Last year I posted a mini bio post on Seonghwa for his birthday. The post was well received so I thought I'd do it for another member, Yeosang. I think his story will be interesting to non-atiny’s as it goes into just how hard the training period can be for idols. And the struggles when your family doesn’t approve of your dreams. As a bonus, I also went down a rabbit hole to understand the Korean High School system. I know it’s a long post but I hope everyone enjoys it. Yeosang was born in the port city of Pohang but his family immediately moved to Gwangju when he was a baby. The area he lived in was poor so the local park didn’t have much in the way of play equipment. There were no slides or swings, just a single set of monkey bars. Some of Yeosang’s earliest memories was playing on this set of monkey bars and he jokingly said he became a monkey bar expert. Swinging across; climbing on top and walking across; hanging upside down. Anything and everything you can imagine a person can do with monkey bars Yeosang did it. Yeosang didn’t stay in Gwangju for long as his family moved up to Incheon when he was still pretty young. Yeosang’s family was very academically oriented. Both his mom and his aunt were school teachers. While growing up, anytime he had a break from school, his mom would sit him and his older sister down at the dining room table and bust out her math textbooks. Basically Yeosang had hagwon at home. His mom made them go through all of middle school and high school math and he completed all of her textbooks before he entered high school himself. Yeosang was also an avid reader, reading tons of classic literature. He said his favorite book was the three musketeers. He even dreamed of becoming a novelist when he was in elementary school. And in elementary school he was elected as student body president. Yes his academic achievements were impressive and his parents had high expectations for him. His dad boasted that he should become a lawyer. But there were some cracks in his parents' image of him. If you asked a stereotypical academic student what his favorite subject was at school you might assume it would be math or history. But Yeosang’s answer would be firm and immediate. His favorite subject was P.E. Remember those monkey bars? Yeosang was a very active child who liked to move his body and participate in sports. This crack became a canyon on March 13, 2010. Yeosang was 10 years old in the 5th grade. His family was watching that week's Music Core episode. The group Highlight, originally known as B2ST/Beast, were performing their first comeback Shock. Yeosang was completely mesmerized by this performance. And after watching it myself I can see why. The crowd was insane and the song is a bop. Yeosang expressed for the first time he wanted to be a kpop idol like Highlight. His father was not having it. He sat down with Yeosang and he said, “Of all the people that want to become a Kpop Idol only a small fraction will make it as a trainee. And only a small fraction of trainees will debut. And only a few of those that debut will have successful careers. Only a fool would put their efforts and time into something with such little chance of reward. No, you should focus on your studies, get a good education and you will get rewarded for your efforts.” Yeosang’s dad thought the topic was over but for Yeosang the dream never truly died. Fast forward to 8th grade or his second year at middle school. Yeosang’s class was on a field trip and they were performing a mini talent show. Yeosang convinced two of his friends to perform Highlight’s song fiction as part of the show. Yeosang really enjoyed performing and hearing his classmates cheering him on. He knew that being a kpop idol was a dream he could not let go of. So he mustered up the courage to ask his father once again if he could go to an art high school and pursue becoming a singer. His dad was furious. The two argued and his dad eventually erupted, “If you want to be a singer you can’t live in this house.” So Yeosang left to his parents' shock. He was gone for 3 days. Yeosang was always a very obedient child who never got into trouble. Well… There was the time he and his sister debated whether a serving plate of his mom’s would break if it fell to the floor. After a heated discussion, they decided to settle the matter by standing on top of a chair and dropping the plate. The answer was yes it does break, in fact, it shatters into many pieces all over the living room floor. There was also the time Yeosang and his sister wanted to know what his mom’s vitamins tasted like and by vitamins I mean sleeping aids. After chowing down on a few, Yeosang passed out. His sister ran to his mom in a panic and as they were racing him to the hospital, his sister passed out. Luckily no harm was done, they just had the best and deepest sleep of their lives. Yes, raising Yeosang was not easy, no doubt. But one thing they could rely on was his obedience. Until now. His parent’s realized they couldn’t just command him not to pursue being a singer. So after the 3rd day they called him and asked him to come home. They struck a bargain. His dad said they would support his training to become a singer if and only if he got into an autonomous high school and kept his