Wonder Girls: 'We Are Still On Our Journey'

The Wonder Girls (Sun Ye, Ye Eun, Hye Rim, and Ahn So-hee) have made a comeback to the Korean music market after a one-and-a-half year break with their second album entitled "Wonder World". They had released a mini album entitled "2 Different Tears" last year in May, and it will be their first album release since then. They came to the Imperial Palace Hotel on November 4 to give an interview, and their appearance seemed to reflect mixed feelings of tenseness and anticipation. They began to give an interview with a rather stiff and serious appearance while talking about their feelings about their comeback and their recent news, but when they revealed their anticipation about meeting with their fans, their bright eyes were full of expectation. Some of the members even cried at the end of the interview.

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The leader of the group, Sun Ye, said, "We feel pressure as we are releasing our official album after such a long break, but there have been many interesting stories happening to us. And our members tried to participate in producing the album". Ye Eun said, "I wrote two songs. We worried about choosing the title song of our album, but we finally thought that the song that was most likely to represent us would be the best for the title song, and we took more concerns about the choreography to make more people enjoy our songs together".

Their album will include a total of twelve songs including the title song "Be My Baby", the remake song of "Miyin", which Ye Eun participated in producing, and Sun Ye and Ye Eun's R&B duet song entitled "Long Long Time". The members actively participated in creating the album, and Ye Eun wrote two songs and Yoo Bin and Hye Rim took part in writing lyrics for the rap. The title song "Be My Baby", which a fast tempo, will be included in the original soundtrack of the movie entitled "Wonder Girls At the Apollo" that will air on TV in the US. Sun Ye explained, "Our previous songs such as 'Irony', 'So Hot', and 'Nobody' were not comfortable songs that we could sing with our genuine voices, but this time, we comfortably recorded the song with our genuine voices". The album jacket emphasized the mature images of the members. The youngest, Ahn So-hee, said, "I have just reached in my twenties. I did not intentionally try to look mature but I have naturally become mature as I grew older".

The Wonder Girls will hold their comeback performance with their appearance on the KBS 2TV music program "Music Bank" on November 11. Sun Ye said, "While we were watching many other girl groups on TV, we thought that we would like to hold our activities in Korea. We are very happy now that we can finally rejoin the Korean music industry. We really appreciate it. We want to create a festive mood with other girl groups while complementing each other". Asked about their feelings about their rival group Girls Generation, they highly praised them by saying, "They have their own music and they seem to approach the public with a different aspect that we do not have". The Wonder Girls will begin their activities in the US again at around the time their movie "Wonder Girls at the Apollo" airs on the US cable TV channel Teen Nick, which will be sometime early next year. The movie will be about their friendship and love, with 60 minutes of running time, and it was filmed in Los Angeles last month. In addition, The Wonder Girls' official album in America will be released next year at around January or February.

Ye Eun said, "We had many troubles due to the language issue. I studied English very hard, but I still had to be confronted with situations where I could not communicate well with native English speakers in America, which made me even cry sometimes. But after I could express my thoughts freely in English, I have come to have more confidence. I longed for my family and friends so much, but I think that our members could become closer thanks to our common feelings of missing our loved ones". But the group members feel regretful for what they had to give up for their activities in America. Yoo Bin said, "My friends all graduated from school and began to work, but I am still a freshman in a university. But I have chosen this work and I could learn many things from this job". She gave her answer undauntedly, yet shed tears after saying it. Sun Ye and Ye Eun, sitting next to her, also shed tears. Yoo Bin explained with an abashed face, "We really wanted to speak in Korean". Ahn So-hee said, "We are singers, but we seem to have lost our sense of standing before the camera as we did not hold activities for such a long time. I want to appear on many music programs in Korea. There were not many regular music programs in America that air every week, so we could not have many opportunities to appear on the music programs up to now and we have a thirst for that".

The members all agreed that even though they had many difficulties while holding activities in the American music industry, they are still on the way to holding more activities in America. Sun Ye said, "We are still on our journey. I hope that we can go back to America after gaining more energy from Korea by successfully finishing our activities in Korea. I think that we still have to learn many things by looking at the situation with a broad viewpoint. We already experienced America and we realize that we want to hold activities in America more than before, when we first began. Having a goal is important, but the more important thing is the process of how we can achieve our goals. Even though it takes time, I want to follow the process slowly and accurately to learn more things on the way".