Gosijo's Post on Toronto Gathering

My dear sisters .... I am reposting gosijo's wonderful article on her impressions after the Toronto sisters' gathering from Quilt since the 'comment' function still does not work overthere. Please feel free to write her a comment here so she can read your feedback. Please enjoy :


Toronto Sisters 2nd Anniversary Reunion - Impressions

On Friday September 28th, nine Toronto sisters met at the brightly lit Graceful Vegetarian Restaurant to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of the group’s original get together. The first meeting had been in September 2005 when AS came to the Toronto International Film Festival and the sisters (alas, I wasn’t part of the family yet, sob sob) overcame some not insignificant difficulties to be in attendance.



This time around, there were no meeting-for-the-first-time jitters. Time flew by while we exchanged news and keepsakes, and brought messages from far-away sisters. Coco, whom many of you know and who was present at the 2005 get-together, even called all the way from Vancouver!

This picture is to thank all of our generous, creative and resourceful sis.



Be sure we know how lucky we are to be able to exchange these tokens of family-ship and that we cherish even the little hand-written notes that may have come with them!

This reunion set me to thinking, once again, about the puzzling question of “what has that impossibly beautiful man brought into my life that others have not” or “have I grown personally since I started paying attention to this particular celebrity”.

So here are a few personal reflections and anecdotes from this past year to illustrate what I think:

1) Undeniable attraction

For most of us, the initial trigger for our bae journeys was seeing YJ’s portrayals of one or more among Joon Sang, Min Hyung, Dong Hyuk, Chan Woo, Cho Won, In Su, Jaeho, etc. They struck enough chords in our hearts that we simply had to find out more. About other roles and about the person behind the roles. About why they affected us so. And it seemed that the more we knew about YJ, the more we admired the whole person (“To know him is to love him”, as cloud nine says), the more beautiful, the more unique he seemed in our eyes.

“Have you been swept away so badly?” Dam Deok seems to ask us, as he did Sujini. “No matter how swept away you are, you must keep your dignity as a woman”, he adds and then, teasingly, as he opens his arms wide “Is this what you want?”



Others have asked what we would do in Sujini’s place. My question is: Is there a double-meaning to this dialogue? Is that sometimes-shy young man teasing us too beneath his Dam Deok mask?

I like to think so.

Therefore, here’s winking back at you, YJ ssi! Prepare for a looooong session of free hugs! Your whole family’s in line!

***

2) Learning new skills, honing old ones

The best catalyst to learning is strong motivation, a strong desire to reach a goal. Our overwhelming interest in YJ has meant keeping up with communication technologies at a pace many of us would not have otherwise followed. Many of us visited internet bulletin boards and personal blogs for the first time in order to learn the latest news about our favourite celebrity. Given the multi-lingual nature of the Family, many have tried their hand at translation. Others pour their admiration into artistic creations and writing essays and fan fiction. Others have built the sites where we exchange news and views. Many have extended the limits of their skills or accumulated a body of work of a size they could only have dreamed of before. A few have even spearheaded charitable initiatives as a way to channel our love for YJ into a constructive force for helping those less fortunate than we are. While none of these are unique to YJ’s family, the skills we’ve learned or honed under this powerful motivation will stay with us for the rest of our lives as his legacy.

***

3) The BYJ Family



How visionary of our dear YJ to see his fans not as a club, not as a mere community, but as a family! We meet mostly on line and sometimes in person. We share information, technical tips, our creations and our thoughts which are, at times, very personal. For the most part, we feel as if we’re among kin, among others with considerable common ground, even if we’re scattered all around the world and live in societies imbued with very different cultures. Sometimes, our bae journeys take us in unexpected directions such as re-visiting the past and looking at it in the context of the present. This has happened to me quite a number of times this past year in my exchanges with bae sisters and every time was a revelation, one I would have missed if not for YJ, even though he wasn’t the focus of the enlightenment, only a small light along the way.




***

Music

Everyone loves music. I’ve loved music since as far back as I can remember. What’s so unusual, then, about BYJ’s Classics - Hero collection? For me, it was what he wrote, especially “Although these selections are something very personal to me, I believe that after you've heard them, there will be a very real, almost tangible bond and common ground between us.”* I saw this as a very powerful manifestation of his feelings for his family. True, the lingering skeptic in me wondered if this might simply be a product put out to make money and masterfully marketed to appeal to the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people who already love him, but countless other of YJ’s actions point to the fact that he’s always utterly sincere. I’m still bowled over by his willingness to get closer to us, to share feelings he could easily keep for himself, to bare his soul, not as an actor behind the mask of a role, but as a the private person he actually is. Even in this picture, he seems to share a private moment, listening intently, feeling the sound’s vibrations through the floor, lost in the beautiful music.



Other sentences stayed with me and took on meaning as the year unfolded. Words like “Is there a hero whom you and only you love, or maybe an unknown hero whom you've kept in your heart quietly?”* Where music is concerned, there are many such pieces and personal heros and these words spurred me to find them again and get to know more about them. Simultaneously, new pieces got added to my list of favourites. In one case, I still remember hearing it for the first time and feeling I was being transported to heaven. It reminded me of YJ’s words about Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.2 in E minor, Op.27-3 Adagio: “Listening to Rachmaninov, I indulge myself in his sweet music and I feel what is called 'God's love', which is rather different from the love of man and woman or family love.”*

***

Sincerity and giving all of our heart to a task

At first, this notion didn’t strike me as particularly unusual and I kept wondering why this theme came up over and over again in YJ’s discourse. With time, I noticed that it seems to permeate Korean culture more than the other Asian culture I may be familiar with (not very many and none of them very deeply, I admit). The day after our latest bae sisters get-together and after a busy morning, I was eager to take a break and watch some of episode 6 of TWSSG before launching into a busy afternoon. As it happened, though, my family asked me to prepare dishes that, although simple, took a fair amount of time. Stress levels were increasing yet, as many will recognize, a part of my thoughts were with dear wuri YJ and, in that particular instance, his admiration for his omoni. And then, it came to me that waiting an extra hour to relax was nothing compared to the joy I could bring into my family’s life, compared to the memories they may, one day, have of a simple meal like that day’s, a meal prepared with joy in my heart and imbued with all my love for them.



And now, I truly understand what YJ meant and thank him for this gift, with all of my heart and greatest sincerity.

***

* The first and second quotes from BYJ Classics - Hero were translated into English by happiebb from kyouei Chinese translation, while the third was translated by cloud nine, from Japanese.

Thanks to all whose pictures I reposted here.