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Interview > 상세화면

2016 SPRING

Pop Diva Insooni Seeks to Give People Hope

Insooni is one of Korea’s most talented vocalists, whose repertoire ranges from soul to trot, rock and roll, and dance music. She rose to fame in the 80s as a dance diva, and with her incredible singing ability and insight into life that imbues her songs with depth and emotion, she has become a household name beloved throughout the country.

Pop singer Insooni says, “There is no such thing as ‘the best.’ I am still studying the art of singing.”

I’ll have to start by talking about “Mom.” Every weekend, peopleare all worked up because of Mom. It’s down to the two weekendTV dramas, “All About My Mom” (KBS2) and “Mom” (MBC),featuring mothers who devote themselves to their families. As theywatch the shows, viewers are busy wiping away their tears thinkingof their own mothers. The popularity of “Mom” has a lot to dowith the soundtrack. Beginning with the words, “Walking a long andwinding path/Past the very heart of life,” this song is as sorrowfulas the crisp sunlight that reaches between the winter trees, whichwas “once so beautiful.” That sweet yet clear and graceful tone,together with that lyrical yet passionate melody — I admit that I fellin love with this song the moment I heard the first bar. Emotionsswelled up in me, like the wind filling the sails of an old boat, and Iwas transported to another time and place. In that moment I realizedanew the immense strength of the singer Insooni.

Arriving at our meeting place, Insooni bursts with vitality. It’shard to believe that she’s approaching sixty. She wears a turtleneckand cotton pants with trainers. Her silver hair s an interestingharmony with the grey walls of the café. For her, what kind of personwas her mother?

About Her Own Mom

 

“She was a force to be reckoned with. She would never give in and was the kind to take everything in life head-on. If she gotknocked down, she would get straight back up again,” she said.

Her mother passed away ten years ago. Insooni reminisces, “I think I was a good daughter in my own way, but now that she’s no longer here I keep thinking of things I wish I’d done for her.”

Insooni occupies a unique place in the history of Korean popular music. She was the first singer to overcome the cold shoulder and discrimination that people showed toward mixed-race Koreans and rise to the top of the music industry purely by means of her exceptional ability. Having made her debut in 1978 in the girl group the Hee Sisters, Insooni hit it big with the rock n’ roll song “At Night Every Night” in 1983, which vaulted her into the ranks of the most popular stars of the day. Failing to produce another hit song over the next ten years, however, she became a frequent fixture on the nightclub circuit. Then in 1996, with the song “Again,” she bounced back into the limelight. Aof hits followed, such as “Friend,” a duet with rapper JoPD in 2004, and the ballads “A Goose’s Dream” in 2007 and “Father” in 2009. To this day, Insooni is enjoying this Pop singer Insooni says, “There is no such thing as ‘the best.’ I am still studying the art of singing.” second heyday of her career, which so far has spanned a total of 19 albums including 14 full-length releases.

Soaring Beyond Prejudice and Discrimination

 

Insooni was born in 1957 to an American soldier and a Korean woman. When she was still very young, her father left Korea to go back to America and has never returned. That’s why “Father,” one of her best known songs, in which she sings, “We loved each other, at times hated each other/I miss you, who cared for me like no one else,” has a particular resonance. The song became even more famous when Insooni sang it in 2011 on the reality program “I Am a Singer” (MBC), in which members of the audience voted for the best performance of each episode. Then in 2014, on the program “Hidden Singer 3” (JTBC), where popular singers and their impersonators sang alongside each other in a blind contest, the episode that featured Insooni turned into a “party of tears” with all of the singers overcome with emotion when they sang the song.

“Father” also received a standing ovation at a concert to honor 107 veterans of the Korean War that was held at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2010. At that time, Insooni addressed the audience, “If by chance anyone here has a weight pressing down on your heart, thinking you might have left behind a child like me in Korea, you can let go of that worry now. Each and every one of us is doing our best to live our own lives, and every single one of you is like a father to me.” There was not a dry eye in the house.

“Father” combines poetic lyrics and a heartrending melody, but for me the song’s real highlight comes in the last line: “Yes, I loved you once.” As if reluctant for the song to end, Indooni sings “I— loved—you,” drawing out each note, and then before adding the “once” she lets out a short sigh, almost a sob. Surely, this is the hallmark of a true artist. That last line never fails to knock the wind out of me.

“I can’t sing that last part exactly the same each time. Just as we feel different depending on whether it’s rainy or sunny, it comes out differently depending on whether I sing it at night or in the daytime, and whether there are more men in the audience or more women. If I let my guard down for even a second, I end up crying. But if I’m too much in control it doesn’t sound as good. So on some occasions, I really don’t want to sing it at all. Because I can’t control myself.”

A Goose’s Dream

 

Insooni’s biggest hit is her cover of “A Goose’s Dream.” The original song of the same title was released in 1997 by Carnival, the collaboration project of Kim Dong-ryul and Lee Juck. Insooni’s powerful interpretation of the song brought it back into the spotlight ten years after its original release. Opening fire with, “Me, I once had a dream,” the song is known for its technical difficulty, going back and forth between extremes of low and high pitch.

