Joo Byung-jin Clears Out 2,000-Square-Foot Mansion and Moves to an Apartment, Citing "Dislike of Poverty"

Broadcaster Joo Byung-jin has revealed his recent status, showing that he is clearing out a massive mansion of approximately 2,000 square feet and looking for a new home. The fact that he, who once lived in a house so large it was considered a symbol of success, is now looking for a smaller space he can manage alone, reads as more than just a change in housing type. On this day, Joo Byung-jin candidly opened up about his life, looking back at his impoverished childhood and his younger days spent racing toward success, rather than his flashy present.

In the episode of tvN STORY's 'Table Tales' broadcast on the 5th, Joo Byung-jin was shown meeting Lee Young-ja and sharing stories about his recent life and the path his life has taken. Joo Byung-jin stated that he has left the approximately 2,000-square-foot house where he lived for a long time and is currently staying in temporary housing before finding a new home. While his affection for the house remains, he explained that managing such a large house alone was not realistically easy.

He said he plans to move to an apartment in the future. Rather than large and flashy spaces, he is looking for a house that is easy to manage while living alone. This is seen not merely as a choice to downsize his living environment, but as a point showing that the standards of success that have supported his life for a long time are changing. If he raced toward bigger and better things in his youth, he has now entered a stage of reflecting on what kind of space he actually needs.

Joo Byung-jin's change was also evident in his thoughts on dating and marriage. Having lived alone for a long time, when asked about his ideal type, he said, "Too much time has passed to choose someone." It is not that starting a love is difficult itself, but rather that he now has to think about the realistic issue of marriage at the same time as the start of a relationship. Since he must consider not only himself but also the other person's life, he meant that it is difficult to start a relationship based solely on emotion as he did in his youth.

That is not to say that Joo Byung-jin has had no love. He shared a memory of lying on the floor thinking of someone he loved deeply in his 30s and shedding tears. It was a love that remains unforgettable even after a long time. However, at that time, he chose success over love. Rather than pouring his heart into dating and marriage, he was more intensely attached to achieving something under his own name.

The background of that choice was the poverty of his childhood. Joo Byung-jin recalled that after losing his father at a young age, he essentially had to act as the head of the household. Because they were not economically well-off, it was difficult to secure a proper house, and he had to move several times while drifting between monthly rental rooms. The experience of his childhood, including delivering newspapers to earn living expenses, had a significant influence on his values later on.

Recalling those times, Joo Byung-jin said above all else, "I hated poverty." Beyond the simple memory of lacking money, he experienced at a young age the reality where the scope of life one can choose narrows due to poverty. Therefore, he revealed that he harbored the thought that he would definitely become a capitalist later, and nurtured a strong desire for success. The story is that what made the Joo Byung-jin of today was not his innate fame, but the desperation to escape poverty and the persistent labor to turn that into reality.

After living so fiercely, Joo Byung-jin succeeded as a broadcaster and expanded his field as a businessman, accumulating considerable wealth. The 2,000-square-foot mansion might look like a symbol of the economic stability and success he had dreamed of for a long time. However, now that time has passed, what he has chosen is not a larger house, but a house he can manage alone. If he believed in his early life that 'one must have more to escape poverty,' now that he has entered the latter half of his life, the question of 'what to leave behind and how to live' has become more important than 'how much one possesses.'

Joo Byung-jin's story is also a biography of an individual showing how the meaning of success and wealth changes in Korean society. For the generation that was poor, economic success was not mere luxury but a means to secure dignity and safety, and so many people raced toward success while leaving behind family, love, and leisure. Joo Byung-jin also built his life within that flow. However, after achieving success, the value of the relationships and time he gave up in his youth returns as a question.

Ultimately, the story Joo Byung-jin brought up on this day contained a much wider life trajectory than the news of leaving a 2,000-square-foot house. The boy who dreamed of escaping poverty while delivering newspapers became a successful broadcaster, and the young man who shed tears while thinking of the person he loved more than anyone is now, in the latter half of his life, accepting a life of living alone. The change where a person who was racing toward a bigger house is now looking for a small house that suits him symbolically shows the fact that the meaning of 'success' that Joo Byung-jin has pursued his whole life is gradually changing.

Read the original (Korean)