7-10 March 2020
I had been feeling really tired and torn apart lately. Despite trying to stay positive and keep myself busy by making artworks for Taenggu and writing actively, I couldn’t help feeling empty and depressed every now and then. One major reason for my feelings of depression is that I haven’t been earning any income for what I do. Especially recently, I was almost confirmed for a UAT tester job with AIA only to be told after 2 weeks of waiting for the HR’s confirmation on my start work date that there had been some last minute changes to the job scope (which was also no longer what I desired) and they didn’t find me suitable anymore after a second round of interview. While I tried my best to look on the bright side thinking that the job might not be suitable for me after all, I felt cheated. I had a strong feeling that some sort of energy had deliberately sabotaged what I thought would be the best plan for me.
As my mental state was getting kind of unstable during such hard times, I wished I could have someone to talk to who is aware of all these things that were going through inside of me. I wanted to know who was the culprit behind all these negative energies I had been facing for a long time. I wanted to know who caused all the bodyaches, stress and tension on me which I had to put up with since a few years ago. But I don’t have anybody close to me who knows and understands the Kpop entertainment industry. I have held my suspicions against Taenggu’s company, SM Entertainment for a long time. I wanted to know the truth.
On the night of 7th March, amidst all the confusion and mental breakdown, since I had no one to talk to, I started talking to myself again. I kept mumbling to myself. Asking questions and even saying all the things that I think I know. And I felt there were people listening and interrogating me in return. There were wolves lurking out there. You never know who exactly these listeners were and whether they could be trusted.
Even when I was in the shower, I put some songs to play over the bluetooth speaker, but I wasn’t really listening. My mind was filled with voices and troubled thoughts. I was paying too much attention to what’s going in my head that what songs were playing didn’t really matter anymore. I remembered hearing a voice mention “my father…” but it was quickly drown out by other voices. This wasn’t actually the first time I heard “my father…” But everytime I heard these words, an image of Lee Soo Man would creep into my mind. So I really hated it when the voices would refer to Lee Soo Man as “my father” because I really don’t see him like my father at all. It’s ridiculous. So I hated to hear these words as I never understood what the voice was trying to say. (I also heard words like “Papa YG” a lot which I hated so much!)
As I came out of the shower, I was about to switch off the bluetooth speaker but Shinee’s Our Page began to play. I was like, hmm this song sounds quite nice, so I let it continue to play for awhile in the bathroom as I blew dry my damp hair outside at the basin. But the music began to sound choppy suddenly as there seemed to be some strange interference with the signal. Alright, let’s not listen to music anymore for now. I switched off my music player.
That night, I went to sleep, murmuring to myself like that while hugging my bunny Bobo as usual. I also noticed I had been feeling strange aching pain on my chest that came and went for a few days. I closed my eyes, put on a steamed eye mask and saw a big golden buddha head right next to me. Right, it might be a sign that I was in danger or had gotten into some trouble, I thought. Buddha was coming to help. That reminded me strangely that there had been several voices saying, “But she’s a Buddhist, she’s a Buddhist!” lately. I thought it was so mean. So what if I’m a Buddhist? What’s wrong with me being a Buddhist?? It’s strange and I don’t understand what they mean. Anyway, I had my steamed eye mask on and tried to fall asleep with a disturbed mind. Voices were repeating, “Rest in peace, rest in peace, rest in peace!” “Who the hell are they? They are so mean. Trying to curse me to death,” I thought.
It was 8th March the next morning. I woke up with my hands feeling really numb. I felt like there was a guy inside of me trying to punch someone. That someone was Lee Soo Man. I thought, the culprit behind all those psychic attacks I had been suffering and roadblocks I encountered on my life path had been confirmed. It was him! Feelings of anger, hate and resentment began to build up within me. So I wanted to fight back. So a series of spiritual warfare began in my mind. Arrows, spears, fire, snakes and whatever started shooting to and fro. Once in a while, I even saw a vision of Choi Siwon’s face popping up. I don’t know why he was involved as well but oh well. And other times, I also saw SM CEO, Kim Young Min’s face too. Awhile later, Siwon’s face came flashing in my mind again and he said, “You didn’t win.”
