'30 Years as a Sorikkun' Jang Sa-ik: "Audiences Say 'I Came to Cry' ... Trials and Crises Were Like Restorative Medicine"

[Joo Young-jin's News Briefing]

When quoting this interview, please credit the program name as 'SBS <Joo Young-jin's News Briefing>'. Copyright belongs to SBS.

■ Broadcast: SBS <Joo Young-jin's News Briefing> Mon–Fri (14:00–15:20)
■ Host: Anchor Joo Young-jin
■ Guest: Sorikkun Jang Sa-ik
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● Interview

Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun
"I think the path of singing was the path I truly wanted to take"
"Went through much trial and error, but it was a time like restorative medicine"
"Able to come this far thanks to good benefactors"
"Audiences deeply relate to the song lyrics"
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▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Rather than simply calling him a singer, perhaps I should introduce him as a sorikkun—a person who sings with his soul. Master Jang Sa-ik is here with us today. Welcome.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: Hello.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: It has been a long time.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: Thank you.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: A moment ago, I saw footage of you from four years ago on screen, and it is wonderful to see that you seem completely unchanged from then to now.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: My hair is a bit whiter here, and I have a few more wrinkles here and there.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: How have you spent these past four years?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: I have been spending my days happily, as I am someone who simply dances and sings every single day.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: I believe I heard you will be holding another concert. When will it be?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: It will be held next Tuesday, October 27, at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: I am curious about what theme and thoughts you had in mind when planning to meet your fans and audiences again for this concert.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: Simply, 'The Road.'

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: The Road.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: As long as we are alive, do we not walk a road each and every day without fail?

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: That is true.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: Of course, we all know what the final destination is, but we walk on pretending not to know, and along the way there are many winding, tough, and difficult stretches. Having experienced those processes in my own way, I want to reflect on that journey—asking myself whether I came the right way, whether I am heading in the right direction, and what the remaining path looks like—and sing with those thoughts in mind.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: The past life's road of the sorikkun Jang Sa-ik, the path you have walked, and the road you must walk ahead. No one knows the road ahead, but looking back on the 31 years you have walked, do you feel, 'I walked well,' or 'I was quite lacking'?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: Exactly. As you know well, I am someone who went through a lot of trial and error. While living in society, it is embarrassing to say, but I hopped from one job to another. In my own way, I was lacking, and I made many mistakes. On the other hand, I think I had many dreams as well. I lived going through such trial and error, but I have already been singing for over 30 years. So I came to think that perhaps this path of singing was the path I truly wanted to walk. As for the other roads—the ones of trial and error—the road could get blocked as you walked, or you could stumble and fall. I think of them as that kind of road.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: I understand your first album was released in 1995. How old were you back then?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: At that time, I was 47 years old by Korean age. That was back when tigers smoked pipes.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Debuting at the late age of 47—nowadays idol groups usually debut in their mid-teens, but releasing a debut album at 47 and starting your first steps as a singer and sorikkun must have taken no small amount of courage. You mentioned earlier that you did not give up on that dream even through a difficult life. What enabled you to do that? People who helped you by your side—I imagine there were people who encouraged you, saying, 'You are someone destined to sing for life, you must sing.'

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: As we go through life, do we not cross paths with many people? Among those relationships, there were good ones for me, and there were ones that were not. But in order to find my singing, I went through many trials and overcame critical hurdles, and that itself was truly a time and a path like restorative medicine for me. After all, flowers bloom even in this chilly autumn, don't they? Like chrysanthemums that wait patiently through spring and summer to bloom, perhaps I, too, was meant to be a late-blooming flower, like destiny. So I like to think that if everyone lives diligently and wholeheartedly in their own way, they too might blossom just like me.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Looking back on that time and on your 31-year singing career, are there people you are especially grateful to—people about whom you think, 'Without them, I would not exist, the sorikkun Jang Sa-ik would not exist'? If there are, could you tell us about them?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: For instance, fortune-tellers of old would say, 'If you head to the left, you will meet a benefactor.' Wherever I went, I met wonderful benefactors. Friends who were there when things were hard and difficult for me. And teachers who taught me so much when I first began singing. There were also teachers who told me how to sing—to ignore things like beats and just sing according to your emotions. There was also my friend Lim Dong-chang, who directly pushed me forward. In any case, so many teachers and personal ties gave me immense strength, which is why I am here today.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: You mentioned that the theme of this concert is 'The Road,' and I heard that poet Kim Jun-tae's poem 'The Road' moved your heart and led you to decide on that theme.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: I kept that poem in my heart for about ten years. 'Where must we go to see the road? Where is the road we must walk undulating?'

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: 'Where is it undulating?'

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: 'At times losing the way among people, at times finding the way among people, oh the joy of being startled upon realizing that the very body people carry with them is the road'—it seems to mean that the road is not far away, but right beside us. Having lived this long to my age, the poem deeply resonated with me because it felt as though it was asking me whether I was walking that road properly.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Listening to you recite that poem just now, 'The person who sows seeds in the soil and in each other's bodies was the road itself. People were the road.'

