It is more than 20 years since Yoon Seri crash landed on Ri Jeong-hyeok and they have had everything they ever dreamed of: love, marriage, family and success. But can their love and family survive the unexpected challenges they must now face?
"How d...
Over the past few days, Jack had been working his way through as much background material on Jeong-hyeok and Seri as he could get his hands on. He had a research assistant and he'd asked her to pull any official documents, any press statements and previous interviews for him. He charted Jeong-hyeok's musical career over the last few years, identifying the major milestones of recordings released and performances in Korea and abroad. He read the reviews from the performance in the States three years ago. He had actually attended that and it had made a significant impression on him at the time. Then there were the reviews from Jeong-hyeok's European performances in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome the year before that, plus those from Australia and Japan in earlier years. He could see from these how his range and repertoire had expanded, but throughout them all, there was a consistent theme: love, loss and passion, brilliantly conveyed.
What really intrigued him though was his backstory. He had known the basics of their story, but by going back to the translations of original material, he learned a lot more. He watched the footage that had been released on social media soon after their marriage, the one that had caused such an outcry. And he watched the interview Jeong-hyeok and Seri had given to explain themselves afterwards. The man on the footage was astounding! How anyone could stand their ground and fight like that, when faced with someone intent on murder he didn't know. The artist Jack had admired on Friday and Saturday night could also fight like a professional. Well, he was a professional he reminded himself. He was a soldier. It seemed so incongruous.
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And then, Jeong-hyeok's self confidence in his ability in that situation, contrasted with how uncomfortable he looked in that interview. The public comments on social media had exposed his vulnerability in a way that fighting for his life did not. Seri on the other hand, looked more confident in front of the cameras, but then he supposed at that stage she was more used to it than he was.
He went back to their press release, issued when they were first married and compared the version of events there to the later interview. They had missed out Seri's time in North Korea completely, instead they said they had first met in Switzerland 12 years previously. He worked the time back. That would have been when Jeong-hyeok was studying at the music academy, just before his brother died. What was Seri doing in Switzerland? On holiday perhaps. He wondered how they had met.
He turned back to the press reviews of that first concert in Seoul. He noted the date, just a day after the media frenzy.
I wonder what was going through his mind.
Given the rave reviews he had received, it clearly hadn't damaged his performance.
I wonder if it actually helped?
What made Jeong-hyeok stand out as an artist was his ability to connect the music to the emotion.
I wonder if the shock and distress of the public and media reaction heightened this ability?
