June 14, 2021

It was Saturday afternoon when my big girl Chinese friend introduced a man to me while we were eating our lunch. She likes him not because of his physical attributes but because of his being so talented.

"Do you want to see him?" She asked.

"Sure," I said.

What appeared in my sight was a cute man that got into my bones, from the depth of his eyes, his inviting parted lips, to the gentle expressions of his voice that spoke to me of olden times before he'd utter a word.

"Oppa." The first word I said.

Later I found out that his name is Henry, a masculine French name that means ruler of the home. How lovely his name is, the same as his euphonious voice every time he released a note that sent pleasurable chills to my ears and shivers down my spine.

You may think he's an Oppa, but not 100% Oppa. His surname "Lau" will tell that he is Chinese, but he was raised and grew up in Canada. What surprised me was his age as he has the same birth year as mine - 1989. And what made me like him is not his physical appearance but his voice that soothes my mind, as well as his talents that will make anyone like him too.

When his song was played, "Just Be Me" it touched my soul and every note and lyrics lingers in my mind.

🎶🎶 Can anybody see us while we chasing the lights
Again I'm losin' my mind
And why is it always pictures of a perfect life

I'm living my life for me, for me
There's no one I'd rather be
I'ma just be me

Beautiful world
Beautiful life
Just live it like a fantasy
Didn't know I would be alright
Didn't know I'd feel so right

I'ma just be me 🎵🎶

For a long time, I didn't listen to Kpop songs because I don't wanna be addicted again. But Henry has awakened the sleeping fangirl inside me. His song Just Be Me was composed by himself and that made me admire him more. I admire singers that are composers at the same time. How can they be so good at singing and composing? Their minds and voices can blow one's mind.

I love this song too much, as it talks about the doubts that creep inside us at times and the fact that being ourselves is the only way to be free. Sometimes we are talking about a thousand things that are on our minds but no one can hear us. We try our best to be everything that we could be, but sometimes we are not good enough for others. We live in other people's heads, we live to impress others, we live to please others, we live in a life that others wanted to see in us.

But do other people even care about the anguish that is screaming in our minds? Do they even care about the misery we are suffering? Do they even care every time we scream in agony as pain seared through our minds and hearts?

Then we realize that we have to live for ourselves alone. We scream at the top of our lungs and ask, "why I never did it for me?" Until then we have freed ourselves from any doubts and pain. We have freed ourselves from being caged in the heads of other people. The world is beautiful and so we just need to live it like fantasy and appreciate that life is so beautiful as well. We are totally free when we are just being us, "Just be me."

And that what made me like Henry. And do you know that he's a former member of Super Junior? He's the violinist of the group but also worked with the leader in composing some of the group's songs like "Andante" but left SM Entertainment when his contract expired and joined Monster Entertainment Group.

And if you have heard the song "It's You" it's his first original soundtrack released in 2017 that became the #1 top-streamed Korean OST on Spotify in 2018 and 2019.

In his live version, you can tell how talented he is while playing the piano. Aside from it, he's a classical violinist based in South Korea and China. He can also play the drum, guitar, and loop station. He is not only a good singer, composer, and can play multiple instruments, but he's also a great actor. In 2020, Henry became one of the stars of the fantasy/action movie "Double World" where he also sang the main theme OST "Don't Go." The movie received different awards and the very first movie of China that achieved simultaneous global release.

If you are one of the followers of his Youtube Channel https://youtube.com/c/henrylau, for sure you also have enjoyed his HenryMoreHenry carpool videos about collaboration with other singers. My favorite video is his collab with Jessi singing Henry's song "Radio." Aside from Jessi, he also had collab videos with Ahn Ji-Young, BOL4, LeeHi, Change, and more Korean singers.

And have you watched the Korean TV Series "Begin Again?" It's a musical TV series about reputable musicians of South Korea who traveled to different parts of the world where people don't know anything about the casts. Henry has been part of Season 3 together with other musicians like Lena Park, Lee Su-Yhun (I love the voice of this artist), Hareem, Taeyeon of Girl's Generation, and other singers/musicians.

The TV series locations include parts of Ireland, Switzerland, France Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Netherlands, and some in South Korea. The casts introduce themselves by holding busking events and different performances. If you are a music lover, you should watch this TV series. The audience of their live performances also enjoys watching their events and listening to their golden voices.

To give you something entertaining, here's one of the videos of Begin Again held in Italy where Su-Hyun made a cover of the song "Havana" and Henry showcased his talents in playing piano and violin in this episode. Other casts showed their talents in singing and playing instruments as well.

You can see how the audience enjoyed their performance and some even danced to the beat of the music. I love the part where Henry played his violin using freestyle and the performance ended with a big round of applause from the audience.

Henry is one of a kind artists and an outstanding performer that has been wasted by SM Entertainment. A multitalented artist - can sing, can compose songs, can dance, can act, can play different instruments - and do you know that he is multilingual too? He speaks Korean, Chinese, Cantonese and fluent in English. And one last more, he got his Hollywood debut in 2019 and has been part of the movie A Dog’s Journey, the sequel to A Dog’s Purpose film in 2017. He's such a total package.

And I'm back to fangirling again and listening to KPop music because of Henry. Lately, I was so stressed for some reason and even told myself to stop blogging for a while. Until this friend of mine played the music of Henry and that encouraged me to listen to music again. It has been my hobby before but I stopped it when I became active on both readcash and noisecash.

Music indeed is a stress-reliever as it soothes our mind and calms our soul. And since I can't leave a day without blogging, I just do it by listening to music that is appealing to my ears and helps me calm and unwinds.

Thanks for your time.