My name is Victoria Song. My real name is Song Chi En.
I was born on February 2, 1987 I'm an only child. There are a lot of kids like me in China.
My age gap with other members of my group is quite big but I like to play jokes so they're always asking if I really am 23-years-old. Hahaha.
I'm the leader but I don't speak Korean fluently well yet so I feel bad for my group. When the staff have to talk with the leader who is me, my members take such good care of me. (Luna: You take good care of us when we're in China.)
But actually I don't speak Chinese that fluently anymore either. I was told to do interviews in Chinese recently if I don't remember how to express myself in Korean but... I couldn't remember how to say it in Chinese either... Oh, what do I do?
I was born in Chengdu and when I turned 10, started attending the Beijing Dance Academy where I learned all sorts of dance including ballet, traditional Chinese dance and tumbling.
Tumbling while wearing heels is something I tried for the first time while shooting the teaser video for "LA chA TA". My manager had asked if I could do it on heels and I told him I would make an attempt although I had never tried it before but I really did it. Even I was surprised.
The commercial I shot with singer Rain in China was something I started without having almost no knowledge of jazz dance of hip-hop because it happened about a month after I had joined my agency. I practiced each move for hours and had only learned how to more traditional dances so I was extremely grateful when Rain taught me how to do popping. I didn't even speak Korean back then so a translator delivered everything in between.
At the house I share a room with Sulli and Amber with Luna. And Krystal's house is only three minutes away from ours. We're all good friends and aren't messy so we don't need any rules to follow by in particular.
When I look at text messages my fans have sent me there are actually a lot of words that I don't understand. So me and Amber always carry around electronic dictionaries but if we don't find the word we're looking for, we look it up in the Internet and if it still isn't there, we ask the members and then if they don't know what it means either, we ask our manager.
When I went to audition for the cheerleading team of KBS reality show "The Invincible Baseball Team I danced to Ciara's "Love Sex Magic". My jazz dance teacher came up with a choreography where I could show everything about my dancing.
Getting injections is something I am really really scared of. We were told we had to get four injections each before going on volunteer work to Kenya recently and my group stood close to me, reassuring me everything would be alright, but I was still so scared. (Krystal: I saw that you were crying.)
When I get the chance to do musicals I really want to try them. Because I can show everything from singing to dancing to acting. And it's my dream to go to China with the members of my group pursue an active career there too.
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My Name is Amber. My full name is Amber Liu.
I was born on September 18, 1992 My hometown is Los Angeles in the United States and I have an older sister.
SM Entertainment's 2007 global audition was where I was cast for the agency. I had originally auditioned with a Korean friend but she didn't make it.
M.C. Max's "I'm Sorry my Heart" and and K.Will's "Left Heart" are the songs I sang at the audition. I read and wrote a little bit of Korean before but I studied the lyrics more on fan sites where they had translations so I could understand the songs better.
I had liked Linkin Park since young so I copied Mike Shinoda a lot and I had a lot of friends who liked to wrap so I grew up practicing free-styling.
When I first heard Korean music I used to listen to a lot of R&B like Wheesung's. These days I listen to Yoon Mirae, Tiger JK and Epik High. I've never talked to Yoon before but I'm a big fan.
When I first came to Korea from the U.S. I felt like a complete stranger because the environment was completely different. I used to space out thinking 'Why am I here?' But Kyrstal's English is good so she helped me out a lot, I gradually learned more Korean, Luna taught me how to sing and dance and Sulli, I got really really close with her, as if she's my younger brother. Haha. (Sulli: Brother Amber!)
But my boyish image was something I wasn't aware of. In the States I was... just normal. I was shocked when while I was a trainee, I went shopping with Krystal and her fans said they thought I was her boyfriend.
But I have a lot of female fans and I am so thankful to them for liking me so much. I didn't know they would be okay with someone like an image like mine.
Looking similar to Super Junior member Dong-hae is something I've heard ever since I got here. These days people say I look a lot like SHINee's Jonghyun. Haha. So the three of us sometimes take photos together and call ourselves the "dinosaur family".
Basketball in particular is something I really enjoy. I'd been on a basketball team since elementary school in the U.S. and I played ball a lot with my girl friends too. I'm actually not that good (Sulli: No, you're really good!) but in Korea, I've been playing with the guy trainees at our agency. I like taekwondo too so I practice my moves when I get bored.
Create a stage where there are no restrictions is my dream. And it doesn't even have to be on a real stage, a street is fine. Just as long as it's a place where everyone can join in and have fun!
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My name is Luna. My real name is Park Sun-young.
I was born on August 12, 1993 I have a twin sister and a brother in the army.
My mother is a vocalist and so is my sister. My dad is a conductor at church and my brother is studying songwriting. The volume of my voice has improved while practicing next to my sister but I actually have the weakest voice in the family.
Since I was young, my alarm clock was classical music. My dad loves Chopin so he would wake us up everything morning with Chopin. I've listened to his music so much that I even memorize melodies.
Music and singing is something I have always been interested in. When I was in third grade, my mom wouldn't send me to the dancing academy so I just went to the nearest academy near my house and begged to be accepted. I don't think I was even aware of the fact that I was supposed to pay for it. But after attending for a year, I was able to do splits and my body had been so stiff before.
When other groups practice for an hour we used to practice for three. That's how hard it had been for us to communicate in the beginning. But the members who couldn't speak Korean worked even harder on learning the language, Krystal could speak English and Amber spoke Chinese so we would translate amongst ourselves in a circle and end up understanding each other.
