Personal Story, Part 1: The Final Pleasantly Surprised Fan Meet 「喜歡．一個人」最終回見面會

For those who are wondering why there hasn't been any translations lately, I must apologise...I spontaneously booked tickets to Taipei, Taiwan to attend the last Pleasantly Surprised fan meet held on Saturday night! This is seriously the craziest thing I've ever done...I'm not usually a crazy fangirl, but given that I've loved this show enough to translate the weekly BTS clips, I figured, hey, I've invested enough to go meet the cast. I'd been kicking myself for missing the Jasper and Jolin SPOP signing since August, so when the call-out was made for the show's final fan-meet, I gave into my impulses and sent myself to the event!

Waiting to get in the event

On the day of the meet, I got up at 8:00am. At first I thought I was being a little paranoid for going early to check up on SETTV (the numbers were being given out at 5:30pm and the event was starting at 7:00pm), but after talking to my friend, I realised that I was indeed meeting one of the Dreamgirls (Puff), a majorly hot drama star and Morning Call's guitarist (Jasper), the boys from 4Eva (Jolin, Deyn and Yorke), Taiwan's beauty queen (Lene) ...and all the other loveable cast members...So without further delay, I hopped into a taxi and made my way to the SETTV/ Sanli Office. Sure enough, there was already about 100 fan girls and boys there. Kind of amazing and kind of crazy!

Needless to say, I was too paranoid to leave after that, so I camped down. Luckily for me (and for anyone who ever intends to go to a SETTV/Sanli fan event at their offices)...there was a Starbucks across the road with artisan styled breads, hot tea, a non-squat bathroom and friendly staff. I developed a true appreciation for Starbucks that day...it really helped me with my insane 8 hour wait!!! The weather was also very, very humid and rainy. I was super lucky to have prepared an umbrella, but still I got rainned on the whole day, on-and-off, on-and-off, because we had to wait outside and Typhoon Vongfong, while far away, brought on some terribly stormy weather.

At about 5:00pm, some stores started setting up to sell Pleasantly Surprised merchandise. I have to admit, I didn't get a chance to look because there were a rush of fan girls and from what I could see while sitting down, the sales were mainly: SPOP magazines (of which I own all copies, already), Pleasantly Surprised replica necklaces, make-up and books. I would have liked to try was the Pleasantly Surprised hand-made pudding cups, which I didn't see until too late (But I'm going to comfort myself by saying that they were probably just pudding cups with the show's logo printed on it...) At 5:30pm on the dot, they gave out numbers...I got number 99! We had an hour to grab dinner and then to come back at 6:30pm to get inside. 

When we got back, we were lined up according to our numbers and then led through SETTV into their theatre, a space that was set up with a giant Pleasantly Surprised poster, photo cut-outs which you could take pictures with and a projection of the opening song sequence with the OST music playing (I'll put these pics up later as I'm trying to get through to the actual cast pics first)...

The Introduction

The MC of the event was Jian-An. He's a fun guy who is good at balancing entertainment with conversation and he's Sanlih's regular MC. He started off by welcoming us to the meet and thanking us for coming. He wanted us to put our cameras down when he introduced the cast to give them a warm welcome...and when the meet was over, and the final song was playing, he wanted us to wave our mobile lights in the air to show our dedication to the cast of the series. He also stressed the importance of sticking firmly to our seats (Or I would have been all over the place with my camera! So please keep in mind that my personal photos are limited to my position on the left side of the front row...) Finally, he teased that we had to make a warm welcome to the first person of the cast, regardless of who it was....

The first person to walk out solo was Vic, who of course plays Ah Jie's brother, Zhi Xiang. He was quite tall! He was also friendly and shy-looking despite having such a cool demeanor throughout the series. There was heaps of clapping and cheering, especially when Deyn (Xiao Qiang), and Zooey (Linda in the series) followed Vic, walking out together as a pair. Maybe it's because I never saw Vic and Deyn together often, and always just assumed Deyn to be "the tall one"...but Vic and Deyn were standing together, I realised Vic was pretty much his height! Deyn looked so bright and happy that it was hard not to feel the same way. I really like Deyn and I hope he gets more prominent roles in future dramas!

