Mija, "Plan for the second generation? Slowly."

“I think I will continue to work during this Lunar New Year holiday. I will film two videos and my husband will edit them and spend it as usual. It is my first Lunar New Year after getting married, and my heart is very heavy because I cannot go to my in-laws in Busan. My husband and I will spend February and March together. We talked about making time to go down there.”

Mija, who debuted as a comedian, runs the YouTube channel 'Mizane Tavern' and is actively expanding her career as a YouTuber to the point where she has amassed 500,000 subscribers. Mija visited the Hankyung Ten Asia headquarters in Jungnim-dong, Seoul to celebrate the Lunar New Year, the year of Gyemyo, and gave greetings to readers. Mija smiled brightly, saying, “I just uploaded my daily life without anything special, but thank you so much for coming, watching, and subscribing.”

The main concept of the 'Mizane Tavern' channel is drinking alone, drinking with friends and family, and eating snacks. Mija revealed that she and comedian Kim Tae-hyun, whom she married in April of last year, are directly handling all aspects of running the YouTube channel, from filming to editing and posting. The channel was opened in February 2020. Mija said, "My previous agency kept recommending YouTube, saying, 'Nowadays is the age of self-PR,' but I really didn't want to do it. They said I should create content that I could do consistently, but since I like drinking, the only thing I could do consistently was drinking. The company said, “I did it because I couldn’t refuse the recommendation,” he said with a laugh. Mija was embarrassed and said, “I had no idea” that YouTube, which started like that, would become so successful. Mija expressed gratitude, saying that it was thanks to her husband that the channel was able to grow rapidly.

"At first, I entrusted the editing to someone else, and the number of subscribers reached 80,000. Around that time, my husband said he was a bit disappointed with the subtitles and such, so he decided to try it himself. The same goes for me, and my husband is actually illiterate. He taught himself how to edit videos. He learned it. He incorporated the comedy know-how he had acquired while doing entertainment shows into his subtitles, and in less than a year, he reached 500,000 subscribers. Sometimes it takes an hour or two to write one line of subtitles. I am thankful that he tries to find something funny. ."

We do not use expensive equipment or have many staff. The camera is the cell phone that Mija usually uses. Mija said, "I go out alone and leave my phone behind to take pictures. There are many times when my phone falls over and almost breaks. Some subscribers worry that it's dangerous when they see me wandering around late while filming. I once fell asleep and ended up at the last stop of the bus."

Mija goes out of her way to get content ideas. Mija said, "It takes about an hour to walk from my newlywed home to my parents' house, and I purposely walk through the alleys and take pictures of everything. I also go to the market on purpose." Another know-how to attract the attention of subscribers is to set food in colorful colors to stimulate their appetite. Mija said, "It's not enough just the main dish, but the surrounding decorations are also important. Sometimes the decoration takes more than half a day." When I told him that the cost of purchasing ingredients would be high, he said, "I've never calculated it, but I don't skimp when filming for YouTube. I once bought 40,000 won worth of vegetables alone. I went to Noryangjin Fish Market not long ago and there were crabs worth 300,000 to 400,000 won. I plan to take pictures of them soon." He hinted.

Mija, who has been newlywed for 10 months with Kim Tae-hyun, said that she originally "viewed marriage negatively and avoided it," and that the reason was "because I couldn't trust people." However, Kim Tae-hyun said that it felt like family.

"The person was the same front and back and was always there without change. There was nothing suspicious. People don't feel insecure about their family, right? I felt comfortable with my husband. When people are dating, they do things internally and externally to look good. "I decorate myself, but I didn't do that to my husband, and he did the same. We went out wearing slippers, ate sundae soup, and came back... I was happy in small ways. I was confident that I would be happy if I married someone like this and that we would become a family."

Regarding Kim Tae-hyun's change after marriage, Mija smiled and said, "In fact, he has become much sweeter." Mija said Kim Tae-hyun is a Busan man, so he tends to be blunt, but these days, his ability to empathize has improved, so when I tell him about something that upsets him, he gets several times more angry than me and threatens to call me and argue. When I was dating, I had an indifferent side, but these days, I express myself more and take care of myself more. “I’ll give it to you,” he said happily. Mija made everyone laugh when she said that the good things about marriage are 'a sense of stability' and 'no more nagging me to get married.'

It is said that the two have not even been able to go on their honeymoon yet because they are busy with work. Regarding her plans for the second generation, Mija said, "There is nothing concrete yet. If I have to think about it, I will just think about it by the end of this year."

"My husband says that we can have fun together even if we don't have children, but both parents want it and subscribers only talk about babies. More than half of the comments are about babies... Many of my subscribers are in their 50s and 70s, so everyone thinks of me as their own daughter. "I think it's because you do it. I'm worried about whether I should get pregnant even though everyone wants it. Haha."

Mija revealed that she calls her mother Seo often. He said that even though he couldn't meet in person this New Year's Day, he would definitely say hello over the phone. Mija said, "My mother monitors all the broadcasts I appear on. When she saw me appear on 'Dongchimi' this time, she said that 'My Daughter' was the prettiest among all the contestants. She told me to think of her as mother-daughter, not mother-in-law and daughter-in-law." She expressed her gratitude towards her mother-in-law. He continued, "My mother and her mother say, 'We share a son and a daughter.' The two of us call each other brother and younger brother and talk on the phone often. We get along warmly," boasting of the close relationship between in-laws and in-laws. Mija, who films mukbang content but is bad at cooking, laughed and said, "I received a tteokguk set as a gift. It has soup and rice cakes, so I'm going to try making tteokguk."

“I think health is the best. When I was young, I had ambitious goals, but after getting sick, everything became meaningless. Eating healthy and delicious food, smiling every day, watching a fun program or chatting, going outside and walking a big circle. I think that such small happiness is actually a bigger thing. In the past, I had a strong desire to become something, but now I try to follow the path as soon as it opens. If the path is blocked, whether it is broadcasting or YouTube, I can find another path there. “The idea is to find it and have fun with it. I plan to keep many paths open. I hope this New Year will be a time when you too feel these small happinesses in everyday life. Happy New Year.”

Kim Ji-won, Ten Asia reporter bella@tenasia.co.kr