So last Monday, July 20th, I actually met the Wonder Girls!!!! It was very exciting because they're my favorite Korean girl group, I've liked them ever since I saw the Tell Me music video on Baezzi's favorites. They are trying to break into the US market and are doing really well. You should all support them and buy their CD on itunes and call your local radio stations to play Nobody on the radio.
Anyways, Wonder Girls are on tour with the Jonas Brothers. Along with Honor Society and Jordin Sparks, Wonder Girls are opening at every single Jonas Brothers concert (minus like 3). I know there are going to be people who are so anti-Jonas Brothers that they write "I hate Jonas Brothers" but honestly whatever, they're helping Wonder Girls succeed so don't hate.
In June, there was a contest sponsored by JYP called "Wonder Girls and the Fan*tastics." Basically, all you had to do was make a 30 second video saying why you should meet the Wonder Girls and if selected, you would get to meet the Wonder Girls, take pics with them, and get autographs at one of the Jonas Brothers concerts. After the concert, you had to hand out flyers to people coming out to promote the Wonder Girls. So I was immediately like dayum I wanna do this. So I whipped out my ghetto webcam that I bought in Taiwan and made a 28 second video. I'm not going to post it here because it's so embarrassing but it was me in a bathrobe (I had a shirt underneath though) introducing myself and saying, "A lot of times, some of my friends will make fun of me for listening to the Wonder Girls but I like them so much that I keep listening. It would be really awesome if I could help promote the Wonder Girls in America." Then I sent it in, applying for the Uniondale, NY concert. This was the closest one to CT (where I live) and NYC (where I work). Then I went on youtube and looked at some other people's videos. They had uploaded them to show them off I guess. They were all so good like wtf, all these people doing the tell me dance or like showing off their wonder girls merchandise or showing how they taught their dog to sing nobody or whatever. And I was like ahh I got no chance.
I was chilling at work last Thursday and my phone rang. I never pick my phone up at work so I listened to the voicemail at lunch. And it was some woman from JYP entertainment asking me to call back about Wonder Girls and the Fan*tastics concert! And I was like oh my god holy shit. So I called this JYP person back and she just asked me for my age and what day I could go to the concert. Then she said that they were still reviewing videos and she would call me back later. So I thought to myself FML I still haven't won!! But then later that day I was heading back home on the train and JYP was calling me again. And the person said that I was going to meet the Wonder Girls on Monday the 20th! She said I should also make a tee shirt for the Wonder Girls to sign. So on Sunday night I stayed up until like 2:30 which is late b/c I had work the next day ironing on the names of the Wonder Girls and song names to my shirt. (So Hot Sohee, Nobody But you Yubin etc). I was so bad at using the iron like i burned the shirt multiple times but I made it with lots of love for the Wonder Girls.
Shirt (lol)
+ Show Spoiler +
Monday came and I still had not heard anything back from JYP and I was getting mad nervous. I spent all day at work on soompi and wgspectacle trying to find other people who were going and seeing if they had gotten details. But instead my boss gave me something to do so I was like well that sucks. Anyways, day ended and I got on the train to the arenaaa.
They didn't provide us with tickets to the concert so I bought one myself for 50 dollars. Correct, I spent 50 dollars on a Jonas Brothers ticket. I went into the arena and jesus it was SO LOUD. There must have been over a zillion little girls in that room screaming and my ears were really hurting.
Arena:
+ Show Spoiler +
Finally, Wonder Girls came out. Ye Eun said, "Hello, we are the Wonder Girls!!" her English is really good. The Wonder Girls taught the Nobody dance and surprisingly enough the audience actually got into it. Everyone clapped at the right times and they got the whole index finger thing. Those girls picked up on the dance faster than I have and I've seen the music video 34 times and music bank/inkigayo/music core etc performance 26 times! Then they sang Nobody. It was really good, the dance was basically perfect and their vocals have really improved. The mics worked well. The crowd wasn't like EXTREMELY loud but I think people enjoyed it. I was yelling really loudly I felt kinda silly because I was alone but whatevs.
Wonder Girls!:
+ Show Spoiler +
After they were done singing Yubin yelled "Enjoy Jordin Sparks" but the "Jordin" came out sounding like "Jonas" so everyone was like whooo hooo Jonas Brothers are coming but then Jordin Sparks came out and the little girl behind me said to her mom "No, Mom she said Jordin Sparks" and I was saying to myself lol engrish but whatever cause Wonder Girls are awesome.