Who followed after that, but Stanley Mei (who plays Xiao Shu) holding Verna Pei Lin (who plays Xiao Li) in a total Honeymoon style hug...(Sorry it's slightly blurry, they were going top speed!) Jian-An asked if this was a sign that Xiao Shu and Xiao Li where now definately a couple and Stanley gave the smart answer: Well, next week's the last episode...all will be revealed then, so keep watching!

Following these 5 were one of my favourite couples, Yorke Sun (Da Zhi on Pleasantly Surprised) and Ba Yu (who is of course Bao Zhu Jie)...Everyone couldn't help but laugh at their cheesy, playful arm-in-arm lover's stroll onto the stage. There were some loud clapping and cheering and Ba Yu said jokingly to the audience, in a funny, manly tone of voice, and in english, "Control yourself!" I wish I'd actually recorded it!!!...It was hilarious and so unexpected, though I guess with Ba Yu, you never know what you're going to get! She had a lovely outfit on too. 

Ah here's another picture...it was so surreal seeing these guys pop out before my eyes. I mean, sure they were on my screen all the time, but now they were in front of me, acting as normally and naturally as they always did in Pleasantly Surprised BTS clips! In some ways I wish I'd captured them in perfectly still snapshots, like in SPOP shoots, but somehow I also like the candidness of these pictures because they seem more real here than ever before. In any case, they're such a good-looking bunch! 

You can guess who came dancing out after this couple...of course, the well loved Sean (Head Chef) and Lene (Le Xuan)...They literally came spinning in...Lene was on such high heels that I'm impressed she managed to keep her balance. She's such a babe in real life...tiny frame with really, really long legs! Of course, there were a lot of screams from her fan girls and male admirers. Sean really does have a smile that lights up the room! 

Jian-An sent his congrats to Head Chef for confession to Le Xuan on the show. People were actual cheering and telling Sean/Head Chef to "Marry her!" And then someone yelled out "I love youuu!!!" (It was a male fanboy, probably to Lene) And Sean said jokingly, "You love me?" Haha, the fanboy responded with "I love youuu head chef!!!" To which Sean was laughing hardcore. There was also a joke by Jian-An where he asked Ba Yu what she liked about Yorke/ Da Zhi...and then made a joke about how Sean and Yorke look like twins. In reply, Yorke turned to ask Ba Yu, "Can you even tell us apart?!" Ba Yu was like, "Yea! I can!" ...and then forgot to answer Jian-An's question. So he laughed that all she could say about Yorke was that she could tell him apart from Sean :P

So by now, everyone was cheering super hard because only the really main leads were left...would they all come out together, or would Jolin be by himself? Well, of course not! Jolin (Hao Wei) got to come out with the super cute Mason Zeng (Xiao Yi) and even posed in a kissy manner...hahaha

From memory Jian-An teased Jolin about his partner being a kid rather than a stunning female cast member, but it was all good, Jolin and Mason seem to be super close...haha, probably one of Mason's favourite big brother's from the cast!

Intense, ear-drum cheering errupted at this point because there were only two members of the cast left!!! Jian-An then called out for Jasper. Oh Jasper. I've always thought he looked amazing ever since I saw a promo poster of Pleasantly Surprised and decided I'd give the series a shot...He's always looked pretty suave onset, in BTS clips and when posing for those SPOP and Marie Claire photoshoots. But in real life? The guy was gorgeous. Very seriously stunning. He strolled in casually, much to the excited screams of fan girls with a real easy grin and waving to the crowds on both sides of the room. Yep, he is that tall! And he totally melted the crowd with his dimpled smile. There was probably a slight moment of confusion as to why he hadn't strolled out with Puff, but Jian-An cleared that up by asking if we wanted Puff and then trolling us by annoucing that Puff wasn't actually here yet because she was still doing some filming. Still, Jasper was enough to dazzle us all...In this photo, he's totally looking in my camera direction, right? :D

