Born with 'mud' spoon: blessing, not curse

Yang Eui-sig, president of the Asia Model Festival Organizing Committee (AMFOC), poses during an interview in The Korea Times newsroom on April 18. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Yang Eui-sig's memories of growing up on a farm are far from nostalgic or idyllic.

The youngest of six children, he was raised in the rustic, mountainous land of Sinpung, a landlocked township in Gongju, South Chungcheong Province.

He was "born with a mud spoon" in his mouth, a phrase referring to poor people.

Unlike people his age who spent their childhoods in urban areas, Yang had to take care of chores around the farm.

Lots of manual work waited for him once he returned home from school. He collected firewood and fallen branches and cut grass in the fields to feed livestock. He grew tired of farm life.

Yang, now president of the Asia Model Festival Organizing Committee (AMFOC) which oversees the hosting of the annual contest to select Asia's next top model, said he was an ambitious boy dreaming to be a big shot in the future.

"I hated farm work and tried to leave home as soon as I could," he said during a recent interview in The Korea Times newsroom.

The AMFOC president, 55, has lived apart from his family since he went to high school in the nearby city of Daejeon.

Yang's traumatic childhood memories also led him to lose his appetite for the rural lifestyle. Some of his young neighbors committed suicide.

He called them "nunim" or sisters, although they were not his biological siblings.

"I remember one sister cut her life short by hanging herself under a big tree in our village. There was another girl who died after ingesting pesticide," he said.

He recalls the two girls migrated to cities at different times for work after finishing elementary or middle school. One worked as a bus conductor and the other was a sweatshop worker, a job often described at that time using the derogatory term gong-soon-ee (uneducated manufacturing sector girl).

The two girls met their love interests in the city and fell in love. But their boyfriends' parents didn't approve their marriages, so they returned to their hometown in despair and committed suicide.

"Although I was very young at that time, I knew why they themselves chose to cut their lives short," Yang said. "They were frustrated because of social class. At that time, girls like them who were poorly educated with humble background had few opportunities for upward social mobility."

Yang said his young neighbors' tragic love stories caused him to think seriously about how to succeed in life. "I wanted to be successful, so I kept thinking about what I could do best and in which field I could outperform others," he said.

Since his childhood, he heard a lot from his classmates as well as teachers that he was handsome and should consider pursuing an acting career. Finding no other talent in himself, he was determined to follow their advice.

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After he arrived in Seoul to attend university in 1980, he took part in auditions for an agency. He made the cut, but later realized it was a fraud. The agency kept asking for money for various purposes, including photo shoots.

After years of struggles, Yang finally debuted as a commercial model in 1984. Along with two child stars, he appeared in a TV commercial to promote ice cream.

His successful debut, however, was brief.

He took a three-year career break to complete his mandatory military service from 1986 to 1988.

During his absence, there were a lot of changes in the modeling industry. An advertising boom started in 1986 when the nation hosted the Asian Games which was followed by the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

"The advertising industry had grown exponentially in the 1980s. Lots of companies promoted their products through TV ads or other types of advertisements. It was a golden era for TV ads," he said. "Unlike today, however, few people evaluated the effectiveness of their TV ads through ROI or other measures. Companies rushed to advertising because their competitors did and a sort of peer pressure played out."

The booming ad industry created lots of jobs for commercial models, some of whom earned fortunes. But that was not the story for Yang.

He started from scratch again after he returned to Seoul following the completion of the military service.

"Modeling is a waiting game," he said. "You need to wait until someone calls you up and offers you a job. Being a model is tougher than being a salesperson. Sales clerks can sell their products if they know what those products are about and how to promote them. In contrast, models sell themselves. We need a certain period of focused training to sell ourselves because few of us know who we are and presenting ourselves to others requires a lot of effort, too."

Yang promotes the Samsung Anycall mobile phone in this 1993 file photo. / Courtesy of Yang Eui-sig

Instead of waiting for opportunities to come to him, Yang was determined to make cold calls to modeling agencies to present himself and ask them if there were any modeling opportunities.

He dropped by 40 modeling agencies every day and introduced himself as a model seeking work. In some agencies, he took a seat near the front door and waited for executives who could place him in a modeling job. He said he felt miserable. "No one said hello to me. Few made eye contact with me. I was in despair because I didn't know how long I should do the same stupid thing," he said.

His patience paid off. One day in 1990, he got an urgent phone call from one of the model management agencies he had visited.

The unnamed executive asked if Yang was available that day for a modeling job without giving any specific information about the work. He was desperate and said yes. The executive told Yang to hurry up to join a team of workers and models in Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market in southern Seoul as soon as possible. Yang rushed to the venue in 30 minutes.

A group of people were waiting for him there. They were to head to a city outside Seoul to shoot a big TV commercial and newspaper ads for a newly released beer brand, but the main male model hadn't show up. Yang became his replacement and shot the ads.

Yang was on TV and in full-page newspaper ads almost every week. It was a huge success and the beer sales went very well.

"When I got a phone call from the model agency, I didn't know it was such a big project because the executive panicked and didn't give much information about the ads," Yang said.

"I was thankful for his offer, though. In retrospect, I think I was able to get that lucky break because of my previous efforts. They called me because they thought I was the first and maybe the only model who would be guaranteed to be available as a replacement in such an urgent situation."

His career took off. The beer ad paved the way for his golden days as a commercial model. He became a model for Samsung Group, posing for their various products, including beepers, mobile phones, fax machines, printers and even menswear brand BILTMORE.

"In the 1990s when I worked for Samsung Group, my annual income was 120 million won, which was slightly higher than that of then Kia Tigers' legendary pitcher Sun Dong-yeol," Yang said. "My peak days as a commercial model didn't last long though."

Yang later realized his humble beginning was an asset, not an obstacle, because it paved the way for his success.

He said his dramatic career rise from being a farm child was possible owing to his ceaseless efforts to make "something out of nothing" to achieve upward social mobility.