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TV personality Jo Hye-ryeon detailed a life forged by constant work — from selling goods at a childhood street stall to taking factory shifts — and revealed an unexpected chapter: a fierce commitment to her studies.
Appearing as a guest on the YouTube channel ‘Books and Life’ on the 26th, Jo spoke candidly about supporting herself without relying on anyone.
“I’ve never depended on anyone,” she said, recalling that she began selling at Anyang Market in fifth grade. When her father rode up with a cargo bike full of crown daisies, she sold them all. She became the primary seller and continued vending at the market through her second year of middle school, she said.
Her work to make ends meet didn’t stop as she got older. She said she worked in factories without pause during her second and third years of middle school, and after entering college, when her mother fell ill, she took a leave of absence to buy goods to sell — roughly 40 kinds of vegetables — at Sanbon Market. “I took care of what was mine in life,” she said. “I’ve lived that way ever since.”
She also explained what pushed her to keep studying despite severe hardship. Jo said she did poorly and had little interest in school until the second year of middle school. Then her mother called over the third, fourth, fifth and sixth children and told them, “You won’t go to college. Go to a commercial high school and get a job,” she recalled.
Rejecting that future, she said, “I couldn’t accept a life without college.” She applied herself, graduated middle school ranked sixth in her class and continued to study hard at Anyang Girls’ High School.
She also shared a behind-the-scenes detail about her career path. Until her senior year of high school she planned to study engineering, but friends who noticed her stage presence urged her to apply to the theater and film department. They saw her talent, she said — a choice that preceded her career as a comedian.
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