WHO AM I? AT LEAST NOT 24601 (30 things about me)

*Title reference from "Les miserables" 

 

 


1. Lucete!
Lucete, which is the name of my blog and also a word that I use often as a nickname online, means "Shine brightly" in Latin. I first encountered this word when I was looking for a cool name for a new school musical theater club I made in middle school. (By the way, another candidate for the name was "Parasol".) I chose this word because it was enthusiastic and lively, somewhat like "Carpe diem", a phrase I love but too cliche, and also very short. Ever since, I've used it as my online ID, nickname, passwords, titles, and etc.

2. Small
I have small hands, feet, and height. I've never met a person in school who has smaller hands than me. (Perhaps Haneul has the most similar hand size.) I wear shoes that are between 225-240 and sadly, I am one of the shortest kid in our wave. However, one lucky thing is that most people think I'm average height before they stand beside me. My "smallness" is kind of a genetic thing since my older sister has smaller hands than me and my mom, sister, and I all wear the same sized shoes. Once, my short height was the thing I hated about myself but now, I decided to accept it because there is no way that my growth plate is still active.

3. The Phantom of the Opera
When I was in third grade, my friend introduced me to the song "All I ask of You" from "The Phantom of the Opera" as we were preparing for the talent show in school. I instantly fell in love with it and "The Phantom of the Opera" became the first major obsession in my life. I watched the movie version over ten times and when I memorized all the lyrics, my parents took me to Broadway to see the show. I saw it on the third floor of the Majestic Theater and experienced some emotions that I've never felt before. Literally, I was struck to my deepest soul. When the red curtains fell and woke everyone from their dreams, I sat blankly, staring at the white mask abandoned alone, untill cheerful murmur of the audience ceased to an unknown void, some emptiness and hunger that could not be satisfied. This was truly my magical moment. I declared that very day to my parents that I'll become a musical actor.

4. Theater Seoul


"Choonhyang: True Love" the Musical in Hanoi, Vietnam

(2013, Celebrating the 20^th anniversary of South Korea-Vietnam Diplomatic Relations. Along with BIGBANG!!!) Third row left.

I have performed as an actor in sixteen productions of a youth theatre company called “Theatre Seoul” for six years. Though those days were mostly full of frustration and failure, there were sparks of ecstasy and excitement on stage that held me through it. From 4th grade to 9th grade, I spent all my school breaks practicing and performing musicals in "Theater Seoul". I transformed myself into diverse characters including Scarecrow, Sebastian, Helena, Lion, Bianca, Fogg, Juliet, and Hyang-dan. Later on, I stood on the stages of different cities―Hanoi, Dubai, and finally, New York City.

At first, I started out as one of ensemble dancers. I had to learn Korean dance such as fan dance and sword dance for the first time in my life and it was hard for a person like myself who had a reputation for clumsy and stiff dancing. On my third overseas performance at New York City, I was casted as Hyang-dan, the lead role of the musical "Choonhyang: True Love".  I've never done a such comical character before so I felt like I met my limits several times and sometimes surrendered all hope because of the fear that I had no innate talent during that journey to New York. However, when I finally arrived at this vibrant mecca of musicals, one audience raised his thumbs up for me after the show and I felt that someday I must return to this city.

I can't say that my long experience in Theater Seoul was always sunny and beautiful. I often faced unjustice and a strict hierarchy between the actors and the creators. Sometimes, the young actors were exploited by the adults without knowing. However, Theater Seoul remains the biggest part of childhood memory and the start of my love for musical theater.
 
5. Starbucks

♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡MY TRUE LOVE♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡



Tea Lemonade in Amsterdam

Finally got my name right!






Signature Hot Chocolate in London
They got my name wrong:-(

I love Starbucks. Starbucks literally raised me. I wrote my high school essay, done my before-test cramming, done tons of homework, and wrote a pile of essays there. I go to the Starbucks every day when I'm out of the dorm and most times eat signature chocolate or green tea frappuchino and stay there for hours with some books, a computer, and some textbooks. I love there because it has great food and a lively atmosphere and it is a place where I don't get stressed out even with a long to-do-list and plenty of studying to do. I go to Starbucks at every city I travel to and compare the prices. I've went to Starbucks in Hongkong, London, Paris, Budapest, Brugge, Amsterdam, Lueven, Fukuoka, and Singapore. (By the way, Japan has the best matcha frappuchino with a cheap price and a great taste so you should definitely taste it.) It's interesting that Starbucks, unlike those in Korea, write the customer's name on the takeout cup. The funny thing is that they get my name wrong every time. In London, even though I spelled out my name for them, they wrote "Miso", not Minsuh. In Brugge, I just simplified my name and told that my name was Min but they wrote it as "Ming", somewhat like a Chinese name. Finally, in Amesterdam, they spelled it out correctly. Compared to Starbucks in other cities, Starbucks in Korea is one of the most expensive one and also the one with the best service and atmosphere. I felt that while Starbucks is perceived as a pretty expensive, almost luxurious cafe in Korea, Starbucks is more of a cheap, daily cafe in other countries. Anyways, Starbucks has been my companion and savior during my travels because even in a strange, unknown city, every time I saw Starbucks, I suddenly felt relieved since I could ask for help if someone attacks me or just go get some nice food if I'm hungry.  

