12-year-old Taeyang (23·real name Dong Young Bae) became a trainee in YG entertainment. Looking back, those trainee days were such a happy time for him. “I think anybody, anything will be sad during their trainee days because we couldn’t do anything then.”
He had a dream about being a singer because he liked music so much. That’s why he could swallow his anxiety. “We train with constant anxiety all the time. Because we train endlessly without any promises or time period of when we’re going to debut”
But there isn’t a time that is more funny and happier than those times. He was full of excitement, day by day, in the hopes that he would do everything.
“Recently, I talked to Jiyoung (G-dragon) on how happy our trainee days used to be. We didn’t have many things (we had), at that time. Sometimes, our president would give us ten’s of thousands of wons, which seemed like big money to us. We would be concerned with not only ‘how can we have fun’ with them but also how to use frugally – whatever we did was interesting”
When he got pocket money, he usually went shopping to Dongdaemun with G-dragon. They searched for inexpensive and nice clothes like usual teenagers. “Even when we got only a hundred thousand won, we could dress up from head to toe. (laugh) We stood on stage with our seniors after dressing up.
G-dragon and Taeyang were busier than anyone in those days. Wearing many different hats in their seniors’ performances, they built up their experience. “Jiyoung and I were the busiest. When our seniors like Big Mama, Lexy and Wheesung were doing activities, we were busier than them.”
Seven especially took care of G-dragon and Taeyang in the trainee days.
“Seven-hyung goes wakeboarding every summer, since then he has brought us along and we’ve hung out together. I remember the summer unusually bright, when we wakeboard and hang out. It couldn’t be a happier time for me that those times.”
Credits: Asiae {article} + myokoon@alwaystaeyang {translation}