NYLON尼龙 China Magazine

Look Into The Mirror

CHAPTER 01.
The youth who accompanies his dreams

I am someone who often dreams, as I continued to have dreams, I seem to have a skill that I consider to be quite special — As long as I don't go back to sleep, I would usually be able to remember my dreams before I woke up.Whether you believe it or not, there are times where dreams indeed have threads of connection with reality. Many years ago, I had a dream when I was still in school. In the dream, I worked together with a bunch of people to complete something, my family and friends crowded around me to congratulate me. This dream was so real, hence after I woke up, I started to ponder if something big was about to happen in my life. After all, I was still young at that time, the interpretations that I could think about were mostly related to academics. It was only until I came to Korea to be a trainee afterwards and debuted as a SEVENTEEN member, that I recalled this dream I had and suddenly had a realization. Dreams are quite amazing at times.With more dreams I had, there were inevitably some unexpected situations that made me quite surprised. There was once during a night on Hungry Ghost Festival, I dreamt that I was running to escape with my friends, who I trained martial arts with when I was young, in the neighborhood. There was a shadow behind that was crazily chasing us, so we did our best to keep running and running. We tried to get rid of that blurry shadow, but before there was any ending, I woke up. What's amazing was that after I woke up, I realized that the friend who was in my dream had sent me a text, and said that they had dreamt of escaping with me in the neighborhood too. Now that I look back on it, there seems to be some superstition, but dreams are indeed unexplainable at times and we can regard it as it is.I even had a dream where I had driven a heavy duty truck with a good friend. This was quite interesting, I have never tried driving such huge motor vehicles in reality before. In regards to whether this dream will come true, we'll have to see if I'd really get a truck driver license on a whim in the future.

CHAPTER 02.
A dream that I don't want to wake up from

The other reason why I said dreams and reality have a connection is because, I feel that there are many occasions in life where it's like a dream that you don't want to wake up from. A recent example, we held a two-day SEVENTEEN TOUR 'FOLLOW' TO SEOUL concert on 21st and 22nd July. I was especially happy on those two days, truth to be told, I was probably more excited on the 21st than the 22nd. I'm always like this, if it had been some time since we held a concert, when the long awaited day finally arrives, I would suddenly not know how to contain my energy, or my body is still in the stage where it's adapting to containing and releasing (of energy). My method of coping is usually to be fully devoted and release all my energy, with this way, the first day would always be more tiring than the second day. Although tiring, I feel fulfilled.Saying “tired” myself, at times I wonder if it is a little inappropriate. I recall during that period of the two-day concert, we would head to the venue to rehearse in the day. Although there was still quite a long time before the concert officially started, I could already see that there were so many fans waiting outside. Coincidentally the temperatures in Seoul were quite high during that period, you would feel hot and stuffy just by standing outside for a while. I feel bad whenever I think about the fans standing outside for long hours, but at the same time I feel touched — There are really people who would tirelessly rush over to watch a concert for the people they like, there are also quite a lot of people from other countries who would specially fly over just to watch you for a short while. Even if they have to bear with the high temperatures and stand for long hours outside the venue, they don't mind.What's amazing is, there are so many people in this world, but among them there are actually so many people who are willing to put their focus on me, giving me all their love. There are many times where I felt this was the luckiest thing that has happened to me, to the point that it's like a dream that is too beautiful. Such words may sound like it is said for formalities, but it is the truth.There are many changes to this Seoul concert, from the beginning when we selected the songs to revising the songs at the end, the time we spent in between was so much more than expected. Including for us Performance Team, during the rehearsal on the day before the concert, we were still picking out and changing details, dealing with the occuring changes at any time. Because of this, time became increasingly tight. Thankfully in the end, we managed to complete our performance in order.Some forms of happiness can strike you all of a sudden, I felt it during this Seoul concert, to the point where I was unable to describe the happiness and joy I felt inside with my words. Perhaps the reason is because I don't see everyone often, when the concert officially started, I saw every single Carat bongs light up in front of my eyes, I suddenly felt something surge inside me, it felt like you were being wrapped up with lots of love and affection.After the Seoul concert ended, we had to prepare our comeback in October.. This year seemed like we were busy and on the go for the entire year. I quite like such continuous schedules, what I mean is that this was more fulfilling and meaningful than last year, because I have even more opportunities to meet the fans face to face.

CHAPTER 03.
Enjoying every side of myself

There are actually quite a lot of joyful events this year, looking at my own works, following « LIMBO » that was released in the later half of last year, I released another solo single « PSYCHO » in July this year. If I were to say « LIMBO » showcases more on the sense of beauty/aesthetics such as the choreography, make-up and hair, and expressions, then « PSYCHO » showcases more on “uniqueness”. On the expression of meaning, perhaps you could comprehend the relation between the two songs in this way: They are both works that happened at the same starting point, but the end point is not the same. « LIMBO » is actually a prologue meant to get the ball rolling*, it has another layer of meaning which is to welcome everyone into my world; For « PSYCHO », its meaning is of more after arriving to this world, you will discover a unique existence, such uniqueness is not a product of purposeful expression, but every single person is the most unique individual within their own worlds — In reality, you will realize your difference with others, no matter if it's the way you think, behavior, hobbies and so on. These are not critical, don't resist your own uniqueness, enjoy it and love every side of yourself.

