Growing up listening to K-pop and watching anime there weren't many people I could relate to. So I had often always turned to watching new K-pop groups as an outlet. One day when I was watching an Exo music show a Got7 music show was in my suggested to watch next. I had knew of Got7 at the time I just hadn't watched there videos yet until that day. I rembered it was there new song Fly that had just been released and this was the comeback show for it. The man reason I rembered it was because they were all wearing pink. I ended up really enjoying there music and performance so I watched a couple more videos of them preforming and then went on to watched other videos of them. After that I was Hooked on them.
So that's how I came to know the K-pop group called Got7. So when it came to choosing my Role mentor I wanted to choose a group that had internarial members. So Members that were born In Korea and weren't Korean. The Groups I choose Were Exo and Got7. When choosing my mentor I had certain quality that I had to take in account I didn't want to just choose any member. In the end it had came down to two members. I won't say who the other member was but in the end I choose Got7 Jackson.
My role model is Jackson Wang. He is a rapper, singer dancer and Fencer based in china. He is the founder of the record label Team Wang. Also he is the creative director and lead designers for Team Wang. Right Now her is a active solo artist and Member of the Korean boy group Got7. When he was a fencer he was ranked 11th in the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics and won first place at the Asian Junior and Cadet Fencing Championships in 2011.
Jackson Wang skills came from opportunities and practice. Jackson Wang father is a Former Olympian Fencer and his mother is a world champ gymnast. So he naturally had the talented in sports. Jackson Wang is so good at fencing that her got offered a scholarship to Stanford university for fencing and even was offered to be in the London Olympics but he tuned it down. He chose his dream. During a interview he states" Yes, Its true. I turned Stanford University and I turned London Olympics down for becoming a singer." But then he goes on to say "But I just thought I'm probably going to regret when I'm 80 years old, and telling my grandkids "hey you know what? Your granddad, your grandpa, could've been a singer could have been this could have been that" I didn't want that regret So, I just gave it a try." He passed his addition and JYP entertainment and became a singer.
The fact that Jackson Wang even debuted as a K-pop Idol shows that he practices a lot. It is definitely not easy to become a Idol. When someone wants to become a K-pop idol you have to audition. If your lucky and pass the audition and sign your contract with the company. The Contract you just signed is basically a slave contract. You can't date, smoke, eat certain foods, you have to share one room with multiple people, You cant have a driver licenses, you can't hangout with the opposite gender, and many more. There's so many things you can't do when your training to be an Idol. This doesn't even guarantee that you will debut.
Jackson Wang had committed his life to becoming a K-pop idol. Training at all hours of the night or day. Get little sleep, Always on a diet. He wasn't able to see his family even on holidays. He had to always train and he also had to learned to read, speak and spell Korean. which is definitely not easy.
Jackson signed his contract on July 3rd 2011. He debuted January 16th 2014. I believe Got7 had finally had threw " big break" when they won Artist of the year at Asia Artist Awards in 2018. From then on they were steady and some members were able to go solo or even create a sub-unit. Jackson was able to prove him self was when he went solo as a artist in china. On August 25th 2017 he released his first English solo track 'Papillon' which reached #1 position on Billboard's China V Chart. Papillon currently has over 46 million views on YouTube.
Jackson successes took time. Also it took a lot of practice. Everyday constant practice for hours. No rest days even when he wanted to quit he still went to practice. What I can do to imitate his path is practice. His determination is something of his that I greatly admire. What I can do is Everyday learned a new word. Like How to pronounce, spell and say it. Then as time goes on I can start to learn two words a day. I will keep adding words every week.
Another Thing I can do is to look at new recipes everyday. To just explore and plan ahead on what I want to learn to cook. Like to do some studying before I started to cook the recipe. Most people think Idols are not to smart. Well they believe the ones are not from Korea but from else where. They think this have to drop out of school to go to Korea. But actually Jackson know 3 languages. Korean, English and Chinses. But he also Know three Chinese dialects which are Mandarin, Cantonese and Shanghainese. His education is up to 11th grade. He also went to a international school.
As a result I would like to have more confidence in my Korean. If I am consistence with my practice I should be able to speak fairly well. I know that I have to work for things I want in life and this is just one of the many things I want to accomplish. Jackson taught me to never stop dreaming. If you accomplish one dream then move on to the next. Jackson has accomplished many thing. And I know he going to continuing to do so. So I also want to become someone who is continuing to flourish.
Sources:
Jackson Interview
(167) Jackson Wang Goes Undercover on the Internet | GQ - YouTube
(167) Jackson Wang Goes Undercover on the Internet | GQ - YouTube
Jackson Wikipedia
Jackson IMDb
Jackson Biographic World
Got7 Member profiles
Got7 Awards and Nominations
Jackson Wang Papillon
I never knew that Jackson was offered a scholarship to Stanford University and also offered to be in the London Olympics. The fact he turned both of those down to become a singer, really shows how committed he was to becoming a Kpop idol. Overall, I really enjoyed reading your post!
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