After the 6pm fan meeting session ended, we waited patiently for Shin Hye as she had an interview straight after the fan meeting. While waiting we talked to many friendly Japanese fans and at the same time promoting our site. Many were interested in our banner and our website, and they were all supportive of Park Shin Hye which was nice since the fan meeting seemed to be dominated by Jang Keun Suk’s fans.
It was around 10pm when the manager appeared in front of us and told us to follow him back into CC Lemon as Shin Hye had finished her interview. We were taken backstage through the staff only entrance, down 2 flights of stairs, and into a large dressing room where we talked to Manager-nim whilst waiting for Shin Hye.
The manager was very nice, although he said he couldn’t speak a lot of English, we were all still able to communicate well! He thanked us for supporting Shin Hye and for coming all this way to the fan meeting. He then continued to asked where we were from, how old we were, showed off his name tag with the PSHIFC sticker (which we stuck onto his pants a few hours ago) and exchanged jokes with us!
After 15minutes we started hearing loud noises of people walking outside and everyone looked up at the door when we were met with a smiling Park Shin Hye!
She looked at us all, and then looked at the presents we were all holding before smiling and saying “Annonghaseyo”! Although we were all shocked that she was in front of us, we still managed to bow back politely and welcome her.
One by one we said our rehearsed Korean of “Hello, my name is ________" and the country we were from. After Shin Hye heard all the countries we were from and how we came to support her she scrunched up her face cutely and said “Thank you!!!” and came towards us to give each one of us a hug. We were so happy.
We then told her that we bought her many gifts and we placed it on the table for her to open. The first present we gave to her was her own personal (PSHIFC) presents. We took out each item and explained what they were or what they meant.
Then we showed her the sheepskin warmer and she totally LOVED it! She was holding it in her arms and was brushing the fur. It probably reminded her of Bongji?! She really liked the cute chibi-printed tee that the Chinese fans got for her. After that we gave her the Australian nougats and she was like “awww I will be fat” and made a gesture with her hands of a fat person. We said “nonono!!!” A funny moment was when Shin Hye looked at the red tie ornament the Chinese Tieba fans gave her and when we explained that it was for luck and someone got onto the topic of how she could get a boyfriend by hanging this up, she pouted cutely and said “do not have!” Then we said “but if you hang it up then you will get one” to which she changed her emotion completed and smiled saying “Ok!” =) TOO CUTE!!!
Shin Hye really took her time to look and play with each item we took out of the box. She is so genuine it’s really nice to see!
After we presented to her the presents inside the blue box, she walked over to the table, took out a chair and sat down. She was probably so tired in her black heels. Poor girl. Then we presented Shin Hye with the special project presents all our users participated in (please refer to our pictures for the final product!). We placed her special membership card in the front of the scrap book. When Shin Hye opened it and saw her name “VIP Park Shin Hye” on our membership card, she was quite surprised and very happy that she showed it to her manager to which her manager replied “Where is mine??!!” It was all very funny!
We then explained to her that her fans from all around the world contributed to this present and had hand written postcards for her. Shin Hye was very amazed and in awe as she took her time flipping through each page and reading out which countries they were all from, even the manager and her Unnis were surprised at the diversity of her fans which made Shin Hye say “I’m International!” in English.
The way she spent so much time on this present, slowly looking at every page, really showed us how much she loved our hand made presents and how much she really loves and wants to know her fans! She even commented that she wants to one day visit Singapore and Hong Kong because the shopping is good there!
The way she spent so much time on this present, slowly looking at every page, really showed us how much she loved our hand made presents and how much she really loves and wants to know her fans! She even commented that she wants to one day visit Singapore and Hong Kong because the shopping is good there!
Following this we showed her another fan signed book that we prepared earlier that day. In the morning of the fan meeting, we had purchased a scrapbook and got the fans to write a message to Shin Hye. As she read it, you could tell her Japanese was quite good as she could understand some messages to the point she even surprised herself by how good her reading ability was! Shin Hye is indeed, very talented!
At one point we realised she was speaking quite a lot of English and we asked her whether she was taking English lessons a lot to which she replied “Yes I am” in her cute voice. Seriously don’t think anyone can speak as cute as her!
We told her we still had one more present to give her – the Burberry Bag. As she tried to open it, it seemed like the sticker that stuck the top of the bag together did not want to break and in Korean she said “Ottoke?!” (translates to: what should I do!) which made me smile as she struggled with the bag.
Following this, we told them that we hoped Shin Hye liked all her presents but we still had the Manager-nim’s presents to give him. Earlier that day while some of the admin team were in the 2pm fan meeting, some went shopping for Manager-nim’s presents and bought him a bright fluorescent North Face cap (which he later posted on his cyworld!), a t-shirt we bought in Australia, and a bottle of Sake. When we said “Sa jang nim, Seng-il Chukka Hamnida”, they laughed, and Shin Hye said that he is “manager” not sa jang nim (boss ><)!
As he opened each present both the Unnis and Shin Hye were saying how pretty everything was and asking him whether he liked it! It was kind of funny seeing the attention shift from Shin Hye to the Manager.
When we finally handed over to him the bottle of Sake, he got so excited and yelled “Ah Sake!!!!!!” and posed with the Sake and the cap. He looked so cute! Shin Hye looked very amused at her manager’s reaction to the bottle of Sake. Throughout the whole meeting with Shin Hye, her Unnis were helping us take pictures on our cameras so a big thank you to them otherwise we wouldn’t have half the photos to show you all!
She signed “To parkshinhye.org” and her name. Then we asked if she could write a few words to our members and she wrote, after some consideration, “Be Happy”.
Then she posed with the signature, and took a group photo with us. We said that she was very tall and she stooped down a little, and we immediately said “nono it’s fine!” because we knew we were short by comparison!
We then took a picture with her and the autograph and the manager wanted a photo of us too! When we said our goodbyes, we all thanked her for meeting us and wished her luck for her future and said we hope to see her again soon!
We watched her leave the dressing room first followed by her team of staff carrying all our presents (we sort of felt bad for them because we knew how heavy it all was!) before leaving ourselves.
What an experience. This was our first time meeting Shin Hye and it was also the very first time all of PSHIFC met in person. Even though we’ve never met in person before, but when we did, it was like we’ve known each other for such a long time already. Shin Hye has this power. She brought all of us together. We had a wonderful time at ANJell’s first fan meeting in Japan.