[translation] Wen Junhui on goodbyes

[hwarium]

Topic: a memorable goodbye

Wen Junhui: Actually, I haven’t experienced that kind of profoundly deep parting, maybe it’s because I’m still young. Perhaps it’s because I’ve had a lot of farewells since I was young. So it’s always been like, gradually growing accustomed to saying goodbye, then encountering a new kind of goodbye? It’s that kind of process. Even as a child, I was constantly saying goodbye. It wasn’t that I was away from home, since my mother came to all my schedules, but I was jumping from one project to the next. As soon as one film finished shooting I would go to another set. Another shoot or another advertisement. So there were always these little farewells. Maybe a significant goodbye would be leaving my homeland to a foreign country for debut.

Actually, during the time when we were trainees, a senior said to us, “You are going through hardships now, but after you debut, you will look back and realise it all had meaning”. When I think back to those days, there is so much frustration and sadness, but at that time, I thought this goodbye hurt the most.

Back then, I held the hope that, even if I quit and returned to China, I could slip back into my past life. But one day, I realised all my classmates had graduated high school. Suddenly, they were doing their own thing and moving on to university. And then I realised all the friends I used to see in middle school were no longer in Shenzhen. There was a feeling then, like the realisation of Ah, the place I miss is one I cannot return to.

But to look back at it all again, I instead feel a sense of growth. It’s like I’m saying goodbye to my past all over again.

Isn’t there a saying, “we will go through a second adolescence because we are repeating the same things we did in our youth.” It’s like when I embark on my own progress, but bear witness to the growth of others, I regain that original mindset and feel like I have not changed. But at the same time, I sense that the people around me have changed so much. And so, I suppose I am also growing up.

It’s just a regret that I hold. I don’t want to face that kind of goodbye. But I recognise the feeling.

Source: 中国有磁味 “China has Taste” episode 12 bonus clip [xiaohongshu/red note link]

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Translation comments

• [中国有磁味] is a food themed travel/talk show that aired in 2023. Junhui was a guest on the last episode of season 1, so the topic of conversation turned to farewell and partings. Junhui’s story wasn’t aired in the final cut, so I only came across this clip when scrolling XHS.
  


• I immediately wanted to capture and translate Junhui’s comments. His words resonated with me because this kind of intangible goodbye was something I keep revisiting in my stories — where the tender absence is not so much for a place or a person, but a state of mind or a time you can no longer return to. I’ve explored it in once again, love, and it’s a theme in my current WIP. You may miss a person, but really you miss walking to school together, turning around in class to steal their pens, leaning over their shoulder to copy their maths homework. You can meet up again as adults but it will never be the same.
  


• (Tinhat mode) There’s other things here that I, as a Junhui thinker, want to vault up and gnaw over in my cave. Being adapted to a transient, unsettled life. Being okay with constant goodbyes (thinking he’s okay with constant goodbyes), arrested development of a prolonged adolescence, measuring himself by observing the people around him. Junhui so rarely opens up about himself, so I’m pinning this as source text for future characterisations.
  


• (Fan mode) Jun was so awkward haha. I’ve translated him more profoundly than life because I want the sentences to make sense. Jun’s a little like Mingyu because he speeds through words like he wants to finish his story and move everyone’s attention from him. He jumps through 5 ideas and doesn’t connect the dots or develop each concept and always says “this”, “that”, “like that”, “that feeling” 那个 那个 那个 hahaha please sir give me a noun.
  
  
  It was refreshing because I always see SVT as industry veterans in their comfort zone. But outside of kpop, their lives are just starting. I don’t realise how young and inexperienced they are until a show like this, where Junhui is the rookie amongst veterans. The way the others confidently hold the camera, talk through a story, engage the other hosts and link concepts, I can tell Junhui has so much to learn (and I am excited for him).

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Full Transcript:

文俊辉： 其实我是感觉可能就年龄还小，就没有到那个印象那么深刻的告别。可能就，从小到大也可能是因为告别比较多了。所以有种 逐渐在习惯告别然后。。。再迎接一个新的告别？就是一种那样的过程。因为从小就 。。。

龚琳娜：离开父母。

文俊辉： 也不算离开家。就是因为虽然妈妈带着但是从各个组就这个组杀青完过后去下一个或者是短期的广告。就是 —

龚琳娜：你妈妈是跟着你一起的。

文俊辉： 对 妈妈是跟着。

龚琳娜：因为你比较小。

文俊辉：因为那时候没公司。

龚琳娜：对 ，小。

文俊辉：就一直会有感受到，这算是小告别。然后到后来就是。。。完全 比如说 自己熟悉的祖国然后去到他乡去发展。对我来说算是一个比较大的告别。

陈嘉桦：是。

文俊辉： 其实因为之前我们练习生的时候有一个前辈跟我们说过一句话「现在你们经历的苦难就等你们出道后，重新回过头，你会觉得都是有意思的事情」。但现在回想起来那个时候可能会很伤心很难过但是因为那个时候我记得最难过的告别是我当时一直觉得我就不当练习生回国我还有希望我可以继续过我原本的生活。但是突然有一天看到朋友圈，原本的高中同学都毕业了。突然就各自的东西，各自的大学。然后发现身边原本能见的高中同学全部都不再深圳。就有一种， 啊 我已经回不去了。就是那种感觉。

那现在回想起来会有一种，这算是一种成长的感觉。很像是跟自己的过去次次地在告别。

陈嘉桦：因为你已经完全是不同的生活状态。

文俊辉：而且我们有句话是，「很可能会有第二青春期原因因为我们一直是在原本青春期那个时期是在重复着一件事情」。对。所以是等于说是比起我在做什么东西，我在见证别人的成长 反而会让我一直保持着原本的心态。我感觉我没有变。就是我一直是在那个时期。但是我发现为什么我身边的人变化那么大。会有这种感觉。

陈嘉桦：身边的人的变化提醒着你其实在成长。

文俊辉：对其实我也是在长大但是 。。。

陈嘉桦：但你觉得你自己都没变。

文俊辉：— 也算是心里面的一个遗憾。就是不想去那个告别。就是有种那种感觉。但挺有意思的，是这样想。

Comments

[hwarium]

commenting on my own post bc it's 3am and I can't think through Junhui's matryoshka doll stream of consciousness. There's like half a dozen interrelated ideas about goodbyes but also looking back at your past and forming a new perspective but also maintaining the passion of your youth by looking at others going through the same thing but also the paradox of wanting to never change but also wanting to grow ugh Junhui (fond)