 Hi guys, it's Ash, and welcome back to a new video. What was that? Why did I do the peace sign? Welcome back to a new video. Today I wanted to actually just sit down and talk to you guys because I started uploading videos on this channel for about a year again and I realized that I never actually sat down and introduced myself to you guys. I just felt like I should casually talk to you guys about me and give you guys some background info on myself and just talk about how I came to Korea and how I debuted. It's not going to be such a detailed in-depth video. I will save that for another time when you guys do get more curious. But today I just wanted to give basically like a background info. So the only reason why I'm saying I started uploading videos on this YouTube channel again is because I actually had this YouTube channel ever since 2007. So back then I was uploading Kpop dance covers on this channel. So some of you guys might actually know me from them because I kept the same channel. I just made those videos private because, you know, they're too embarrassing now anyways. So some of you guys might know me from way back then and some of you guys might know me through Ladies Code which is the Kpop group that I am in now. Or some of you guys may know me through Arirang Radio because I am currently a DJ at Arirang Radio which is a Kpop English radio for listeners abroad. So if you guys ever get the opportunity, check out Sound K every day from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Korean time. Anyways, so yeah, we're to start. I guess I'll have to start with when I was born. I was born in Incheon, South Korea on November 9th 1991 and I lived in Incheon all my life up until 2000. So that was when the economy was getting bad and my parents were struggling so my uncle who is my dad's brother who is already in the States convinced my parents to come to America. And my parents thought it was a good idea so we packed up our stuff and on August 18th 2000 we got on the plane and we landed in JFK in New York. I was always into Kpop and I loved Kpop because I grew up watching and listening to Boa, Neody, Ivy, Flight to the Sky and G.O.D. I was the biggest fangirl of G.O.D. and Flight to the Sky and I remember in my room in front of this narrow, small mirror dancing to Boa's like Sarah and number one and Atlantis Princess. That was way back in the days when I was still in elementary school. That was when Stairway to Heaven, Cheongguk-i Gye-dan was really popular and I loved Love Story in Harvard, watching all these Korean dramas and going to Korean school. I didn't forget my Korean and I always spoke Korean with my parents too. I loved to sing and dance ever since I was younger so my mom always sent me to dance schools but being a Kpop idol star was just not something that I thought about. I mean I guess I thought about it but it seemed way too unrealistic and unachievable so I just kind of suppressed my thoughts and dreams of wanting to become a Kpop singer. So everything I did singing and dancing was just as a hobby I would occasionally upload covers on YouTube and that was about it. Even though I had opportunities to audition even back then I, one, I was worried about what other people would think or say like, oh, you want to be a Kpop idol? Or I was afraid that people would doubt me. I guess I didn't fully trust myself 100% and I doubted myself too. I graduated high school and then I went into college and I realized that there wasn't anything else that I really wanted to do besides performing and being on stage so I decided to take theater classes and I was attending Acting Academy where we would film short films and I also got to be in a music video and stuff like that and through another person who was attending the Acting Academy with me he was an oppa, he was older than me he told me that some people from Korea are coming over to New York to hold auditions and he asked me if I wanted to give it a try and I was like, oh, no thank you he was like, no, just go for it it'll be a good opportunity but then the thing was that the audition was the next day so I had no time to prepare so I asked him if it was like a big company or if he knew which entertainment label it was and he said it was Cube Entertainment which I was familiar with because I was listening to a lot of Four Minute and knew about Beast at that time the next day I showed up at the audition and there were two guys and one was represented from Cube Entertainment and the other one was from AQ Entertainment when I showed up at the interview they first made me introduce myself in front of the camera telling my name, my age, my height, my weight and then they would take videos of my profiles like from the front, from the left, from the right and from the back and then after they asked me to sing and dance I just sang the song that I always sing when I go to karaoke which was Alicia Keys If I Ain't Got You which was so popular back in the days so I just sang one verse of that and for dance I think the most recent choreography I had learned at that time was Miss A's Bad Girl Good Girl so I just danced to that and when it was over they said thank you and I said thank you and I left and oh my gosh I felt awkward I don't know if I did well or not I didn't even I just left feeling uncertain the time I auditioned was May so that was when I was on break from school it was summer vacation so I needed to know if I should apply for the next semester at school so I emailed him no rush but I just needed to know if I should apply for the next school semester or not and he was like oh we're still working on it just give me some time I think the results will be positive but I'm not 100% sure so just give us some more time so I was just waiting and at first when I told my parents I got in they were still skeptical because they thought I was too old to start training because I was 20 at that time which is really late for someone to start becoming a trainee not even to debut I was skeptical too I didn't know if it was worth me leaving all my family and friends behind that I had known for the past 11 years I didn't know if I could adjust to the new life in Korea but they wanted me to pursue my dreams before it got too late and that's what I thought too because I was like when