Even as all these spiritual warfare were going on behind the scene, I carried on with what I wanted to do for the day. I got to know through updates by some other artists whom I follow on instagram that it was International Women’s Day today. It seemed like it was going to be a special and meaningful day.
Coincidentally, I had planned to donate blood with a friend today (it was her idea btw). But my mum wanted me to go out for lunch with her and my father. I had to tell her that I wasn’t free as I was going to donate blood with my friend in the afternoon. Then, she started to get agitated about it, saying things like why I donate blood and money all the time, did doing these things really help me at all?? I got confused and tried to explain to her that I didn’t actually do that a lot. The last time was actually on my birthday in 2017 and I hadn’t donated since. But she didn’t seem to understand what I said and left the house unhappily.
It got me in a really bad mood too. But as I calmed down by myself at home, I began to seriously ponder about what my mum just said. Did my life start to go downhill ever since my blood donation on 20 Nov 2017? Maybe she made sense. I was about to message my friend to tell her that I wouldn’t donate blood today but would still accompany her to do it. She replied that her menstrual period just came today. Just when I thought our blood donation plan on that day would be cancelled for good naturally, she said she was still keen on donating, despite me telling her that I don’t think the bloodbank would allow women undergoing their period to donate blood. Meanwhile, my sis messaged to ask what I would be doing today. I told her about donating blood with my friend. Her response was, oh it’s a great thing to do! But I told her about our mum’s behaviour and that I decided to cancel the plan because of that, she said I shouldn’t be influenced by her and encouraged me to go ahead. On the other hand, my friend messaged again to say that she just called up the bloodbank and confirmed that it is not advisable for her to donate blood at all while having her period. YES so it was final – we BOTH wouldn’t be donating blood today. But we would still meet for lunch together at Causeway Point.
So we met at the food court and ordered some drinks. I brought with me a packet of vegetarian hokkien mee that was an extra one which my father asked my brother to buy back for him before he eventually decided to eat out with my mum and told me to have it or else it would be wasted. My friend herself bought food at the food court and we ate together. We chatted with each other at the same time. I also confided in her about what happened to the AIA job which I almost had gotten and that I had been feeling depressed lately. With her bright personality, she said really positive words that cheered me up a lot. One of the things she said in particular left a deep impression in me. “Actually no matter what you do, the most important thing is your health.”
After lunch, we went to the Woodlands Library nearby to chill for awhile. We went around at the adult section on the third floor to look for books to borrow. My favourite corner is the one where books about spirituality and psychology are located. I saw some books about happiness and thought about Taenggu’s new song “Happy” which was going to release on the next day, so I thought it would be a good idea to borrow some of those to read as well. In the end, my friend and I each borrowed some books and parted our ways.
I went back home and I suddenly felt energy to go to the stadium for a jog for the first time in a while. After changing into exercise t-shirt and shorts, I headed off to the stadium on my own and started running at my own comfortable pace. But I knew my mind was still deeply troubled by what had been going on lately, those voices, psychic attacks and all. It made running itself even more difficult and stressful thing to do as the voices in my head added extra pressure on me. When I was about to finish my last lap, Tiffany’s voice came to my mind and declared, “Hey hey hey! I’m still here!” as if she had stepped in to address this unknown chaos in my mind.
With sheer perseverance, I completed my usual 6 rounds. While feeling all dizzy and out of breath, I walked into the narrow alley below the spectator stand where the water cooler is located. Meanwhile, voices in my head were like, “Did you see him? A man with butterfly wings! It’s him! It’s him!!” What nonsense, I thought. Who were they talking about? Jonghyun? Even though I didn’t wear my glasses, I could see there really was someone at the other end of the alley walking towards me but I was pretty sure it was just another normal human being – without butterfly wings as the voices said.