6. Orange juice "disease"
You would have never heard of this disease until now but I know it exists because I suffered from it when I was little. When I was about 20 months old or so, I had to move on from breast-feeding to milk powder because I was getting to old to be breast-fed. But when my mother stopped breast-feeding me, I refused to eat milk powder but binged on orange juice. I became really sick so my parents took me to the doctor bewildered and the doctor diagnosed my case as orange juice disease. well, this is quite understandable. Think of a baby eating nothing else but orange juice and refusing to eat the nutritious baby food. At least, she got tons of vitamin and sugar. Anyways, my parents forbid me to drink orange juice and gradaully I graduated from breast-feeding and orange juice and moved on to powder milk. However, I believe that getting banned from my true desire was pretty traumatic since even now, I can drink 1L of orange juice every day if I have the supply and fill my bottle with orange juice every morning.

7. Vienna, Virginia


8. Sister

 

 I have an older sister, Minkyung, who is 8 years older than me. I would never have been born if it weren't for my sister. My sister wanted a younger sibling so much that she begged our parents to give birth to me. When Minkyung was in middle school and I was a baby, Minkyung would always wash me, dress me, and walk me to preschool in the morning before going to school. When I was in elementary or middle school, I always just said sorry whenever my sister was angry at me and we never had a fight. It was only me getting scolded so she sometimes felt like a second mom to me.

As I grew older, I depended on my sister more and more and now we are very close and have serious and emphatic conversations. The eight years gap is no longer a problem because we, grown in the same environment, instinctly understand each other although we have very different personalities. Even though we are far away from each other since my sister is majoring European relations in a graduate school in Belgium currently, we talk over the phone or do skype frequently. We talk about daily life, school, friends, boys, college, future, parents, and just about everything. One of our favorite activity is going to the comic book cafe and read Detective Conan all day long (which I'll talk about later on).

My sister became good at cooking after spending six months in Spain alone as a transfer student. She often cooks me pesto pasta, tomato spaghetti, gambas al ajillo, and guagamole. When we lived together in Belgium for a month this winter, we cooked a delicious dinner togeth everyday, including braised spicy chicken with vegetables, Buldak carbonara ramen, grilled pork belly, spicy noodles, and tteokguk.

In my eyes, Minkyung is the prettiest girl of her age with a great sense of fashion. She is always hardworking and nice to everyone. She is quite opposite of myself as she pursues a stable life, spending time with the people she loves while I seek for a challenging and pioneering life. I think my sister is sort of similar to our mother while I am more similar to our father. She has tons of goofiness that is hidden under her kind appearance which is sometimes incomprehensible but quite cheerful.

Actually, she is quite pretty.

One thing that I learn a lot from my sister is love. I don't believe in true love (yet) because I've never experienced it until now. However, when I see my sister, I see that true love exists. Minkyung and her boyfriend have been dating for almost four years and she dated three years with her ex-boyfriend. I sometimes ask my sister if she never gets bored or tired of meeting the same person for such a long time and she answers "When you really love someone, time passes so fast just by looking t each other." Their love is so great that they messaged each other through the app "Between" during the whole Europe trip and even skyped in front of Centre Pompidou in Paris.  