“I cried so much every time I practiced it. It was because of my 40 Koreana Spring 2016 memories of hard times. Until then, I had never really given a second thought to having my own dream. I think I was just focused on having to work hard and earning a lot of money. Asking myself ‘What kind of life am I going to lead?’ I think that’s what having a dream means to me. I wanted to communicate that kind of dream as a talking point for young people, and I think I have managed it. Thanks to that song, I made a lot of TV appearances, and a lot of money too.” (Laughs)

Many critics noted that Insooni’s life, rising to the top despite her personal hardships and then making a remarkable comeback, is reflected in this song’s message that urges you to carry on with confidence and never give up your dreams, even in the face of adversity.

Insooni gives her all on stage at the "Sharing Concert," an event organized to raise money for Haemil School, an alternative school for young people from multicultural families. Insooni is chairman of Insooni and Good People, a nonprofit organization which operates the school.

“Around the year 2000, I once wondered to myself, what kind of singer do I want to be remembered as? I thought, I would love to be a singer who givespeople hope, and strangely enough each and every song that came my way from then on was a song of hope. Orelse about family. It’s not like I had said anything to the composers or lyricists, but I guess they could sense how I was changing as time went by,” she recalled.

Another song that she’s particularly fond of is “To My Daughter.” In 1994, Insooni married university professor Park Kyung-bae and the song is dedicated to their only daughter, Jasmine. The music video is like a panorama of Jasmine’s life, from the moment she was born to her growing up to become a young woman. In 2013, Insooni also published a book with the same title.

“You know, as you get older the relationship between mother and daughter becomes that of friends. Then, at some point the mother becomes more and more like a daughter. After I had my daughter, I finally began to understand my own mother. Each time I felt a certain emotion toward my daughter I would think, ‘Ah, mom must have felt like this about me too,’” she said.

“Around the year 2000, I once wondered to myself, what kind of singer do I want to be remembered as? I thought, I would love to be a singer who gives people hope, and strangely enough each and every song that came my way from then on was a song about hope. Or else about family.”

Caring for Multicultural Youth

The sign outside Haemil School is being painted by the school’s students.

Insooni always told her daughter “Just do what you love,” and also taught her that “If you’re not working, don’t expect any rewards.” These words emphasized the need to take responsibility for one’s own life and not rely on one’s parents.

“From an early age she got into the habit of being frugal, so even now my daughter doesn’t really buy expensive things,” she said. “I’m the same. Going out on stage is my job so I think I need to look my best and I invest in that, but I don’t really spend money on things for myself. If it’s for other people though, I’m happy to spend. It gives me joy to see someone feeling good because of the way I’ve used my money.”

Having volunteered at orphanages and nursing homes over the years, these days she is dedicated to supporting Haemil School, an alternative school for young people from multicultural families. The Korean word haemil describes the clear sky that follows rain. Established in 2013 in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, the school has 15 students in the middle school program and produced its first graduates in December last year.

The school is operated by the nonprofit organization Insooni and Good People, of which Insooni serves as chairwoman. The operational costs are provided by around 200 donors. The students used to pay for their own school meals, but from this year the school’s policy is to provide completely free education, which requires additional donations. This summer, construction begins on a new school building on the site of a closed-down school which the organization has recently purchased.

The students at Haemil School have Korean fathers while their mothers are mainly from various countries in Southeast Asia. The children say that they struggle to communicate with their mothers.This is because their fathers don’t want them to learn their mothers’ languages. Insooni laments this situation, saying, “In such circumstances, there is little a mother can do for her child.” I ask her to tell me one of the more notable background stories among the students, but she shakes her head.

“We’ve taken these kids in to help them grow up in positive surroundings. I don’t think it would be right to go around talking about their pain,” she said. “Sometimes I get asked by potential donors for a video telling the story of the kids’ family circumstances. Whenever that happens I resolve to work even harder myself and send them nothing. I don’t want to do anything to hurt those children.”

I ask her, in her own life, when did she feel the most disheartened? Was there a moment when she felt she had fallen to the very bottom? Her response stuns me.

“I’ve never felt that kind of thing. If I had thought of each difficulty as a hardship, I wouldn’t have been able to cope. In life, don’t we all get rained on and snowed on and trip over stones in our path from time to time? I don’t think there’s anyone who travels a completely smooth road.”

Then, she follows up with a confession that stabs at a corner of my heart.

“I still don’t have a single friend with whom I can talk completely openly. People are not really interested in me as an individual, and I’m not really that interested in other people. These days though, I think it might be nice to sit down for a meal with someone, but that’s about it. I’m not particularly close with the broadcast producers either. I’ve always had the notion that I shouldn’t go around chasing after people, but rather that I should make people want to come to me. Fortunately, there are people who recognize my ability, and that’s how I’ve got to where I am now.”

I ask if there is anything she particularly wants to do this year and she tells me two things. One is climbing to the top of Mount Paektu and the other is cleaning the 2,300 or so headstones at the UN Memorial Cemetery in Busan. The cemetery is the final resting place of foreign soldiers who fought in the Korean War. She tells me that last November she already went and tidied up the some 30 headstones of the soldiers from the Netherlands.

Just Like Her Own Father

 

“At the time of the Korean War they were all in their late teens. My dad would have been around that age too when he was here,” she noted. “How would he have known any better? At that age, the whole world revolves around listening to the music you love and chasing after girls. Thinking about it that way, it’s not hard at all for me to understand my father. I’m grateful to all the foreign soldierswho gave their lives for our country. So, when I heard about the headstones I thought ‘This is something I have to do’ and started straight away.”

I feel a twinge at the tip of my nose.

Cho Sung-sik Reporter, The Dong-a Ilbo
Ahn Hong-beom Photographer

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