As I got famous, I became a busy vocalist, in which two bodies wouldn't have been enough. It was like taking a plane to participate at the Se-Jong Cultural Hall Concert just after I finished the concert in Kwangju. But then as the time passed, I started to have big complications in my mind.
Everyone would lift me up as 'Korea's best Tenor' but I was still the eternal 1 student instructor. Rather the school didn't like it the more I appeared on air. In the korean society, you needed more to become a professor than skills.
I started to worry. Should I live in Korea, or should I emigrate to a foreign country. At the time there were quite a lot of fans in the U.S. In 1993, when I was having a tour concert going round about 10 cities, there were signs of making a supporters association in San Francisco. During October 1993, I had made up my mind to leave Korea, but I wanted to give my fate a last test. I requested an interview to the president of the Korean Synthetic Arts School, Kang-sook Lee.
For 30 minutes I spoke by myself saying straightforwardly my situation. I'm Korea's best tenor, and I have all the qualities you need in a professor. But I felt painfully that in reality you need something more than skills. I thought that Korean Synthetic Arts School would be different so I decided in the end, to meet you, the president. If this school will not accept me, I'm going to leave the country. And I will not come back. This was kind of the point.
Even though I boasted confidently, I didn't expect anything. I knew better than anyone else about how the music world works during the almost 10 years I've worked as an instructor. I packed up my stuff, and got the papers ready. But in the middle of January, I got a call from the school president. "Let's work together starting from this semester." That's how I got the place as a professor through a 30 minute interview for the first time in history of the musical world. Even now, I'm very thankful for the school president's decision.
My teaching method is unusual at the music center. I command my pupils like a king. I don't think and act like a prince, I act like a king. When I stand up to eat my pupils run first to the cafeteria and get the table set. Even when I go to the washroom, they wait on me. Especially if a student lies to me I order him to do push-ups. People try to stop me by saying "Isn't it too harsh?" but I don't think it is. Music, unlike math and physics have no rules. Teaching exists only when the student totally trusts and follows.
Instead I don't save myself when I teach my students. The official 1 hour lesson stretches to 3 hours, and after they graduate I come forth and help them choose their course in life. To my pupils, I'm a "Hateful but can't hate" teacher. I think that only then, the authority of a teacher is able to stand.
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