Chinggay L, Popped Me! : Kpop fangirl 1.0

Chinggay Labrador, you are my K-pop fangirl fairy!

Popped (1) made my week. I have been trying to buy it for only God knows how long since I realized that it was probably out of stock forever. (I went to so many stores and the darn thing would not surface) I feared that my brief moment of holding that book at a NBS sale would be the very last time I would ever see it. I remember it as a purple book. But dummy me didn't remember it right. It was pink. And so when I saw that there were still some in the Megamall NBS I promised to buy it on my next paycheck regardless of the fact that I was still superbly in the red.

I can't stop to count how many times I actually laughed out loud it (a sudden burst of almost throat wreching laugh) at ever other ten sentences of this book. I seriously felt I was getting my pan de sal abs exercise because of your book. It simply amazing. No one else would get this book but a kerfag. (My own self-assigned fan girl breed name for fans who liked both girl groups and guy groups and all things Korean). I actually lived some of the spazzing out moments and I have my own support group at work. Those girls like Super Junior however and I have promised them that I would write fanfics for all 13 guys. But the bottomline is that Movement is so a mix of BigBang and all the guys I likes that I was actually dying when I read that part of the book.

It was like the best of the first life and second life going into a book that cost me less than 200 pesos. It's amazing how fandom can make seemingly straight-laced folks bat-crap crazy about trinkets, light sticks and what not.

If I ever lived those moments that Trixie, Cesca, Nica and Andie lived, I would just die. *squeal*

So to finish off my long note for you, thank you for Popped and thank you for making a new one. I would make a mental note to buy it as soon as I get my next paycheck.

++++

Popped by Chinggay Labrador
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you are a fangirl of all things Korean or you are keeping it a secret from all the real people in your first life then you should pick up Popped and Popped 2, along with some other Summit books (just to make it look like you are a chick lit fan and not a fan of kpop including book) and line them up to read. I have been a collector of some of these books and I would recommend No Boyfriend since Birth, No Strings Attached amongst many others. I have a few more than I care to mention.


Popped is almost like reading a part of you, yes you, the working drone who got hooked into Autumn in my Heart, Boys over Flowers and Coffee Prince. My secret shame is books and korean dramas. Then I got into Big Bang because at my job, as a former video English teacher for Koreans, I HAD to learn about Big Bang since there were a group of girls in my avalon class (of evil 15 year old Korean middle school students) who used their name (BigBang's stage name) as their English names. And the only way those girls would pay attention in class was if the sample sentences were made about Big Bang. So before I knew it was already in love with TOP rapping, GD's songwriting,YB's moves, D-Lite's smile and Victory's antics.


So Popped was perfect for me. Ten out of five gold stars for it. It was so difficult not to finish the book en route from Megamall to Makati. But I was able to stop myself from reading it all in one sitting. I loved Mac in all of his personas. It was almost like it was happening to me. Though I am a big fan of Korean actors and performers, I had my own encounter with a Korean guy in college, several actually and the fact that he said Koreans hated Japanese (I was an otaku then) stopped me from ever dating any Korean guy. If I had to choose between the two, Japan would still win. Korea is like my husband and Japan was my hosto or geisha. Let's go for geisha.


Still, I woke up Saturday morning at two in the morning. (not unusual since I work on the a.m. Shift and my mind auto-wakes around that time) I wake up this early even on Saturdays since my brain is now unable to adjust to the fact that it's a non-working day.


I was not in full control of my faculties yet and my hand grabbed my brown Nine West bag and took the holy grail, I mean Popped, out of it. And no less than an hour later, I was having a tummy ache from all the laughing and spazzing. I was, in kerfag heaven. I reminded myself that I would go to Market!Market! later to buy books at Chapters & Pages and that Popped 2 could wait. (or I could borrow it from my own fangirl support group co-spazzer Nina. (Yes, I notice that that odd closeness tot he name of Nica is apparent. But her real name is Janina. Mine is actually Niña so mine is ACTUALLY closer to Nica or Nicole. But I'll let her be Nica since she is prettier than me. I have my own Cesca, Jans who is a singer kinda close right? And well we don't have a Trixie and an Andie so they can just be me. Since I seem to share the mad Googling skills of those two and I write.)


I loved the small almost OC details in this book about describing the experience like you were actually there. And the many culture shocks they experienced made me want to spazz out completely. I also dream of going to Korea and meeting some real Korean friends. I have some students I would want to meet with if I ever go there to visit. I have a couple of them that I can meet up with (I think) if I ever go there. But that would require me to get out of my actual job now and work for a company that would pay me twice or thrice than this so I could afford tickets, accommodations and what not. By that time, Big Bang would be in their thirties. And some other group would be gunning for the Worldwide Act award. But they would always be the first in my heart.


Popped wrote down what many of us would love to have. Encounters of the K-pop kind. But the fact that in the story, the real happiness that they found isn't all the merchandise, Korean lovelife, chance encounters with the hottest men in their fanfic dreams, but the friendship that was formed between four seemingly cut from my own first life kind of people. Nica, Trixie, Cesca and Andie reminded me of my friends and I realized that sometimes the sailormoon fandom, kpop addiction or Mig Ayesa stalking are just means to an even great story.


Someday I would write about my Elbi life and it would make college girls who remember their close friends want to call em up and say, “Let's go out for coffee.”


And if by then those cute Coffee Prince cups and lattes would already have a branch in the Philippines, then that would be super awesome. Till then, we can hit Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

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