At this point, Jian-An asked Jasper if he wanted to say some words to the audience, which Jasper did. He started off by thanking everyone for coming because he said that he knew, as did the rest of the Figuro crew, that a lot of people had waited the whole day to take part in the fan meet, which was true dedication as it had been raining for most of the day (it was nice that this was being acknowledged by Jasper...haha, soothing the pain of an 8 hour wait!)...so the cast were super grateful to the fans. One fan even added in that there'd been people who'd camped there the night before...but whether or not that was true, I can't be sure, as this was a guy who kept shouting out stuff, which was sometimes funny...and sometimes too much. But Jian-An enjoyed playing off his comments.

There was also some cute Jasper and Mason interaction, which I don't quite remember the content of. But Mason was definately included in a lot of conversations :) He gives super cute answers, like he thanked everyone for coming out too!

Jian-An then proceeded to ask each of the individual actors questions about playing their characters, I think when Zooey was speaking, it was because Jian-An was asking her about predicting the number of people here today with her "powers" as Linda. (I apologise if my photos don't remain the same in terms of lighting...I did fiddle with some functions at some point to see if I could get better lighting. But for the most part they should be the same.)

Haha, Zooey has such a cute expression here! To be honest, there was so much dialogue that I can't remember everything that was said between Jian-An and the cast. But I do remember little stories which I'll try to match up with some pictures. For example, I know definitely that Jian-An laughed about people paying to have intimate/ kissy scenes with Puff and that they'd probably pay the director heaps to experience it. He then laughed at Jasper and said that Jasper would be broke given how many times he and Puff were cosy as KQ and AJ in Pleasantly Surprised, which Jasper agreed with. Ah, look at Jasper's beautiful smile :)

Jian-An also asked Vic was it was like coming between Puff and Jasper and what it was like playing a coma patient. Vic said it was just funny laying down and pretty much looking up at Puff and Jasper being lovely dovey and always causing them to be all sentimental around him. Then Jasper imitated Vic being a coma patient (the funny Jasper pose that you see below). Jian-An also commented that Vic and Jasper really do look like brothers, much like Yorke and Sean....haha, Jasper and Vic were like really?! In a strange way, I think so too. Probably the fact that they're the same height and have longish faces :)

There was also a moment where Jian-An asked out of the guys, Jasper, Jolin or even Vic, who liked Puff the most/ was the closest to Puff. Vic was like, "I rarely have scenes with Puff, so I can't say that we have a romantic connection." Jasper turned to Jian-An and said, "Well, I don't know if you know this, but..." He then turned to put an arm around Jolin and said, "Jolin and I have a bit of a romantic connection going on ourselves..." To which everyone laughed. Jian-An was laughing too as he said, "But I'm not trying to introduce this romantic relationship!" While Jasper was like to Jolin, "I'm just kidding...don't get any ideas..." Ahahaha, I love that the bromance was acknowledged!

Jian-An then got Ba Yu up because he wanted her to teach the audience the dance/ exercises the crew had done in the BTS when they had filmed the episode where the Figaro Crew had held a party. If you guys remember, they had done a group dance with Ba Yu loudly annoucing the moves. So Jian-An asked if Ba Yu would like to teach the crowd how to it. The Figaro Crew would do an example first, and then the audience would have to have a go.

But before they got into it, Jian-An asked if Lotus Wang would like to come join in the dance. And then the crew got super excited. Lotus Wang happens to be another drama actress and singer. She was at the fan meet because she'd brought her kids to see it (She had a huge bunch of kids with her!) and she confessed to being a huge fan of the show...there were some funny pictures at the start where she'd thrown herself onto a poster of Puff and Jasper before the cast had come out. Anyway, the crew were delighted to see her, so there were hugs all around and she spoke to people, especially Xiao Yi. And she said she'd join in onthe dancing when the audience did it. Anyway...here are some priceless dancing pics....

