I had pulled from my bag, “One moment,” he called, startling the men on stage, “We have a special request from our special guest.” He hurried away, and after a few moments, he scuttled onto the stage with six different colored armbands that he hurriedly slipped on each confused member’s arms. I guess that would work. I hurriedly organized my notebook into six columns, my pen making less-than-straight lines down the pages.

                First in line probably didn’t need an armband as his hair was a striking shade of pastel blue, and I appreciated that they had given him the blue armband. Easy enough, I thought to myself, labelling my first column as ‘blue’. He had a small, but bright little smile, with narrow, eyes, lined heavily with black liner. The second in line was a fidgety one, playing with the purple armband as he chatted quickly to the boys on either side. His face was what I would describe as western- relatively large eyes and shapely nose. Immediately I made a little star in the ‘purple’ column. If this kid had any talent and the will to learn English, he had a great visual style to hit the American market. Third in line had a red armband. Before I could even finish my initial observations of his sharp jawline, strong chin, and wide smile, I could hear Charlotte’s voice in my ear commenting on how red armband guy is a ‘total hottie’. I rolled my eyes, simply marking the column as ‘red’. While looks were certainly a factor in this industry, it was pretty low on my list of priorities; no matter how inclined I was to agree with Charlotte. Next in line was a shorter young man with what I could only describe as a botched blonde dye job on his head, but the look must have been intentional, given his matching eyebrows. I shrugged, marking his orange armband on my notes. His skin was slightly bronze, standing out slightly from his paler companions. He wasn't tan, per se, just noticeably less pale. His face was petite, and his features angled to the point of calling him feminine. I was instantly irritated seeing that the next armband was green. They were doing such a great job keeping the gradient going, too! No matter, I marked my next column as green, noting that the boy seemed particularly chipper, very apparent that he was the youngest of the group. He was constantly smiling and moving, much like Purple, and judging by his gangly limbs and slim body, the already tall boy was still growing. And lastly, the yellow armband was attached to a tall, sullen looking man. He faced away from the rest of the group, not even a hint of a smile on his face as he looked at the armband with distain. His eyes were narrow and sharp, and it looked as though he didn’t really want to be there. Rather, odd, I noted, but yet again simply marked down the yellow armband in my last column.

                Their performance began soon after with a song called Voodoo Doll, as Mr. Kim informed me through quickly written notes. Right off the bat Blue gave a spoken introduction that was half Korean and half English. Or just really poor English, I couldn’t really tell, but that was quickly erased from memory as four of the group lifted Purple up and over Blue to start off his solo singing part. Well that was certainly a first impression. Purple definitely lived up to my hunch. I was quickly able to add character vocal, tenor, and expressive to my column of notes. Mr. Kim watched in earnest as I began to write my notes. The performance was good, the backing track was solid, and their singing over it was relatively well done. At my silent request through Mr. Kim they ran through it again so that I could watch the performance again with a more objective eye. There was so much going on with both the choreography and the vocal layering, I was grateful that they obliged. They then performed a second song, called Eternity, which they were scheduled to debut the next day. I was very pleased that the two tracks featured different members in different ways, and it gave me pretty adequate material to work with. After the three performances, I was able to get an initial impression down on paper. Under Orange’s column I wrote ‘pure, medium range, good harmonies,’ under Blue I was surprisingly able to write ‘good rapper, low register’. I was worried the token rapper in the kpop group would be awkward to hear, but his voice was musical enough to not sound out of place. He even was able to contribute lower end harmonies, which was a pleasant surprise. For both Green and Red, it seems like they were not singing in their comfortable registers. Green sang in his head too much, and Red was straining to stay in his given range. I would have to figure out their natural registers if I wanted to work with them. Under Yellow’s category I noted that he was your typical tenor adlibber with the occasional good belting note with decent sustain. For the final performance I asked that they run through Eternity again, but this time I asked they take a break, catch their breath, and skip the dancing. I needed to hear their pure vocal ranges and abilities. I was too focused on taking accurate notes to form a solid opinion- that would come later. However, about 2/3 of the way through the last rendition of the sang, I was startled out of my objective trance by a pure, loud, sustained high note that came from Yellow. I had already written ‘average ballad belter’ under his category, and quickly crossed out the word ‘average’ and added ‘precision’. I could certainly work with that.

                The performance ended and the members shuffled around awkwardly after a curt bow. The well-dressed man came out onto the stage again. “Well done VIXX, and thank you for humoring our guest. Are you ready to find out who it is?” he asked the members, clearly excited. He was visibly more excited than the performers themselves. Then again, I couldn't blame them. The guest could be someone lame or unexciting- a sponsor or government official, maybe.

                Orange, the short blonde-ish one stepped forward to answer. He must be the oldest. That was one thing I had learned from my research- the oldest was automatically the leader of the group in most cases. “Yes, we are very excited,” he said with a smile and a short bow, “We didn’t know we would get a surprise today.” His words were calm and rehearsed, almost political.

                “Think of it as a debut present for the new title track,” the man said, clapping Orange on the shoulder. He gestured to the lights, and the spotlight dimmed as the theater lights . I took that as my cue to stand.

                “Hello, my name is Mira, it’s nice to meet you,” I spoke clearly in Korean, bowing as was customary. At least that introduction was a phrase I had practiced probably a million times in Korean lessons. When I raised my head, the six boys were in different stages of hysteria and disbelief. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched them. Blue had sunk to his knees, laughing awkwardly to himself in what was either disbelief or embarrassment. Purple and Red were chatting loudly to each other, while I saw Green bouncing on his feet as he tugged at Orange’s shirt as the leader very clearly was fighting to remain calm and cordial as he bowed back at me. Only Yellow was staying very still, somehow looking anywhere but directly at me. He clearly was ready to go home, unimpressed by my reveal. “Thank you for performing for me today,” I continued, forcing myself to stop observing the boys on stage. I remembered what I had to do, forcing myself to hide my smile. “I will meet with you again in a few days once I have made my decision.” I bowed again and turned to leave.

                “Decision?” I heard Orange say behind me, more to himself than anyone, he just happened to still be at the microphone.

                “That’s it?” I heard a soft voice cut through the murmurs. The disappointment was evident in his voice, and it pained me. I didn’t want to know who it was. I didn’t want to know their names or anything about them on a personal level. I had a job to do, and I didn’t want to make it any harder to say no if I had to. This was new territory for me, and I wasn’t going to invest my name and my passion on a project that wouldn’t succeed. I picked up my pace and left the theater as fast as I could, Charlotte and Mr. Kim’s hurried steps behind me.

Mr. Kim got Charlotte and I set up in rooms in an apartment-complex-like building. Thankfully, Charlotte got her own room, leaving me to my work. I had been left with a disk with the two studio recordings of the songs I had been presented with. And so, my judgement began.