Jo Hyun Jae

The JHJ Hong Kong Fan Club had a gathering on April 30 – countdown 50 – to celebrate early JHJ’s birthday (since May 9 is Mother’s Day.)

Bigcat wrote about this afterwards, but this is not a word-for-word translation of her article, since her Chinese is very profound.

Because of a stranger in faraway Korea, Mr. Jo Hyun-Jae, we fans got to know one another, dined together many times, became friends, talked about everything under the sun — this should be eternal destiny that link us together.

I remember at the 2008 Japan Fan Meetings, the Japanese fans came from all over the country.  Seeing them lugging their bags, so excited at capturing a photo of JHJ, wearing cheerful smiles on their faces — it was only then that I understood what it meant to be a star of the Korean Wave and why the Korean Wave would not die.  It is because it allows us to temporarily escape from the world; it provides us with a refuge where we can forget about status and position; it gives us the time and scope to be romantic and wilful again.  

Courses of food were served while we talked about JHJ’s works, his fellow actors in the dramas, his comeback project after discharge, our trip to Seoul in June…….JHJ fan gatherings are always so happy and pleasant.  After we finished JHJ’s birthday cake, it was already past 10 p.m.

I still remember this idiom we always used as children — “Time flies like an arrow.”  It so happens that if you meet with JHJ fans in some corner of the world, time really flies.  When you tear off the page for April on the calendar, time is fleeting by and the time for JHJ’s discharge is just around the corner.

This is the very first photo of JHJ that I ever saw:

Only one word can describe my initial reaction — shock!

When I saw this photo I was stunned!  A thousand ????????? came into my mind…..

Why does this Korean young man have such delicate facial features, like a little Caucasian boy?

Why does someone immersed in the entertainment world still have such pure eyes, like a child’s?

Why does this actor still possess such innocence and guilelessness and outer-worldliness?

Why does a little white rabbit in the primeval human jungle still remain a little white rabbit?

Why does time leave no traces on his face and in his eyes?

Why does someone who could not even finish school look every inch the genteel scholar of ancient times?

(Credit: Translated from the “First of May” article by Bigcat of www.johyunjae.com.  Thanks!)