Epik High's Tablo revealed an experience of conflict after marrying actress Kang Hye-jung due to lifestyle habits at a "pollution" level.
On the 18th, a video titled "extreme dating counseling: you must fix this!" was uploaded to Tablo's YouTube channel.
That day Tablo read a story posted on an overseas community site and spent time giving dating advice. Meanwhile, upon seeing the post "please clean your house before inviting a date," Tablo showed strong empathy.
Tablo read a comment saying "the funny thing is this is probably after you clean up because someone is coming" and strongly agreed, saying "that's what I was going to say. For that person this might be clean. It's cleanliness by that person's standard."
He said, "I used to be really messy. Much worse than this. It was at a problematic level. I'm a person with a lot of drive and who works hard. But I only have that drive and work hard for things I really like. So in college I wrote a lot. I wanted to write whenever I had time. I was composing then too, and I wanted to spend all my spare time on creative work. As a result I didn't spend any of that time on cleaning," and described how serious the situation was at the time.
He continued, "In college you have roommates, right. Fortunately we didn't share a room in our second year. In the first year we shared so we had to be more considerate and care more. So it was a bit cleaner. But in the second year there were two rooms divided by doors like partitions. The problem was that to get to his room the roommate had to pass through my room. So he saw my room very well. Seeing my room gradually deteriorate he mentioned it a few times. But I wasn't the me I am now then. I was a complete artist. I thought of myself as a poet. So I thought 'I can't care about the world. I only focus on this. I must change the world with this poem or this novel I'm writing' so I blocked out everything else," he explained.
Eventually the situation became so serious that the roommate reported it to the school, asking them to clean Tablo's room. Tablo said, "When that happened I realized something was wrong with me. I reflected on myself. At first I thought 'it's not that bad,' then I looked at my room again. I looked at myself too. Then I thought 'I hate myself so much. I'm really disgusting. Shouldn't I be arrested for this?' There was a moment like that in my second year. I had the realization that I had a very big problem. So I cleaned, but old habits die hard — sometimes it was clean, sometimes messy again or filthy to a pollution level. That continued for a long time. Then I met my wife," he said, revealing that the bad habits continued into marriage.
Tablo said, "That shock affected both of us. Hye-jung is so organized that at the time I couldn't understand it at all. I thought organizing that much was a waste of time. When Hye-jung bought a lot of drinks or bought things like Yakult she put them in the refrigerator in a compartment designated for Yakult. Labels all had to face forward. And she knows exactly which pin is in which area and which drawer of the house. So when I learned this after we married I thought 'ah XX.' Hye-jung probably watched my room slowly fall apart and thought 'ah XX what have I done,'" he confessed.
He recalled fights with Kang Hye-jung, saying, "We both had that thought. Hye-jung is too neat and I'm too messy. Almost 100% of the times Hye-jung yelled at me were probably because of that. I kept losing things. As you can see I lose my phone every day. AirPods suddenly pop up in strange places and our dog chews them and they're all scattered on the floor. If you let me work on music or creative work for just a week, my room goes back to how it was in my second year of college. So we had arguments that weren't really arguments."
He continued, "When Hye-jung got angry I would snap back, trying to justify the state of my room. There are people like me, right? If you're a bit on the messy side you know what I mean. We always say, 'I know where everything is. I have my own system. My brain works differently from yours. I have to do it this way for things to get done.' Honestly that's complete nonsense. What does that even mean? Does that make sense? I'm always looking for things. I can't find things. I lose everything in my room. Things haven't even left the room but I lose them there. After so many arguments I thought, 'is this worth it? I'd better try to meet Hye-jung halfway.' So I started cleaning and organizing more. Of course what got me here was that we went on a honeymoon and many family trips and I was scolded a lot. Really every day. Then it slowly got fixed," he said, revealing he changed habits for the sake of family peace.
Meanwhile, Tablo married Kang Hye-jung in 2009 and they have a daughter, Haru.
[photo] OSEN DB, Tablo YouTube
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