"What Is K-Pop?!" Blog Series- Part 3: The Upbringing of a Korean Idol

This is part three of the "What Is K-Pop?!" Blog series. If you haven't read the previous parts, the following article might not make sense. If you would like to start from the beginning of this series, click HERE. If you missed the last part and would like to catch up, click HERE. Thank you and happy readings!

Oh boy, where do I even begin? Idols are the heart and Seoul (see what I did there) of K-Pop. Without them, we (K-pop fans) wouldn’t have anything to fangirl about, so basically, our lives would be meaningless.

A Korean Idol is someone who has trained to become a K-Pop performer. You read that right, they train, and most do so for years. In the U.S., someone can be discovered by a record label and then be thrown on stage mere weeks later. I wouldn't be surprised if all of them are lost as to what it really takes to be an artist. This is not the case for K-Pop idols. The idol with the shortest training period that I know of is Super Junior’s Kyuhyun, with only three months, while the longest is G-Dragon (GD) from Big Bang, who trained for 11 YEARS.

What takes 11 years of training, you ask? Well, thankfully, the majority of Idols don’t train for half that long, GD just had a peculiar experience. Most people sign training contracts that last between six months to four years, depending on the company they are signing with. After signing a contract, training must start, and their day to day schedule is so crazy, I can’t really see myself, or most people I know, being able to withstand anything like it.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Before even thinking about signing a contract, they must audition to see if they have what it takes to be signed by an entertainment company. Most idols talk about the countless auditions they took part in before finally making the cut. Even though it's difficult to imagine a company not accepting a certain idol, most went through this process. Their experiences serve as an important lesson: keep going, even if you don't make it first, second, or 13th time.

Street casting is a regular occurrence in Korea as well. Actually, company casting employees are notorious for standing around schools/universities (or other popular teenage/young adult hang-out spots) looking to find outstandingly good looking students. They also look for those who are popular amongst their peers because of their artistic talents. After locating their target, they will approach them and hand them a business card. If they are minors, they ask them to tell their parents that the company wants to sign them. The parents get in contact with the company, they discuss, and if they come to an agreement, the student is signed. BOOM! From one day to another her/his life is changed. Talk about being the lucky one.

Apart from going to school and having to do their H.W. (unless they eventually decide to drop out because it's too much to handle), trainees have to take dance, singing, acting, language lessons, such as English, Mandarin, and Japanese, as well as "public relations" (PR) lessons. Idols are all-around entertainers, and a lot of that involves not only being good at the performing arts, but also knowing how to be likable, sell products through advertisements, and being able to connect with fans from all over the world. Therefore, although westerners might deem them unnecessary, for a K-Pop trainee, language, acting, and PR classes are very important. Also, now that K-Pop is becoming popular overseas, there are many idols who come from other countries such as the United States, China, Japan, Thailand, and a few others. This means that many of them don’t even know Korean when their training first starts. In these cases, the language lessons during their training period are used for them to become fluent hangul (Korean) speakers.

If that weren't enough, trainees aren't practicing and improving at their own pace. While training, they are also competing with the rest of their peers. Not everyone will be able to debut, and with monthly (sometimes bi-weekly) evaluations, trainees have to get exponentially better and be able to showcase their flourishing talents in front of their instructors and other audiences. If they are found to be falling behind, or their talents aren't up to par with what the company is looking for in possible future idols, executives are allowed to end their trainees' contracts. For the company, this only marks the end of an agreement, but for a trainee, it might also mean the end of their dream.

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In order to better illustrate a trainee's life, the following is an example of how a regular Friday is scheduled for a trainee girl who specializes in singing.

6:00 am- Wake up, get ready for school, go to school.

2:30 pm- School’s out, she heads out to her company’s training facility to start training for the day. When she gets there, she logs in her weight in the training room chart, she sees that she gained half a kilo in the past two days, one of her trainers scolds her for it, in front of all her peers.

3:00 pm- She begins training: three hours of singing lessons. One hour with an instructor, and two hours of practice. Everything goes great and she receives praise from her teacher.

6:00 pm- One hour of dance lessons, one hour of dance practice. Her instructor tells her that she has to start taking dance seriously, because being able to sing won’t guarantee that she will be chosen to debut next.

8:00 pm- Dinner time. She only eats two small food items which she bought earlier from the convenience store. She has to lose weight and maintain it, but her company only gives her $6 a day for food, so that is all she can afford. She eats during the one free hour she has during the day, but she doesn't take a break, she continues working. She checks her schedule and sees that she has language, acting, and modeling lessons tomorrow. They all add up to six hours of classes, which gives her plenty of time to practice her dance and singing if she only takes another one hour break tomorrow. She also see's a golden star drawn on her calendar, letting her know that the bi-weekly evaluations are next Wednesday. The trainee makes a note to remind herself that she must learn her dance routine by heart and lose two kilos before then, or else she might be receiving her second warning. She reminds herself that this cannot happen, because that would mean that she'd have only one warning left before the company decides to end her contract. Thinking about it, she starts having an anxiety attack. She covers herself up with her blanket, so that her roommates can't see what she is going through, but she knows that they know, and they know that she knows that they know... After calming down, she decides to continue working.

11:00 pm- After finishing some of her school work, she heads back to the dance studio and continues practicing her dance routine.

1:30 am- She goes back to her dorm to get ready for bed.

2:00 am- She goes to sleep after setting her alarm for 6 am.

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This is only one hypothetical example, but all trainees have a different experience depending on their personal conditions, as well as the company they have a contract with. For example, some trainees get dietary plans and fitness schedules, so they must eat certain foods and go to the gym to complete certain workout regimens, in order to get/maintain their idol figure. Other trainees don't stay in dorms or get pocket-money, so they must find their own living spaces and food. Some company's don't use the three strike method, they simply give specific warnings to their trainees and tell them that if they don't improve on this or that, they will have to end their contract. Some trainees are homeschool, or take online schooling, while others drop out entirely. Some go to regular school, and other go to art schools which allow them to take more performing arts lessons.

It is different for every trainee, but they all have one thing in common: they must train, until they can't train anymore, and then they should get back up and continue training after that. Not only must they work on improving their talents, but also their personality and, especially, their appearance. They are idols because their fans are supposed to idolize them, they are supposed to be the living, breathing individual that everyone else dreams to be like. Being a K-Pop idol might seem glamorous, but the one thing it will never be is easy.

Click here for Part 4.