Oh Seunghee hails from what one would call a close-knit and comfortable family in Seoul. Daddy Oh prides himself in being a civil servant, while Mommy Oh runs a modest but stable flower shop. During Seunghee's younger years, when everyone was less busy, the family of three would spend evenings together over dinner and fruits, talking about their day, planning their next holiday, or making calls to Grandma Oh back in Gwangju. Playing in the background was always one of Daddy Oh’s black vinyl records – classical music, jazz numbers, old ballads… Sometimes Seunghee would play a piece or two on the piano with ad-libbed lyrics that didn’t quite rhyme, but her parents clapped all the same. Things were simple, but nice.
Growing up, Seunghee gradually became cognizant of the path on which her parents wished for her to go. Study well, enroll into one of the SKY universities, and then graduate to a bright future ahead. And she was right on track. Her stellar grades in elementary school propelled her to a scholarship for her education in middle school, during which she was elected student council president. Even as she moved on to high school, she consistently topped the class. School achievements aside, she was a grade six in piano, had a knack for drawing, and volunteered at a dog shelter whenever possible. Everything was going smoothly and would likely continue to, until her sophomore year where it hit her that this was not what she had set out for.
Ironically it was the location of her high school – in the heart of Hongdae area – that exposed Seunghee to the wonders of busking. With the tendency to stay behind in the library for after-school revisions, it was often evening time when she set foot home, by which time buskers could be seen along the streets, crooning to entrancing melodies. Perhaps it was the happiness they exuded, or the pouring of unembellished emotions into every note and lyric; Seunghee found herself inexplicably drawn to the buskers with every evening spent listening to them. They reminded her of her childhood, of the slower pace of life back then where she could just stop and enjoy music without having to worry about the next thing on her schedule. It was a nostalgia she would love to relive. She began to hang out in the vicinity during the weekends as well, watching performance after performance, singing along and wishing she could be among the performers someday. In a fated turn of events, one of her favorite girl bands, Mascara, put up an SNS notice that they were looking to recruit a new female member – an opportunity Seunghee jumped at.
At the audition she belted out Alicia Keys’
If I Ain’t Got You, alas with a couple of off-keys. Nonetheless the band appreciated the raw charms of her unpolished delivery, and with her valuable keyboard skills to boot, she was in. Despite her ecstaticism there remained the niggling worry of how she was to break the news to her parents, and true enough they flipped out, disappointed that Seunghee would detract herself from her studies with only one year to go before her college entrance exams. As a cold war waged on, Daddy Oh laid down the condition: she could do whatever she wanted, but she would have to enter SKY by hook or by crook.
For the months to come she studied very hard, performed very hard, and lived very hard in every sense of the word. In school she gave her all to her academic work, and beyond that, she embraced music to exhilarating levels. Seunghee eventually scored well enough to enroll into Yonsei’s Sociology major, and her parents, rest assured, gave her full rein to handle her life from that point onwards. Contented with the nice balance among her pursuits, she initially had no intention to be part of the Greek life, but her interest was piqued after a friend dragged her along to Delta Phi Epsilon’s rush party. The emphasis on sisterhood reminded her of family, a notion close to her heart, and she rushed for the sorority to a successful outcome.
Now a sophomore, Seunghee can’t be happier with the way her life is going. She aces most of her modules, is a member of the university’s music club, busks at Hongdae every Friday evening and Saturday afternoon as part of Mascara (where she goes under the stage name Apple), still volunteers whenever she can, and chills with her DPE sisters over wine and fine stuff. Life can’t get better – or, maybe, it can.