Once Wonder Girls got off stage I got a text on my phone and it said "Meet at the Verizon bus at 9 PM." It was from the JYP rep. So I thought it was a little sketch but I headed out to the bus right after Jordin Sparks sang tattoo. When I got out there, there were already a couple of Fan*tastics at the bus. The demographic was kind of interesting. There was one frat kid (Asian) who had just graduated from college, a couple other normal run of the mill Asians, a little Korean girl who couldn't have been more than 14, a 27 year old white pre school teacher and his white friend, 2 Indian girls like high school age, one like middle aged balding asian man, and me (another generic asian). It was split pretty evenly 50/50 boy girl with about 12 people. So we were like chilling outside this bus speculating if Wonder Girls were going to come outside or what but then their agent came out. And she was like ok, I'm going to give you VIP wristbands now so when I call your name come forward. And I was like saying to myself what if this is a mistake and they didn't mean to call me? I would feel so dumb in my Wonder Girls shirt like just standing there. But luckily she did call my name.
We all went backstage and we were talking amongst ourselves like where are the Wonder Girls at???? Then the agent took us to this gymnasium under the stadium, and told us to wait on one side of the gymnasium while she went to get the Wonder Girls. So we were just waiting there and suddenly one of the other Fan*tastics screamed "omg it's Jordin Sparks!"And we all looked and Jordin Sparks was taking some pictures in this corner. So we kinda walked over to her side and asked if we could get her autograph! And it was kind of awk because she was in the middle of some photos but she just stopped and was like suuuure. We asked her if she knew the Wonder Girls and she said of course! And she did some of the Nobody dance for us. She was very nice, let us take pictures with her and she signed my postcard of the wonder girls. Her manager kept saying "Jordin, we gotta go, we need to leave." But she ignored him and kept talking to us!
Well Jordin left and then the doors on the other side of the gym opened and it was the JYP agent and the Wonder Girls!!!!!! We all whipped out our cameras and started taking pictures. They are really really pretty and skinny in real life. Wooow. Yubin's skin is like a perfect shade of bronze...they all looked really great. All of the Fan*tastics were like oh my goddd it's the Wonder Girls. Like it hadn't hit me at the time that these were the same people that I've seen on youtube like a zillion times. Crazy shit.
Here come the Wonder Girls!
+ Show Spoiler +
So the Wonder Girls walked over to us and took group pictures with each of us. I was kind of nervous so was everybody else though. When it was my turn I didn't know what kind of pose to do, so I just reverted to the "gangsta FOB" and tried to look ok. But apparently that was confusing because Sohee who was standing next to me like opened her mouth and I think she was asking me how she wanted them to pose but it was like whatevs, cause the manager just took the picture. So it turned out like this, where only me and Sohee are doing the peace sign. Which I'm totally down for cause Sohee is so awesome. So then some more of the Fan*tastics got their pictures and then RANDOMLY one of them just ran up to them and started hugging each Wonder Girl. And we were all like uhh...ok.
Wonder Girls backstage:
+ Show Spoiler +
After everyone took their pictures, the door opened again and JYP walked in. He was just chilling on his iphone, wearing these checkered shorts. Everyone was like wow it is the man himself, the genius behind Rain, Wonder Girls, 2 AM, 2 PM, etc. WHOA. He just kind of smiled and waved. Then the agent said we were going to get all of our stuff signed by the Wonder Girls. We didn't form a line so it was kind of awk at first with everyone not sure who to go to first. But eventually it was ok; I went to Sun mi first. She has RED hair how WACK is that?? But she looks really great in it. She signed my shirt, my postcard, and the Nobody CD I had bought in ktown NYC the weekend before. Then I talked to Sun ye I think. She signed my stuff and I started talking to her about what Wonder Girls' plan for America is. And she said they are definitely doing an English version of "So Hot" and "Tell me." She wasn't sure about "eebaboo" or "irony" though. Sohee was SO NICE wowww. I asked her if she could write my name on my CD and she was like sure. Then she wrote my name on everything else too. On the shirt she wrote my name and an exclamation point after it! I like Sohee a lot because whenever Wonder Girls win an award she is always bowing and she seems so humble. And she really is like that, she wouldn't stop saying thank you and smiling. One kid had this like postcard with Sohee's picture on it and when she saw it she was like "whoaaa" like very surprised. It was cute. I told Yubin I like her raps and she kind of laughed lol.
Wonder Girl:
+ Show Spoiler +
Yubin's english is really good, I think it is a little better than Sohee's, she seemed a little more confident but they are all really good at English. Then their agent started to say "we have to go girls, gotta go." And Ye Eun was talking to a fan and she was like ok hold on hold on. But she hadn't signed my shirt yet so I was like saying to myself oh noo don't leave. Luckily Ye Eun is so nice and she saw me and she was like "I don't think I've signed your stuff yet" and I said "Don't worry if you have to go" but she just came over and signed everything!
