Chapter 4 Standing on your own Thanks to his parents' teachings when he was young, Jin Shiming's basic singing and dancing skills are quite solid, which makes him stand out among all the trainees. In addition, he has a strong learning ability, and his concentration and perseverance in doing things are far beyond ordinary people. After just a month of simple training, the company determined that he was qualified to debut. However, a very realistic problem existed. The boy band SS501 that DSP was preparing at the time had members who were generally much older than Kim Se-myung, so it seemed a bit inappropriate to squeeze him into the group. President Li Haoyan thought about it for a long time, but was still reluctant to give up Jin Shiming's lottery ticket, so he decided to let Jin Shiming debut as a solo singer. In 2006, when Kim Se-myung, who was only 15 years old, made his official debut, he suffered his first attack of narcolepsy and was in a coma for two days. All the originally planned promotional plans were disrupted, and the music performance stage was forced to be cancelled, so Jin Shiming's debut hardly made much of a splash. The company suffered losses and the top management no longer trusted Jin Shiming. Naturally, he could not get decent resources and was in disguised form. Fortunately, President Li Haoyan is a kind-hearted man who values talent. Not only did he not pursue the losses caused by Jin Shiming, he also transferred him to the company's planning department and asked him to learn how to write songs and choreograph for artists. Jin Shiming was very grateful to President Li for recognizing his talent. Even though he had lost his value as a commodity, President Li did not abandon him but instead gave him another possibility. Therefore, Jin Shiming studied very hard, absorbing as much knowledge as possible like a dry sponge.
It was during this period that Jin Shiming gradually developed his abilities as a producer and gained in-depth knowledge of company operations and management. In 2009, Jin Shiming submitted the demo and choreography video of his own song "Mr." to the company. President Lee saw at first sight that this song had the potential to become a hit and planned to use it as the title song for KARA's second regular album. Unfortunately, other company executives felt that Kim Se Myung had little experience and that hastily using his song as the title song would likely ruin KARA's room for growth. President Lee is getting older and he no longer has the final say in DSP. With his efforts, "Mr." had to be included in KARA's second official album as a sub-title song. After the album was officially released, the title song "Wanna" did not receive a good response, but the sub-title song "Mr." became a hit. KARA joined the ranks of first-tier girl groups with its butt dance and has the ability to compete with Girls' Generation and 2NE1. KARA became very popular after its debut in Japan. It was so popular that even Girls' Generation had to temporarily avoid the limelight, which helped DSP, which was delisted due to investment failure, to survive. Kim Se-myung, the creator of "Mr.", also benefited from it and received a considerable amount of copyright fees. Everything seemed to be turning for the better, but at this moment, fate played a joke on Jin Shiming again. Just last year, his mentor, President Li Haoyan, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage after drinking. Although he was lucky enough to survive, his health was not optimistic and he could not continue to run the company. President Li's second wife took the opportunity to take over and promoted a group of her own confidants, causing DSP to fall into a power struggle. President Li’s wife obviously has no business ability and is very short-sighted, doing all kinds of weird and outrageous things one after another. For example, when KARA was performing in an island country, the company unilaterally signed a commission contract with the island country's agency without even explaining the contents of the contract to KARA's members. When the mid-year settlement came, KARA members were dumbfounded. Their average income per person was 86 won, or 14 won per month! As a result, at the beginning of this year, three members of KARA, Han Seung-yeon, Jung Nicole, and Kang Ji-young, filed a lawsuit to terminate the contract with the court, causing a mess. Although KARA is still operating normally today, this bomb has been buried and may explode in the future. Even the top lady in the company has been treated so unfairly. It is not difficult to see how chaotic the situation is inside DSP now! Jin Shiming lost his supporter, President Li, and was also not spared from the turmoil. After tasting the sweetness of the island country market, the company brought all of its artist groups to the island country to generate revenue, and even Jin Shiming was sent to the island country to perform. Jin Shiming did not refuse the company's arrangement because of President Li's kindness, and he honestly worked in the island country for nearly half a year. During this half year, he released a mini album "First Love" which he produced on his own, and the title song "カタオモイ (Unrequited Love)" was also a small hit in the island country. When the mid-year settlement came, as expected, Jin Shiming's share was not reasonable, and even a lot of the copyright fees were deducted. Completely disappointed with DSP, Jin Shiming decided not to renew his contract when it expired at the end of the year and leave the company where he had worked for five or six years.
Jin Shiming knew clearly that DSP's decline was inevitable, and even if President Li recovered from his illness and returned to work, he would not be able to turn the tide. It may be wise to withdraw in time. …… The barbecue party in the evening was very lively. Kim Se-myeong also invited Kim Se-jeong's mother, and the room was almost full of people. After eating and drinking their fill and Jin Shizheng's family left, Jin Shiming finally found his grandfather. "Grandpa, I have something to discuss with you." Jin Shiming said. "Wait a moment, I'll go wash my face to sober up." Grandpa was a little drunk after drinking some wine. Seeing Jin Shiming being so serious, he immediately got up and went to the bathroom to wash his face. After a while, grandpa came out of the bathroom and sat back opposite Jin Shiming. "Grandpa, I plan to use that money." Jin Shiming said straight to the point. A trace of sadness flashed across my grandfather's face for a moment. He knew that the money Jin Shiming was talking about was the inheritance and compensation left by his parents. "You are a sensible child. Even when you were short of money before, you would rather take on a few odd jobs than use that money. Now that you say you want to use that money, it must be the result of careful consideration." Grandpa said sternly. "My contract with DSP is about to expire. I plan to recruit a group of employees to work on my own, so I need this money as start-up capital." Jin Shiming was very touched by his grandfather's trust in him, but he still explained. He already had the ability to produce, and with the added inspiration provided by narcolepsy, it wasn't difficult for him to start his own business. At a time when the internal struggle within DSP was heating up, a number of key employees had already planned to resign and change jobs, and he was confident that he could win them over. "Shiming, when you said you wanted to be an artist, your grandmother and I didn't stop you. Now you said you want to start your own company, we support you too." Grandpa looked at Jin Shiming and said, "That money is the last thing your parents left you. As long as you can make the best use of it, I think they will be pleased." "Thank you, grandpa. With your and grandma's support, I feel more confident." Jin Shiming expressed his gratitude. "Young people should go out and try to make a career! The worst that can happen is failure, and then you can come back and continue to live a hard life with us!" Grandpa encouraged with an open mind. "No, that won't work. I will definitely succeed, and then I will bring you and grandma to live in a big villa in Seoul to enjoy life!" Jin Shiming replied with a smile. "At our age, it would be a pain to live in a big villa in Seoul." Grandpa stood up and patted Jin Shiming on the shoulder. "If you really want to be filial, you should solve your lifelong affairs as soon as possible, so that we can have an explanation when we meet your parents." "Grandpa, you and grandma will live to be a hundred years old!" Jin Shiming leaned forward and bowed deeply, but did not directly respond to the old man's expectations. (End of this chapter)