I returned home and ate a bit of my mum’s homecooked food / my father’s packed food from Malaysia (can’t remember which) for dinner. Although Taenggu’s birthday was coming in just a few hours’ time, I wasn’t too “bothered” or worried about it. At this point, I felt like I had already done whatever I could to the best of my ability – birthday artwork already completed, all new blog posts already drafted and scheduled to publish on time – making sure everything was in place for her birthday. But I felt like the voices in my mind were getting kind of hysterical and I was having a bit of “heck care, unserious, helpless” kind of attitude. Voices were saying “Taeyeon is getting angry already, Taeyeon is getting angry already”… I didn’t know what exactly she was angry about. I just thought maybe I should still spare a little bit more effort to celebrate her birthday. So just a couple of hours before midnight, I opened the fridge and asked her cutely, “Do you wanna drink beer beer or wine wine?” In the end, I opted for the can of half-drunk Tsingdao beer that was left in the fridge and sang a little birthday song for her as a mini advance celebration while giving her a toast.
After awhile, I felt the back of my head start to ache pretty badly. I realised it wasn’t a good idea to drink alcohol when my mind was already kind of unstable. I took a shower while having my music player play as usual, but my mind was filled with so many voices and visions that I didn’t really pay much attention to the music that was playing. One of the visions that I saw was a flash of Taenggu’s mum appearing in my mind for a brief second and turned away in agitation, probably because she saw me too preoccupied with my own thoughts. Anyway, all those voices and visions seemed so uncorrelated to each other that I wasn’t able to figure out what they were really talking about or what was going on.
I came out of the shower, sat down to meditate while patiently waiting for the time to countdown to midnight. Meanwhile, I had to make plans on how I was going to celebrate her birthday the next day. About a week earlier, my father had already informed me that 9th March is coincidentally also my grandma’s death anniversary. He wanted me to go down to our ancestral temple with him to pray and make offerings to my grandma, so I had to go with him in the morning. After that, I planned to head down to a korean cafe on my own. I remembered on TAENGGU’S 30TH BIRTHDAY SPECIAL: A DAY WITH SNOOPY in 2018, I wanted to get a rainbow cake from a korean cafe located at The Centrepoint for her but they didn’t serve it on that day. So I thought I could try my luck again this time to redeem my regret back then. At the same time, I could also do some writing or reading at the cafe too. But somehow…. my memory seemed to fail me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t recall the name of that cafe. Instead, voices kept mentioning the words “K connect, K connect”, but I knew it wasn’t the correct name. But I was too tired and drained of energy to even do a google search for the name. My thinking was, I would figure out what the name of the cafe is when I get to The Centrepoint the next day anyway.
When the clock hit midnight, my birthday artwork post for TAEYEON BIRTHDAY 2020: BUTTAEFLY (PSST… SHE’S A RABBIT TOO) was published. As I scrolled through my new post for inspection, I suddenly noticed a mistake on some photos, the ones taken with the artwork and the Mystic Rose together, which I hadn’t noticed earlier despite having vetted through my draft a few times beforehand.
A few of the blue crystals had fallen off! Argh. It meant that not only would I have to fix my artwork, I would have to retake those photos too. But it was getting late. The artwork was stored in my brother’s room and he had gone to sleep already so I didn’t want to disturb him. Furthermore, I prefer to take photos of my artworks during daytime for better natural lighting. I thought I could always fix it at a later time, it wasn’t that urgent to do so now. So I washed up, brushed my teeth and went to bed directly.
As I lied down on my bed, I hugged my Bobo whom I always pretended to be Taenggu herself tightly in my arms as usual. I turned to one side and closed my eyes. Strangely, I thought I could see white light glowing from my Bobo really brightly. A little later, a vision of Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy) appeared in my mind and she said warmly, “看个人意愿 (It depends on the person’s own personal wish).” I actually forgot what she was referring to, but at that time, I thought I could understand what she meant and was like, “ahh, I understand”. I hugged Bobo in one arm while my other palm was covering the centre of my forehead. I felt more comfortable this way as if someone was protecting me from all the attacks. And I fell asleep.