+ Show Spoiler +
Next, there happened to be 2 people from www.allkpop.com at this session so they asked if the Wonder Girls would say something for allkpop. They actually didn't know what allkpop was but I think JYP did and their manager definitely did. So first they all lined up and they were talking with their manager like "What should we say..." and they said some stuff to each other in Korean but I didn't understand it. Then they got ready and the camera started rolling. Then the first Wonder Girl (I think it was Sun Ye) was like "Hello, we are the Wonder Girls." And she was obviously expecting all the girls to say "Wonder Girls" with her but they didn't so she stopped and was like "uhh..." so they had to redo it. So then the camera started rolling again and Sun Ye and the rest said "Hello, we are the Wonder Girls." But they hadn't planned what to say next very well so there was this awk silence. Eventually Yubin I think it was Yubin broke it and said, "Wait let's start with the Nobody dance." So, cut again. The camera started going, they did the nobody dance (just the nobody nobody but you part), then they said "Hello, we are the Wonder Girls." Then one of them started talking like "Get our new single etc." After she was done they were all like "uhhh let's do it again i don't think that turned out all that well." So cut again. Then they did it again, this time it was much much smoother and the result is the video that is now on allkpop.com!
Finally the Wonder Girls had to leave. We waved byeee to them. Next, JYP came over. We chatted with him for a bit, he says he gets 400-500 tweets A DAY so it's hard for him to read them all. JYP's english is basically perfect, I was really really really impressed. We took some pictures with JYP and some people complimented him. Then he said that from now on we're like the fan base in the New York area and if Wonder Girls ever have any events in New York area JYP will call us first and we can come to the event and help out and work with him. Scoooore. He thanked us and left.
JYP:
+ Show Spoiler +
So we actually had a responsibility too lol. The assistant took us back upstairs and gave us big boxes of postcards that had information on the Wonder Girls and pictures of them to pass out to people as they left the concert. I got really into it lol. I was like "Wonder Girls are the number one group in Asia, such good music, so popular, so pretty." Then when I got bored of that I would go up to the girls coming out of the concert and tell them that I had a huge crush on all the Wonder Girls, totally check them out on itunes. I would give the postcards to their moms and dads too and I'd be like "take one so you guys can have a family set" lol. Anyways, WAY more people wanted them or took the cards than blew me off. I was really happy about that. Some people even came up to me and asked me for some. The other Fan*tastics were really good at passing the cards out too
The Wonder Girls were doing a meet and greet (take a picture with them) outside the arena. The line to meet them was SO LONG. jesus. There were some asians there but honestly it was mostly non asian ppl. There was this one boy who really really was like dying to meet them but for some reason he couldn't find the end of the line even when I pointed him in the right direction. But he got there eventually i think lol. They were looping "Nobody" on the speakers so I think it got stuck in people's heads which is a good thing. I was so excited passing out the postcards lol, I even went up to the production manager and was like "Did you like the Wonder Girls?" And he was like "uhh...dude. i'm like their manager..." and I was like oh my bad homeslice. Then he came around with a camera and I was like yelling into the camera "I love the Wonder Girls, I love Nobody, they are the greatest, Wonder Girls Fighting!!" Meanwhile, JYP is just like kinda walking around the Meet and Greet area on his iphone, totally chill. And everyone is walking past him, quite a difference from if it were in Korea...he would've probably been mobbed or something in Seoul!
Eventually my mom came to pick me up and she was really eager to leave probably cause she thought I was being dumb (like a 19 yr old passing postcards out what a chobo). But I was like noo I gotta stay and help promote the Wonder Girls. So she basically forced me out. I said thank you thank you to their production manager and left which suckeddd cause all the Fan*tastics apparently got to meet the Wonder Girls at the end again and I couldn't cause I had to leave!!
Anyways, meeting Wonder Girls and helping to promote them was so great. I wish I had gotten more stuff signed and some stuff for my friends but time was short my bad. If there's another event I will definitely get stuff for my school friends if they want them.
JYP told us to try and get Wonder Girls on the radio, everywhere. Starting from the beginning of this week, every movie theater in NYC will be playing an advertisement for Wonder Girls before the movie starts. That is EXCITING because a lot of people are going to go see Harry Potter. Wonder Girls appeared on the Wendy Williams show on Monday at 10 AM so that is ballin too. They were also played on KISS radio which is a large radio station in the LA area I think. We really want to get them on z100 too.
I hope this makes up for my other one line blogs and shows that I'm not a really terrible awful writer too. Please support the Wonder Girls!
Autographed shirt:
+ Show Spoiler +
Autographed CD:+ Show Spoiler +
Edited to add more pics, sorry