else am I gonna get this opportunity and I'm 20 you know I should at least give it a try before I get any older I think that's like what struck me and made me decide to go to Korea to pursue my dreams the audition was in May and we emailed each other back and forth for about 4 months so I was just eagerly waiting I guess there was this whole process that needed to go through before I actually go to Korea since I'm a foreigner and I'm from overseas in September they finally emailed me back saying I got in and that I needed to come to Korea by the end of this month then that's when it got like real I was like oh my gosh this is happening this is happening I'm gonna pack up my stuff and I'm gonna say bye to my friends I was like oh my gosh can I do this am I ready for this oh my gosh I fit all my stuff that I needed in two suitcases and I said bye I said my farewell to my friends and my parents and then I got on the plane and I remember crying on the plane ride I was just praying I was like praying like please god let the fellow trainees be nice let the entertainment company people be nice please let me debut I was really worried but thank goodness I had family members in Korea who came to pick me up it was my first time reuniting with them after 11 years so the first week after I came to Korea was great it was amazing being reunited with my family again and going back to my childhood neighborhood and seeing how much things had changed it really shocked me because in a span of 11 years I felt like it was a completely different place and I didn't know anything anymore I guess I was too young when I lived there coming to Seoul I just felt like oh my gosh this is a whole new world and I remember just being amazed by everything how convenient everything was after a week I made my way over to the company I signed the contract and they gave me a tour of the company the practice rooms and then they took me to the dorm there were three rooms one was used by the manager and the biggest room was I think it was used by five girls at the time and me luckily I got to share the medium sized room with one other roommate and she was also a foreigner she was from China and she was older than me but it was great to have her during my trainee days because it made my adjustment to the life in Korea and the trainee life much much easier and I'm so glad I had her by my side I spent a year at Cube Training and honestly I really enjoyed myself there and I got to make a lot of great memories with my fellow trainees I know some companies have rules like guide trainees and girl trainees can't talk to each other and can't practice with each other but we had like a family relationship and a family environment where everybody just got along we all practiced together we all hung out together of course there were some tough times appearing for our weekly and monthly evaluations were tough and seeing friends get cut every month saying bye to people as soon as you meet them it was all tough after a year this was exactly when I was just about to hit my year mark as a trainee at Cube I got a call and there were two people that wanted to meet me so I went downstairs and they just told me about how they know me from the audition they saw my videos and they really wanted me to join them at Polaris Entertainment because they are planning on debuting a new girl group early next year so I was like oh wow okay I mean I told them I would think about it and as soon as I came upstairs from the meeting the Cube Entertainment CEO was telling me how he feels bad that he would have to send me off but thinking about me and thinking about my future he said that it would be better off for me to go to the new company since they didn't have plans on debuting another girl group for like a year and a half or two years and he knew I was aging aging he knew I was getting older and he thought it would be the best for me to just debut as soon as I can so the next week I packed my stuff all up again and I headed over to Polaris Entertainment that was around October of 2012 and I started my new trainee life there but it was different because we were already fixed to debut and we already had plans we were in this project group and we were practicing our debut song Bad Girl since we had that song out already we learned the choreography we practiced it for months until our final debut which was in March of 2013 so that was when Ladies Code finally debuted with the song Bad Girl so fast forward about six years now in March it's going to be our 60 years since our debut I mean a lot of things have happened since then but I guess I need to save that for another video the last song that we promoted as Ladies Code was in September or October of 2016 called The Rain since then we didn't have official promotions as Ladies Code but we did release albums Ho Jung released a solo album and I released a solo album back in July of 2018 we are doing our individual things but official promotions hasn't been done since The Rain and that is one of the biggest reasons why I started my YouTube channel again because in kpop world you can't release albums frequently so you have a hiatus sometimes it can be as short as three months or six months or sometimes it can be as long as two years and I felt very unproductive and I wasn't motivated I needed a new creative outlet and I've always loved taking pictures and taking videos and I realized that this is something that makes me happy I hope we'll get to release a new album soon as Ladies Code I know it's been a while but yeah, what else is there I guess that's the basic storyline of how I got here and what I actually do for a living if you guys have any more questions or if you guys want to know anything more in depth feel free to leave them in the comments section below and I'm sure I will do another Q&A video and answer some more questions that you guys might have as long as it's appropriate and as long as it's something I can talk about freely so I hope you guys found this video interesting hopefully it wasn't too boring thank you so much for always supporting and showing your love it really means a lot to me and I hope that we can continue to make lots of good memories in 2019 as well thank you so much for watching and I'll see you guys in the next video bye bye