{"id":58,"date":"2007-08-22T21:24:51","date_gmt":"2007-08-22T18:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/?p=58"},"modified":"2007-08-22T21:24:51","modified_gmt":"2007-08-22T18:24:51","slug":"those-precious-moments-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"Those precious moments &#8211; part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I remember holding a book so decadent, the warn away edges and the dog-eared pages seemed to melt away in my hands. The local library stocked a curious bunch of Korean texts. Some were old &#8211; like the one in my grasp &#8211; and some were relatively new. I returned the book to it\u2019s original spot and continued to the other side of the shelf. A stash of magazines lay awkwardly, jig-sawing their spines into a rather ambitious mountain. I gathered as many as I could, carrying them to the nearest table.<\/p>\n<p>The magazines were slightly off colour, having faded in the sun. I clasped the first one gently, as if it were a curio, some undiscovered treasure foreign to me. It was, of course. I can\u2019t read Korean. But a picture translates more easily. Boundless beautiful smiles from beautiful faces stared at me from every page. Various personalities dressed to the height of the vogue consensus. These magazines were the who\u2019s-who in Korean popular culture. They also included sections on the western and asian music scene.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Morning Musume\" alt=\"Morning Musume\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/stuff\/wu_zush_blog_p2_01.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<p>When I reached an issue dating back to 2000, I was confronted with a pleasant surprise. A few articles in, ten Japanese girls caught my gaze. <strong>\u2013I WISH\u2019<\/strong> sat on the page in big Romanized letters. A warmth filled my body, tenderising my heart, softening my face and tightening my stomach. I remembered what it felt like to fall in love with <strong>Morning Musume<\/strong> all over again. A feeling that can only come with time. A longing that can only surface with hindsight. Like a man trying to recapture his past through whisky bottles and old photo albums, I was drunk on nostalgia. It felt good. Really good, if ultimately unrewarding.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Morning Musume\" alt=\"Morning Musume\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/stuff\/wu_zush_blog_p2_02.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<p>When I read Zush\u2019s post I could sense the same kind of empathy. So much so, I had to write down this small account. In fact I laughed into the seat of my chair when he wrote the words \u2013we two old timers chatting on various H!P things\u2019. I imagine us sitting in a bar with a few beers in our hands, smiling at the ceiling, picking at the labels on our bottles, sighing through our melancholy faces every time we finish a sentence. Morning Musume has a way of making you feel old, and this brings with it a naivety &#8211; the innocence of youth,\u00a0envying it in old age. I can\u2019t help but feel that this topic is going to make Zush and I feel very, very old.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Morning Musume\" alt=\"Morning Musume\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/stuff\/wu_zush_blog_p2_03.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<p>I searched through my archives after reading Zush\u2019s post and watched the \u2013I WISH\u2019 PV a fair few times. I guess this song was ahead of its time. One for the future. Because when I first heard it I didn\u2019t quite get it. Now further down the line with a better knowledge of Morning Musume\u2019s history, the song\u2019s sentimentality echo\u2019s like a fond memory.<\/p>\n<p>Wu-san<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">[to be continued]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I remember holding a book so decadent, the warn away edges and the dog-eared pages seemed to melt away in my hands. The local library stocked&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wu-zush"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}