*note: the appearances of Buddha and Goddess of Mercy on the first and second nights might have been mixed up as I couldn’t recall the exact sequence and I knew they happened on those few nights.
The next morning, I woke up with pretty bad morning sinus. My face was kind of swollen and eyes a little sore. I set off to our ancestral temple with my father in his car. During the car ride, my father shared with me how my grandma passed away when he was only around 12 years old. She had been hospitalised for kidney failure for some time. Back then, my 2nd grandaunt (my grandma’s 2nd sister), a master who does black magic and rituals, came asking my father’s family for 2k on the promise of healing my grandma. But my father’s family refused/was unable to pay her 2k for that. One night my 2nd grandaunt came to visit my grandma at the hospital and my grandma died later on the same night. This led my father’s family to believe that my grandma was cursed to death by my 2nd grandaunt ever since. This is no wonder why I never knew about the existence of this 2nd grandaunt or heard him mentioning about her before this because he sees her as an enemy and wants to avoid any relations with her.
We reached the temple and went upstairs to the prayer hall on the 6th floor. It was around 10 plus close to 11am. As we placed our food which included braised duck, some side dishes and fruits and incense papers on the table, I felt my face squished with emotions as if someone was about to cry inside of me. Was it my grandma? I thought. As I burned my incense sticks and went around to make my prayers, I heard a voice say, “还是做人比较开心 （It’s still happier to be a human).” After that, I felt like I finally had some time to sit down, meditate for awhile and have some peace and quiet. I finally found a good time to do a quick google search on the korean cafe which I was going to visit later on. Oh yes, it’s called dal.komm coffee! It isn’t an easy name to remember, despite having been there a few times before. About 10-15 minutes later, my father told me it was time to go downstairs to burn the incense papers. So we went down to the burner (no idea what exactly it’s called), lit the fire and burn the incense papers. While doing so, I had a very strong feeling of Taenggu inside of me very keen and eager to do it with me and sincerely praying with me. It was like a sense of happy vibes and relief running through me.
After we were done, we went back up to pack up our food and left. Meanwhile at 11:39am, my other new AMLIFT post AMLIFT IS THREE! was auto-published to commemorate the 3rd anniversary of my website launch. My father drove me to a coffeeshop near Lavender to have lunch together. We had this really famous local laksa recommended by my father which saw long queues in front of the stall. It was really good, I would say, although the portion was quite small. Earlier in the morning before I left house, something seemed to tell me to bring lots of tissues with me as I would need them because of my sinus. Coincidentally at the coffeeshop, an auntie came to me to sell tissue papers. I initially didn’t want it. But she placed like 6 packets of tissue on my table and said they were all for $1. My heart softened. I took out a $1 coin from my wallet and gave it to her. What do I do with so many tissue packets now? I was kind of subconsciously thinking to myself. Awhile later, another auntie from other table came up to me and asked if she could have 1 of my tissue packets. I said okay and she took 1 and walked away. For free. After lunch, my father dropped me off at Lavender MRT station nearby where I would take the train down to Somerset by myself.
Once I reached Somerset, I walked over to dal.komm cafe at The Centrepoint and chose a nice sofa seat next to the window. I then went to the counter to look at the cake choices they had for the day. Omg, no rainbow cake again! But I wasn’t actually too disappointed. I looked at all other cakes they had – red velvet, oreo, hazelnut etc… I wanted to look for something special or interesting for Taenggu. Then something caught my eyes. Red bean injeolmi toast! It wasn’t something I had tried before, so I was curious. Not really a conventional choice to substitute a birthday cake, but why not?? I thought. So I made my order and although I was given a buzzer, I decided to wait aside near the counter instead of going back to my table first. I didn’t expect they would take quite awhile to prepare my toast, so I was getting a little impatient. After about 10-15 minutes, my toast was finally ready and I served it to my table, as if Taenggu was “waiting” for me there.