grade’s up there. At this stage of the story, I asked myself what the heck is an autonomous high school. And so we are going to pause this story as I deep dive into Korea’s High school System. Disclaimer. I am not Korean, I don’t speak Korean, I’ve never lived in Korea. I’m just a neurodivergent person who loves to Google. I’m 85% confident it is all accurate but there’s always a chance I missed something. To understand Korea’s High School system, we need to look at what it was during the 1960s. Korea’s compulsory education ends at the end of Middle school or 9th Grade. That means high school 10-12 is viewed as secondary education. And in the 1960s that meant there was an admissions process with a High School Entrance exam. And the schools charged tuition to attend. Now in practice students just went to their local high school which would have an admissions acceptance rate of like 99%. But for the more ambitious students it meant cram schools to prepare for the exam and trying to get into one of the elite high schools that improved their chances of getting into an elite University. All elite high schools at this time were in Seoul. So even if you were from a large city like Busan that meant moving up to Seoul as a 15 year old. This was not a good system and so in 1974 the government passed the High School Equalization act which put all high schools under strict regulations by the government. They all had to teach the same curriculum, charge the same tuition, and adopt the same hiring practices. They also abolished the whole admissions process instead using a lottery system to determine where students would go. Not everyone was happy with the high school equalization act. They argued it lowered education standards which harmed high achieving students. And so in the early 2000s, they passed a new law which allowed for the creation of autonomous high schools. They are called autonomous because they have autonomy from the 1974 law, allowing them to form their own curriculum, hiring practices, and admission process. That doesn’t mean they are free from government regulations though. In order to build an autonomous high school, you must submit your plans to the government that demonstrates a curriculum of ‘high academic standards’. After approval and the school built, you then have to undergo a government audit every 5 years proving that you are meeting these ‘high academic standards’. And there have been schools who have failed these audits. When this happens they get downgraded to regular general purpose high school under the 1974 law. There are 2 categories of autonomous high schools, National and Regional. A National high school can recruit students nationwide while a regional autonomous high school can only recruit students from their dedicated region. The vast majority of Autonomous High Schools are regional with only a handful given national status. So when Yeosang’s dad told him he had to get into an autonomous high school he really meant THE autonomous high school, the only one for the region of Incheon known as Incheon POSCO academy. To get into Incheon POSCO academy, you first have to send in your CV which shows your grades, test scores, and extracurriculars. If your CV passes their standards you are then invited to have a formula interview in front of their admissions board where they determine if you are of ‘high moral character’. Yeosang passed this admissions process and became part of the first class of students at POSCO Academy in 2015. The daily routine at POSCO academy was for attendance to be taken at 8:15 with the first class starting at 8:30. Standard Korean high schools usually end around 4:30. But Posco academy had an extra 8th period they called the after-hour period which was a special class tailored to the students' weaker subjects. This extra period meant that the school day ended at 5:40. After a dinner break, the school reopened up for students at 7pm for self-study. Now it used to be that Korean High Schools required attendance during self-study but the Korean government outlawed this. You can imagine though that an elite high school would have a culture that would heavily incentivize the students to attend self-study and the vast majority of students would remain at the school until around 10pm with the school officially closing their doors at 11pm. As part of his agreement with his parents, Yeosang was able to attend the dance academy known as IB Music Academy throughout his last year of Middle school. A couple of months after Yeosang had started high school, IB Music Academy hosted an audition event where a number of Kpop companies came to watch all the students of the academy audition. Yeosang along with 2 other students passed the first round and Yeosang was invited to do a full audition at Big Hit entertainment. Yeosang officially became a big hit trainee in June of 2015. After joining Big Hit Yeosang’s daily routine looked like this. He arrived at school sometime in the second half of 7am. After the school day ended at 5:40 he did not join his classmates for dinner instead he would stand off to the side waiting for his mom to pick him up. He said he found this embarrassing and he would try to hide behind a set of pillars so that no one would notice him leaving. There