Everybody wants to make a change in the world. We all hope that, one day, we could be at the top of something that we want to achieve. The Chung-Ang Herald (CAH) met an alumni student, who is definitely one of those people, who makes changes and who is a leader in his specialty. He is the leader of Korea MadangNori (마당놀이), one of the best in this field. We met actor Yun, Moon Sik.

CAH: When was the first time that you realized you wanted to be an actor?
Yun Moon Sik: I think that it was my last year in high school. At that time, if you wanted to be an actor, you needed to be absolutely handsome. When I first told my mother that I wanted to be an actor, she said, “If you try to be an actor in that face, then all the dogs in our town will come out and laugh about it. There’s no way.” In addition, she tried to talk me out of it. However, I did not give up. I told my parents that I would do whatever I could to become a successful actor. In my early days, I had some difficult times, because I was not handsome. However, I never felt regretful about becoming an actor even once.

CAH: Why did you want to be an actor?
Yun Moon Sik: I like to meet new people. I am interested in their lives and want to experience their lives. As you know, there are many kinds of people and many kinds of lifestyles in this world. Sad life, happy life, bad life, it is all different. If I lived only in my life, it would be the same lifestyle living everyday. However, as an actor, I have a chance to live all those kinds of different lifestyles in my one life. I think, this is one big privilege of being an actor. I also liked the power to make people laugh and cry. I liked traveling around and it fitted in to my job. Mainly, I think I was born to be an actor and meant to entertain other people, so that was why I wanted to be an actor.

CAH: MadangNori (마당놀이) ”Three Countries” will be performing in China this June. This can be considered a step to making MadanNori as a Korea’s representative culture product like ‘Nanta’(난타). What kind of effort do you think is most needed to make MadangNori (마당놀이) as a culture product and why?
Yun Moon Sik: The most needed effort that has to be done to make MadangNori famous in the world is to find the thing that we thought was worthless. You know how young people think of ‘Kimchi’(김치) and ‘Soybean paste? They regard these things are worth less than the foreign foods like steaks and pasta. The culture is the same. People think of Korean culture as boorish and weird. They try to distance their own culture. However, what they do not realize is that the most globalizing culture that they can have is the Korean culture. People try to make foreign culture into Korean culture. However, there is a limit to doing it. When we present Korean culture to another country, what are you going to present? Are you going to present American culture to Americans? Or are you going to present English culture to England? The solution is to be interested in our own culture. The culture was not built in one day. Therefore, to make the most globalizing culture in the world is to know our cultures and develop them.

CAH: What are you doing currently in television or movies? Do you have any specific shows that you are preparing for now?
Yun Moon Sik: In two months, I will be practicing for the new MadangNori for 6 months, but right now, I am just taking a break. I am old. Why do I need to get something new? I should focus on the things that I used to do and try to do them right. I like going on talk shows, but they don’t give a call to ask me to come. I am just joking. Actually, I do not really have time to do other things.

CAH: You are considered famous for performing ad-libs during acting, and this sense of humor is now considered as a key ingredient to have a successful job interview. What do you do to do ad libs, well?
Yun Moon Sik: To ad-lib, you need to be smart. The problem is that you are supposed to read many books. You have to know a lot if you want to do an ad-lib. To be a scholar, ad lib is unnecessary. If you say an ad lib in a positive way, a person, who is good at doing ad libs is believed to be intelligent. If you do an ad lib in a negative way, it means that you have too much information that is unnecessary in your life. However, I think this ad lib is significant for artists. Edison said, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percents perspiration.” However for an artist, this one percent is something that you’re born with, a talent. If you can call it that way, and an ad lib can be thought of as a talent for an artist.

CAH: What is your motto in your life? Why?
Yun Moon Sik: A motto, I don’t have a special one, but I don’t like to be compared with other people. I am the saddest person in the universe. My wife is sick and other things in my life make me sad, but I always put myself in a self-hypnosis that I am an incredibly happy person. There is nothing more depressing than comparing your life to someone else. I mean, if my appearance is compared with ‘Jang, Dong gun’(장동건), should I be sad about it? No! I can not and there is nothing you can do about being less handsome than ‘Jang, Dong gun.’ It’s worthless to compare. I just think, if I have a flaw, others would have it to, no matter how small or big that is. If I keep comparing my life with one, who has a better life, than me, and there’s nothing you can not do about it, you may start cheating to be the best.

CAH: What do you want to say to students in CAU?
Yun Moon Sik: I have never thought of University as a tool to get a job. In my days, we thought university was a place, where you can enrich yourself. Therefore, I hope that you all can have some romanticism in university. Do not try to be adults too soon and have an early and successful job life, but try to enjoy university life. It seems like a loss if you saw it in a short run, but in the long run, experiencing campus life will be the basis of your happiness in the future. I realized that it helped me live a happy life, when I reached my age now. So, have fun!

Yun Moon Sik was chosen as one of the best men in MadangNori. However, he did not succeed because of a certain effort trying to achieve goals but doing works that he enjoyed in his life. Therefore, instead of chasing the money for our success in life, why not chase the happiness as Yun Moon Sik does?