Korean Pop Idols / The Path of a Trainee

Korean Pop Idols / The Path of a Trainee
Author: Jeffrey Li

2PM's Nichkhun (Source: Soompi)

Ever wondered how to become a Kpop star? In all Kpop videos, you see a variety of men and women, boys and girls, dancing and singing, expressing their individual capabilities. Underneath all the fame and glory, however, each member of each group has gone through a tough and strenuous training process, starting at a very young age. Most Korean Pop idols are chosen at a very young age, around 9 or 10 (WSJ), while others are foreigners that are chosen from global entertainment auditions held by large Kpop companies like SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and Cube Entertainment. 

An example of a Globally Selected Kpop Idol is 2PM's Nichkhun. Once a trainee is selected, training begins soon after. Hundreds of talented children are put through rigorous training, involving daily vocal training, dance practices, "How to act around media" classes, and normal subject classes like math and history (GTG). For around 5-7 years of daily training is required before a trainee is chosen to debut. At any given moment, a company can drop you as a trainee, so you must try your hardest everyday to outshine all the other trainees. However, the entire idol training process is not just stressful for the trainee. According to chief executive officer Kim Young Minhim from SM Entertainment, 2.6 million dollars was spent on each of the 9 members of the Kpop group girls generation. This shows how much time and effort goes into each Korean Pop group. And on top of this, there are more and more groups rising each month, and this number will only continue to grow.

Girl's Generation (Source: South Korea Addict)

However, not everything in the Korean Pop Idol training goes smoothly. Sometimes trainees get dropped from Companies because of lack of dedication or lack of confidence. Jaejoong left his family at the age of 15 to pursue a career in Kpop and had to work various jobs just to pay for training lessons. Other idols such as Doojoon and Hyunseung were dropped from YG Entertainment and JYP, but were later picked up by Cube Entertainment to form one of the most popular boy groups around, BEAST. All in all, it is an industry and definitely not an easy career path to maintain, however the benefits are very great if you succeed.

Sources: 

Woo, Jaeyeon. "Journey to K-Pop Star, 'I Am'" Korea Real Time RSS. Wall Street Journal, 3 May 2012.     Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2012/05/03/journey-to-k-pop-star-i-am/>.

Chan, Boon. "Triple Treat: Chinese Pop Music's A-list." Home. The Jakarta Post, 30 Aug. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/08/30/triple-treat-chinese-pop-musics-a-list.html>.