his mom would directly take him to the subway station. He then would take the subway to the Big Hit building. This would take about 1 hour and 45 minutes. He would arrive at the Big Hit building in the evening where he would begin to train. He stayed at the studio, practicing throughout the night. He would then take the first train that left at 5:30am in order to get back to school in time. His mom would pick him up from the train station and drop him off again at the school. But wait there’s more. Incheon POSCO academy met on weekends. They were a 7-day a week school. Weekends were more chill and were dedicated to club activities but they still were mandatory attendance. Oh and his parents insisted he go to hagwons and study during any and all school breaks. This means he basically only slept in a bed during holidays like Lunar New Year and Chuseok. Other than that he never saw his house. But wait there’s more. POSCO academy was built during a weird time where Korea flirted with running schools in a more american style where students would move from class to class rather than the teachers moving from class to class. And that’s exactly how POSCO academy operates. So rather than the students getting breaks throughout the day they have to travel to their next class. This heavily limited Yeosang’s chances of sleeping at school. Yeosang said he desperately tried to stay awake while the teachers were teaching as he felt it was rude to sleep in front of them but he admits there were days where he couldn’t help himself because he was so ungodly tired. His only chances to take a nap was during the lunch break and on the train though his train ride involved two transfers so he couldn’t really sleep much on the train either. Honestly I don’t know how he didn’t wind up dead with this schedule. It is insane. He lived this daily routine as a Big Hit Trainee throughout 10th and 11th grade. At the tail end of 2016 he left Big Hit. Why he left Big Hit nobody knows. Many people have speculated on the reason but I will not. What I will say is that Yeosang was a somewhat famous trainee. The reason we know exactly when Yeosang joined Big Hit was that IB Music Academy made a post about it on their facebook page with a clip of him dancing to Exo’s Growl. This clip went semi-viral in some kpop circles. Wooyoung when meeting Yeosang at Big Hit recognized him as “the growl guy”. And Yeosang had a small following of fans tracking him as a trainee. When it was announced that he left Big Hit, these fans posted their disappointment on the social media site Instiz. With Yeosang being a free agent and having somewhat of a reputation, a number of agencies reached out to him. A total of 6 entertainment agencies gave Yeosang an offer to join them. After careful consideration, Yeosang chose KQ and joined the company as a trainee in December of 2016. While his daily routine at KQ is far less known, it probably resembled his schedule at Big Hit to some degree. After graduating high school Yeosang debut with Ateez in 2018. But his parents still did not fully approve of his choice to be a singer. In fact they told him not to put Singer in his yearbook for his career goal and instead they had him put songwriter as it sounded more studious and therefore more credible as a career. It wasn’t until 2021, when Yeosang said during their concert ment that for the first time he heard his mom approve of his choice to be a kpop idol. I’m not sure I’m happy with this write up. There was so much information to unpack it’s hard to really emphasize just how much of a struggle it was for Yeosang to get his parent’s to let him be a trainee. The grueling schedule that was forced upon him in some ways has stuck with him throughout his career. All the members of Ateez have made comments of Yeosang’s insane work ethic. How he continues to practice insane hours in both signing and dancing and how he is always pushing himself. I don’t think his parents were bad people in some ways they weren’t wrong. The chance of success in the industry is low and a lot of children are exploited. We talk about that here all the time. Still the extremes Yeosang had to go through just to pursue a life of a singer seems wrong in a way. I am glad that all signs show that Yeosang has a good relationship with his parents and they now both fully support his career. This post ended up being even longer than Seonghwa’s post. I hope it’s able to stay up and for those that read to the end thank you so much. I appreciate all of you and thank you for taking your time to learn a little more about Yeosang on his special day. Sources Vlive with Hongjoong Birthday live from last year where yeosang talks about the broken plate and eating vitamins Draw My Life where yeosang talks about his childhood Universe podcast where he talks about being an expert at monkey bars Clip from Japanese TV show where he talks about running away from home Pop Live where he talks about confronting his dad Concert Ment where he talks about his mom acknowledging his career for the first time School Uniform Vlive wonderwall interview Talking about his high school during Bouncy Promotions Youtube video where Yeosang goes over his namuwiki page Namuwiki page on POSCO academy submitted by /u/Renyuki [link] [comments]