9. English literature

10. Cheerleading



Left in the front row stretching her legs

11. "A Separate Peace"
The most influential book in my life. It is a coming-of-age novel about two boys, Gene and Phineas, in a private school like KMLA during the World War. Before I read this book, I never truly understood the adults' advices about reading in adolescence when they say that the emotions we feel at this age can't be felt again and that these emotions would last forever. However, I realized how literature can touch one's emotions as I genuinely sympathized with Gene's jealousy and sense of inferiority towards Phineas. I cried for the first time while reading a book. (although the book which made me cried the "most" is replaced by "Princess Deok-hye") 

12. Relationships

13. Singing

14. Psychology

15. Europe

I traveled Europe for three weeks this winter break. I went to Paris, London, Budapest, and Brugge and lived in my sister's house in Lueven, Belgium for 2 weeks. Since it was my first time traveling in European cities other than Rome, which I traveled with my family when I was ten, and didn't have the opportunity to go on a vision trip in my freshman year, going to Europe was refreshing and interesting. I traveled the previous three cities with my sister and toured Brugge, which is 2 hours away from Lueven by myself. I faced a lot of racism along the road and had to suffer sexual harrassment. I felt that being an Asian woman made me very vulnerable and easy to attack. The most meaningful experience on my trip was seeing "Matilda the musical" which I have anticipated for so long. Also, I got to relax since my daily routine in Lueven was waking up at 11, having lunch, then, taking a nap at 2, going to a local cafe at 4, cooking dinner at 6, watching a movie or reading a book from 8, and going to sleep at 11. During my leisure time, I watched over ten movies and read The Picture of Dorian Gray and Pride and Prejudice once more. Now that I am back at school, I live on these memories, thinking of the happy times whenever I feel exhausted or stressed out.
16. Freedom and independence

17. Rights

18. Childhood goofing around
In elementary school, I didn't go to Hakwon so I had tons of time after-school so sometimes I took up to three after-school classes, such as creative math or went to the library and read almost all the books in our school library. Most of the times, I goofed around outdoors playing alone or with friends. When I was in the US, I usually ran to the tree in front of my house and clinged to the tree branch (Recently, I searched my previous house through Google map and found out that the tree was cut.) or went to the playground and play on the swings. In Korea, my friends and I often played "Running-man" game for hours riding the bike and we would grab some ice cream afterwards or buy pizza from a nearby cheap "Pizza school" for lunch. Also we jumped into the fountain and swam in it in summer. Since I don't often play outdoors but rather go to a cafe or stay home nowadays, these experiences are irreplacable memories.

19. Theater-lover
I love to go to the theater to watch performances as well as standing on stage as a performer myself. Before I came to KMLA, I watched 25 to 30 musicals, plays, and concerts a year from 7th grade. Now that I live in a dormitory, I try to watch as many performances on Seol or Chuseok vacation and have as much culture experience as possible. Last year, I watched 17 performances. Also I am a big fan of several musical actors including Jeon Dongseok whom I loved for 5 years. I wait for them at the stage door after performances and get signatures or take pictures with them often. I have over 50 tickets and almost 10 signatures kept in a box holding all my theater related souvenirs.

 

                                      


20. Strong goal of life
People say that I have a clear and definite goal of my life. I thought of this as my strongest point: having a passionate dream of a career in the musical theater. I have had this dream from 3rd grade and have pursued it for 9 years until now. It's good to have a certain goal since you can plan things to do to achieve the goal and work towards it without straying away. However, at the same time, it could be harmful. In my case, I find the meaning of life by imagining my future as a successful person who reached the apex of her dream career, which is sort of ironic since my life motto is YOLO and "Carpe Diem". When this future image of myself doesn't feel appealing anymore, I lose the purpose of meaning. As I went through these emotions and thoughts, I realized that although it's good to have a point you're heading to, being purely goal-oriented is dangerous. Also because I have a strong interest about my future career, I'm super boring and simple because all of my hobbies and favorite things are centered around musical theater. Therefore, these days, I try to find other interesting fields such as psychology or English literature and things that make me happy and fulfilled at that very moment, instead of just running toward my goal.

21. What I want to influence
In the future, my major goal is to fix the crisis that the Korean musical industry is facing right now and come up with the solutions that will open new possibilities for the development of the industry. One problem is that since female audience in their twenties or thirties occupy over seventy percent of the whole audience, the number of audience is strictly limited. It is crucial to bring diverse types of audience to theatre in order for the Korean musical industry to develop.

Because of various factors including the small number of audience, these days, there are nearly no one who gains economic profit in the process of producing a musical in the Korean musical market. Since the production companies are continuously recording deficits, the staffs or the performers don’t receive their payment and as a result, the companies produce another musical to fill in losses, doing what they call “robbing Peter to pay Paul” or “digging a hole to fill in another”. However, this causes serious problems. Because the companies are producing performances with debt, not real capital, countless productions founder due to lack of finance. Then how can everybody “win-win” and earn profit when it is very difficult to reach the break-even point?

There are so many reasons behind this but to start off with what I believe is the most crucial is the expensive license fees since license musicals, which means imported musicals often from West End, Broadway, or Austria that are translated into Korean, take over a majority of produced musicals in Korea. Therefore, in the future, I want to create well-made original Korean musicals that can attract diverse audiences and be exported in the world market.

