[Mag] Jonghyun for Esquire 05.17

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Magazine Details: 418 pages

Interview Details: 4 full page interview + 4 full page photo

Translations

Sullaem (full): Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV

esquire korea
translation: sullaem

are you happy? this is duo interview’s last question.

jonghyun: i’m going to be happy. (*) for the past six months, i’ve thought about this the most. about happiness. my disposition in and of itself tends to torment me. for people like me, it isn’t easy to be happy. though on the other hand, it is possible to grow.

so, now, you want to grow but also be happy, too.

jonghyun: a few years ago, i was crying and whining at my mom and my sister. when i was really drunk. i asked my mom and sister …, it wasn’t long after we’d moved. i asked them if they were happy. after i’d been drinking, i woke up my entire family who’d already gone to bed, like some ahjussi. it had been my number one goal in life, you know, to make my mom and sister happy. they both woke up and told me they were happy. but i was so jealous at the fact that they were able to reply that they were, indeed, happy. because it wasn’t like that for me. i told them while sobbing, i want to be happy too. then i felt like i’d done my mom and sister wrong. but ever since then, i started contemplating about happiness. for about six months, i pondered specifically over what i would need to do in order to become happy. i think that time of transformation has come. i think i need to become happy, now. i must become happy. i am going to be happy. (*)

[translator’s note: the full nuance of “행복하려고요” is a little hard to translate directly. it’s kind of like saying “i am going to try to be happy”, like he’s telling himself he will be happy no matter what, and he will do all he can to ensure his happiness from now on.

esquire korea
translation: fantaemsie

Shin Ki Joo: The live broadcast is particularly soul stealing isn’t it? At the break of the day, from 12pm til 2am you proceed on a live broadcast and when coming back home there’s nothing other than exhaustion to be felt. Nevertheless, does Jonghyun come to the radio studio in order to meet up with the world?

Jonghyun: Perhaps somehow it’s an escape with the radio. I don’t really like going outside that much. I also don’t really like meeting people a lot that much. I’d be afraid of doing something new too. Radio seems like my own space now. It became an escape hatch where I can encounter, non-awkwardly, new things.

Shin Ki Joo: A strange/unfamiliar world that flows into my familiar space.

Jonghyun: Even though it became a psychological refuge/hideout, I think it was space of both love and dislike that gave physical exhaustion too.

Shin Ki Jo: The person who was having a hard time in an unfamiliar space like that, somehow on stage quickly and thoroughly shed it off. The dongsaeng to whom I’d give movie lessons all the time in the sitting room, seeing him one day on stage showing off his muscular body.

Jonghyun: That’s the celebrity profession’s big weapon and weak point. Reporter Shin is one person among the people who know what kind of person I am and quite greatly understand my humane side. Understanding Kim Jonghyun like that but when seeing my appearance as a singer it’s different. It’s strange and surprising, while looking at that appearance, I’d be thankful if you thought “So that’s how Kim Jonghyun creates Kim Jonghyun on stage.”

Shin Ki Joo: It’s the same as if thinking which one is the real Kim Jonghyun.

Jonghyun: Both of them are the real Kim Jonghyun. I think what’s important is just which side I’m more comfortable with. A long time ago I think I was more comfortable with the singer Kim Jonghyun. Since that Kim Jonghyun image was the first one to be exposed to the world. Because it was familiar to me too. However it changed when I started doing radio. By starting to express to people that I’m also human, the image of Kim Jonghyun that I came to show through radio became very comfortable (to me). Thanks to “Blue Night I’m Jonghyun” I got the chance to release my collection album and to hold a concert in a small theater too.

Shin Ki Joo: You got to become more confidently closer to people.

Jung Woo Sung: As I heard, the radio played such an enormous role.

Jonghyun: After a while, the Collection album 2 will get released. In the future in that manner 2 types of albums will come out. Music to some extent fantasy-like, with a possibility of a performance for it; and like the Collection album’s songs, music with ballad and jazz – a bit with an acoustic sensibility contained in it.

Shin Ki Joo: SHINee’s Kim Jonghyun and “Blue Night I’m Jonghyun’s” Kim Jonghyun

Jonghyun: I suppose that inside SHINee’s music I’m in my ideal form and inside the Story Op.’s music I’m more in my everyday humane form. I’m planning on distinguishing between the two of them more clearly from now on.

The interview was conducted by both the editors Shin Ki Joo and Jung Woo Sung

“Please don’t translate into another language or repost without credits”