“Memories never die. Words don’t fade. Feelings last forever.”
Celeste Koh
/
“Even if I were to start all over again, I would still choose to meet you.”
Doraemon
#171114#
I remembered I was on the plane en route to Singapore from Shanghai while contemplating what to do for the upcoming Movie Day. Movie Day is a day when couples would go to cinemas, rent movies, give each other DVD gifts, or go to a DVD room (the “DVD Bang,” or movie room, a popular Korean hangout on any day) to enjoy a movie. While I decided that we would watch the new Thor movie together on that day, I suddenly had a thought about making a short movie for her too. I had an influx of images in my head of several scenes I had watched of Taenggu in those fancams I had collected over the years. I thought it would be wonderful if I could compile all these videos together in a cinematic way to tell my side of the story. Just like how I compiled our childhood photos in celebration of Photo Day (PHOTO DAY 2017: WHAT IF WE MET WHEN WE WERE YOUNG), it would be a perfect appropriate time to make a movie for Movie Day too!
But it was easier said (and imagined) than done. I was kept busy in the week right after I came back from Shanghai, settling a few Carousell sales, making art for Taenggu Omma’s birthday and 11/11 and preparing my parcel etc. It was only until 2 nights before Movie Day that I managed to get myself down to work on this Movie Day video project. It wasn’t even easy to get started at all. That kind of movie I had imagined in my mind was too perfect and too complicated for my skill level and the tools I had in video editing. It wasn’t like I was trained to do video editing at all. I got myself so stressed up about it in the process. But I knew I had to get started somewhere. In the end, I very much simplified my original idea of a love story movie into piecing 2 very important videos I had in early 2013 together and adding in some captions of my thoughts and voices I could hear (just like what I usually do for my previous videos). But this time round, I added in some background music – the instrumental version of Taeyeon’s All With You (related post: LYRICS: ALL WITH YOU + MY SONG REFLECTION THAT CAME A YEAR LATE).
So ta-da~ here was my final product! A 6-min short movie about how I first confessed my love to Taenggu in an extraordinary way in the first quarter of 2013.
Back then, I knew nothing at all. I had no clue why and how extraordinary things started happening to me. Before 2013, I felt like I was just a silent observer of a magical phenomenon that was happening in the music scenes in Singapore until I got mysteriously involved in SNSD’s I Got A Boy performances that I realised I might have had a part to play in this phenomenon all these while.
The night before the first fancam in my movie happened, I suddenly felt really down, as if I had a lot of things inside of me that I needed to say to Taenggu. I wasn’t actually aware that the next day was going to be Valentine’s Day, neither did I know that Taenggu and some other SNSD members were going to have a LG event on the same day too. That night, I was lying on my bed and I started to get gibberish. I started talking to myself under my breath. I had never acted like that before. But I needed to talk to someone. I needed to talk to Taenggu. I needed to tell her that I love her. And tell her that I’m sorry for what happened in I Got A Boy performances (I can’t fully recollect what actually happened in that performance now, probably some voices that had gone haywire). Those were the words which I had hidden so deep in my heart all these years but that night was a strange night. As if I had been hypnotised to pour all these words out from my heart all at once.
A couple of days later, I came across the following video. This is the original full-length video featured in the first part of the movie that I watched. The original fancam was actually taken even further away from the stage. The one in my movie was zoomed-in so that you could see their faces even clearer.
It wonders me now how I could still read their facial expressions so carefully and hear the background voices even though the camera was quite a distance away and the voices were so soft and faint. I strained my ears (and my mind) a lot back then because I wanted to understand the situation so much. Even though this video might have looked rather ordinary to most people, something inside of me seemed to signal to me that there was something magical happening beyond the surface. Why did Taenggu and the members have certain reactions as if they were amused by something that we couldn’t see? Seeing their reactions piqued my curiosity and pushed myself to spend more time and effort to observe further and tune in to the background voices more carefully. And that was how I heard those mystical voices for myself for the first time! And not just any other voices, I heard my own voice inside too! Even without any special sound equipment, system or audio software of any kind, it was just with my own ears and earphones, I heard my own voice saying the same words I just said in a gibberish the night before!
