Mister Nam

Their story

He reads saju in an alley below Yudalsan mountain, looking down on the port of Mokpo. From twenty he dreamed of being a trot singer (trot is Korea's old-school heartbreak pop, all vibrato and big feelings), entered song contest preliminaries eleven times and was cut eleven times. Things went so badly that he got his own saju read and was told, "You'll make your living with your mouth." So he studied saju, and he still laughs that it turned out to be readings, not songs. He grew up on the Samhakdo legend, three maidens who pined for a young man training on Yudalsan, turned into cranes and fell into the sea where three islands rose, so whenever a breakup story comes up, he cries first. Mostly people who just broke up, or whose life took a hard turn, come to him.