*(T/N: 抛砖引玉: An idiom that directly translate to 'throwing out a brick to attract jade'. It means to attract the better interest/ideas of others by throwing out one's own modest ideas, to get the ball rolling.)

After « PSYCHO » was released, I saw many comments saying that I have changed, this was probably because I showcased a few images that were “crazier” than usual. However I'm not hoping to take this to break everyone's image of me, truthfully, I think the base of it is not to “break apart”, but rather I want to present a point — Every single person has a different side to the conventional impression that others have of them, you may not accept it but it does exist, and its existence shaped your diversity, this is the uniqueness that I'm talking about.These two solo songs indeed have some connective elements, I had previously said that I wanted to shape my own worldview with them. These are like the little thoughts that I put in place in the works, I hope to be able to continue them in the future if there is the chance. There was an interesting thing that happened while preparing for « PSYCHO ». It was when we were taking a break early in the year, while resting I grew a little tired of it, and I thought how about I stop resting and head to the company to produce instead. Hence, this was how the production team and I completed this song.Writing lyrics and composing the song requires inspiration, I would usually look for it in the notes in my phone. Because I usually like to read novels, at times when I'm reading, I would switch to my notes and record down some personal thoughts, this includes when I'm listening to songs too. At times, I would record through photos, for example I watched a documentary called « To The World With You » on the plane previously. In the film, the parents would record their child's growth by bringing him on adventures around the world, I had a lot of thoughts while watching it.

« Exclusive Fairytale » was released a while ago, it is a drama that I participated in filming two years ago. Lingchao, the male lead I played, has a very different personality from me, which led to me having to think of ways to keep my personality inwards during filming. How do I grasp such a frame, it was something I thought a lot about at that time.After the drama aired, I asked my friends around me how they had felt after watching it, I have to at least know someone else's point of view to know what are the areas I can improve on in the future. About anticipation and stress, this was still quite okay for me. My personality is like that, I think that it is better to let nature take its own course. For example if any works that I really like appear, I will get myself to not stop in the joy for too long periods.When did I start cultivating such a character? I can't recall its origin. Perhaps it is the momentum/inertia that I cultivated while growing up? Although such a phrasing is a little cliché. Enduring hardships too, I have not expressed obvious resistance with “hardships” for a long time, instead I think that it is a necessary existence. Like when I was young, I practiced martial arts and have been a child actor, then heading overseas to train and debuting after that. For every process in between, I have to endure hardships to speed up my development and growth. Now that I look at it, everything is just a process where you accept hardships, endure hardships, and enjoy hardships. I am past the stage where I need to mentally accept hardships, I understand that I am bound to have hardships in order to achieve a certain goal, hence the bitterness has also become a little sweeter.Perhaps these are all subtly shaping my character/personality. Talking about personality, these days everyone is increasingly wanting to read into themselves or others through MBTI. The last time I did this test was on GOING SEVENTEEN, but I was not the one who did the test myself. The theme of that episode was getting the results through the other members' impression of you. After that, I never went to do a new test on my own, mainly because I think it may not reflect the realest side of yourself, although that is the original intention of it. There are many times where the results are unclear when people try to use external sources to view themselves, such as personality tests, at the same time when you choose an answer, there could be such a situation — That answer that corresponds to be the closest to reality, the option that you choose subconsciously could perhaps be something that you wish to become. Hence deviations appear, and the final result may not represent the realest you at present. But this isn't a bad thing, everything starts with “I want”, so the final result could be how you would become within some time in the future, such things are quite interesting.Work allows us to learn a lot of things, the skill I learnt while working that is the most beneficial is language. I realized after that it is essential to learn more in another language, it gives you more ways of expressing yourself and allows others to understand what you are trying to express from another perspective. I'm actually not quick in learning Korean, back then when I attended language class, the vocabulary I had mastered was not as much as compared to my other classmates. But because I usually liked to imitate the way my members and other Korean friends spoke, it led to my results for my oral exam to be better than my written exam results.Perhaps it is because of language, I was able to make jokes intermittently, fans may realize this when watching our group variety shows. I feel that this could be related to me being a foreigner in the team, for example at times I may say some things that I didn't find to be that funny, but it actually is humorous to the other members, and unexplainably achieved a hilarious effect. Although I can't figure out what exactly is humorous, but I feel anticipation, after all being able to make everyone happy is a joyous thing.

If there is always a reason for making others happy, then for fans, that source seems to become increasingly transparent — It seems like no matter what I do, they would always unconditionally give positive feedback. These affection come enthusiastically and with absolute sincerity, even if I don't do anything, they would not hold back their praises, for instance praises towards looks and personality.“Pure”, “Pretty”, “Gentle”..... I don't reject such expressions, in fact, they are able to see such sides of you and express affection without reservations, this is enough to make one feel grateful. There are many fans who think I look like a cat, it is especially evident during fansigns, they will get me to imitate some cat expressions, sometimes the hair accessories they bring are also cat designs, they even take out their phones to show me their own cats, it is especially cute.Whenever such moments appear where I'm surrounded by love, I would always feel like a beautiful dream is currently descending on me. Just like a scene that I dreamt of a long time ago, in that dream, I seem to be wearing a spring shoe, where every jump would be 10 metres far. When you jump up, it's like you can see the scenery that's afar even more clearly, as if you could touch the soft clouds when you stretch out your hands, you feel so relaxed. I often recall this dream afterwards, together with the joy I felt inside back then. In such moments filled with love and affection, I feel like I am back in that beautiful dream.