Ba Yu then got Jasper out to do a special version of the dance. She gave him instructions, like Jellyfish version (I'm not sure if it was jellyfish, but it was something funny and silly), scared version, shy version, shy-because-you're-about-to-go-on-a-date-with-Kai-Qi-version...

At this point Puff came on stage, just slipping on...but it was too hard to ignore because people sitting on the right side of the theatre started screaming her name and cheering and getting hyper-excited. It took both Puff and Jian-An to get a hush from the audience, so they could continue on! Puff was so tall and thin in real life...and her eyes were so sparkly! She really is blessed with a pretty and friendly face! I caught a shot of her smile too, below.

Of course, Jian-An then ushered Puff up front to explain why she was late. Puff mentioned that she'd been filming all day until just then, so she'd gone home to change and then drove to SETTV, but there'd been a traffic jam...so she was sorry to be late :D 

There was a bit more talking to Puff and then Jian-An explained that Jasper had just been dancing for her because they had been doing that Ba Yu inspired dance...And they figured Puff should do the dance with Jasper and Jolin. Though not to leave Jolin by himself, Mason went up as well...Ba Yu started giving instructions for each version of the dance...including shy-because-you're-on-a-first-date version...and Puff was like, laughing, "Who dances this version of that dance?!"

Jian-An then asked Puff who was the smoothest on screen and who was the best at creating chemistry...was it Jasper or Jolin...or was it Xiao Yi? Puff laughed and said it was Xiao Yi. She said that he knew exactly what to say when she was close by. If asked if Puff Jie Jie or Verna Jie Jie was prettier, and Puff was close by, Mason would say Puff. But if Verna was close by then he would say Verna. Hahaha, so they tested him and asked, which one he really thought was the prettiest...but Mason got shy and quiet (He did say Verna in the end! haha!). Then Jian-An laughed that they shouldn't pick on the kids! Hehe, poor cute little Mason.

For the next part of the fan meet, Jian-An suggested going into a PK (competition) of the dancing game with audience members....so each staff member had to pick an audience member to be on their "team." They could either pick someone directly from the crowd who volunteered, or pick a random number queue number...I was clutching onto my number 99 in anticipation...would I be chosen? Vic and Deyn picked from people who put their hands up, Verna picked number 1 because she said that person had waited the longest, Zooey picked from the crowd, Stanley picked number 91 which was so close to me! But not me!, I can't remember whether Yorke and Ba Yu chose from the crowd, but Jolin definitely did - he picked from the people who had missed out on seats and were standing on the side to watch the fan meet. Lene picked a girl from the crowd wearing "the monster eye" (a t-shirt of Mike's eye from Monsters Inc.), someone helped Mason chose a little boy sitting in the front rows...and then it was Jasper's turn. He picked number 33! Damn, if only he had tripled that number! A happy girl with glasses rose up to take her place next to Jasper. Puff also picked a number...Interestingly, she picked a similar number to Jasper. The number 36...so another girl in denim shorts happily joined Puff by her side. 

The PK competition with the Pleasantly Surprised crew members had to face each other in a dance-off. They would have to do the dance, in the order that it was usually done, really quickly, until one of them mucked up the order. The audience member could do it on behalf of the actor or vice versa with the other person cheering them on. It turned out mostly that the actors did the dance as most people were rather shy. They pit the couples against each other, with winner going into further competition with other winners until would be left...Sean and Lene were quite good at the game with Sean losing out to Lene only after a long match! I like their match also because Jasper and Puff were having a conversation during the match...which you can see in the photos. They talked quite a bit throughout the fan meet, which I think showed how comfortable they were with each other.

To be continued in Part 2 blog entry...