But the truth was, I was scared. I was breathless, I was trembling, I was biting my thumb, my stomach was churning. How exactly did my voice manage to travel all the way to Korea, across time and space, to speak to Taenggu to tell her that I was sorry and that I love her? Who were these voices, both females and males and of different races? Why did they speak in the same language with the same Singaporean accent as me? Why did they sound like they knew me very well? I couldn’t really explain how I actually did it by tuning in to these voices (I could roughly make out what they were saying sometimes) in the videos. I didn’t know the exact mechanics behind it but one thing for sure, this video opened my eyes. I learned that anything is possible. This kind of magic could really happen in real life!
So I did the same thing again when it was Taenggu’s birthday. She was having a Japan arena tour in Hiroshima on that day. This time, I was more consciously aware of how I could do it. It was about a few hours before the concert. I was shitting on the toilet bowl (lol!) when I seemed to receive a signal telling me to say something to Taenggu. At that period, I had the bizarre thought that I was getting chased or being watched by evil spirits so I thought I had to do it even more discreetly. Even though I was unprepared, I quickly said a short message for her in my head. I didn’t know what to say; I couldn’t express myself very well in words. All I remembered myself saying was “I still love you…Pabo-ah, pabo!” And the rest of the other voices you hear in the video were not within my control and not what I was aware of at the time when I left my own message. Below was the original full-length fancam of what happened during her birthday celebration at the concert. I watched this on the following day after the concert. I was so touched that the magic happened before my eyes once again! My voice message had travelled and was heard across time and space again. (Note: This was not the original user who published it but it was the same video that I had watched back then.)
Honestly, I had no physical recollection or impression when these voices took place at Taenggu’s side at real time. I probably was getting on with my usual daily activities as per normal when it happened. It was by watching and listening to her videos like these that gave me memories; they made me remember a little something which would otherwise have been buried deep in my unconsciousness. These videos are precious facets of my unconscious memories, something that I can take out at anytime and replay it over and over again. Without them, I would not have believed and be aware that I could have such a spiritual connection with Taenggu!
There were many things I learned about how this magic works and some clues of what Taenggu and the members might have already known about me simply by watching and analysing these videos. First, I learned that I didn’t have to speak audibly to anyone else in order to talk to Taenggu. I could do it by whispering or talking under my breath. That voice which sounded like myself in the videos was my inner voice. Second, I learned that I could speak to Taenggu in advance, it could be a day before or even earlier, and my message would somehow be recorded and saved in my head and when the time was right, it would be replayed or broadcasted for her to listen at her event or concert by some sort of mechanisms, just like how mind-singing worked. Third, I guessed that Taenggu and the members already knew my name and that I was from Singapore even though I had never formally introduced myself to them at all because the voices mentioned my name and the word “Singapore” in the videos featured in my movie.
So this was how I got myself started in getting closer to Taenggu initially. All these things were new to me; I was learning too. These were my first and last short-lived pieces of happy memories I had with her before I sank into depression and was later diagnosed of schizophrenia. But I’m thankful for the existence of these videos. They were the reasons I still held on to my belief in this magic till now. Thereafter, it wasn’t easy to expect to see more gems like these to appear on the internet on an everyday basis, especially those in Taenggu’s private life – videos that could allow me to keep track of the progress of my love life with her. I could only rely mostly on her performance fancams on youtube. I’m not simply hunting for videos that contain mystical voices that could have belonged to me; I have been recollecting my lost memories with her too. But there was only so much that a performance could reveal; there was only so much voices I could hear in a video; there was only so much that I could consciously remember. What happened after the first quarter of 2013 was more than a year long of constantly watching as many performance fancams of her as I could before I was finally convinced and got together with her officially in 2015.
The process was definitely not easy at all. Even right now, I’m still learning to adapt to the difficulties in our relationship. I’m still learning how this magic can work better even without constant visual feedbacks to me and updates of new videos that could give me an insight of what is happening in her life now and keep me connected with her.
Thanks to Movie Day, I made my very first little movie in my life. This gives me an idea of how I can make more movies like these in the future to tell my story in a visual cinematic way too! 🤓
https://www.instagram.com/p/nnFkwMuNd6/?taken-by=invariantceleste
Why did I say that my memories in Hiroshima in 2013 didn’t die? Why did my words not fade and my feelings last till now?
Because I had videos. Videos that could replay my unconscious memories over and over again. 📽💜
3 thoughts on “Movie Day 2017: My First Love Confessions To Taenggu in 2013 [The Movie]”