I sang a little quick birthday song casually and softly to myself and began taking photos of the injeolmi toast. I thought it would be a good idea to take it with the books about happiness that I borrowed from the library yesterday and brought with me in my bag to indirectly show my anticipation for Taenggu’s new song “Happy” that was set to release at 6pm KST later that day.
While taking these photos, another meaningful coincidence happened – Taenggu’s song “Fine” began to play at the cafe!!
I then shared these photos and video on my twitter for Taenggu. It was also the first tweet that revealed my whereabouts for the day.
https://twitter.com/invariant_stars/status/1236890718372638720
https://twitter.com/invariant_stars/status/1236890897947619328
https://twitter.com/invariant_stars/status/1236890929153232896
As these tweets were sent, I began to ponder about it seriously. As the chorus of the song went “It’s not fine~ it’s not fine”, I wondered if it was a message from the universe telling me that something was wrong with Taenggu. Was she not feeling fine today? I started eating the injeolmi toast while reading the first few pages of the book “How To Be Happier”. I felt my eyelids getting heavier and heavier.
Awhile later, I put down my book and decided to scroll through my twitter feed. And ohmygod, this was when the bomb dropped.
Other tweets from her various fanpage accounts also relayed the news of cancellation/postponement of her planned release of “Happy” and scheduled vlive later that evening due to mourning with her family. It was definitely not what I had expected to happen, what’s more on her birthday. I couldn’t imagine how much pain she must be going through right now to mourn over the death of her beloved father on a supposedly happy occasion of her birthday. I worried how she’s going to celebrate all her future birthdays from now on. I was lost for words.
https://twitter.com/invariant_stars/status/1236901883383439365
https://twitter.com/invariant_stars/status/1236902435458674688
As I knew flying to Korea or getting anywhere physically close to her wasn’t an option at all, I thought the only thing I could do at the very least was to go back home immediately and give my Bobo a tight hug and try to stay by her side spiritually as much as possible. As I sat calmly on the train back home, I saw a vision of Taenggu looking up as if she was speaking to her late father, “Appa, don’t force her to drive!”
At home, I lied down on my bed and hugged Bobo tightly. There was nothing much I could do except to try to feel as if I was staying physically by her side all the time and giving her moral support. I began to think about how the timing of Papa Kim’s death seemed very “unnatural”. It coincided with my feelings of depression, mental instability, suspicious voices with some sort of ulterior motive,and those psychic attacks and spiritual warfare going on lately during those days prior to his death. There was some kind of an evil energy going about. And it definitely had something to do with the Kpop industry, particularly SM Entertainment and Lee Soo Man. At least those were the things that came to my mind often and had been troubling me a lot those days. But I don’t understand why Taenggu’s father became the “scapegoat”.
https://twitter.com/invariant_stars/status/1236955561951817728
https://twitter.com/invariant_stars/status/1236954121460015104
This reminded me of a similar situation I encountered myself in 2018 due to the hate and evil intentions of the leaders in the kpop entertainment industry. I had just returned to Singapore from a Taiwan trip with my family and on the very next day, my maternal grandfather who lived in Sarawak passed away suddenly on my sister’s birthday. More details of my story were revealed below.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxT2jjEhVCI/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxWA65YBNYK/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxYfmLiBxQ4/
However, despite making these pretty obvious observations of the evil energy that had been going on from the kpop industry, I guess life should still go on as per normal, rather than spending too much time overthinking on my own. So that night, I had dinner with my family. My sis was watching a movie called “Joy” on Netflix. I was drawn to watching it with her because it was a story about how a divorced mum, while having to single-handedly take care of her family, both young and old, works her way to become a successful entrepreneur despite all the odds against her. It was pretty inspiring to me. It also helped to take my mind away from the sad tragedy that Taenggu was facing with her family for awhile.