Rather than songs with fast beats I prefer the ones that are sung by artists like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. So when we started recording "LA chA TA", I was told that I was the only one roaring too much. The composer of the song had to keep telling me to sing in a more cheerful mood. I practice singing a lot of cheerful songs now because I want to be able to sing a variety of songs.
When I visited Kenya recently I became extremely thankful for the environment I live in after seeing the Masai. Young children walk tens of kilometers for water, they have nothing to eat so they chew on wood and they were so thankful over a pair of socks we had given them. That's why I've thought that I want to help out kids in such situations with dreams that we have.
That's why holding concerts and expanding our career overseas is good but there are also so many people in this world who have no exposure to music so I want to do a lot of volunteer work where I can deliver music to kids living under such conditions. Our whole group is very interested in such work.
Reporter : Choi Ji-Eun five@10asia.co.kr
Photographer : Lee Jin-hyuk eleven@10asia.co.kr
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@asiae.co.kr, Jang Kyung-Jin three@10asia.co.kr
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My name is Sulli. My real name is Choi Jin-ri.
I was born on March 29, 1994 I have two brothers -- one is four years older and the other a year older. That's why I often hear people telling me that I act cute but I've actually become more of a boy now growing up with them!
My oldest brother is serving in the army right now but our popularity in the army is good so he says he's having an easy time. I've given him a lot of my autographs so far but I guess I should give him much more. Haha.
I appeared in SBS TV series "Seo Dong Yo" when I was twelve but I sang and danced too. Just like there is a difference in the joy between movies and dramas, there's also a different joy to meeting with the public on stage as a singer.
The reason I'm always smiling on stage is also because I'm having fun. I just start laughing after thinking of the meaning to our lyrics. My laugh isn't fake, really!
I'm in eighth grade right now but I try to go to school as often as possible. So when we visited Kenya recently, I was enjoying it a lot but I had to return to Korea two days earlier than everyone else to take my exams. I was the only one taking exams while the rest of my group was teaching our "LA chA TA" dance to the kids in Kenya. And the results of the exam? Eh...
After I debuted, my friends don't talk about "LA chA TA" but just call us 'function'. Or the men's channel on cable TV. Haha.
I first met Krystal when I was much younger. Her sister Jessica introduced us to each other and told us to be good friends. I only got to say hi to her briefly back then but I knew we'd become good friends. Haha (Amber: They're like twins!)
Like Victoria I too am scared of getting shots. I'm scared of needles going into my body. But I also have to see that needle go into my body so although my group told me not to, I held onto their hands and got the injection.
To fans who send me text messages I tell them, "Don't wait for me. I'm a bad woman". But I didn't write it because I'm really a bad person! It was just for fun. Haha.
When we sing "Chu~♡" I asked Victoria to do the 'Rocks, Paper, Scissors' with me. I wish we could change the choreography everyday.
Playing the guitar is something I really want to learn to do. I want to sing on stage while playing the guitar and I hope that one day, we'll be able to hold our own concert like Girls' Generation. There are so many performances we want to put on for our fans!
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My name is Krystal. Real name Jung Soo-jung.
I was born on October 24, 1994 Girls' Generation member Jessica is my sister. Her nickname used to be 'ice princess' but I think her ice has melted a lot these days. Haha.
I was at a department store when I was seven-years-old and was cast by the agency. An official at the agency asked where my mother was, she saw my sister too and we were both cast together.
We are just like any other pair of sisters. We used to fight at times when we were younger but we don't have time to meet anymore because we're both so busy after debuting. That's why we miss each other even more, we don't fight any more and we call up each other from time to time to ask how the other is doing.
Jessica looks a lot like my mom and I resemble my dad but ever since I joined the agency, I've heard a lot of people tell me that I look like Girls' Generation members Yoona or Yuri. (Amber: I once left the building of the agency with Krystal and fans who had been waiting outside started screaming "Yoona! Dong-hae!" so we ran away.)
I like playing sports and have a lively personality but I sometimes get a bit shy. I've been scared of meeting new people since I was young. But I've been close friends with Sulli from the start. Haha. I thought Amber was a cool guy when I first saw her and Luna seemed cold at first sight but she turned out to be an extremely warm-hearted person. And with Victoria, we didn't open up to each other in the beginning but became good friends while taking a class that only the two of us take.
Yoona takes really good care of me after hearing that we look alike so many times. She says I'm her fake sister.
The first showcase was mind-boggling. We changed our clothes a lot because we were putting on several performances, we were in a panic, (Victoria: I put on the wrong clothes and I just stood there not being able to say anything but "Ahhhhh")
The reason I started following the dance to "Ring Ding Dong" at SBS music show "Inkigayo" was because I had been practicing it for fun but I didn't know I would get to actually do it on stage. Even I myself wondered why I was doing the dance. We're promoting our albums at the same time as SHINee so they take very good care of us. There isn't too much of an age gap between me and Tae-min, and I'm thankful for Key mentioning us on stage.
I like Corinne Bailey Rae's music and want to learn how to play instruments like the piano, guitar and violin so I can sing while I'm playing them. I lived in San Francisco since I was in fourth grade and a lot of people there perform on the streets. It's my dream to do that too someday.
Reporter : Choi Ji-Eun five@10asia.co.kr
Photographer : Lee Jin-hyuk eleven@10asia.co.kr
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@asiae.co.kr, Jang Kyung-Jin three@10asia.co.kr
<ⓒ10Asia All rights reserved>