After Dreams Fade

"Cut!" The director shouted, annoyance and frustration clear in his voice.

"Just stand still! Why are you always moving around?" The predebut group's mentor, an OG in the industry, chided. " And look at the camera! Why is it so hard for you to look at people and stuff?" 

His scolding made my stomach clench in a knot and threatened to moisten my eyes. 

"You're going to try again. You're on the set until you get it right! So don't bother with tears! Stop or you'll ruin your make-up! Only think only about your schedule for later today." He continued to reprimand me.

It was after 2 a.m.. 

Normally I was awakened at 5:30 a.m. to study the national language and exercise before being taken to the international school. 

Eight hours in school to study in my native language.

At least seven hours of company schedule immediately after.

A promised quitting time that would allow me to do my homework and study, shower and eat, and maybe just be a normal student. That time had become non-existent in previous months.

I barely had time to pass out on the floor for a few hours and would get even less rest tonight.

The company had been pressing me to leave school, over my father's dead body, but I hadn't seen him in nearly five years. Maybe? 

"Si-si-sijag!" The stage manager called out. Let's go!

I looked up with a frozen smile on my face and stared directly into the camera. The smile did not reach my eyes but those were trying to close in exhaustion and had to be forced open widening for an effect worthy of a zoom in. 

Hazel eyes, slightly rounded yet slanty, happens when Mama is from one ethnonational background and Papa from somewhere else entirely. The hair, ever inky black, once tightly curled, now in loose waves, morphing with age. Blunt cut bangs that still managed to curl at the very tips and masked well a lingering bruise from an annoyed impatient handler's palm blooming purple against my taupe skin. Would either recognize me now?

"This is Ziyah! American and Overseas Chinese. Korean age 17. Born in Long Beach in sunny southern California, bred in Los Angeles and Hong Kong! Arrived in Seoul from Shenzhen!" The promotional hype rolled off the tongue of some unseen company narrator. 

There were no years attached to the places as the company had no thorough knowledge, didn't need it, only asked me where I had lived before. The whirlwind time before I landed in this country as a naive, starry eyed, and somewhat troubled sixth grader. A time period that got further away from memory and easy recall with each passing month spent a world away and now under the relentlessly scrutinizing lights of burgeoning debut.

The big cities and model nationalities always get more attention and interest. That's why he's so enthuisiastic…..

The orthodontic braces had been removed in the first year of high school and replaced with an annoying set of permanent retainers bonded to my teeth for the foreseeable future. The wire grated against my gums as I forced the kawai doll smile, beauty and picture perfect image above comfort. Force the eyes open, only crinkling at the edges, wide and alluring.

"Cut!" The director called out. 

My body slumped immediately, almost melted rather to the ground, although I forced myself to stand erect. 

"You could be brighter, friendlier, and less stiff." The mentor began his assessment or critique rather of my performance.

"But I think it is good enough…the kid is still in school and should go to rest now." He tried to advocate for my wellbeing. "Probably the kid has not even eaten yet."

Everyone talked about me, but nobody talked to me.

 I awaited orders. 

"Go to rest. Go to study. No more schedule now."

The cameras were shut off, the lights responsible for the shimmering glisten on my bangs' edges dimmed, and like a long held hostage I was freed. Free to take off the loaned clothes and jewelry from a shared wardrobe that I had been admonished to keep immaculate. Free to shower, put on my own casual clothes, and finally sit down. 

My legs felt like jelly. My stomach grumbled but didn’t expect food. It was pointless to attempt to study now. The company had been suggesting that I give up on school, over my unknowing father's dead body, now that I had completed 10 full grades of education. Save the company my yearly tuition fees, although those were being added to my ever growing company debt, and start doing activities to begin the painstaking process of repaying the company. If I did at least I could sleep a bit more…..

"Dakjuuk, eat!" 

A steaming bowl of rice porridge with chicken, a spoon already dug in, was held before my stinging half closed eyes. My mouth barely worked to finish chewing the broken grains of rice. The mentor did the kimchi squat thing as I forced a spoonful followed by another into my mouth, chewed slowly, and forced myself to swallow. Always tall for my age I was no longer a cherubic, round faced grade schooler with baby fat and then some still padding my body. As my height had increased over my time here, my weight had plummeted and by then I ate so little it was worrisome. The clothes hung off my body even when meant to be form fitting and someone was tasked with making sure at least one meal per day was forced down my throat. Even the company's president had taken notice and at times forced me to sit down to finish a decent meal under supervision. 

I sat the bowl down on the floor and shook my head. 

"Finished. It's too much." I said as my stomach seized.

"Not finished." The mentor picked up the bowl to offer it again to me. "There's still food in the bowl!"

I shook my head again. "It's too much. I'll be sick. Already my body doesn't want it." I tried to explain with my less than perfect Korean skills.

"Finish your food. Do you need to be fed?" He insisted unyieldingly. 

"I don't want it. It hurts my stomach." I likewise refused to budge.

This is how the company takes care of its trainees, especially the youngsters and foreigners. By now this girl, who joined the company very young as the first foreigner, has been awake for nearly 24 hours. She's getting ready to increase her company activities in anticipation of debut but still must study full time…..she wants to give up but the group's mentor…maybe you recognize him from the first generation?.....he insists that she take good care of herself.

The show had never really stopped even though "Cut!" had been called and I had been released from the formal staged shooting. The CCTV and concealed cameras continued rolling the entire time that I walked the company's property, rode in company vehicles, or they took me places. My life, before anxiously anticipated glitz and glamor, was well documented and archived.

"Under the Lights of Seongdong: an illegitimate child's tale of growing up and growing stronger in a strange land" by Kaziyah Yeh is due for release in Autumn 2024.

Born in California to an American mother and immigrant Chinese father, following her tertiary education in the United States, Kaziyah once again lives and works in China, where she was brought by her father at the age of 6. Kaziyah is a content and well balanced adult who has been able to build her own secure life. 11 years old when she arrived in Korea all by herself and nearly 19 years old when she departed, she looks back at her time in Korea with fondness and nostalgia. Nothing will ever replace her experiences in the industry, but there comes a day when all of the cameras finally go off for the last time. 

"My daughter, my only child…." Life after fame chasing and idolhood days does indeed exist. It began for me the moment I stepped off the plane in Beijing, cleared immigration, and was accosted by a man who might have been closer to 40 than 30, his buzz cut slightly reminiscent of someone who had studied abroad. Not even vaguely familiar to my eyes as my mind remained set in "Ziyah mode", his response to my brush off startled me. 

"Kaziyah, look again, see me." The unfamiliar man had semi pleaded as he grabbed my arm speaking to me in native language,English, instead of standard Mandarin. "It's me….it's your Papa! Remember Ba?" 

His words broke the spell. His gesture of confirmation, unbuttoning his button down a bit to expose an iconic tattoo on his shoulder, brought me to my current reality. That's when it dawn on me that the cameras were gone save for mandatory government CCTV monitoring and I was no longer a tightly controlled performer. I was a human being again and the one who had given me up quite hesitantly feared that the child he'd signed away was entirely lost to him, unremittingly groomed and sucked into a notoriously cutthroat industry. 

"Cut!" 

Time to get on with life.

"Yes, you're Papa. Thank you for coming to meet me. How long has it been since we said "See you later"?"