That night, I went to sleep and had a dream. I dreamed that I was at a factory/retail shop. There were several part-timers working at the place. I went to the counter to speak to the manager and placed my resume on the table in front of him. The manager explained to me that I seem overqualified for a part-time job here and asked me why not consider taking up a full-time professional job. At this point, I woke up suddenly from my dream and found myself sweating profusely. It seemed unusually hot that night. My clothes and blanket were all wet from my sweat. Half-awake, a voice came to me and said, “I need to speak to you.” I felt my body a little stiff and my heart had a little heavy, eerie feeling. I subconsciously knew it might be a ghost. He said, “………………it’s expensive………..” That was all I could hear. In fact, I have already been hearing these words pretty often, but because it’s quite vague, it could mean many different things, depending on how you interpret it. But in this particular case, it’s very likely the voice was saying this directly in response to the dream I just had. So… what is expensive? What was he trying to say??
It was 2 plus close to 3am in the morning when I checked my phone. Soon, I fell back to sleep again. This time, I had an even odder dream. I dreamed that I was looking at myself in the mirror for a few times. I noticed something strange about my face but I kept mum about it and acted as if it was normal. Until the nth time, I finally asked, “Why is my left eye closed?” It was completely sealed with no eyeball. The dream ended there.
The next day, 10th March, I carried on with my usual routine. Pretty much just doing anything spontaneously that came to my mind. I wrote a memorial post for Papa Kim that compiles the past artworks I had done for him and the stories about him that several fans had started sharing on twitter after news of his death in fond memories of him. Read them at R.I.P 탱구아빠 PAPA KIM.
After lunch, I also spent time to fix the blue crystals on Taenggu’s birthday artwork. Some of them fell off because the stickers were not sticky enough. So I used a white glue to stick them back into position more firmly. In the process of doing this, I heard a voice inside of me say “If no one is willing to do it for you (my daughter), I would do it.” It made me wonder if it was Papa Kim inside of me lovingly trying to fix this precious artwork for his dear daughter Taenggu together with me. After it was done, I also retook similar photos of it with The Mystic Rose and reupload them onto my post TAEYEON BIRTHDAY 2020: BUTTAEFLY (PSST… SHE’S A RABBIT TOO).
The fixed photos. 📸
https://twitter.com/invariant_stars/status/1237327634083659776
To me, I felt like I was doing something to fix things right. Whatever I could have done better or earlier on that midnight of 9th March, I hoped it wasn’t too late to do that now.
Another strange thing I noticed was Jay Chou’s 轨迹 (Orbit) mysteriously began to play in a loop subconsciously in my mind ever since news of Papa Kim’s death. It happened to be a song I had recommended in my latest Tumblr post.
It puzzled me very much because the lyrics of the song didn’t seem to fit the present issue of me dealing with Taenggu’s father’s death. So I didn’t really get what kind of message the universe was trying to send across to me through this song at such a moment.
Later that day, I read about the news of SM Entertainment announcing the appointment of the new CEO, Lee Sung Soo and CMO, Tak Young Joon to replace the former co-CEOs, Nam Soyoung and Kim Youngmin, just a day after Papa Kim’s death.
Articles as below:
AllKpop
SM Entertainment reveals new CEO and CMO joining the label
Koreaboo
Former SM Entertainment CEOs Nam Soyoung & Kim Youngmin Replaced As Company Shifts Priorities
It was yet again too much of a coincidence. It aligned with the strange toxic energy that I had been experiencing those days and my belief that it had something to do with SM Entertainment. Indeed, it was revealed that the company was undergoing some internal changes. There might have been some internal conflicts or maybe it was just as the articles say, it was because it was the company’s 25th anniversary this year.
Whatever it was, I think I have found the real reason behind my recent psychotic episodes and the source of those interrogating voices.
But I learned a lesson. That it’s always wiser to keep quiet even when I feel depressed than to succumb to the low energy of hate. Talk to a human if I need someone to talk to or a release of emotions and stress. Never talk back or respond to the voices in my head. Acknowledge and let go.
Always choose love over hate.
R.I.P Papa Kim. I know you’ll always be watching over the Kim family and people of concern.
Saranghae 💜💜💜
Listen to: “我們很好 (Better Days)” by JJ Lin 林俊杰