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: That is right.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: It makes me think that those countless benefactors who enabled you to sing were ultimately Jang Sa-ik's road. And going forward, I also wonder if you yourself will become such a benefactor and a road for someone else.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: That is why, as I sing these songs, there are people who empathize with me.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Of course.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: Because songs are stories, they are my story. I tell my own story, but listeners think, 'That is my story.' So I empathize along with them, hoping that after hearing a song, they might look back on themselves and think, 'Right, I too need to pull myself together and walk properly.' That is my hope.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Among younger singers and juniors, are there any who have come to you saying, 'After listening to your songs, I wanted to become a singer who sings from the heart and emotions rather than focusing on technique, so I worked hard and have now become a singer,' or 'I have become someone who sings like this'?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: Almost none. That is because I am somewhat behind the trends and do not fit into contemporary styles. Many people ask, 'Why do you sing such heavy, somber songs, and why do you sing so slowly?' Nowadays, songs are all fast, flashy, and exciting. But I cannot keep up with that. Younger people today cannot easily digest this kind of music, and to match modern trends, everything has to be fast and rhythmic, so there are almost none.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Still, anyone who hears your songs in person feels something deeply stirring and surging in their chest. As I mentioned before, when you came to perform in Washington, hearing the song 'A Flower Viewing' for the first time made not only me but all the Korean residents there shed tears. The lines, 'Mother, why do you keep doing that? Why do you keep scattering pine needles?' and she replies, 'My son, so you can find your way down.' Recalling those sentiments back then—your songs truly have that kind of power. Some in our audience may think they know many of your songs, while others might be hearing some for the first time. We have prepared a video clip, so let us watch together, perhaps singing along.

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: (Singing)

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Some people might associate your music with the emotion of 'han' (deep sorrow or grief), but I feel that within your sad and slow melodies, there are many songs that sing of hope. In the first video earlier, there was the line, 'Ma'am, how much for a bunch of hope?' and just a moment ago from that old song at the gukbap restaurant, the part, 'Having met this turbulent world, would hope be enough?' I feel you have always sung of hope without letting go of it, haven't you?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: That is why at my concerts, when people first come to watch, their minds are filled with all sorts of cluttered thoughts and troubled matters. After watching the performance, it becomes like a clean blank slate. Sorrow and joy come together to offset each other, so that when they leave, they can paint a new picture of life on a white, blank page. Honestly, when it comes to comforting a friend who is sad and struggling, buying them good food or dancing together is nice, but perhaps true comfort comes when you cry together with them—when you shed tears genuinely alongside them. So my songs wash away much of the sadness and make joy even more delightful; I sing with that intention. That is why some people—I actually avoid singing 'A Flower Viewing' in concerts because it is too heartbreaking. But people would later ask me, 'Why didn't you sing that song?' I tell them I left it out because it is a bit too sorrowful. Then they say, 'Look here, I came to cry.' That is what they tell me.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: That is because it reminds them so much of their mothers. In your song 'Wild Rose' (Jjilrekkot), at the final climax, there are lines like 'I wept like a wild rose' and 'I loved like a wild rose' building up to the peak, right? That part resonates with me especially deeply. People who heard 'Wild Rose' left many comments. Have you seen them? Comments like, 'After listening to Wild Rose, hearing this song makes me think of my mom. Perhaps because I'm an unfilial child, tears flow every time I listen. No matter how many times I listen, I always want to hear it again. I cried so much while watching your concert; please stay healthy, we love you. Today, too, I find comfort in my heart listening to your songs.' Someone once said, 'There are many good singers, but the one who produces the most Korean sound is Master Jang Sa-ik.' Those voices must be the strength that sustains your singing and your life as a sorikkun, right?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: I believe that must be so.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Do you still climb the nearby mountain every morning to practice singing like that?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: Since I was young, I was proud of shouting out into the mountains and always did so. But about 20 years ago—I live at the foot of Bukhansan Mountain in Seoul—I shouted loudly at around 5 a.m., just as I had always done, very proudly. But one day, an elderly gentleman up above yelled, 'Be quiet!' So I stopped. Then he said, 'You're waking the birds!' At that moment, I felt as if a giant hammer had struck my head. I realized that this silence could be disturbed by my voice becoming noise. Ever since then, I haven't shouted in the mountains at all; I guess I'm always learning. So I practice gently at home.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: You promised to sing the song 'Back to Heaven' (Gwicheon) for us later today, so we will listen to that shortly. But would it be possible—if I may boldly ask, without putting too much burden on you—for us to hear just a short snippet of your favorite part from 'Wild Rose'?

▶ Jang Sa-ik / Sorikkun: The scent of the wild rose... is so sorrowful... that is why I wept... wept my heart out... I am sorry.

▷ Joo Young-jin / Anchor: Thank you. Thank you so much. Having made such a sudden request, could you please stay with us just a little longer? We will talk further, and then at the end, we will listen to your performance of 'Back to Heaven' together. We will now turn to Kim Yoon-ah with the digital asset market update, take a commercial break, and then return to listen to Master Jang Sa-ik's song.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.