Also, it is important to attract diverse audience groups and make more people to buy tickets for the performances. Since the tickets are considered to be too expensive, people, other than musical lovers, don’t buy tickets so the companies struggle to fill the seats by giving out invitation tickets and discounts which hurts the company's profit badly. The reason why such problem happens lies on the unique feature of Korean musical market. Even though the tickets in Korea are not especially costly compared to Broadway or foreign markets, the difference between Korean and Broadway market is that the age group that occupies the majority of Broadway audience is middle aged white middle class with economic ability enough to buy the most expensive tickets that cost almost 200 dollars, while in Korea, female audience in their twenties or thirties is the major audience to whom even the current ticket prices are a burden. To solve the problem, I feel the need to figure out many ways to adjust the ticket prices according to the buyer's economic status. For example, students wll be able to buy the most expensive seats at a very cheap price through lottery, like in Broadway. 
22. Parents


23. Drama queen
When we were making a nametag in our school psychology club "Psyche", we gave each member a name of a mental disorder such as dissociative identity disorder or social phobia to show that every one could have a mental weakness and that it should not be viewed as a abnormal psycho. Mine was histrionic personality disorder because in Korean, it is "theatrical personality disorder" and I am obsessed with theater. Later, I searched for the symptoms of the disorder and found out that strangely, it mildly described me. Like a person with histrionic personality disorder, I sometimes try to gain attention from others, exaggerate my emotions or expressions, and speak in a dramatic way, partly because I have performed in theater for such a long time from a young age. Apart from that, I think I'm kind of a "drama queen" because sometimes when I'm experiencing sadness, anger, or any other non-daily events, I feel like I'm a character in some kind of movie and tend to dramatize my situation even more. Also, when I'm in a difficult situation that I want to avoid, I sometimes feel like I'm in my dream and get confused whether I'm in reality.

24. Dectective Conan
I love Dectective Conan comic books and animations. My sister introduced Conan to me in a local library when I was 9. She showed me the first volume of Dectective Conan and we borrowed the animation DVD and watched it together. I have read every volume of Conan which is almost 100 volumes and at least 300 crime cases. I watched all movie versions of Conan and currently catching up on the updated animations. My favorite pastime activity is going to the comic book cafe, ordering fried rice, ddeobokki, or ramen, and reading Conan for hours. This is also on my list of things to do with my boyfriend. I'd like to go to comic book cafe with my boyfriend at Christmas and just rest there while other places are full of people.  

25. Dreams
I have certain dreams that were replayed several times in my life. When I take a nap, I often dream myself on a conveyor velt which is surrounded by monster workers that look like Sulley or Mike from "Monsters, Inc." Also sometimes I wake up having a light seizure after dreaming of being on a roundabout that is spinning fast and then the roundabout tilts to almost 90 degrees until I fall down.

26. Sleeping
I can sleep up to 16 hours. I have weird sleeping habits such as grinding my teeth or shuddering two times before falling into deeper sleep.

27. Emotional
When I was little, I was a girl with lot of tears in daily life except when I was watching a movie or acting a tragic scene. As I grew up, I became more rational, cool-headed, and indifferent and didn't cry because of stressful things or conflicts in daily life. However, I become a big softy when I am watching a movie or a performance or when I am acting on stage. For example, when I played Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet", I cried so hard in the suicide scene that my voice cracked while I was singing and couldn't stop my tears until the end of curtain call.

28. Chocolate
I love all sorts of chocolatey things. I especially like dark chocolate. I like chocolate cake, chocolate bar, hot chocolate, brownie, chocolate ice cream, and etc. When I was in Europe, I tried hot chocolate every day in different cafes in different countries. Hot chocolate never dissapoints me. The most impressive drink was the one with hot milk foam poured over a spoonful of dark chocolate drops.



This is hot cholcolate sold in New York Cafe

in Budapest, Hungary, the only chocolate

drink I couldn't conquer becuase it was way

too thick and heavy.  

29. Food
I am extremely enthusiastic when it comes to food. I can overcome all my laziness just to go to a good restaurant. For example, I once took the subway and transfered twice just to go to Sinsegye department store an hour away from my house to eat delicious desert. 

30. Perfect happiness
My perfect happiness is watching a movie or a TV series while eating something delicious. I am a bit obsessed about making every moment perfect. I don't eat something delicious without a good movie or watch something on television without something to eat. My roomates can see me turning on a movie whenever I eat ramen at lunch or dinner time even though I have only 10 minutes left.